10. FBI agent

9. Professional surfer

8. Paralegal

7. Pope

6. Swimsuit designer

5. Professional organizer

4. Birthday clown

3. Online instructor

2. Sushi chef

1. Robert Pattinson’s assistant

Seriously, anything you want Rob, I’m there.

Sorry about that. There have been some things going down, and some things hitting the fan.

In related news, I’m pregnant and feel like death all the time. So that’s been keeping me busy. Who knew this whole pregnancy thing was just as physically demanding as everyone said it would be?

I’ve also been supremely uninspired in the blogging arena. Not that I was mega-prolific and/or genius in my previous state, but living on a diet of ginger ale, saltines, string cheese, and yogurt kinda puts me in a mental fog most days. And to think, I get at least five more weeks of this.

Fetus, you better be worth it!

And my in-laws paid for the whole trip, which is even more rad. I heart relatives who are OK with spending $1000 on dinner for six. Thanks, husband’s Mom and Dad.

The best part of the vacation, though (aside from extended family bonding, which resulted in way too many crude inside jokes), was that we got to try out falconry.

We stayed at Ashford Castle for a few days, and it took my husband all of 5 minutes to discover that not only is one of Ireland’s falconry schools located on the estate’s property but that they offer “Hawk Walks” where guests get to actually fly Harris Hawks through the forest.

Needless to say, we all signed up for hawk-walking, and thoroughly enjoyed having the birds land on our gloved hands and then fly off again after having eaten their raw-chicken treat.

Here’s where it gets funny.

After our walk through the forest, we returned to the kennel area to return the hawks and pay the bill. The supervisor on site, who also led our walk, was super-friendly after we paid the bill, and he offered to show us the other animals they keep on site, including their resident owl.

Now, throughout the hawk walk earlier, my husband had been asking questions about the owl because he thinks they’re really nifty. And my father-in-law was equally enamored of the owl because his college fraternity actually had one living in their house for a brief period of time. So when the guide offered to not only bring out the owl, but let us fly him, we were all ridiculously excited.

So after attaching a radio transmitter to the owl, and giving my husband a seriously reinforced leather glove, we headed out to the training area where the guide stood about 100 ft away from my husband and casted the owl is his direction.

The owl lands on my husband’s arm, eats his raw chicken leg, and seems fine.

The guide comes back, retrieves the owl, and tells the next person to glove up and get ready to act as an owl perch. The guide casts the owl, the owl flies over, easily lands on my father-in-law’s arm, and eats his raw chicken leg.

So we’re 2 for 2. At this point, the guide is amazed things are going so well because apparently this owl, named Dingle, is known for being lazy and having a mind of his own. So far, though, he’s been pretty cooperative.

The guides retrieves the bird a third time, hands the glove off to my brother-in-law, and each take their positions. The guide casts the owl, the owl flies, but literally half an inch before landing on my brother-in-law’s arm, he changes his mind and goes flying off past us and onto the barn located next to the training area.

I’m telling you it was like watching a plane attempt to land on an aircraft carrier but then missing and having to take off again.

Only funny. Totally funny.

A split second later, the guide comes running past us yelling “Dingle! Dingle, come back!”. We are all laughing hysterically. Because really, there’s nothing to do at this point. Unless someone has a very large net on a 50 foot pole, the bird’s gonna be camped out on the barn until he damn well pleases.

So we all sit there for a few minutes watching helplessly as the owl settles in and the guide digs in his bag for other raw meats.

He pulls out a big chicken leg and waves it around. Nothing.

He pulls out half a chicken body to coax Dingle down. Nothing.

At one point he was actually throwing the food up in the air and yelling “Dingle! Dingle, look at the food!” in an attempt to entice him. No luck.

Then Dingle fluffed his feathers and flew to a nearby tree. It was at that point that the guide gave up, noting that the last time Dingle camped out in that tree, he didn’t come down for seven hours.

So we thanked the guide for the awesome experience, apologized for the time he’d have to waste getting Dingle back down on land, and ended our trip through falconry-world.

Last we heard from the staff that day, Dingle was still in the tree. Oops.

I know – I’m such a victim.

I feel like such a douche for being so unhappy. I get paid a shitload (comparatively) for my industry expertise and for my ability to manage the crap out of this office. I got a huge bonus last year because I’ve perfected the art of being a babysitter-secretary-schoolteacher to all the techs and subcontractors that attempt to fuck up this business on a (seemingly) daily basis.

I effing rock at the job I was hired to do.

So what the hell is wrong with me? Why am I so eager to leave?

If I’m being honest, I’m eager to leave because this job is boring. It’s the same old thing day after day. Annoying customers, techs who can’t (or won’t) do their jobs properly, invoicing, generating paper estimates, answering the phone, looking over accounts receivable. Nothing. Ever. Changes.

Then there are all the internal personnel issues of this company. Hands down, we win the nepotism award for all California businesses. Brothers, sisters, cousins, nephews, they all work here, and they all think that they can perform at 50% and still get paid. We’re a bastion of half-assery around here. “But they’re faaaamily,” whines the owner everytime I bring up an issue. I firmly believe that if the owner’s dog could speak English, it would be hired to make collections calls.

When do I get a chance to actually use my brain? I’m a very creative person, dammit, and reorganizing the file cabinet just isn’t satisfying me anymore. I’ve got opinions and ideas and project manager skills, yet somehow I got stuck acting as a pseudo-secretary to an armchair general contractor who thinks it’s OK visit a jobsite once and then hope it gets completed properly by $10-dollar-an-hour techs.

It just gets tiring.

I  suppose I could search for something better. But I seriously doubt that I could find another job where I get paid just as much to do the same amount of work.

