Work, Frogs, and Gambling, oh my!
I fell down the stairs at work yesterday. And when I say fell I don't mean I tripped or that I just lost my balance for a second; I really mean that I was launched backward, my left leg thrown forward into the air, my left arm trying to grasp the wall above me while my right arm was trying to break my fall beneath me, and my right foot (the culprit of the incident, apparently still slippery within my shoe due to the rain outside) lay underneath me, with the sole of my shoe actually now somehow on the *side* of my foot. In a matter of 2-3 seconds I landed hard on my ass and skidded down the 3-5 remaining steps to where I stopped. And when I say stopped I really mean I was frantically trying to find a way to fall off the face of the earth before anyone got a better look at who was attached to the one sprawled out leg visible at the foot of the stairs. Only 2 people saw it happen while 3 other people in possible earshot sort of pretended they didn't hear. Then again, I'm not sure I would of liked it any better had everyone in the office had come clamoring up to me and said, "OMGz, are you ok?" Yeah, I think I did like it better with those 3 pretending that I never ceased being upright while at work on Tuesday.
The past two weeks have *zoomed* by - I can't believe tomorrow is already Thursday and that by tomorrow afternoon I'll be on another 3 day "weekend" when it feels like last Sunday was just the day before yesterday. I can't believe that Friday marks just 1 week until I am to be in Arizona. For some reason I'm surprisingly anxious about the trip to Phoenix - but that may be due to the fact that Matt and I will be in the house without his parents for 3 days, for the first time ever in my 3 years of visiting Matt's home, and that sometime during the trip we will meet 2 people from WoW and that we may go to Disney Land at some point. I'm just hoping that my week there will not go by as fast as the past 2 here have been. Though, I can safely assume what's been causing the time to fly by: reading the Harry Potter books for nearly every second of my free time. I'm already on the fifth book, where the plot seems to be thickening, and will probably be buying the sixth book tomorrow when go to do a little after work shopping (hello new bra, how I long to feel adequate support once again).
My feelings about My Job have been touch and go, good and bad, off and on, for a little while now. It's hard to explain... I feel the inevitable has happened (people "judged" me by my stumbling and nervous and shy self, and I get the odd impression that no one at work really likes me all that much. Which I guess is my own fault, no matter how hard I tried for that not to happen; I can't blame them for the natural results of my shortcomings), I sort of feel inadequate compared to the temp hire (the same one whom I decided to "back off" of after being so talky with her on her first two days at work, thinking that if she was really interested in befriending me that she would seek me out afterwords. Other than saying hello, she's barley said anything to me unless I spoke to her first, so alot of the time her and I sit in the office to deafening silence that seems to grow louder each day, because I'm still too nervous to ask her if she'd like the radio on), and no matter how hard I try I keep messing up over stupid, easy things. Whenever someone asks me a specific question, and I have the opportunity to give a straightforward answer and actually sound remotely intelligent, I find myself not able to push the words out of my mouth; instead I end up choking on the syllables, then becoming uncertain that I even really know what I think I know, then trying to form some sort of cool seamless diversion so that I can find a visual aid for whatever it is I'm referring to so that I can just point at it with a helpless look on my face that says, "look at this, right here, this is what I can't pronounce right now for you." So far that method has been sadly effective.
Just the other day I ran into one of those situations, where the words of what I was referring to were just stuck to my tongue, refusing to jump off to form a sound, and I was left motioning to files on my computer and a stack of papers on my desk, desperately trying to get my message across. There ended up being a misunderstanding, with my boss thinking I had been using the wrong labels for this particular project... and at the time, my boss couldn't help but laugh at the situation. She said she didn't know why she was laughing, and she later said she was laughing because she thought she had told me wrong of what to do... but with all the minor things I had screwed up carelessly recently, I remember being very close to tears as I sat there stupefied, looking up at my boss and looking down at the stack of papers, asking the occasional question so that I could try to understand myself just how I came to fuck up, all the while getting more and more ashamed and furious at myself. I remember feeling even more embarrassed that this was all well within earshot of the new hire, the new hire who doesn't seem interested at all in befriending me, while my boss continued to awkwardly laugh at the then-thought-to-be mistake (that I had made.) In the end I was relieved to discover that I actually had done everything right... but the feeling of that whole situation stuck with me. I don't really blame anyone but myself for it - looking back on it, the mistake almost seems like something I would do in my most careless moments (though god I hope I never ever do)... and if I were my boss I probably would of laughed, too. Not in a viscous or bitter way... but what else would there be to do but laugh at the idea that 300 bags were now ruined with the wrong labels on them.
