The Marci Rating System

me: wow, why do I feel like this? is everything just ::crying, weeping, rage, despair:: forever? am I just like this now? will I ever feel okay again????????

me: ...wait a minute

me: ::checks app that keeps track of stuff I forget::

app: 'your period is scheduled to start in one (1) day'

me: ah

me: yeah, that explains it. body, let's get you some more iron. brain, let's get you some caffeine. we're gonna make it through this, I promise.

I took an 'employee engagement' survey yesterday (semi-required by work, in the sense that it's 'strongly encouraged,' and also why not? if I'm willing to write about my work feelings online, I feel like I should be willing to write about them on a survey).

But of course it wasn't a survey with a lot of nuance -- it was a LOT of statements, all of which you got to respond to with one (1) of the following options:

Strongly agree
Agree
Neither agree nor disagree
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Not applicable

And the statements were things like "The goals and values of the company are clearly communicated," and "I feel like I belong here," and many, many more. And all of the statements were things that were conceptually quite complex, not anything that could really be summed up by something like a blanket 'agree' or 'disagree.' (I answered a lot of 'neither agree nor disagree,' which always make me add in my head 'but some secret third thing, which is that this is a question that requires a long-form answer!')

I'm taking a couple days off from work, so it's Saturday again! Sort of!

Tooth: repaired!

Audiobook: provided more than adequate distraction!

Dentist office employees: super friendly, but absolutely ZERO idea of what non-dentist-office people know about teeth!

MY TWO FAVORITE EXAMPLES FROM YESTERDAY:

*Early in the visit, one of the employees was attempting to clarify which tooth had lost the filling. Them: "Is it the number 30?" Me: "...???" I DON'T KNOW MY TEETH BY NUMBERS, OKAY? (We both had a laugh about this afterwards; the employee confirmed it had indeed been a very long Monday at the office.)

*On the opposite end of the spectrum, the person who injected the anesthetic shots took great care to explain that I "might experience some soreness or tightness in my jaw," and that's "totally normal." I nodded along, but I was definitely thinking 'yes, I've been to the dentist before. I've been to THIS dentist before. I've literally had THIS TOOTH filled before. JUST A FEW WEEKS AGO. I'm ABSOLUTELY aware of the jaw soreness issue.'

I'm genuinely not sure which one was more funny, but they were both great. And a perfect time to recall the xkcd 'Average Familiarity' comic!

In a day filled with far too many awkward moments, perhaps the MOST AWKWARD (that I'm willing to share on the internet, lol) was when I said I'd been listening to an audiobook on the drive to the office, and this led to a brief exchange about books, and then my boss asked: "Do you like Harry Potter?"

CUE THE AWKWARD PAUSE

My brain had about a dozen thoughts at once, including 'yikes' and 'oh no this conversational minefield just became MUCH MORE DANGEROUS' and also 'is this a test?' because I am highly suspicious of any questions I'm asked at work.

I made an attempt to equivocate my way around the question until I could land on the relatively safe sub-topic of, 'I thought it was great how the books encouraged so many kids to get into reading.' And then we had a meeting to start and the conversation didn't continue. PHEW.

Okay, so USUALLY I wake up around 6:30 and turn on the radio. But SOMETIMES I sleep in, and today I learned that at 7 am, the radio turns ITSELF ON, but in cd mode?!?!? And then it TURNS ITSELF OFF at 8 am.

This is boggling to me. It is indeed the SAME radio that I had way back in college (and before!), so it is over 20 years old. And I very vaguely recall that in my freshman year of college, I had it set to turn itself on as my morning wake up alarm, because I remember there was a Christmas music cd in it, and I heard the first few seconds every morning before I turned it off with the remote. (TWO ROOMMATES, YIKES.)

And maybe, POSSIBLY the radio remembers that, somehow??? After being unplugged so many times? Why in the world is it turning itself on and off? BOGGLING.

Woke up before my alarm this morning, thought 'ooh, Sunday!'

