Things of the Past - Part I (and Color Coding)

It just dawned on me today.  It's no longer necessary to remind people to remember to spring forward or fall back.  In order to break the habit, I'm going to substitue the following:  "Enjoy that extra hour of sleep!"  I guess in the spring, it'll be something else.  Hmmm.  Not sure how to put a positive spin on that.  I have some time to think about it, though.  An extra hour, tonight.

One other thing.  I recently realized that it's no longer necessary to say, when describing a person from the south Asian country of India, that they're "Indian, from India."  Best I can figure, there are two reasons for this.  First, it seems that around here, there are more Indians from India than those who are of the "indigenous peoples of the Americas."  Which it turns out, are no longer called "native Americans."  Maybe the word "native" is offensive?  Not sure, but interestingly enough, my cursory googling turned up quite a few answers indicating that the proper terminology is "Red Indians" for those from around here, and "East Indians" for those from South Asia.  So confusing.

I won't even get started on the whole "African American" thang.  Or "Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender."  Or, while we're at it, whatever it is we used to call retarded people.

Except, I will start on it.  I'll just throw out an idea.  What if, for simplicity's sake, we assigned color names to groups of people.  Hell, the disease people have gone nuts with it.  By the end of October (thank god it's over), aren't we all sick of pink.  Even the fucking newspaper showed up printed on pink paper.  How many products are slathered in pink and hawked in the name of breast cancer research?  I swear, everywhere I turn, something reminds me of this dread disease.  Yogurt.  Lipstick.  T-shirts. Dura-Flame logs.  Go figure.  Except, don't go figure.  The insidious answer is that it's a marketing ploy.  Since ploy implies deceit, let me explain.  When a company uses the word "proceeds," (as in "a portion of all proceeds goes to support breast cancer research,) this means nothing.  Proceeds is not a real term in the financial world.  I won't bore you with the details, except to give you an extreme example.  I could sell $2 billion in pink maxi-pads, and give one penny to any cancer charity, and I'd be perfectly justified in boldly proclaiming the fact that I'd give a portion of all proceeds to charity.

Let's be clear.  There are some good guys out there.  The ones who say, "10% of sales support the Susan G. Koman Foundation," for example.  So be alert.  Think.  Or better yet, ignore the hype and the pinkness, and send a little check directly to a legitimate organization.  I think you'll make a bigger difference that way.

Back to my color coding idea.  Maybe that song had it right.  Red and yellow, black and white...  We could add some other things.  Think pink for breast cancer survivors (FYI - "remission" is out "cancer-free" is in.) Rainbow for our GLBT friends.  The possibilities are endless.  For the record, though, I call aqua for my thing. 

I HATE COMCAST MORE THAN EVER

All of a sudden, I can understand Jihad.  And I have Comcast to thank for that.  They are evil incarnate.  Worse than the following:

• Charles Manson
• Ted Bundy
• Vlad the Impaler
• Jack the Ripper
• Nero
• Stalin
• Bin Ladin
• Hitler
• Mengele
• Chris Brown

I could list more, but these are my top ten...not counting Comcast.  Hmmm, who could they replace?  Nero, I guess. Just because he's been dead the longest.  No other reason.  Which is not to say that Chris would be the last one I'd delete.

Gotta go.  I'm waiting for a call from The Evil One.

My Personal Ten Plagues

It's been so long since I last blogged.  So much has happened.  That damn day job is eating into my computer time.  That, and the raging mildew colony that's invaded my home office.  Which I just realized, yesterday, is NOT my fault.  It all started when I got a brand spankin' new (very expensive) HVAC system.  Three years ago.  When I first reported the problem to the vendor, I was told that I was blocking the vents (thanks to former housekeeper who shoved shit in corners in an effort to assuage my hoarding tendencies.)  I could write pages and pages about this subject, but I won't.  Not now, at least.  Bottom line is that I think Dude oversold me on the HVAC system.  I just learned that if the unit's too big for the area being cooled, this kinda shit happens.  Got some Googling to do, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I've been had.  Which makes sense of the fact that I've called those guys out not once, but twice, to my rental property to repair the HVAC, and never received a bill.  Even though I've asked for it more than once.  And left messages for Dude to call me.  Hmmm...

Well, I've bleached the hell out of one mildew-ridden vent and the surrounding wall, carpet, baseboard, etc.  Got a fan blowing fumes out the window, so as not to asphyxiate The Daddler (my office is adjacent to his bedroom.)

