2003 Archive – Jan-June
2003 Archive – Jan-June – 152,376 words total. Not responsible for broken links.
January 4th 2003
Happy New Year. Hope your year is going well so far. Now, let’s jump into the Positive Negative fray…
In the Positive column: Finally got all the interior holiday decorations taken down, organized, and put away for another 11 months. The house is downright spotless and clean, clean, CLEAN. Will work on getting the exterior lights taken down this weekend.
New Year’s Eve dinner was nice, however, slightly depressing. The restaurant the car club members and we ate at closed it doors permanently after New Year’s Eve in preparation to be turned from a nice, high-class restaurant on the water into some skanky fast-food seafood shack. That’s how badly the economy sucks in our area. At least there is 1 other fancy restaurant around here to eat at. Otherwise, it’s nothing but Subways and McD’s. Ugh.
In the Negative column: MsNoManagementSkills is already trying to get us prepared to come back to work from vacation. We don’t go back until Monday, but our email box has been flooded with work requests from both her and FatHead. Last count was 214 emails asking for this and that.
In the Positive column: We’re ignoring them. After all, we’re still on vacation until Monday, the 6th.
In other MsNoManagementSkills news, she’s started her yearly diet quest. This time around it’s Atkins. Good for her, I say. This one might actually work for her…if she keeps it up. She’s been on it since the 1st, almost 4 days now, but has already complained countless times in her Online Journal about how she misses her “food friends”, those being chocolate, cheesecake, and mexican food, not to mention Jack-In-The-Box, Burger King, and McDonald’s food. Oh, and let me quote, “I’ll give this diet 2 months to do it’s thing. I don’t want to lift a finger. If, after 2 months, nothing has happened, I’ll quit.” Uh….first, diets don’t work, and second, you have to work at it to see any change at all. She just doesn’t get it.
She also bought some exercise equipment. Unfortunately, after the first day, then complaining about how sore she was, she quit using it and now FatHead uses it. Most unpleasant to see on their Web Camera.
In the Negative column: I haven’t gone back onto Atkins yet and have gained back almost all of my 10 pounds I lost during my flu episode last week. But I’m not worried. I start Atkins again on Monday, after vacation.
We’ve been invited to attend a car club tech day today (after I get some sleep – my sleep schedule is a bit off due to vacation and having too much fun). I don’t really want to go, but I will and will drag WS along. We owe Drill Sergeant Dave bucks for New Year’s Eve dinner when we forgot to pay him later that night, and we purposely didn’t go to the last car club meeting because we’re on vacation. Actually, it was because we just saw these same people Tuesday night and saw a bit too much of them then as well and needed a break from them. Also, I was appointed the job of putting together some flyer for a car club event being held next April with the flyers needed by February 4th. Being as I’ve never made a flyer before, I guess this would be a good time to find out what and why they want me to do this. I definitely don’t want to put something like this off until the last minute. I don’t need that kind of pressure or drama in my life.
No news on the deceased grandfather, long-lost uncle, or any supposed thousand-dollar inheritance check yet. I’m not holding my breath but have already picked out custom car parts I might want to spend it on.
We still have squirrels and the occasional raccoon coming to visit out back. This morning, looking down into the backyard from the upstairs bathroom window (you can see everything from here), we noticed that Taliban Dan & the Smokin’ Clan have a squirrel feeder box exactly like ours sitting on their back deck, waiting to be mounted somewhere. I think either they like the idea of attracting wildlife into their yard, or they are looking for additional food for their table. Taliban Dan is still out of work. His oldest son has moved back home to help pay bills and his youngest son still looks exactly like the actor who plays Harry Potter. I’m not kidding at all and think that if they farmed out this kid to work as a Harry Potter double, they’d never have to work again.
January 6th 2003
In the Positive column: Back on the Atkins’s track and loving it. Since we had half a ton of meats and cheeses left over from the holiday parties, I haven’t had to go grocery shopping for protein items at all. I’m also back drinking my lime-juice water (50 ounces minimum per day) since we usually have a pile of limes sitting around here. I can’t believe how much I missed this. These eating habits really fit me and my lifestyle so well. Of course, I would have been eating this way years ago but everyone kept telling me I was eating all wrong and back then, I actually listened to other people. Wrong, wrong, wrong…
In the Negative column: Back to work today after 2 weeks off. Actually, since New Year’s day, I feel like I was on vacation yet another week because the days seem to go by so slowly. It was heaven. Then, this morning, I started going through my work email. MsNoManagementSkills is on one of her rampages, belittling co-workers via email and copying everyone else in so we can all see it. This is one of her more favorite ploys for control. She’s also signing all her emails with SUPERVISOR, something she never used before. I can tell you right now that this is no way to gain respect so I guess one of her resolutions won’t be met anytime soon. Yes, one of her resolutions was to gain respect from her coworkers “at any cost”. Okie-dokie…
MsNoManagementSkills also says in her Online Journal that she’s lost a couple of pounds already in her week of Atkins’s eating. Good for her! However, she saw the Oscar Meyer wiener-mobile at a local grocery store over the weekend and, well, that day didn’t go so well. She’s also getting lots of “support” from her online friends telling her to eat nothing but whipped cream and Egg McMuffins (sans bun) to lose weight. Another friend tells her that she can lose 50 pounds in a couple of months by following his undisclosed plan which she signed up for as well as a boot camp diet group. Sounds like either she’s serious or jumping onto a lot of unsafe “diets”. Scary stuff, but strangely, it’s even more motivating for me.
