When I was around eleven years old (could have been ten, could have been twelve), I went over to the Klein's house to play for the afternoon. Nothing special about heading over, except that just before I went over, I made the decision to head over without shoes. It was summer. It was beautiful outside. We often ran around barefoot, so this wasn't a particularly important decision. But, I do remember consciously making the decision not to wear shoes.

Well, at some point in that afternoon, we all went running outside. I think we were running to the Gleason's house, which had been the Brickley's house when I lived in the neighborhood, but I'm not sure about exactly where we were going.

We all ran outside through the carport, around the side yard, and over the gravel driveway. Halfway across the driveway, I stopped running and started screaming. I then turned around and ran back into the house, dripping blood as I went. I had stepped on a broken bottle, the top part around the neck, as I was running over the gravel, and cut a serious chunk out of my foot.

Tragically, when I ran back into the house, I ran straight into the livingroom (the livingroom with the light tan carpeting), putting spots of blood where I stepped.

Mary looked at the cut, and recommended stitches. Poor Jenny had to clean up the blood spots. I resisted stitches, and struggled for the next month to let the cut heal, since I was inclined to run around and not stay off the foot.

If I had made the other choice that day, to wear shoes instead of going barefoot, I wouldn't have the scar on my foot that I have today. An inconsequential decision with larger ramifications than it should have.

Kinda like today's decision.

I had signed up mid last week for throwing practice today, and figured I'd head over with Kris and the girls, and just return home with the girls a little bit later. I was still feeling icky from the fever/flu thing that started on Friday, and figured a walk would be good, but full-on ultimate would be bad.

As I was getting ready, I put on shorts and debated whether or not to put on pants. I put on exercise pants probably 95% of the time I head out to play ultimate or go throw, so deciding not to put them on was deciding on the exception.

Kris was walking the dogs, and I was carrying the bag of discs, when the dogs fell behind. We kept walking and before the leashes went taut, Kris encourged the dogs to catch up. Normally, they run along the outside of the walk, but this time, Bella ran along the inside where I was walking, as Annie ran along the outside.

As Bella ran past, I started screaming. "Aaaaaaaaaah! Owwwwww! Owwwwww! Owwwwww!" Kris looked at me in puzzlement as I tried to run in front of him. Finally realizing what was going on, he dropped the leashes. Too late.

The leash had grabbed a significant chunk of skin from the back of my knees, where it gave me a fire-burn as it zinged along. If I had chose to wear pants, I wouldn't be propped up in the living room, neosporin slathered on the back of my legs, wondering how such inconsequential decisions truly affect our lives.

I don't know how I came across Illustration Friday, probably from Mom, but I've been watching it for a while now. The basic idea is that each Friday, a topic comes out, you draw a picture/illustration of the subject, post the image to your website, then add a link to the Illustration Friday website. Pretty simple. I've been receiving the subject emails each Friday, but have yet to actually start doing the illustrations, much less post them. Something about knowing I had talent when I was younger, and never doing anything with it makes me somewhat embarrassed about showing off any work now. I should probably post some of my pieces, if I ever find them. Another "if."

So, in the spirit of "You can't do unless you start," my first (5 minute) illustration. Eventually, I'll have more time to invest (ooooo, into color illustrations, too!).

In case it's not obvious, it's a chair.

Since I wasn't feeling good yesterday, I didn't head into work. We have the sick policy that if you are starting to feel ill, stay home and work, rather than getting everyone in the office sick, too. So, I stayed home yesterday. Good thing, too, given how sick I was last night. Today isn't much better, not being able to do much more than sit around the house, drinking sugar water, and asking Kris, "Do I feel hot?"

Liza had been sick on Thursday, but was feverish on Wednesday afternoon, so she couldn't go into school on Friday. Instead, she spent the day with her mom at work, then with her dad at work. Apparently she managed to get as much work done on Friday afternoon as I did:

I'm a big fan of delivered organic vegetables. I'm mostly a fan of supporting small farms through CSA programs, where consumers (that's me!) purchase shares of harvests in order to support local (often organic) growers. I'm mostly a fan of organic food, but the farmer's blood in me isn't too diluted.

We started getting boxes of organic food delivered over six years ago, when we lived near Ben and Lisa and split a weekly big box delivery of organic food. We often struggled to both get foods we all liked and eat all the food we did receive.

When we moved to Sunnyvale, we found out the company we used previously didn't deliver to Sunnyvale, so we stopped deliveries. We tried again later with other companies and programs, including a pickup in Palo Alto, and another delivery company that did deliver in Sunnyvale. Unfortunately, we ended up throwing away more than we ate, so Kris asked me to cancel that service, too.

Since one of my new year's resolutions is to cook more, it made sense to start the delivery back up. Kris was, expectedly, skeptical about the resumed delivery. Okay, yeeaaaaah, so, sure, I plan on cooking more, but are we going to, once again, be throwing out more food than we eat?

I convinced him to continue the service, but we'd watch what we consumed. If we ended up throwing away more than 10% into the compost bin, we'd stop the service.

Been doing fairly well so far. Tonight's dinner was potato leek soup to use up the leeks from this box of vegetables and the last box of vegetables, as well as the potatoes from a couple boxes ago. Having never made potato leek soup before, I wasn't sure how it would turn out. It turned out fairly well. I need the soup tonight, having caught whatever Mike and his kids are dishing out. I'm good on the one resolution of cooking more, but less good on the running every day. Stupid fever, aches and chills.

I placed an order for new business cards late Wednesday night for everyone at work. Yes, I ordered them late, yes, I recognized I would need to pay rush charges, I was completely expecting this, as I needed the cards for the Drupal meetup Mike and I are going to in Vancouver next week.

We leave Monday night. When I ordered on Wednesday night, I selected the Rush delivery with a three day turn around time. Three business days, let's see, that's Thursday, Friday, Monday, no problem. All set.

Except when I received the notice via email of the order received, it said a Tuesday delivery time. Well, we can always hope they arrive earlier. I didn't do anything about them.

Until today, when I received the "Your order has shipped!" email. Great, let's see how the order will be shipped. Second day delivery via DHL. Scheduled for arrival on the seventh. Tuesday.

We leave Monday night.

Fine, nothing a few more dollars can't fix, right? So, I called DHL with the tracking number and the question, "Can I upgrade this to next day air and pay the shipping cost difference?"

"No, we can't authorize that."

"What?"

"We can't authorize a quicker shipment."

"Even if I'm paying for it?"

"No. You'll have to contact [the vendor] for authorization."

"They're closed."

"There's nothing I can do."

This annoys me. There is plenty that she could do. She chooses not to help. She knows who the vendor is. She knows it's a shipment that can be rushed. She has done nothing but guarantee I will not use DHL for shipments, and will request merchants I do business with also not to use them.

Morons unable to help customers. Stupid company cultures that encourage brain-dead customer "service" instead of the flexibility of, oh, actual service. The package was just picked up. It can have a rush put on it. Moron.

Update: Lovely, this keeps getting better. After being on hold with the vendor for fifteen minutes, the person at the other end of the line picks up the phone and hangs up. I actually had my desk phone and cell phone on two separate calls to the same vendor, checking to see if different, but equally valid, phone option selections to the support line affect the hold time, but hanging up on one is just plain wrong.

Stupid, cute Bella dog.