More on that later.  But to keep your breath bated, I'll tell you that including the toxic fungi, I've been dealing with my own little version of the ten plagues of Egypt.  My version includes infestations of rats, squirrels, cicadas, spiders, flies (I don't know why,) snakes and roaches.  Truth be told, I've only seen one snake, so I won't declare that a plague yet.  Same with roaches - killed one the other night, but haven't seen one since.  Really, the rat thing was the worst, and I thought I had it conquered, but I've been seeing suspicious-looking, small, black, turd-shaped objects around the house again.  It makes me itch just thinking about it.  Which reminds me of the fact that I was convinced I had pubic lice, because my lady parts continued to itch even after I'd taken the prescription yeast infection pill I received from the ER doc when I got my thumb nearly bitten off by a neighbor's cur.  (He prescribed some big-gun antibiotic, and I had the presence of mind to ask for a Diflucan script, which I got refilled when the second round of itching started.)  Again, more about that later.  Including an embarrassing episode at Costco when a fellow shopper interrupted my vigorous labia-scratching to ask if I knew where the peanut butter was.  I cringe when I think about it.  Thank god for my face-blindness.

Oh, and just to be clear, you CAN catch pubic lice from public toilets. 

Ok, better run.  I need to go set some traps and put out some poison.  Load The Daddler's service revolver (forgot to mention the lawn-mower theft in my list of plagues.)  And teach my new dogs some old tricks.  Love those girls.  Gotta put some flea and tick stuff on them.  Because if we got infested with those, that would make TEN.  And we all know what happened to the Egyptians after that...

Wow!

I can't believe I haven't posted since October.  I've been kinda busy.

Made it through the holidays (although I still have a couple boxes of ornaments I need to take to the attic,) and hopefully, the worst of the long dark winter.

I started a new job a month ago, and the jury is out, but I think it'll be a good thing.  I'm working about 20 hours/week, the hours are flexible, and the money is decent.  They gave me what I asked for, which means I could've gotten more, but fortunately, it's not my bread and butter.  It IS nice to have the extra moolah coming in, but more than that, getting out of the house and feeling like a professional again.  The social aspect of working is good, but unfortunately, there've already been a few, ummm, difficulties.  As unpleasant as it was, I suppose it was good to get it out of the way.  After a week or so of walking on eggshells around a somewhat territorial, bossy, snappish, passive-aggressive co-worker, I finally stood up to her and explained that I knew what I was doing even if I didn't do it exactly the same way she thought I should.  I also told our boss about it and said that if she wanted to look for someone who would mesh better with said co-worker, I would completely understand.  I didn't intend this to be an ultimatum, but it probably served that purpose.  But it was also the truth, and after spending way too much time stressing out over it, I figured it would be better to cut my losses.

Sooo, I guess they want me to stay, because it's been peachy keen ever since.  A little saccharine, even.  There's still the passive-aggressive shit just under the surface, but I'm being careful and I think she knows not to push me too far.  I hate that this kind of stuff inevitably happens, because I really don't have a hidden agenda and I'm not trying to prove anything, so I don't know why these bookkeeper types feel so threatened by me.  It's not the first time this has happened.  I wonder if I'm just too nice, and therefore, they think they can bully me.  After 20 years of therapy, I think I'm finally learning to set boundaries, but it's still incredibly anxiety-provoking for me.  Maybe the worst is over and I'll settle in, do good work, and be happy there.

At times like this, I always remember the immortal words of Rodney King:  Can we all get along?

Take 17 seconds and watch this - It always brings me to tears...

Rodney King

Something Beautiful

This is so random, but I just have a minute, and I'm excited about this!  I just ordered it from Etsy.  It's kinda pricey for me, but I'm sure it'll be worth every penny, because it's just so incredibly lovely.

Wish I could write more, but it's been crazy and I have to go.  Out in the rain.  To buy milk for The Daddler, plus stuff to make beef stew.  It's a perfect crock pot day.

Over and out...

The Cold Blooded Killer Among Us

Sally.  She's a bad seed.  Full of blood-lust.  She shredded a poor squirrel Saturday.  I was lounging on the sofa when Lucy and The Daddler came strolling in from their daily walk.  Lucy ran to me and commenced her lascivious licking.  The D said, "He just eat a baby squirrel."  I recoiled in horror at the thought of squirrel-carcass-laden saliva being lavishly slathered on my forearm and face.

It took a full 10 minutes of cross-examination, complete with a game of Charades, to determine that it was Sally, not Lucy, who'd brutally murdered a cute little squirrel with his life stretching out before him.  I asked The Witness if he'd interred the remains of the victim.  He said, "Naw.  I told you, he eat 'im!"  I found it hard to believe that the dog had devoured ALL of the squirrel, and I had flashbacks to the explosive diarrhea episode from a few weeks before, so I grabbed two blue plastic newspooper bags (I coined that term) and high-tailed it to the back yard.  I explained to The D how to put his hand in the bag and grab the body and turn the bag inside out.  He said, in the rudest tone possible, "I know how to do it."  Keep in mind, he's only picked up dog poop ONCE.  And that was after he saw a story on the local news that it was illegal to let your dog shit around town.  And the only reason I know that is because I happened to see him stroll up the driveway after a walk with the Queen of Turds, Lucy, holding the shiny blue package of poop.  That was cool.  Until I encountered said sac swarming with flies at the end of the driveway.  I guess he didn't want to stink up the garbage can. 