On to more happy, non-paranoid, making-a-mountain-out-of-a-molehill thoughts!
I actually did receive my frogs on the 30th of July. Around 6:30ish in the morning on the 31st, I woke up with my mother saying to me "your frogs are here." I had only been asleep for roughly 3 hours at the time, so it took me a bit to realize what she was saying and see the small box she was holding in her hands. When I did finally comprehend the situation, I found myself muttering “jesus” and scrambling out of bed as fast as I could. At the time I had been pretty upset that 1) they would deliver live animals so late after the regular mail was already dropped off and 2) they would put them IN OUR MAIL BOX, despite the box itself making it very clear there were LIVE animals inside of it. I mean, come on – put live animals in a metal container in the SUMMER? Though, in defense of whoever did place the box there, how were they to know that the one who usually checked the mail for that address probably was already in bed and asleep by the time they had arrived with the package. Had I known that the package would be delivered separately than the actual mail I would of checked the box several times myself that evening instead of waiting until about 3PM and then giving up.
The frogs were perfectly healthy, in their two separate bags. They were roughly an inch long at the time and have gotten slightly bigger by now (jesus, it's almost been two weeks since they arrived. I just can't get over how much time has passed). I've only yet to name one: the smaller, and obviously younger (and slightly more stupid one I'm finding): Leo. The other, I am not sure. It is bigger and from the body type it looks like it *might* end up being a female, but that's all really just a guessing game until they're older. I had wanted to name it Casper, since he's quite skiddish, but my mother treated that name like it was poison. Cecil was another option, but when my mother smiled and said "See lil Leo!" I knew I would no longer be able to stand using that name, no matter how much I liked it. Everytime I mention needing to name my frog, people try to be helpful and spit out names like "Hopper! Bumpy! Swimmer!" I don't know how people name pets these things. Those are adjectives, verbs - they are not nouns 
I'd be more likely to name the frog John than Hippity.
Since the 31st was my father’s birthday, and because I (for whatever reason) thought it would be cute to give my father an “IOU” for a free day of gambling and fun at Charles Town Races, we ended up going there for his birthday instead of just staying at home and having some seafood (and, naturally, this was decided and sprung upon me around 9AM, after I had only gotten 1 more hours sleep after setting up my new frog's home, bringing me to a total of 4 hours sleep for that night). I did not pay for this trip, though – I didn't have money at the time to afford it and my father knew this, so we ended up going on the family's money. Betting the horses was somewhat fun, but instead of us picking our own odds and each getting our own tickets we instead would each pick a horse we liked for the race and we would alternate (for whatever dumb reason, all it did was break up the $20 bills my father gave the 3 of us when we arrived) for who would go buy one ticket that included all three of our chosen horses. We came close to winning $100 a few times, but was always one horse off. We only won once with a $16 win. We ended up playing some slot machines (and losing money, even though I had offered near the end of a losing streak to cash out, which would of given back the original $10 I put in it, but my father, being the obsessive gambler that he is, insisted that I keep playing - which meant the $10 was lost). I could tell my father wanted to stay a lot longer there (we were only there for roughly 4 hours) but he had made a very crucial mistake – he had fed my mother lunch/dinner while we were betting on the horses so of course now all she was interested in doing was leaving. (P.S. The buffet there sucked. And not that it had bad selection, it's just that most of the food there was actually *bad* and tasteless... there hasn't been many times I've actually been able to say that).