An uncertain amount of time later, thought, 'no, we did Sunday already, it must be Monday, and I didn't set my alarm last night.'

Convinced myself to check the time, just in case it was time to get up. (It was not.)

Checking the time woke me up enough to be fairly certain I'd heard an alarm yesterday morning, which would mean that today wasn't Monday and that I hadn't forgotten to set an alarm.

Finally settled on the conclusion that it must actually be Tuesday, and that my phone would almost certainly start playing the week's selected song at the correct moment. (It did!)

So that's three pieces of good news already today!

*it's not Monday
*I definitely set my alarm
*phone is working

Tuesday: it sure is a day!

Since the previous news was: microwave that doesn't work, having no microwave at all is indeed an improvement! A very helpful person was paid to uninstall this non-working appliance and remove it yesterday afternoon.

Questions I asked:

*do you want a stepladder? (they assured me that they had their own stepladder in their truck, to which I replied that it was Very Hot outside, and our stepladder was already inside, where it was Relatively Cooler, and this -- somewhat to my surprise -- led to our stepladder being used)

*do you want some help? (they probably did want help, but also probably recognized that it was uncertain whether my help would reduce or increase the chances of the microwave falling on top of the stove; my help was declined, but politely!)

*do you get paid extra if you do a job where there's no AC? (they do not)

*could we hire you to fix our screen door? (they estimated that perhaps even I could fix the screen door, but they said it more politely than that)

*weren't you supposed to charge us the disposal fee for the microwave? (they were; this likely got us much more goodwill than my offer of help, or even the use of our stepladder)

ANYWAY, I think we were all reminded that I am Extremely Awkward when talking with human beings, but we also learned that our microwave was vented (who knew?), and then I got reminded of the True Powers of magic erasers when I used one on the tiles that we could never reach before when the microwave was installed. Call that a day of learning!

We have a small fireproof safe, because I lived next to a building that burned down (and then collapsed) and a person with a fireproof safe on the third floor was able to successfully retrieve it, contents intact. (After MANY hours of fire plus water from the sprinklers and fire trucks, and then being outside for several days in the middle of winter.) I was impressed, so now we have one, and it's a useful place to store things that we don't need often but would be a pain to lose, like the title to the car.

ANYWAY it also has a paper with a few important passwords on it, like the password to my email account, because if my computer and all other passwords were lost, most things would be recoverable if I could still access my email. BUT that password changes sometimes, so I made a habitica task to go check it every six months and make sure it was still correct.

BACKSTORY COMPLETE!

The actual story is this: last week the 'go check your password' task popped up, and I thought 'oh, I probably don't need to.' But I was pretty sure I'd thought that the last time, and besides, it was a good moment to have a task that took me downstairs, so off I went.

And what should I find wrapped up with my password sheet? A CHOCOLATE BAR! I absolutely laughed out loud, and it vaguely came back to me that I'd added a chocolate bar as extra incentive to make me ACTUALLY check the password every six months. And I mean, it hadn't worked, because I'd forgotten the chocolate, and it was definitely expired (I ate it anyway), but it DID make me laugh, so I put a new one in there. We'll see what happens in six months!

Sometimes I have a lot of thoughts and there doesn't seem to be any way to write them out that would bring any net positive to the world, but I'd still like to acknowledge them. So hey there, thoughts. I see you.

In daily news, the squirrel battle continues. The newest strategy involves, uh, letting them win on purpose? I moved one of the feeders to a place I'm fairly sure they'll be able to stand on the balcony railing and reach the seed catching tray. (The feeder itself is one of those 'squirrel-proof' ones that works great, but there's a new tray underneath in an attempt to stop so much seed debris from falling in the garden below.)

Without the tray, the squirrels scrounged all that debris out of the garden. With the tray, maybe they'll just eat it out of the tray? Which might be better??? IDK, the whole arrangement is still a work in progress. I'm pretty sure the squirrels wake up each day and are just like 'AWW YEAH, SQUIRREL ENRICHMENT INTENSIFIES'