Back to the back yard.  Turns out, Sadistic, Satanic Sally hadn't eaten the entire squirrel.  Because after she did her usual Tigger imitation upon seeing us, she grabbed the remainder of the rodent and started sprinting around the yard.  I let out a blood-curdling scream.  I even scared myself.  And I kept screaming.  Something about seeing the bloody entrails of a cute baby animal being slung around playfully, like a Frisbee, in the jaws of a member of my family, triggered a visceral, guttural reaction in me.  When I finally caught up with the killer, who was loving every minute of the chase, I snatched her by her harness (it was reminiscent of how I'd stopped her from severing Lucy's aorta not two weeks earlier,) and she dropped her quarry.  I was queasy.  The Daddler took over.  I don't know what he did with the squirrel.  All I know is that garbage pickup was two days later and the weather was cooler.  And I didn't see the blue body bag.

Sometimes Justice Prevails

Kinda.

I just got my latest ComCrap bill.  My credit balance is down to $416.73.  I'm not finished with them yet, but I've had bigger fish to fry.  In the form of Lowe's and AT&T.

By the way.  If you're ever in the market for a major appliance, go to Sears.  If you value your sanity, that is.  I needed a refrigerator for one of my rental houses.  I called Lowe's to see how long it would take to get a fridge delivered, and after pressing 8 for appliances (had to listen to 1 through 7 first, of course,) someone answered.  When I said I wanted to check the delivery wait for a refrigerator, I was told to hold for the appliance department.  Why the FUCK did I have to suffer through the phone tree?

Surprisingly, an "associate" answered within a minute or two.  The operative syllable being "ass."  Dude was channeling Barry White.  I told him I needed a fridge, and asked him if they had any good deals on a dented floor model.  He said, and I quote, "Come see me and I'll show you something good."  I said, "How much is it?"  He said, "It retails for $2,800, but I can give it to you for $1,400."

I told him that was out of my budget, but I asked him how long it would take to deliver an in-stock model.  He said three to five days.  I asked if that was three to five business days or three to five real life, powdered-milk and peanut butter days.  He told me to come see him and he'd see what he could do.

So somewhere in the primitive portion of my brain, there sprung a vision of Sears.  Which was especially appealing since there's still a Non-Mall Store about 3 miles from my house.  So adorably anachronistic.  Which makes me think of Gimbels.  Horn and Hardart Automat.

The Sears Christmas Wish Book.  Quick Curl Barbies.  The picture in the 1972 fall catalog's men's underwear section with an unfortunately (or not - depending on how you see it) well-endowed male model's member descending below the level of decency. 

Wow.  I digress.  Bottom line, though, is that there's a real refrigerator residing in the rental right now.  Hallelujah.

The Rumble

 Yesterday was traumatic.  It started out calmly enough.  Mid-morning, while I was upstairs getting ready to go out and run errands, I heard The Daddler come in the back door and scream for me.  A few minutes earlier, I'd heard Lucy and Sally growling and barking at each other in the back yard.  It sounded more serious than their usual sisterly knock-down-drag-outs, so I looked out the upstairs window to check, and I saw The D standing by the fence, so I didn't worry.  Normal behavior for snack time.

 

This time, though, it escalated.  And the way Daddy was hollering, I knew something was terribly wrong.  Other than the awful shingles episodes when he first came to live with me, and the time he thought I was asleep when he was ready to go to his doctor's appointment (I wasn't,) I've never heard such panic or distress in his voice.  So I sprinted out the door, fully expecting to see one or both of the dogs with their aorta(s) ripped to shreds.  Fortunately, it wasn't that bad.  They were one mangled, muddy mass snarling and barking and rolling around at the bottom of the hill.  The Daddler had tried to break up the fight by spraying them with water from the hose.  Needless today, that didn't help.

 

I ran barefoot down the hill and grabbed Sally (who weighs 50 lbs.) by her harness and pulled her off Lucy.  I was surprised when Lucy (35 lbs.) jumped right back in.  I was standing there, covered in mud and blood and slobber, trying to get The Daddler to help me.  Bless his heart - he must've been pretty upset because he had a hard time figuring out how to help.  But I was shouting out one different command after another.  Finally, I got him to take Lucy, and I locked Sally into the back part of the yard.  I took Lucy inside and told D to watch Sally.  I knew right away that my Little Lulu was in bad shape.  She had lots of bite wounds on her neck and ears and she had a severe limp.  And she looked like she was in shock.  Those sweet, sad brown eyes.

