What I learned this week…wait. I can’t remember this week.

by Janelle Hanchett

 

  1. I’m having a little trouble remembering the past week (which is a little alarming), so we’re just going to limit this list to things I’ve learned in the past day. or so.
  2. I’m not sure I could survive in an environment without air conditioning.
  3. I hope we can afford to run the air conditioning as much as I’ve been running it.
  4. If we cannot afford to run the air conditioning as much as I’ve been running it, I’m going to keep running it like I normally do and lie to my husband about it.
  5. It’s too bad they don’t have a coffee delivery service. This morning, upon discovering we are out of coffee, (oh hells yeah at least I remember that far back) I faced a predicament: leave my house in the 100 degree heat, by myself with ALL THREE kids, at a time that interferes with the infant’s morning nap (which is, incidentally, the only guaranteed nap of the day) thereby risking a day of annoyed-and-irritated-baby-for-undisclosed-reasons….OR, not have coffee (which seems out of the question, right?). Strangely, I chose option 3: drink a shit-load of earl grey tea and hope for the best.
  6. Earl grey works, in a pinch. (And by “work” I mean of course “prevented that knife-stabbing caffeine-withdrawal headache until you are forced to leave the house and can buy more coffee.”)
  7. On Friday (oh look! I remember two days ago!) we celebrated my father-in-law’s 60th birthday party in St. Helena, at a sort of wine & cheese wealthy-person street fair. You walk around to all the shops and each one is serving a different wine, the idea being that you get drunk and buy shit, I guess. Since we don’t drink, we just kind of walked around and looked at things we can’t afford and scowled at the yuppies. It was fun though. The Napa Valley is supremely beautiful and my father-in-law’s sisters are some badass women, all married to laidback, really smart nice men. Good family makes all things fun.
  8. While attending the aforementioned street fair, I noticed two things: 1. Hair-flipping 21-year-olds with fake tans, who do that screaming thing when they see each other (you know the one…arms up, running toward one another, ‘oh my GAAWWWWWWD!’) are just as annoying on the street as in a bar (counter to what one would think, the scream does not dissipate in the open air, nor does the scent of their perfume); 2. No matter how thin they are, there are some outfits that should just not be worn on 50-year-old women. Just should not.
  9. Vital realizations almost always come to me AFTER I’ve blown it, rendering the said realization useless in terms of preventative value. They only serve as the catalyst for the quiet utterance of the following words: “Oh FUCK I really should not have said that.”  For example, we take these “Myers-Briggs” tests at work and I always think it’s hysterical to make jokes about trying to rig the test so I come out a “feeler” (which is a more sensitive type person). AND THEN after making this joke numerous times, the thought steals into my mind, like a thief in the night: “Janelle, you know, you might not want to make that joke any more, considering it involves FEELERS, who, be nature, get their feelings hurt more often, they may not think you’re funny, Einstein.” DOH! SHIT! But the thing is I wasn’t trying to make fun of the feelers, I was making fun of myself, for being so non-feeler-like…you know, the juxtaposition of my personality with the label “feeler.” You see, then I try to make it better, and it just gets worse.
  10. Although, is it possible to rig one of those tests?

Oh well. Some people never learn. Have a good week!

5 Comments | Posted in weeks of mayhem | July 3, 2011
  • Cailin

    Of course you can rig those Meyers-Briggs tests (and others like them), especially if you are a non-feeler (aka thinker type) or in my case a “power and influence” type. Oops, I’ve done it too.

    Although, one must be careful with such things. Its best not to admit to being a power and influence person in a staff development class for UC employees where the feelers out number you 3 to 1. This only validates their assessment of your character flaws, making one feel self conscious every time there is a discussion about the campus “Principles of Community”. 😉

  • big kisses

    You make me laugh. And for that, I love you.

  • Shan

    Totally possible. And I hate ISFJ/ESFJ types. Just sayin’.

  • Denee Rebottaro

    I am a “try to make it better, and it just gets worse” person too! Sometimes I probably should just stop talking but I have to admit that is probably never going to happen. Hope you had a nice 4th of July.

  • dani

    I refer to myself as a “cold hearted snake” a la late 80’s Paula Abdul. Even feelers don’t quite know what to say to that description.

    Those girls are the same ones that yell, “Wooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!” at concerts. My cold hearted snake self wants to double bitch slap them all.