Sunday, April 30, 2006

Show Me Sunday

This is the pupples, Cody.

My mom and dad, respectively.

My husband in his signature pose.

Saturday, April 29, 2006

Friday, April 28, 2006

Good Times

We had our little going away party at a local pub last night. There were eight of us. We are all professional drinkers and since we were out we knew that food was needed to blunt the effects of the alcohol. We all were driving so we knew we needed to be responsible drunks.

We ordered a huge plate of Nachos, 20 Hot and Honey Wings, 20 Mild Wings, Hot Crab and Cheese Dip with toast rounds, Hot Spinach and Artichoke Cheese Dip with tortilla chips, seasoned fries with cheese sauce and a basket of Batter Dipped Fried Onion Rings. We ate it all.

The gay Heineken sailor and his two Heineken tartlets came by our table (I’m not judging. Everyone deserves to earn a living.) He didn’t stay long because we harassed the shit out of him. He was toasted, too. We got free Heineken bottle light up pins. One of our party put one pin over each nipple and we took a picture but I can’t show you because she’s shy. A good time was had by all. We all made it home safely.

I shocked my daughter when I told her I had just gotten home from a bar. She told all of her friends, they were shocked, too. I was feeling rosy. My husband went to bed at 8:30pm (we get up at 4:30am.)

I was checking everyone’s blogs one last time for the night, sitting at my kitchen desk, when I heard Niagara Falls coming from somewhere behind me.

“Who the fuck left the bathtub running?”

After going around in circles, I discovered the gushing noises were coming from the basement.

“Oh, my God, we didn’t let Cody out and he’s peeing in the basement. No, that’s stupid, he doesn’t have that much pee in him.”

I can’t find the light switches (we’ve only lived here a month and I’m in a panic.) Finally, I get some lightage. I go downstairs and water is pouring from the basement ceiling. I shove the pool table out of the rain, get some empty plastic drawers from the utility cart to catch the deluge and go to wake the hubby.

He jerks up. I tell him the problem. He rushes barefoot and in his briefs to the basement, cursing the whole way (he’s a proficient curser, just in case you were wondering; very creative in his expletives.) He rips down the tiles from the drop ceiling. Water pours on his head. He slips and falls, hurting his left arm.

The leak is coming from the plastic hose for the refrigerator’s water and ice dispenser. We turned the dispenser on when we moved in. The previous owners had it off because they didn’t drink water (yeah, we’re fuckin’ idiots.) There’s 50 foot of hose, the shut off is all the way across the ceiling and all of my towels are soaked. Hubby pulled the refrigerator away from the wall upstairs in the kitchen and water is squirting everywhere up there. We are yelling and screaming at each other, sliding on the ceramic tiled floors. Finally, at midnight, the water is shut off and everything is mopped up.

Talk about a good time killer.

Thursday, April 27, 2006

Happy Anniversary

Where I work, we have people with better than average longevity. Out of eight office staff, the youngest, employment wise, just passed her fifth anniversary. One woman has done thirteen years. I’ve been there nine years, as have two other people.

One of these two is leaving in a week. She doesn’t want to leave, but she lives near the ocean, which is over an hour’s drive to our office. When she first started working for us, she lived ten minutes away. Five years ago, she decided to move to the shore. At that time, she was going to quit. She was not going to drive over an hour every day of the week.

Our boss decided he couldn’t live without her, so he set up a scheme where she could work from home Monday, Wednesday and Friday and come to the office on Tuesday and Thursday. She agreed. We spent megabucks getting this setup – buying an extra computer, cable for Internet access, phones, fax machine, changes in procedures, etc.

This worked well, until just recently. Now, he decided he must have full-time, in-office assistance. He met with her for her review.

“I need you here every day, will you commute?”

“No, I can’t drive here everyday.”

“Well, then, there is no place for you, here.”

“OK.”

“You have one month to leave.”

“OK.”

In the meeting to inform us of this change:

“I spoke with her, I gave her a choice, this was her decision and she agreed this is best for all of us.”

Really, is that because she said OK?

Reading between the lines: This is a quick way for the boss man to save $50,000, to make up for his most recent poor business judgments.

Oh, and by the way, this is just another bad decision. All of the people who have been loyal to him for all of those years, have lost faith in him. More changes will be on the way this year, just not ones he may have expected.


I just got back from our after work drunk fest to say Good-bye. Nine years of faithful service should receive a better reward.

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Things Weren't All Bad

I’m not a groupie sort of person. I never was. I felt out of place in the Brownies. Team sports usually left me bored. Group dynamics annoy me in their inefficiencies. All of that time wasted trying to please everyone. So, it was very uncharacteristic of me to join the art club in high school in my senior year.