 

So I grabbed a towel and snatched her up in it.  Got my purse and keys and ordered The D to get in the car with us.  We drove straight to the vet's office (just two miles away, thank God.)  When we burst in the door, the receptionist jumped into action, announcing an emergency, and requesting a doctor.  I swear, I think I could hear that theme music from ER playing in the background.  They ushered us into the first exam room, and then I burst into tears.

 

I could describe every little detail which followed, but instead, I'll just sum it up quickly. 

 

We returned to the vet with Sally a little later - she hadn't come out unscathed.  Four hours, $300, and a week's supply of antibiotics and anti-inflammatories later, we were home with two sad, bruised, penitant puppies.  At least they were clean, though.  Lucy was still bleeding, so I wrapped a piece of cotton from a torn sheet around her neck as a bandage.  We had a little snuggle time on the sofa, while The Daddler looked on.

I headed upstairs, took a long, hot bath to wash the grime and slime away.  Then I started a new book.  Wild by Cheryl Strayed.  In the first chapter, she writes about losing her mother.  I don't know if it was the emotional trauma from taking care of my damaged dogs, or the fact that this is the time of year my mom started dying, or just the book, but I cried harder and longer than I have since before Mother died.  I wish I could say it was cathartic, but the truth is that I'm having a difficult day.  I'm feeling really down.  Missing my mom so much.

 

I guess it's normal for something like the dog debacle to trigger these feelings.  Because for a moment, I thought I'd lost someone I loved.  I do love my dogs.  Especially my sweet little Lucy.  I'm not so crazy about Sally right now, but I suppose it's natural for a mother to feel the most love for her child who's most in need of it.  Which is why I know that I was always Mother's favorite.



The Grouch

It's a long story, and unfortunately, I don't have time to recount it now, but suffice it to say, The Daddler was in rare form last week on our outing to Sam's Club.  Let's just say that my karma's growing leaps and bounds.

 

More later.

Don't fuck with me

I'm in a mood.  Mad at pretty much everyone.

• Kiddo
• Kiddo's dad
• Pushy realtor
• The Daddler
• My biz partner
• My sick boyfriend (sick as in suffering from flu-like symptoms, not fetishism)
• The Daddler
• Sally the Terrible
• Lucy the Prolific Pooper
• Lowe's, Comcast, Office Depot, et al
• Slow drivers, old drivers, most drivers
• Obnoxious, sexist, piggish pony-tailed self-proclaimed siding specialists
• Pushy realtors
• The Daddler
• The ferocious chihuaha next door (actually, I'm in love with him)
• The pitiful excuse for police
• Anyone who abuses animals or children or women
• Cheaters
• Liars
• People who buy $11 worth of bing cherries ahead of me in the grocery store checkout and complain about the price as they present their SNAP (food stamp) card. Why the fuck are they buying $11 worth of cherries on the government's dime - rice, beans, velveeta - I can see, but fresh cherries?  Is there some cherry compound used to make some black market drug?  Wait.  I think Dr. Oz listed cherries as a superfood the other day.  So I'm sure the demand exceeds the supply and the price for bings has sky-rocketed.  That makes me think of the fortune I lost on Beanie Babies.  America's 1990's version of tulip mania of 1637.  Think Gordon Gekko and Wall Street.  Can't remember if it was the first or second movie.

Need a nap.  Bye.

My New Muse



I am head over heals in love with The Bloggess.  AKA Jenny Lawson.  You've got to check her out.  I added her blog's link to my list of favorites, for your added convenience.

A good friend introduced me to her when he gave me her book:  Let's Pretend This Never Happened

Reading it made me feel much more normal.  Really, though, it just made me embrace my weirdness - she makes it seem downright glamorous to be shrouded in strangeness. 

Have you read David Sedaris?  He's absolutely hilarious, too.  I'm so hooked.  Then there's Augusten Burroughs - he's kind of a darker version of Sedaris.

When I wright a book of my memoirs, I'm going to call it I Couldn't Make this Shit Up.  Because I couldn't.

I've had several blog-worthy experiences lately, but I just haven't had time to chronicle them.  Let's see... There's Sally's disastrous diarrhea episode.  My latest David and Goliath thing (Carol v. Lowe's, this time.)  Another mysterious crime case that called forth my inner Nancy Drew.  These are just a few that come to mind.  I'm sure there are more.