So unless there’s someone out there looking for an amateur web designer /writer/organizer/pet sitter/office manager who’s offering to pay $50K a year, I’m outta luck.

And so I continue to sell out for more than I’m worth and for being the only one in the office for half the day.

At least I get to go home at 5.

Another part of me thinks I’m a total douche. What’s the point of a blog that you update once a week or less? It gets 4 hits a week – who’s reading it???

Which part is correct? Does my blog have a purpose or am I just flapping my digital gums?

Short answer: hell if I know.

I’m stuck in a quandry. Well not so much a quandary but at least a dilemma. Well maybe not even a dilemma. Really, I’m just trying to figure out what I’m thinking while writing a self-referential blog post.

You know, to meet my weekly update quota.

I guess I have this blog because on those days when I feel inspired to write something snarky and/or sardonic, I can do so, and then enter it into the digital universe where maybe it will be read by someone who agrees with me and/or finds some sort of significance in my composition flights-of-fancy. That I’m cool with. That keeps me blogging, even if it’s only for 4 hits.

What I don’t want to be is one of those bloggers who just posts stuff they like and stuff they don’t. Yeah, I’ve done that in the past, but I’m over it.

And it’s not because I hate it when other people do it. Truly, I don’t. Some of the most interesting discoveries in my life have come from blog articles and recommendations. But for me, I’m not a blogger who can post stuff like that.

Cuz I’m not that exciting.

Oh, and cuz I have 4 readers.

Posting likes and dislikes is REALLY an exercise in futility. As much as I want to share my readers-at-large how much I love Amish Friendship bread or that I’m diggin’ Lady GaGa’s album ‘The Fame’, the fact that no one will see it makes it kinda not worth it. So I’m not going to do it.

Except maybe on Twitter. At least I have followers there. They have no choice but to read my 140-character chunks of inspired microblogging.

So I come back to my original question of the purpose of this blog. And as per usual with my little metaphysical wanderings, I still have no idea what’s going on.

Really?

Yeah, um, me neither.

Things are great for me. Really, I’m all set. This is totally where I pictured myself at 27. And to top it all off, I’m rolling in money.

End sarcasm. Begin serious tone of voice.

I distinctly remember being promised in first grade that if I put my mind to something, I could achieve it.

So over the past twenty years, I’ve completed plenty of mind-putting.

Undergrad degree? Check.

Graduate degree? Check.

Work experience in a bunch of different fields with a bunch of different bosses? Check.

Wonderfully satisfying, well paying job that allows me to be autonomous and use my creativity to its fullest? No check.

Hmm.

Clearly there is a flaw in this whole “dream it-achieve it” schematic.

When do I actually get to where I want to be?

There has to be a point at which I can say, “Fuck yeah, this is it!”

So far, I’ve had no such experience.

Now, I’m sure there are a few of you out there thinking “Cheer up, Charlie! Life’s a journey, not a destination!”. To that I say: bite me.

I’ve read Canterbury Tales, I get the idea. Really I do. But it doesn’t help me feel any better about my present situation. And I’m pretty darn sure Chaucer never had to endure a meaningless 8-5 desk job that made him want to scratch his eyes out.

So where am I going with all this? Apparently nowhere, right now. But I’ll be sure to let you know when I get there.

Have a nice day.

Well, not so much at war as having a difference of opinion.

I feel the bathroom should be clean. He clearly does not.

Here’s what happened:

My husband and I have a generally agreed upon division of labor in the house. Basically it breaks down like this: I do most everything.

Just kidding.

Sort-of.

Actually, about a year ago my husband and I sat down and hammered out a household chore arrangement that seems to work fairly well. I do my thing, he does his (with minimal nagging), and sometimes we negotiate to swap chores.

The one task my husband is 100% responsible for, though, is cleaning the master bathroom. That includes cleaning and sanitizing the following:

• vanity area (sinks and mirror)
• bathtub
• glass shower doors
• tile walls in shower
• toilet
• ceramic tile floors

We’re talking about maybe 40 SF of space, in total. Not really a big job, but definitely a pain in the ass as it requires at least three different cleaning products.

Right now, it’s been almost two months since the bathroom’s last official cleaning.

Wife is not happy.

Do you know what kind of debris a bathroom accumulates in sixty days? The disgusting kind, that’s what. Between the soap scum, body oil, toothpaste blobs, cat hair and even my own hair (it’s big and curly and yes, I do shed, dammit), I’m terrified some mornings just to turn on the light.

And to those of you who are saying “just clean it yourself!”, my response is: no.

See, for my husband, this whole thing is less about the actual cleanliness of the bathroom (though if you’d ever seen his college apartment, you might think differently) and more about his inability to make cleaning it a priority. And therein lies the heart of the problem.

Though I do consider myself the ‘house manager’, my husband is, in fact, a vital part of our home ecosystem. For the living things (pets, plants, etc), I have devised an organized schedule of items so that all necessary tasks are completed on a timely basis. In short, I make sure shit that needs to get done gets done. No biggie: my system, my rules, my responsibility. Cool? Cool.

Tasks of lesser importance – read: not life or death – fall into a different organizational system, one which involves my husband. The Household Maintenance system includes tasks like cleaning, vacuuming, laundry, and general clutter restructuring. These chores are not as critical to survival as those in the previously mentioned system, but are still necessary for personal function (and sanity). Is someone going to die if the laundry piles up for three weeks? Probably not, despite what you may have heard. Same goes for cleaning. But it all still has to be done.

I repeat: it still has to be done!

Husband missed that memo. And I can’t figure out how to get him to re-prioritize.

I thought about drawing a flowchart on the bathroom mirror, but I’m afraid that it’ll just sit there for months to come.