I just got a message from Rusty Zipper (online vintage clothing store) that they're looking for people to work from home answering phone calls for customers.

"In order to better help our customers, we're looking for phone shopping assistants to provide customer service by phone from home during hours when our in-office team is not available (before 8am Pacific Time, after 4pm Pacific time and on weekends).

If you're interested in being part of the RustyZipper.Com team or know of someone who would be, please let us know by filling out the application at:

http://tinyurl.com/RustyZipperPhoneHelp

Thanks!

The Rusty Zipper Vintage Clothing Team
Jen, Elise, Kati, Joyce, Natalia, Nicole, Tim,
Marilyn, Michele and Don

no phone inquiries, please"

I know quite a few of you are looking for part-time or work-from-home positions, and most are into vintage clothing as well, so I thought you might be interested :)

I was so amused by my St. Patrick's Day poll that I'm doing one for April Fool's Day. And possibly every other holiday, at least as long as I have to hear people talk about how much they hate said holiday.

Poll #1375946 April Fool!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Why shouldn't I celebrate April Fool's Day?

Go here if you want to make your own.

Every time there's a holiday, no matter how minor, I always see a flurry of passive-aggressive posts from people saying why they hate that particular holiday and why it's stupid for people to celebrate it. I'm going to go ahead and assume there are some relating to St. Patrick's Day already, even though I haven't looked at my friends page. So I figured I'd join in just for funsies, but since I'm not really a passive-aggressive person (and I actually don't mind St. Patrick's Day), I'm going to post a poll so you can decide my reasoning for me.

Poll #1366937
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Reasons I should hate St. Patrick's Day

This is so cool it's actually making me a little verklempt.

Woman who lost her legs as a child gets prosthetic mermaid tail.

This is the second or third time LJ had randomly decided to replace one of my icons with something I don't recognize. It's my default icon. If you can't see it, it looks like this:



So now I'm all intrigued, especially since anyone else who can see it will assume I put it there on purpose, and I'd like to know what I'm inadvertently representing. I'm assuming they're pop stars or actresses; possibly models, since it looks like the one on the right is wearing lolita. I'm just glad it's not some douchebag celebutante because I'd have to delete my LJ.

Escape attempt stopped by lamppost

New Zealand authorities said a lamp post and a pair of handcuffs foiled an escape attempt by two prisoners from a courthouse.

Security staff at Hastings District Court on New Zealand's North Island said the two men ran from the courthouse but were stopped when they attempted to run on either side of a lamp post, apparently forgetting they were handcuffed together, Britain's The Daily Telegraph reported Thursday.

They forgot to say "bread and butter"!

Ricardo Montalban dies at 88

May his casket be lined with fine Corinthian leather :(

Aside from the fact that he was incredibly suave and I always enjoyed his work, I have good memories associated with him. My parents used to go out a lot on Saturday nights, and my babysitters would let me stay up until they pulled up in the driveway, which was usually very late. I always got to watch Fantasy Island.

more animals

What are the last few books you read? What did you like/dislike about them?

I'm looking for things to add to my to-read list. I have quite a few already, but I'm always looking for new ideas. Don't worry about genre or whether you think I'd like it; I'm interested in seeing what everyone reads.

Last year was the first time I've been able to read an actual book in years (thanks, most likely, to the Wellbutrin, as nothing else changed and I was suddenly able to concentrate), and I feel like I have so much catching up to do, especially given how much I used to read.

Huh. Apparently I got some kind of a year-end bonus. I thought maybe they just paid me early because of the holiday (as Don's job did), but the paystub and the online bank statement say "bonus". And there was a letter included thanking us for our hard work and saying even though the economy is bad, our business should keep doing well because we're awesome &etc. So that was nice. It's only about $100, but I'm sho' nuff not turning my nose up at unexpected money!