No time to write now.  I'm on a deadline with the rental house.  Tenants are signing the lease tomorrow.  I have to finish it up, plus ten million other things to get the house ready.  Fortunately, they're all relatively small things, but I need to get them done before they start moving in later this week.  And then there are all the things I've put off in my frantic rush to wrap up the rental.

Oh, I just realized I'm way late on The Daddler's dinner.

So, that's all for now.  Later...

The Good News and the Bad News

Bad news first.  Sally can now jump over the fence which divides the back yard in two.  The good news is that she has gotten too big to squeeze through the gate from the front section to the carport (and freedom.)  More good news is that she doesn't run away, unless she's following Lucy.  Which is especially good since Lucy can't jump out because she has short Dachsund legs.  That doesn't slow her down when she goes on the lam, though.  The bad news is that, in spite of her short legs, she's a regular canine FloJo.  And she's very clever.  She can open any gate or door latch, unless I've stretched a bungee cord tighter than Mary Tyler Moore's face to keep it in place. 

And she has big, paddle-like paws which she uses to dig under the fence.  I should've never let her watch The Great Escape with me.  Or one of those movies about escaping from Alcatrez.  The Rock, maybe?

Hey.  Lucy hates water, so maybe I should dig a moat around the house.  It would serve a dual purpose.  It would contain her and it would keep my yard from turning into a mud pit when it rains.  That wouldn't help the Sally sitch, though, because she likes water - I guess that's the retriever in her.  When I fill the kiddie pool, she tries to swim in it. 

Maybe an electric fence is the solution.  Now that I think about it, though, there's another, equally challenging problem.  Sally eats anything she finds (if it's not a carrot or a pickle.)  Tell me - why would someone eat a dead vole or bluejay, and not a carrot?  I won't even mention dog poop, vomit, or the litter box.  Which reminds me of a sickening story.  One night, I conducted a bread and butter pickle blind taste test with my friend girl, Jolynna.  Followed by a blind taste test of three kinds of Baskin Robbins ice-cream.  For some strange reason, I threw my guts up.  (No, I wasn't preggers.)  I slept in JoJo's guest room, and I woke up to the sound of her Greyhound rescue - CatDog (I know) lapping up, ummm, yea.  The contents of the waste can stationed next to my bed.

That reminds me.  In case you haven't heard.  The definition of a good friend is someone who holds your hair back when you throw up.  Jolynna is a good friend.  She even got a cold cloth for my forehead.

Damn.  I'm digressing.

It's been a crazy day.  Lots going on with my burgeoning real-estate empire.  Wheelin' and dealin' and scavenging wood from curbs.  I had no idea how expensive wood has gotten.  I hit the jackpot, though.  I found a $300 exterior door today, complete with really great hardware.  The right width for what I need.

Gotta run.  Duty calls...

Why me?

I just can't understand why I keep finding myself in the middle of a crime scene.  As if the poor pit bull nightmare weren't enough, I stumbled upon an even more sinister situation this past weekend.

Once again, no one gave a flying fuck.  I wish I didn't.

I stumbled into this weird thing Saturday.  I made three phone calls to organizations I had previously thought highly of, and I expected them to care.  But as usual, I was wrong.   Because who, in her right mind, would worry about a freshly dug shallow grave in her back yard?  And why in the hell would anyone look askance at a pair of little girl's lavender sweat pants turned inside out and torn at the crotch?  With a stuffed rabbit, wearing a purple crown, smashed into the mud, eight feet away.  And in between, a 2x4 and a splintered board.  And a water bottle.   All within a back yard, completely enclosed by 6' wooden fences.

I expressed my concerns to my business partner, who just happens to have a 50% interest in the scene of the crime (our rental property.)  He was pretty sure that the water bottle had blown over the six-foot fence in a gust of wind.  And that the torn garment and abandoned toy were also the result of an act of god.  Never mind that he'd (that very day) walked past a car in the Kroger parking lot with two or three kids strapped into a car seat in 90+ degree weather, with no adult in sight.  He thought the car was running with the A/C going, and that the driver was just gone for a flash.  Fuck that.  Fuck him.  Fuck every single fat-ass who doesn't give a fuck about the pain and misery of an innocent, helpless child or animal.  Fuck them.  I hate them.  Intensely.

I want to forget about this, but I can't.  So for now, I'll just list the organizations I'm frustrated with. 

To start, I will never give one red cent to:  The Humane Society.  Mid-South Spay and Neuter.  The Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

I hate the idiotic, fat ass, apathetic excuse for a police department who I pay (with my hard-earned tax dollars) to serve and protect my community.

I have no confidence in our fucking excuse for law enforcement.  I guess they're too busy arresting people operating stills and possessing small amounts of marijuana.  Parking illegally.  Failing to decelerate from 60 to 40 mph on the downhill slide from the interstate called Sam Cooper to the avenue called Sam Cooper.

