City of Raleigh

Pet Peeves

| cheriarmour

Hi!

How are you guys doing today?

I’m fine fine fine, currently feeling a little sorry for myself since I decided to not do a trail race this weekend so I could nurse my knee back to health.  I’ve been able to work out, run a little, and teach, but I feel like running on unstable surfaces when I potentially have my meniscus torn is not a great idea.  I need to wait for an MRI to be 100% sure though.  But I’m feeling sorry for myself, a little jealous, and as a result, have eaten like a total hog today.  I deserve a spanking (as my ESL mother says from time to time).

So, I’m actually sitting outside at the local coffee shop, and just sitting here sort of fueled this post.  You’ll understand why in a second.

Cup A Joe

My Pet Peeves:

  • Cigarette smoke.  I’ve never been a smoker.  My parents never smoked, so it was never really a thing.  Plus I was born in the late 80s, so by that time, we were all onto the whole smoking causes cancer thing, so it’s actually pretty rare to find someone our age who smokes.  So I’m sitting outside at this coffee shop, and trying to work, blog, and enjoy a cup of coffee, and there are groups of people around me smoking Parliments and Marlboros.  It’s disgusting, distracting, and makes my hair smell like shit.  And I can’t wash my hair all the time, so my options are to grin and bear it, or go sit and freeze inside.
  • People with bad grammar.  They’re/their/there.  You’re/your.  Its/it’s (which funny enough, appeared incorrectly on this blog in a link last week).  “You’re doing good”.  Like please, for the love of Jesus, look at a few newspaper articles, and just absorb some of what is considered appropriate grammar.  And social media makes this complete disregard for the English language really apparent.
  • When someone emails you….then emails or texts again 30 minutes later to ask if you’ve received their email.  That’s when I start to become a little passive-aggressive, and sometimes don’t respond all together.  Of COURSE I haven’t gotten your email yet because I haven’t responded.  Perhaps I am away from my desk.  Perhaps I have a family?  Whatever it is, please show some regard for the fact that there are other people in this world than you.
  • Facebook’s read receipt.  This thing is the worst.  I actually just read an article on how to disable it, but then you can’t see when people have read your messages either, and I can’t have that.  But have you ever gotten a message on Facebook that made you toss your head back and groan?  And then you opened it?  And you either have to live with the fact that this person knows you’re ignoring them, or you have to respond.  I do not appreciate that.  Not at all.

All that said…

What are your pet peeves?

Parking Ticket

| cheriarmour

Once again, I’m writing from somewhere over Texas.  I’ll set the scene for you.  I’m sitting…in a plane….legs are really squished…and I’m kind of hoping that my husband remembers to let my poodle out.

Speaking of poodles, this dog is not a morning dog…I found her like this, head buried, when I got up pretty early a few mornings ago to get some laundry done before work.  I called her to come get her food, and this was her response.  Kind of ignoring me, and kind of trying to preserve heat with what little body fat she has going on.

Coco

Moving right along…

So I’m actually so blind.  Thanks to some excellent eyeball genes from my mother, I’ve been rocking the spectacles since about fourth grade.  It’s a little inconvenient, since I’m so active, to ever really wear glasses, but a lot of times in the spring and in the fall, when my allergies are really acting up, I don’t have a lot of choice.  It’s always really fun, when I wear my glasses to work and stuff, and people are like “You wear glasses?” they think they’re fakes, until they do that annoying thing where they make you take your glasses off and guess how many fingers you’re holding up.  Spoiler alert: I never know, because I can’t see anything more than like, six inches in front of my face.

So, I went for my annual eye appointment, and since the place I go is downtown, I had to pay to park.  I fed the meter, did the whole shebang, and once I was all done with my appointment, I went outside, to find that I’d gotten myself a parking ticket for my meter being 7 minutes expired.

Now, I take full responsibility for this ticket.  I’m not one to sit here and curse out the guy doing his job when I was clearly parked somewhere I shouldn’t have been, but this got me thinking – how could cities make parking tickets more fun?  Like, is there a way to make me less irritated that I have to spend $20 because of my own stupidity?

So here are a few suggestions to make a parking ticket fun:

  • Include some coupons in the envelope with the ticket. Now, this one can be tricky, because not everyone likes everything, but I bet you if you included a coupon for a free coffee at McDonald’s a lot of people would take the ticket thing a little better.  Or a frozen lemonade.  Those are fun!
  • Include a nudie of the guy writing the ticket in the envelope. Nudies always make me laugh. And life’s a party, rock your body.  Amirite, Marcel? (10 points to whoever gets that one.)
  • Maybe the attendant can write his or her name and a little smiley near the bill, like they do at restaurants when they want a big tip. I’m not tipping you, but I may admire your artistry, especially if your smiley face is a particularly good one.
  • Maybe the envelope can shoot confetti at you. On second thought, maybe not though.  Because someone from the city might have to clean it up.
  • And finally, if Lil’ Jon could come over a loud speaker to the tune of “Turn Down for What,” kinda like the horns in the Hunger Games, signifying that another ticket has been written, I think I’d get down with that.