It will help defray the cost of my recent Victoria's Secret purchase. I bought a few things on sale before Xmas and again after the Semi-Annual Sale started. I was in desperate need of underthings--I've been skating by with 6-year-old Vicky's bras and 4-year old ones from Target, and they're getting pretty decrepit. We will not even discuss the state of my panties. I need to get a lingerie bag to wash my things in. Somehow I kind of forgot that such a thing existed, and when I was thinking about laundry I suddenly remembered. I know you're really not supposed to wash them in the washing machine, but I skeeve hand-washing things. I feel like they never get clean.

Don actually didn't have to work yesterday, so Wednesday night we just hung out here and engaged in some of our favorite activities ;) Yesterday we slept in and watched the Twilight Zone marathon, and then he studied chess. He wants to get back into playing and maybe start competing again.

Sam appears to have a scratch or something under one eye. I thought it was eye gunk and tried to wash it off, but it looks like it's a little scab. She gets those all the time from sister-fights and occasionally overzealously scratching herself. It doesn't appear to be infected or bothering her at all--she's not squinting and didn't move or say anything when I touched it, so I'm just going to leave it alone and keep an eye on it.

I didn't realize how hardcore chickadees are until I moved here. It will be zero degrees or snowing and you don't even see any crows anywhere, but you can hear the chickadees chirping away like it's nothing.

Man, New Year's just snuck up on me. We weren't going to do anything...I'm pretty sure Don has to work tomorrow. I technically don't get holidays off, but as long as it's slow we don't have to do any work. So we'll be hanging out here; there's wine and other stuff here anyway. Not that I have any tolerance anymore. It's going to be like the last couple of New Yearses where I had half a drink and was toast, ha ha.

On Monday, Don was getting ready to leave for work and his car door wouldn't close. The latch wouldn't latch and it kept bouncing back open. He called me from the parking lot and said he was going to Saturn, so he might need a ride to work. They wound up paying for a cab for him to go to work from there, and they didn't charge anything to replace the latch because of our warranty. Score! I figured they might not charge for the parts but charge for labor or something similar, so that was a nice surprise.

When we left on Christmas, I noticed the Bonneville had an orange parking notice on it. We're supposed to move our cars every 24 hours so they can clean the snow out of the spots, but it's stupid because we're basically just playing musical cars and they don't clean the spots out right away anyway. They put one on any of the cars that were completely covered in snow. So I was like, whatever; it might be worth the towing fee just to force someone else to dig it out for me. But the deadline on the notice was Monday the 29th (I guess they realized that the cars weren't moving because people were away for the holiday), and it was warm enough over the weekend that most of the snow melted, so Sunday night we just had to clean a little off and I moved it to another spot. There wasn't one on the Saturn, which hadn't moved either but had no snow on it because I cleaned it off, but I moved it anyway; so much snow had blown between the cars that the front was encased in a snowdrift. When I moved it, there was an imprint of the headlights and grille in the snow. It reminded me of Silly Putty.

Things I have recently learned:
1) Naomi Watts was in Children of the Corn IV.
2) There was a Children of the Corn IV.

I was walking this morning and Sam kept following me and grabbing my ankle. I said "What the hell are you doing?" but then I realized there was a loose thread on the hem of one of my pants legs and it was trailing behind me, and she was pouncing on it. Goofball.

My disco 80s Xmas wreath!



This thing cracks me up every time I look at it. I'll bet my neighbors hate it :D

Yesterday I was at the grocery store and this older lady passed by me with her cart. She stopped me and said, "I've passed you three times now, and I can't stop staring at your hair. It's so pretty!" She had a Southern accent, too. So I thanked her and then I had a swelled head for the rest of the day :P

Naturally, my hair was dirty. I think every time I've gotten a compliment on my hair, it was unwashed and kinda greasy. I guess that makes it extra shiny.

Incidentally, this is one meme I don't mind seeing all over my friends page. A lot of people are going through some tough times and it's nice to see everyone having reasons to be happy.

The rules are that for 8 days you have to post something that made you happy that day. Tag 8 people to do the same.