Fuck all those fucking bureaucrats.  I'm done.

I'm in love.

I never thought I could love this way again.  Until today.

I was working at the rental house this morning.  I heard a dog barking.  I assumed the dogs next door.  But it seemed closer than that.

When I looked out the back door, I was surprised to see a dog running around in the yard.  Which was completely, hermetically fenced and sealed.  What made it weirder is that this dog looked exactly like a Lucy/Sally combo.

But as cute as she was, I tried to avoid getting attached.  The fact that she was covered in cockle-burrs, which looked like a colony of parasitic trilobites, kept my emotions in check.

The trilobites turned out to be cockle-burrs.  Because this sweet dog had been lost in the wild for seven months.  She had a tattoo and a chip, and a Nancy Drew of a foster mom (that would be me.)  I solved the mystery with a visit to the vet. 

So she's set to reunite with her owner in the morning.  I have half a mind to snatch her, though.  Because I'm so in love.  The Daddler was crazy about her, too.  I hate to say it, but I wish I could trade Sally in for Sassy (that's what that negligent bitch-excuse for a mistress named her.)  Sassy's a year old, and about Lucy's size, and the same sweet temperament.  And, as The D observed, she has the same light brown eyes as Mother had.  Like Lucy's. 

I'm gonna go to bed.  Because I need to get up early, so I can go to the vet's office, and say my farewell to this sweet, sweet girl.  With any luck, her lazy excuse for a mistress will forget about coming to pick her up, or will have a family emergency which prevents her from showing up, and I'll swoop in and gather this adorable baby to my bosom.

I should sleep.  Because this is sounding kinda crazy.  Still.  She is soooo, soooo cute.  And sweet.

Happy 82nd Birthday!

Big day at our house today!  Being the sweet daughter that I am, I sang Happy Birthday to The Daddler when he got up.  Then I fixed pancakes for him - it's been a while since he's had his usual muffin for breakfast.

His brother and sister-in-law are taking him to lunch - I know he's excited about that. 

July is a big birthday around here.  Kiddo's birthday was a couple days ago, and I'm having one in less than two weeks (yes, that's a hint!)

Not that my friends need reminding.  Last year I was really surprised by how many gifts and cards and calls I received.  Especially because I never remember anyone's birthday.  Except Kiddo's and The D's, and of course, mine.  But I do give my besties things at random times throughout the year.  When I see something that makes me think of someone I love, I buy it.  And I get so excited about giving it to them that I just can't wait until a real occasion.  Besides, isn't it much more fun to get a gift out of the blue than all at the same time on Christmas or your birthday?   Also, there's the scary possibility that one or the other of us would drop dead before the usual gift-giving occasion. 

That reminds me.  I need to redo my will.  Because if I don't spend all my money before I die, or lose it in the stock market or real estate investments, I like the idea of spreading my wealth around to the people I love.  More than just Kiddo.  Of course, he'll get some, but since he's frequently rude to me and he's gonna make a boat-load (it's boat load, not butt load, by the way) of money when he graduates next year and becomes a Gordon Gekko.  Since he's doing an internship in NYC  at Morgan Stanley, more than likely, he'll go to work for them next June.  And since he's making four times what I made when I graduated almost 30 years ago (as a college junior intern, no less), I don't expect he'll need much of my paltry fortune.  Plus, he's the only kid, and I'm sure his dad will give him everything.  Unless he never got around to changing the beneficiary on his life insurance, which is a real possibility, knowing him.

The best reason, though, for giving away my money post-humously, is that people will be extra nice to me.  And if they're not, I'll change my will accordingly.  Would it be mean if I left them a penny?  That reminds me of a story.  When I paid off my Regions home equity loan a long time ago, the following month I received a bill for $ 0.01.  That's right.  One cent.  I ignored it, and I kept getting invoices every month for over a year.  Finally, I decided to pay off my sizeable debt to them.  So I taped not one, but two pennies to the remittance advice and mailed it.  Just as I expected, the next month I received a statement which showed a credit balance of one cent.  That went on for another year.  I suppose they finally realized that they'd spent lots more than one cent on postage, printing, and other administrative costs for those bills.  If I hadn't had such a bad experience when they bought my loan from NBC, I wouldn't have been so devious.  It felt good though.

Well, I'm gonna close now.  It's time to wrangle with Comcast.  They finally came through with a nice big credit for cheating me for the last two years.  But I'm not sure it's right, so I'm going to continue the massive spreadsheet I started.  When I get it all straight, I'll prepare a bill for my time.  I have a little leverage with them, in the form of complaints to the SEC and FCC, so I'll try to strong-arm them without crossing the line into extortion.