My art teachers talked me into it, one with a smooth carrot topped bob, about 5 foot nothing and a ball of fire, the other big and roly-poly, with a huge interest in her students. It was a new club and they thought I had talent, so they encouraged me to join. So, I joined. And it was great. Other artistic souls working on projects together.

We had a contest to design a logo for the group. My design won. A stylized rose bud that worked well in color or black and white.

All of the display cabinets in the school needed to be decorated. I was chosen along with an incredibly free-living type to do the display in the front entrance. (He didn’t where underwear.) We created a mini winter wonderland in that glassed in world: wisps and webs of gossamer ice and snow. It received raves.

My teachers awarded me the school’s annual art award, which I received in surprised and stunned ecstasy at graduation. This one semester, this one aspect of my high school career lives on as a heady experience.

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

High School Reunion

Again, when I was fifteen and a senior, I walked to high school in the wee hours of the morning. We had a very large school population. My graduating class had 1,100 students and yes, this was a suburban high school. So, we had split shifts. The seniors went to school in the morning, until 11:30am, then the sophomores and juniors went from 12:30pm on.

So, one morning, as I’m walking to school, a car pulls up next to me and the guy behind the wheel rolls down his passenger side window.

“Can you mumble, mumble?”

I walked over closer to the car so I can hear him better. I was raised to be polite to strangers in need.

“Can you tell me how to get to the Plaza?”

“Sure.” Big smile on my face. I told you I was raised to be polite to strangers. “Go to the end of this street and turn left.”

He had a big smile, too. His mom must have raised him right, also.

“Follow that road and it will be on your right. Can’t miss it.”

“Do you need a ride?”

“Oh, no thank-you,” I said, stepping away from his car.

“OK. If you’re sure?”

“Yes, thanks, anyway.” OK, you can leave now. I moved back onto the sidewalk.

“Well, all right. Thanks for your help.”

It wasn’t until he pulled away that I realized he had his dick out of his pants and he was jacking off the whole time I was giving him directions.

Triple D Revenge

At fifteen, I got my first official paycheck-paying job. I cashiered at an auto parts store. I thought this was the best possible job in the whole world. Boys liked cars and they needed auto parts to keep those cars running. Boys, cars, cars, boys, what could be better?

I envisioned meeting all of the hottest boys in town. I saw allot of them, but boys my age didn’t catch up to me until I turned thirty-seven. On the other hand, men ten or more years older than me, buzzed around like bees around a flower. Some had odd ways of exhibiting their attentions.

One such older man (relatively speaking, of course) worked with me. He ran the parts counter in the back of the store. During every free moment he had, he took the opportunity to pick on me. Six foot three, hulky, with brown curly hair and thick dark-rimmed glasses, he acted like a five year old, instead of twenty-five. He verbally pulled my hair every chance he got.

I put up with it for a while because I didn’t know any better. Then, I told him to stop picking on me. I let him know quite clearly that I had had enough and he needed to stop or he’d regret it. I have never understood people who don’t listen to me when I tell them what I want.

One day, I attached a very large cupped bra to the back bumper of his car. He never came back to work.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Spring


The sky arches over me in a perfect shade of cornflower blue, smooth and clean. A breeze caresses my cheeks, blowing wisps of hair across my eyes and in the lip balm coating my mouth. Pink and white dogwoods, crabapple blossoms and lilac bunches dance on their branches, waving to me as I pass them on my noontime stroll. Daffodils and crocus peek through brown licorice mulch newly spread on neat springtime flowerbeds.

I inhale and exhale in a steady rhythm, matching my stride. Thoughts pass through my mind on their way to oblivion, spending as much time in my consciousness as the cars whizzing by on the street. Time expands in a wide-open gesture of joy and peacefulness, then contracts into exquisite detail. Petals twiddle at me, heads nod, leaves bow me on by.

Birds zoom in front of me, heralds on my path. Finch dart over my head, performing their giddy acrobatics, expressing the renewed blood coursing through their veins. Robins poke their beaks into the warm top layer of soil, enjoying the rewards of surviving another winter. A chorus reaches out to me from bushes and trees, the varied voices making a perfect song for the day.

Tilting my face to the sun, I relax, accepting peace for this brief thirty minute outing, thanking God for this gift.

Monday, April 17, 2006

I Am Releasing, Dammit!



I have been dissatisfied lately with my negative attitude. When I say lately, I mean for many months. When I say negative, I mean I am always looking at the down side of a situation, never at the good that is there. This stems from my mental condition (read, I’m nuts) called hyper-vigilance, which I began to discuss previously at Time Flys,
Disclaimers & Definitions,
Hype, and
In the Beginning.