Is this like the Chanukkah of happiness? Because I'm down with that.

Today: I actually enjoy cleaning the snow off my car. I find it very zen, and I get mad if someone tries to help me. (Not the polite trying to help me, the "here, let me do it" kind like I'm doing it wrong.) I enjoy it even more now that I don't have to worry about getting to work on time and have to schedule an extra half hour or so to do it! It's obviously best when it's all powdery and you can just brush it off, although there is something really satisfying about chipping away at a block of ice and finding your car underneath. It's good exercise, too.

I will tag..._the_other_side, amphitrite, aquagirl, cosmosmariner, jazzgoddess, ravendon, socialmasochist, and thepartyline. Mostly people who are entirely too busy and probably won't do it, but oh well :P

I've been staying up super late all week. I try to get all my work done during the day, but I like to do laundry and run errands while people are at work because it's easier. It was also slow, and what happens then is that if we run out of work in the queue at any point, we can email and say we ran out of work and we're off the hook for the day. I usually check back a few times and do some work at night, because I don't want to keep saying there's nothing for me to do because other people are doing it. Unfortunately, I kept getting to the point where I was just about to run out and then stuff would start coming in, and I didn't feel comfortable saying I ran out when they might check and say "There's a whole bunch of stuff in here" and I'd get in trouble. So I would be working until 2:30 or so, and then since I was all wired and needed to wind down I wasn't going to sleep until about 4:30 at least. I was surprised to see a few of my coworkers on almost as late--they're "normal" people with kids so I expect them to go to bed much earlier. We're starting to get a lot of stuff coming in now, which is stressful in the sense that we have to keep our turnaround time at 2-3 days for most clients, but it's good because I can just work whenever and there will be work to do.

I'm not complaining, though. I actually really like my job. Even when it's difficult and I'm getting frustrated, I enjoy the challenge.

I went to do laundry the other morning, and both washers were already full. This is extremely odd because no one's ever down there that early, which is why I do my laundry then. It was this tiny girl I've never seen before, and I'm hoping it's not a new person that I'm going to have to compete with every time I want to do laundry, because that will suck. The next place I move to will have its own washer and dryer. Out of the seven places I've lived on my own (not counting college), only two have had their own machines. It would be so nice to be able to do my laundry in the middle of the night, which is when I prefer to do stuff!

We went shopping the other night, and got a bunch of stuff because Don had an appointment with a nutritionist and is trying to eat healthier. I usually make all our food from scratch, and make it low-fat for my digestion and low-sodium for his blood pressure anyway. Then I put a bunch of pepper (and kimchi) in his for flavor and it makes me feel like the Duchess. However, he wanted to have something on hand for when he just wants to heat up something quick, so we got a bunch of Weight Watchers frozen dinnards. They were on sale and he wanted to buy more, but I pointed out that we would barely have room in our freezer as it is. Don said "What are you talking about? We have the biggest freezer there is. We'll just put everything outside!" That actually would work...we're in subzero windchills already. I'll put everything in a box out on the balcony :P

I've been generating a ridiculous amount of static electricity lately. You can hear me crackling and the other day my hair was moving around independently of my head. If only we could figure out how to harness it, I could probably power the building. I think I just solved the energy crisis. I'll build a power plant where the power source will be rubbing balloons on cats. I'ma see what T. Boone Pickens thinks.

So here's a weird little thing I came across in my travels. Apparently back in the day, Phil Spector bought out his label partner for about $60,000. It was far less than what his share was worth, but his partner took it just to get the hell away from him.

However, not content with just being the victor, he forced The Crystals (who may or may not have been the actual Crystals, as it was during the period he had fired and replaced them and before they were rehired) into the recording studio to record a song that was completely unmarketable, and therefore was most likely created for the sole purpose of pressing a copy to send to his ex-partner in order to annoy him further.

The song was called (Let's Dance) the Screw, and I managed to find a site that actually has the song. It's the same five or six lines over and over. I find it strangely hypnotic.