All for now...

Clarification

The second photo (lumpy lipo candidate) in yesterday's post was NOT me.  For that matter, neither was the first (penguin.)  Both pictures, though, reflect how I felt.

Later...

Relief

This pretty much sums it up.   A/C works.  Life is good.  My brain is no longer about to implode, and I've gone a whole 36 hours without a rant.  Unbelievable.    

 

Unfortunately (for you - my voyeuristic loyal readers,) my angst fuels my blogs.  So this will be short and sweet.

 

I have so much more to tell, but for now, I have other pleasant pursuits.  In case you care, what's trending in my cranium is as follows:  bald nudism as the cure for global warming; how foxes must be a dog/cat hybrid; dogs who prefer dead voles, dog vomit and cat poop to premium, organic, expensive puppy chow; whether it's incestuous to have a romantic relationship with someone who must be a twin separated at birth or a reincarnation of one's self (which is why I find him irresistable.)   Whether I should be worried about The Daddler because he forgot how to change the TV volume on the cable remote control - those damn TIAs - such a nuisance. 

 

Or if I should spend the proceeds from my pending refi on "Tickle Lipo" to suck out the huge flap of fat I've been left with after having three "bikini" cuts to remove large masses from my abdomen (an 8lb 13oz baby, a grapefruit-sized ball of mucous, and a useless uterus.)  Bikini cut, huh?  As in, you'll never wear a bikini again.  Why don't they call it a natural chastity belt?

 

Wow.  And I said I wouldn't rant.

 

On that note, I'm gonna go. 

A Living Hell

I'm in hell.  It must be bad karma.  All these angry blog posts I've written are coming back like a blasted (pardon the pun) boomerang.  Blast furnace - get it?

Now that I think about it, it's so apropos that my upstairs is nice and cool - so heavenly, and downstairs is unbearably, hellishly hot. 

In case you haven't been keeping up, my A/C has been out since Friday, or maybe Thursday.  When the weather was unseasonably cool.  Or not hot.  But every day, it's gotten hotter and more humid.  And the holy grail of air conditioner parts is still eluding my crusaders.  Where is Indiana Jones when I need him?  That reminds me of the Shia LeBouf lookalike I made out with on an airplane a few years ago.  Turned out he was married - there's a whole embarrassing story involving email and a snoopy wife.  But that's for another time.

As I recall from my 11th grade physics class, heat and pressure are directly proportional.  And I have too much of each.  To put this in layman's terms, I'm living in a pressure cooker.  About to blow a gasket.  Throw a rod.  Trigger a solar flare, and consequently, global warming and the end of the world as we know it.  Spontaneously combust.

As if the whole ComCrap debacle and the shallow grave in my back yard weren't enough, yesterday I encountered another windmill.  Of course, I tilted at it.  Here goes:

Against my better judgment, I stopped by Office Depot.  I've had shitty experiences therein the past, but it was on my way home and I knew exactly what I wanted (which they didn't happen to have,) but I found a suitable replacement.  In fact, I was pleasantly surprised that two or three employees asked me if I needed help, and I didn't have to wait in line to check out.  It didn't hurt that I was the only customer in the store.

I bought my stuff.  So far so good.  Until I almost walked through the naked glass wall directly in front of the cash register.  Fortunately, it was kinda dirty so I realized that I needed to turn 90 degrees to the left to exit the store.  Once before, a long time ago, I walked into a glass wall.  I was with The Daddler.  My forehead ricocheted off the glass.  I stood there, stunned and disoriented.  Instead of asking me if I was ok, The D said, and I quote, "It sounded like a cannon went off in here,"  while shaking his head the same way he did when I backed into the bay window and crunched the fender of my car.  Or pulled into the carport and hit the post and sent it flying.  Fortunately, it wasn't load-bearing and neither he nor Mother were crushed by the the roof or hit by schrapnel.  In retrospect, though, the thought of The D being impaled by a cedar post isn't altogether unpleasant.