In an effort to protect myself and others, I search for every tiny possible flaw in people, places and things. The hyper-vigilance is what causes me so much stress and that in turn makes me want my drug of choice, carbohydrates. That white stuff just calms me the hell down and blows me the hell up and since I take up so much physical space, I feel strong and powerful and secure. After all, no one can move me and all I have to do is sit on someone and they’d be squished. Makes me one tough cookie. (Oh, now, I want a cookie.)

So, anyway, while I was driving back from the store on my lunch break, I was thinking that I’m also addicted to the stress I cause for my self. It’s like a jolt of adrenaline that gets me going. I’m not a morning person, or a day person or even much of an afternoon person. I like the night, always have. But once I had my daughter, I had to make myself function in the normal, adult world, and get a real job and therefore, I force myself to keep going during the day with loads of caffeine, and I create problems so I can get the adrenaline rush and then I have to take a potato to calm down.

Well, Jenn suggested I read The Sedona Method, and I have begun to do that. This book teaches you how to release your emotions so they don’t sap all of your energy and you can then go on to rule the world (if you so desire.) So, I’ve been doing this little procedure for a couple of days and I feel all weird, like I’m in slow motion. I’m not sure I can handle the lack of stress hormones coursing through my veins.

“And now, for something completely different…”

If you ever see me in a check out line in a store, go to a different line. Really. Something always happens in front of me to cause all forward motion to cease.

Today, I went to a mart store whose name doesn’t begin with a K. This should have been a simple process. I just stopped for a gift card (my niece loves to shop there for clothes, “You can get lots of cute tops real cheap!”) and a couple of birthday cards. In and out, right?

No such luck. I chose a line with only two people ahead of me and they each only had a couple of items apiece. First lady gets out fine. No probs.

The woman directly in front of me is buying an amp and an electric guitar. The amp is scanned and bagged by the cashier, an elderly black woman. The customer has the guitar in her cart and pushes her cart past the scanning area. The cashier instructs the customer that she must pull her cart back and place the box, shaped like a triangle, on the conveyor belt. The customer places the box on the checkout counter, standing it on end (the end with the bar code, of course.) She lets go of the box; it tips towards the cashier, who backs away. The customer grabs the box, tries to stand it up again, it tilts towards the cashier again, and we are off on the fastest power struggle escalation I ever saw.

“The bar is on the bottom,” says cashier.

“I know,” says the customer, with her eastern bloc accent.

The customer attempts to let go of the box again. It won’t stay standing. The cashier won’t touch the box.

“It’s on the bottom,” says cashier.

“I know. I should lift it up? I should do your job?” Customer says, voice rising.

“Don’t yell at me.”

“Do your job. I don’t work here, you do.”

“I am voiding your transaction. You can go to another cashier.”

“I am not going to another cashier. Call manager.”

“I don’t have to take this,” as cashier takes the amp from the bag and voids it. Cashier calls over the manager, a girl of about 19.

“She was being rude to me about picking up the box. I’m not waiting on her,” says cashier.

“What am I her slave?” says customer.

“She’s not your slave either,’ says manager.

“She employee, I’m customer.”

“That doesn’t mean you can be rude.”

The manager signs in to the cash register and scans the amp and the guitar. The customer scans her debit card. It doesn’t work. She rummages through her purse for another card, a credit card this time. It goes through. She takes her time signing the slip. She gets ready to leave and her son tugs on her jogging suit sleeve (remember jogging suits, where the velour pants match the velour top?) He didn’t get his candy. Manager doesn’t see candy.

“It’s there,” says customer as she points to a pop up tube lollipop that is sitting next to the cash register.

Manager scans the candy and customer searches for a dollar. She finds one, pays, gets her change and storms away.

“I’ll ring for a while to get your line caught up,” says manager to cashier.

Manager rings up my items. I pay.

“Have a nice day,” manager says to me.

Yeah, right, as I have visions of climbing a water tower with an Uzi. I am releasing, dammit!

Sunday, April 16, 2006

Hoppy Bunny Day!



We are going to my brother's house for Hoppy Bunny Day. They are making a spiral ham (I love ham) and my sister-in-law (SIL) will do the Green Bean Casserole.

My mom is bringing her potato salad, made with vinegar and oil, not mayo. And all of the Bunny Baskets. Plus, I'm sure she baked something.

My brother will have the hot tub out back going (it's heated and covered, with heated towel racks all around) and the Cosmos will be a flowing.