Just a few suggestion to brighten that ticket up!  What’s the last ticket you got? 

Your first CD.

| cheriarmour

I know it’s really early to call it, but I think I love my job.

So last week, I had my first official day of work here in Raleigh as the Group Fitness Director of the YMCA here in our area.  I’ve said this before, but I’ve had my eye on this position for a while, and it seemed as if it sort of just fell into my lap in May when I got a call to come interview again for the position.

So now, I feel as though I’m living in a dream when I get to go to work at a place I’ve been dreaming about for the last two years.

My first day there was a doozy, I arrived and immediately got to work teaching a modified fitness class to bunches of kids.  I was literally so amped after that day that I couldn’t sleep that next night, and nearly overslept the next day in the office.

Over the next few days, I have been in my new office, meeting people, sending lots of emails, going to tons of meetings, and taking a TON of fitness classes so I can meet my staff and evaluate their classes.

So today, at my first director’s meeting, I participated in a tradition where as a director, I had to sing the song of my choice at the first meeting, while the rest of the directors cheered me on.  Another director hollered as I was standing in front of the room, “SING SOMETHING THAT WAS ON THE FIRST CD YOU EVER HAD!”

And immediately, I busted out into Christina Aguilera’s amazing second single, ‘What a Girl Wants’.

My first CD. 

So years ago, I had this little grey boom box, and my mom had some kind of subscription service, and allowed me to pick a few cds out of it.  One of them was Destiny’s Child – The Writing’s on the Wall, and the second was Christina Aguilera – Christina Aguilera.  To say that I was obsessed with both of CDs wouldn’t do what I did with them justice.

via Wikipedia.org
via Wikipedia.org

Peep the horrid makeup and the zig-zag part!

via Wikipedia.org
via Wikipedia.org

Peep the cornrows! Hellow, late ’90s!

And yes, that’s Mrs. Carter down in the front.

I can, to this day, sing every song, starting on the write note, and kill all the ad libs without skipping a beat. Since then, Queen Bey kicked everyone out of the group, has gotten married, and has a kid. Aguilera is engaged and pregnant with baby number two. Try that one one for making you feel old!

Tell me what your first CD was!!

 

I brought my neti pot to work.

| cheriarmour

You may feel as though I’m a very glamorous woman, seeing as how I spent the better half of yesterday and today filming for an ESPN show that primarily airs in Latin American Nations, however, that is not the case, and after spending the better half of yesterday outside with that yellow pollen stuff floating around, I officially feel awful.

No congestion just yet, but my throat is on fire, and I want to die a little bit.  All of this is going on three days until Rock ‘n’ Roll Raleigh.  Ah well.

So anyhoo, when I’m feeling terrible, I pack up my plastic Neti Pot.

imgresAnd I pack the little saline packet that comes with it, pack an extra water bottle (so it’s clean water that I’m using), and head to the secret bathroom on the third floor to get to work.

I flush a few times a day when my throat is really sore, in hopes that I can at least get some of the yellow powder out of my nasal cavities, and because the warm water feels amazing on the back of my throat.  Fun fact: someone once walked in on me and looked disgusted with me, but jokes on her, cause it made my throat feel amazing and now I will never share my pot with her.

I’m not a doctor, but I”m convinced that this this totally heals.

Anyone else neti? Know what I’m talking about?

 

I was riding into work yesterday morning…

| cheriarmour

…And I have a pretty short commute to work, lucky for me, it’s only about 10 minutes long.  And I have a confession.

I hate, hate, hate morning radio.

It rarely appeals to anyone over the age of 12 because that’s exactly the kind of “humor” it plays to.  Infantile, juvenile, and often offensive, just like preteens tend to be.

Well, here in the great capital city of Raleigh, there’s this show called “Bob & the Showgram”.  And I won’t be a jerk, it’s not all bad.  From what I understand, Bob, the host of the show, had a brain tumor, and now he raises money for pediatric brain tumors.  And that’s awesome.  It is, however, one of the most offensive dark spots in an otherwise very progressive city.

At last year’s Christmas parade, someone at the station had the bright idea to suspend  “Tyrone the Black Christmas Fairy” from the bed of a pickup truck, which drew some really negative attention – even the Mayor had something to say about it.

Tyrone

There were even rumors that someone at the station was fired for it.  What escapes me is how suspending a black person from anything is a good idea, especially given the history of our country, but that’s another essay, for another blog, for another day.

So on my ride in, I happened to flip to that offending station, and around 9:00 am, Bob started making offensive comments about gay men.  Some of them are a little too much to repeat here, but it wrapped up with him comparing gay men to pedophiles.