Back to my near miss.  Being the bleeding heart, good citizen I am, I decided to go back in the store and tell someone that they might want to put something in front of the glass so that other people wouldn't walk into it like I nearly did.  As an aside, I was actually elected "Good Citizen" my senior year of high school.  It was kinda like being awarded the Miss Congeniality sash at the Miss America pageant.  Or being described by a match-making friend to prospective boyfriends as having a good personality.  Still, I got a full page picture in the yearbook, on the arm of the biggest, smokiest druggie guy on campus.  And to dilute the honor that much more, for each category, there were four winners, not two.  An African-American boy and girl, and a Caucasian boy and girl.  And since I was in the minority in my school, graduated third in my class, and was on the yearbook staff (a decided advantage in these contests) it was pretty lame.  I figure by the time Mr. & Miss Whitehavens, Smartest, Most Likely to Succeed, Most Popular and Best Dressed (WTF is up with those stupid categories? - why not have Thinnest Girl and Most Cut Boy, Best Nose/Boob Job, Sluttiest, Heaviest Makeup, Longest Rap Sheet, Worst Acne & Greasiest Hair - I coulda been a contender for that one, Fattest Ass -my biology teacher once told me that I had a "bottom" that boys like to look at - I'm cringing to this day, and last but not least, Most Likely to Wind Up on Death Row and/or on the Sexual Offenders Registry.  Actually, at our 30th reunion, I was advised not to FaceBook friend a guy who was a known pedaphile.  Hmmm.  Is a pedophile a foot lover?  I wish I'd taken latin.)

Damn, is this one incoherent rant or what?

Back to the Office Depot thing.  I'm embarrassed to admit that I spent way too much time trying to get some corporate drone to care.  But I finally found success.  With the help of an attorney friend who revealed the secret of a great (legitimate) lawyer directory website - Martindale.com.   I emailed the General Counsel of the company, and she emailed back.  I was incredulous.  She delegated me to three underlings who actually seemed to be more qualified than the usual script-reading, automaton I regularly encounter.

They all "reached out" to me (mark that square on your Buzzword Bingo card) and did a convincing job of caring about my concerns.  So now I can forget about it.

And focus on harrassing American Standard - the manufacturer of my lemon of an air conditioner.  And ComCrap.  And United-Fucking-Health.  And Verizon. Ad nauseum...

Stay tuned.



Rules to Live By

Don't ever buy cheap garbage bags.  I spent 20 maddening minutes trying to open one.  Without success.

I'm about to go in the back yard and set the whole box on fire.  And then I'll call the cops and report a hate crime.  Because I hate cheap shit.  And I hate cops (at least fat-ass apathetic ones like the loser who refused to investigate the shallow grave in my back yard.)

Damn.  I'm sounding like a lunatic.  I'll continue to blame it on the heat.  The rare and elusive part to my state of the art HVAC system won't be here until tomorrow, and my brain is swelling.  I'm feeling vengeful.  On so many levels.

Thank God for blogging.

Indulgence

Wow.  I'm full of it tonight.  I think the heat is getting to me.  While The Daddler was at church, I let the dogs in and regaled them with two of my favorite songs from Oliver!  Namely, I'd Do Anything, and Food, Glorious Food.  They seemed subdued by my performance.

I was channeling Julie Andrews.  If she'd been in Oliver!  One can only imagine.

What a great movie!  So formative for me.   I had the biggest Tiger Beat-fueled crush on Jack Wild.  Who, by the way, was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.  On a sad note, I recently googled him, and discovered that he'd drunk and smoked himself to death.  What a buzz-kill.  How could that adorable man-boy die?  If only I'd known before it was too late.  I could've swept in to be his Florence Nightingale/Mother Teresa/Nancy-Cougar.  Swing low, sweet chariot.  I know.  That makes no sense at all.  I blame it on the heat.  I just walked through the den and I felt like I was an extra in Apocolypse Now.  Or Beyond the Thunderdome.  Or one of those crazy movies whose trailers trigger terrible nightmares.

Even though my dreamboat was cheated, the movie won the Best Picture Oscar (and best soundtrack and director) for 1968.  Now that I think about it, I was just seven years old.  Wait.  Make that six.  Because I didn't turn seven until July of 1968.  That's a little crazy to think about.  There's something wrong about a six year old girl mooning over a ficticious, orphaned member of a major crime-ring, whom she's never met.

Now.  Back to the point of this post.  Indulgence.  After my Obie-worthy performance, I was flushed with feelings of fondness.  Which I expressed by spoiling my two spoiled adorable baby girl dogs who I love more than life itself.  I spread peanut butter (Choosy Mothers Choose Jif, which has never been recalled, like Peter Pan - the cheap imitation) on a plastic plate and sprinkled it with generic Cheerios. 

I selflessly gave the treats to The Daddler to give to the girls (he loves to feed animals, and I'm trying to keep him too busy to start a colony of feral cats again.)  He loved it.  They loved it.  And then I fed him.  With leftover Wendy's chili, sliced cucumbers, and a parfait of walnut brownies with banana split ice cream, topped with a big squirt of Redi-Whip and a cherry on top.  He actually said, "It tastes good." before he even tasted it.  Redi-Whip is worth its weight in gold.  It makes everything look tastier.

All this to say, I'm feeling the love.  For Jack Wild.  My little bitches.  The Daddler.  My upstairs HVAC.  And for one other being, who shall remain unnamed.  For now, let's just call him John.