My SIL asked me to make my Guacamole Salsa, because it is awesome. I re-did the recipe a bit. I invented this and it's great. Make it, damit! I also added conversions for my metric speaking friends (Do you think they are right?) The recipe is below, along with a photo (I lost my camera charger in the move, so I don't know how long I'll be able to take pictures.)

I also made Deviled Eggs.





I AM a Kitchen Goddess.



Guacamole Salsa

Makes approximately 7 cups [1 liter] of Salsa


3 tomatoes (approximately 2 pounds [767g]) (stem end cored and cut into ¼ inch [.635cm] cubes, strain juice)
1 large sweet onion (approximately 1 pound [384g]) (peeled and cut into ¼ inch [.635cm] cubes)
3 yellow peppers (approximately 2 pounds [767g]) (stem end cored, seeds removed and cut into ¼ inch [.635cm] cubes)
½ cup [17g] parsley leaves (minced)
3 Limes (¼ cup [50ml] juice)
3 Avocados (pitted, peeled and cut into ¼ inch [.635cm] cubes)
½ cup [100ml] Marukan Seasoned Gourmet Rice Vinegar (This is a light, slightly sweet, rice vinegar. I have found it in our military
commissary and in our local oriental fruit and vegetable and specialty grocery store. It is not the same as other brands.)
1 tablespoon [20.4g] Knorr Chicken Flavor Bouillon Powder (I think Knorr can be found almost anywhere now. You could use
another brand if it’s not too salty.)
1 teaspoon [5.1g] Sea salt

Juice the limes into a large glass bowl. Put the avocados in the lime juice and toss to prevent avocados turning brown. Add all of the remaining ingredients. Toss and refrigerate at least one hour.

Serve with baked scooping corn tortilla chips. (I like Tostitos Scoops. They are like little mouth sized bowls.)

Saturday, April 15, 2006

Interesting Story

Serra at Whiplash Smile turned me on to the story of Jay and Silent Bob aka Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith.

The story, Me and My Shadow starts here at Kevin Smith’s site called My Boring Ass Life. It tells the story of the relationship between Mewes and Smith and the heroine that threatened their existence. Entertaining and informative.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Meeting New People

I did four interviews today. I hate interviewing people. I never know what to ask. And people are so nervous. And stupid me, I get nervous because I want them to like me.

Yeah, that makes sense. I'm trying to hire someone and I'm worried if they'll like me. Please, please, come to work for us. I'm a nice guy, really I am.

What do you consider you greatest accomplishment to date? Still getting out of bed each morning after 47 years. I never thought I'd make it this long.

What do you consider your greatest disappointment to date? That I didn't have more confidence to stick with my art education and took the way of least resistance, instead. My favorite pasttime was cutting off my nose to spite my face.

I've got four more interviews tomorrow and two on Friday. I consider these three days my final penitential act for Lent, culminating in my final sacrifice on Good Friday. (That thunder bolt will get me one of these days. That last shot was fairly close.)

Pray for my soul. And that ice cubes are available in hell.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

I Had an Idea

I had this really great idea this morning while in my car on the way to work for a killer post. What was it about? Heck if I know. Can't remember. I'm pissed.

For a while, I tried writing notes while I drove. Yeah, I know, but watching people run out of my way was entertaining. But I gave it up because I kept losing the notes and the bumps weren't helping my handwriting.

So I got myself a tape recorder. Great idea, you say. Occasionally I get them. This was working very well. But since we moved, I don't know where I put it and it's fuckin' pissin' me off, God damit.

Ewe, just missed by the thunderbolt. I better go to bed before I blaspheme any more. Tah. And sweet dreams.

Sunday, April 09, 2006

I Give Up



I give up. I must hang up the phone and go do some laundry or I will be going to work naked and that won't be a pretty sight. Once I've done some work and I feel virtuous again, then I will reward myself with more www time. Wish me luck. I'm such a wastrel.

Fight, Fight, Fight


Here's another fight, um, I mean, discourse, I am having over at kari's blog IT'S BLOG, IT'S BLOG... Come join in and make it a real donnybrook.

I Made One, Too.



(http://www.stripgenerator.com/view.php?id=108816 I'm very depressed. Why won't mine show? These comments no longer apply. My hissy fit is over.)

Thanks to jege at lein girlz 3 you can see my spectacular cartoon.

Want to make your own? Go to Strip Generator

I suppose now I will have to learn friggin' code.

A New Pet



adopt your own virtual pet!

Sratch lily's back and make her purr.

From Tamie at Tea and Cake or Death...

Friday, April 07, 2006

Vegitate!



Do you like my carrot?