I was floored. Is this 1950?  Firstly, sexuality isn’t necessarily something that needs to be discussed in the joking context of a morning program.  Secondly. comparing someones sexuality to deviant behavior that is damaging not only physically, but mentally, and spiritually to a child is beyond small-minded, it’s just wrong.

So I went to work, and in the course of the day, I emailed the program director at the station, Zac, and expressed my displeasure at the whole situation.  I got a response!

“Cheri,

Thanks for your email.

We met with the Morning Show after they got off the air.

We discussed the topic and how it could be offensive.

I really appreciate your feedback,

Zac”

I know it’s not much, but I’ll be damned, I made a teensy, tiny, itty-bitty little splash in the inbox of the director.  I know Bob has probably learned nothing, and will continue ranting on whatever, but I loved the feeling of making a little difference.

That time I tried to go apartment-hunting.

| cheriarmour

I drove past this place today while running an errand for work, and the horrors just came back again and again.

A few years ago, I was super new to Raleigh.  So I set about the task of finding a place here, using the only platform I was familiar with to do so. Craigslist. (Seriously, if you’re moving to a new place, don’t only make sure that you visit the place, but also go off of word of mouth. I cannot stress to you how important this is. Luckily, I always ended up with super cool roommates, and my only rando Craigslist roomie I had turned out awesome, and our time together was only cut short by a tornado.) But I digress, that is another story for another day. Anyhoo, so this place called Westgrove Towers had been advertising a butt-ton on CL, so I’m like “Okay, anything with the world ‘Towers’ in it is fancy, and that’s where I need to live.”

Tower

So, this is the picture they kept advertising with. Idk, the sky is blue in it. It kind of looks like a hotel. How bad could it be right?

I literally walked in to the biggest murder scene of my life, minus the murder.

    • The advert, and the man at the front desk was bragging about how close you were to “shopping”.  By shopping, he meant a run-down K-Mart with a parking lot big enough for you to park your Winnebago in, and the $1.50 movie-theater. Other than that, I’d be forced to cross a 4-lane highway on foot to reach civilization. Listen now, before you get all up in arms, I’m perfectly aware that there are nice K-Marts, and dollar-theaters but this, this was not one of them.
    • The lobby was really dim.  Not in a fun, romantic way.  In a creepy murder way.
    • The room they showed me….

So, for some reason at this point in my life, I’d become enamored of this idea of living in a studio. I felt like it was very hip and cool, and that I would stylishly roll out of bed, my hair perfectly imperfect, a sort of Shakira-Lauryn Hill hybrid, and I’d step into my fringed moccasins, wrap my pashmina around my neck, and glide across the room to pour myself a latte, which I’d obviously brewed in my single-girl espresso machine. Plus I think the studio was all I could afford.

So I remember taking this Alfred Hitchcock elevator upstairs in this “high rise” and we step into the studio apartment. It literally looked like a motel room that you could rent by the hour, if you know what I’m sayin’. The apartment was their showroom, and the bed was saggy, it might have been a pull-out, and the furniture was all made out of that particleboard stuff, all furniture that had probably fallen off the back of a Big Lots truck. I tried to mask my horror as Miguel motioned around the room – it smelled of stale cigarette smoke, and the back lighting made the room look even worse. I forced a smile, as Miguel took me down to the front office, a room lit only with fluorescents, and pitched the “high rise” to me. He complimented my figure, told me I looked like a Zumba teacher (well duh bud), and shook my hand before we parted ways. He even emailed me like a month later to follow up!

I ran, not walked, out of this place, and called my father immediately, almost in tears about what I’d seen. And today, as I drove past Westgrove Tower, I giggled at poor little 21-year-old me, looking for her single-girl studio.

RIP Hibernian

| cheriarmour

When you run through any city, you sort of get to know it. Hibernain is an Irish pub that’s part of the permanent landscape of Raleigh. I’ve both run by, and drank there often.  The bartenders are great because they’re literally the only bartenders in the city who won’t give me a hard time about drinking Michelob Ultra on Mystery Beer Night.

The last time I was there was on my 25th birthday, with my run-date, Shawn. We had a blast, and have since talked about going back to relive that evening.

Last Wednesday morning, around 10:30 am, Hibernian burned to the ground in a fire that was suspected to have started in the kitchen. I’ve since re-routed my run by there to be able to pay my respects to the little pub down the street from my home. I was heartbroken to see this.

Hibernian

Between the noise and the smell of that night, it felt like going to a wake.  The inside was compltely burnt and everyone who walked past would double back to see what’d happened.

The owner says that they’ll rebuild, and when I ran by today, despite the smell of burnt plastic, there was already a Cary developer who’d hung a fence and signs.  I’ll keep my tradition of running by til they’ve rebuilt.

For now, let’s raise a Mich Ultra to the memories lost in old Hibernian.  2000-2012