This is what I'm going to do this weekend. Relax. Read. Read blogs. Watch Narnia. Sleep. Read some more.

My hubby's away. My daughter's busy. My life is my own. Yipee!

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Blowin' Off Steam

Here is one man’s fight against abortion at Accountability is King which I came across when reading Kari at IT’S BLOG, IT’S BLOG…

As you will notice as you read all of the comments, I got a tad perturbed. Very interesting stuff though.

Analyze This

I meant to post an entry about Dreams when the topic was introduced by Dear Lovely Heart but I was busy. So, I’ll do it now.

If I were independently wealthy, I’d sleep my life away because my dreams are so vivid and interesting. I think my dream life is why I can’t get a good night’s sleep. I wake up more exhausted from my nighttime travels than when I hit the pillow in the first place.

Here’s a sample I wrote down in my journal:

I bought two small appliances in a Portuguese grocery store, one a waffle iron and one a Forman Hamburger Grill. I paid US dollars and the man converted the money to Portuguese money.

I originally went in the store for vegetables, particularly, celery root. The Forman Grill cost $10.00. The salesman went upstairs to get the manual. I followed and there were naked men skulking around upstairs. I ran back downstairs. I passed through my house and office.

I had several porn videos I kept trying to watch and couldn’t get the privacy to view. I would turn them on then have to turn them off again when someone knocked on the door.

I helped a truck driver sort his receipts, looking in particular at a fuel receipt.

I helped close windows and blinds in a big hall at work.

Cody got out of the house when the pizza deliveryman came. He had a dog on a leash and Cody walked out when I opened the door to pay. I got him back in through the back door in my office at work.

When I left the Portuguese grocery with my arms full of appliances, I met my daughter outside and we walked home through fields and woods. Along the way we came across dead, decomposing bodies. Three separate bodies, each torn apart, decomposing and face down. The third body was of a pilot. My daughter turned them over and wanted to investigate. I said we’d call the police and we ran away home, away from the bodies. There were two fox roaming the fields we were walking through.

Analyze that.

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Home Sweet Home

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.
- John Howard Payne (1791 - 1852)

I’ve been wondering what makes a home.

We bought a new house and I like it. But it doesn’t feel like a home. I don’t think it’s because it’s new or our belongings are spread out in it. When we moved into our old house, it felt like home. And it can’t be the people, since they have remained the same.

My parents’ current house, in which I lived from the age of 9 to, uh hum, 34 [another story], has never felt like home to me.

When I think of home, I think of my great-grandmother’s apartment in the 800-year-old farm building in Oberalm, Austria. No running water or in door plumbing. Heat from the wood-burning cook stove in the kitchen. Bee hives in the apple orchard on the other side of the mill canal. Feather beds. Kosher salt encrusted fresh rolls delivered to the door each morning. Running through dandelion covered pastures. Ice-cold streams fed by snow melt from the Alps. Grown-ups in drunken revelry singing bawdy songs in a Bavarian dialect. The Madonna looking down on it all from her place of honor on the wall. My great-mother’s snuffbox. My great-grandfather’s pipe. The neighbors checking that I am being spoiled properly. A hot steaming bath in the washhouse. Perfectly cut, and evenly stacked firewood. People saying “Grüss Gott” to each other as they take their strolls in the evening. Sunday High Holy Mass in the village’s small church, complete with Latin and incense. Sunshine and geese chasing you through the fields.

My home and heart are in another time.

Monday, April 03, 2006

Just do It

OK - no more excuses. I have my internet connection re-set and my little desk. Now, I can get back to regular life.

I must get ready for work right now although I'm tempted to take the day off. I'll be back later to read everyone's wonderful posts.

Bye.

Saturday, April 01, 2006

Mine, Mine, Mine

It's all mine. We survived through the closing. It was touch and go there from Thursday to Friday (Thursday my lawyer tells me I should bring an extra two grand - yeah, let me just pull it right out my ass.) I was crying hysterically (for me) all night. This is when my husband is at his best. He hates it when I cry (I don't do it often.) He rationalized me right to sleep (he kept making G & T's, too.) When it came down to it, we didn't need the extra money. I had planned on enough.

Closing was at 2pm. At 2:15pm I was all better. I knew how that would be, but even so I couldn't control the pre-stress.

Today, we have to try to get the old owners out (they are friends who are a little lazy, so this is our next challenge.) They were not done packing by yesterday and she's been off from work for 2 weeks.

Our cable will be switched some time today and then I have to try to remember how everything is reconnected, not to mention finding the cables to begin with. I do have my own space for my laptop though. No more TV tray desk.

The weather's fine and it's all mine ; )