That is until I accidently view her on her Web Camera huffing and puffing on her treadmill. Ugh!
In the Positive column: Resolutions. I don’t do them. Never did, never will. I’m just one of those people who don’t need a holiday or the start of a new year to decide to do or change something. If I want to change something, I just get my head in the right place and do it.
Since New Year’s day, I’ve been asked 12 times what my New Year’s resolutions are and if I’ve broken any yet. Personally I think that if they are broken, they really weren’t resolutions. And everyone to date as seemed very disappointed when I answer I don’t do resolutions. What? Is this just another case of misery loves company or something? I think so. Sorry folks, I’m just not like most. But if you have any resolutions that are different than the usual stop smoking, stop drinking, lose weight, save money, blah, blah, blah, and you are determined not to break them, I’d like to hear about them. There’s nothing like hearing about someone who vows to stop screaming at their hamster to make me take notice…and heartily approve!
Also in the Positive column: Finished taking down all outside holiday lights yesterday, washed all the outdoor furniture, hosed down all the cement and walkways, completed the car club flyers and got those emailed off, and took my car for a long spin. For once, I had nothing on my To-Do list and the world is a better place because of it.
January 7th 2003
Okay, I’ve been talking too much about MsNoManagementSkills lately, not that she haven’t given reason to with all her new rules and conniption fits of late. So let’s move onto another area of positive/negative matters:
In the Negative column: Yesterday, DrunkTank Willie rushed over and told us he had 3 feet of water and several hundred gallons of water under his house and did we know anything about it. Uh…no. Maybe he should try shutting off his sprinkler system since it sprays his house more than his lawn every evening. His tone of voice and obvious and repeated glances at the fountain in our backyard made me wonder if he was insinuating that the water was coming from our yard. But this is silly because his house sits higher than ours. Since his breath reeked of beer as usual, I had to think that he was thinking just because we had a fountain pouring water and we lived next door, water had finally discovered a method of flowing uphill then down into his house’s crawl space. He finally left after telling us that he was having the old builder of this development come and look at the problem to tell him where the water was coming from. WS questioned whether the old builder would actually show up since multiple people in the development has tried to get the builder to come back to fix something only to be told if the house is older than a year old, they couldn’t and wouldn’t be bothered. Since we knew this was the builder’s policy before we had our house built, we were fine with it and took other precautions and an extra warranty out. If DrunkTank Willie sobers up, he won’t remember the conversation with us so it’s unlikely we’ll hear anything more on this.
Last weekend, SportsOrNothing’s sports star kid had friends over around midnight without any adult supervision. One thing about the SportsOrNothing family is that rarely is there any adults at home. Mr. SportsOrNothing is a traveling salesman who dreams of being a school sports coach. Every waking moment is spent either on the road or at some local school, trying to smooze into a coaching assistant job. Truly, he is home only 2 or 3 days a month. Ms. SportsOrNothing is an emergency room nurse who regularly works double shifts. Because she is so depressed about working 16+ hours a day, she doesn’t want to come home to listen to her teenage children or clean up after them, especially when the Mr. isn’t home, so she goes out to the local bar and often, never comes home before work the next day, going right from the bar to the hospital. Apparently, many of the nurses there do this, night after night.
This leaves the SportsOrNothing kids home alone most of the time. The kids, twins both 16 years old and with driver’s licenses, are not identical twins and have completely different interests. The girl is grossly overweight and has been ignored all her life. Her interests are nothing at all but food and TV. The boy is the sports star and one of this town’s troublemakers. Over the weekend, him and his invited friends spent the evening firing paint balls at their fence, their mother’s birdhouses and ultimately, our fountain. While I was livid and wanted to call the cops, WS was cool and calm and told the sports star to aim in a different direction. They did for about a minute then continued until they ran out of paint balls. Then while some of the kids stayed to hose off the evidence of multiple colors of paint running everywhere, the other kids went out on a search for more paint balls. Apparently, they couldn’t find any and we didn’t hear a peep out of them for the rest of the night/early morning.
What pisses me off about this is that every single place we have ever lived, we end up getting our stuff vandalized in this or similar manners. When I asked WS why this always happens to us, he could only reply that the world is full of unsupervised kids and unfortunately, most of them are assholes. Didn’t make me feel any better. So he’s not going to approach Mr. & Ms. SportsOrNothing, not going to say anything, saying that not saying anything will go a lot further than tattling on their kid for every little thing. I don’t know if I agree or not but just let one more thing happen and I’ll go ballistic.
In the Positive column: It’s nearly Wednesday. At this pace, it ought to be March before I know it. Finally went out to GNC and picked up some more soy protein mix for myself (the whey or milk protein makes my asthma kick in too much and too often) and found that the Atkins “snack” bars are nothing but carbohydrates. That was a shocker. I wonder how someone is allegedly losing weight while eating those things all day long by the gross. Hmmm….back to thinking about that person…Okay, how’s this. I took one of our pets to the vet today to get a lump removed from her ear. Not a bad lump, but a lump nonetheless. She’s 15 years old, doesn’t have some of her teeth, but she rules this house with an iron fist. We’re expecting the worst when the biopsy comes back Saturday but if that doesn’t happen, things will happyhappy joyjoy around here.
WS worked at home today with me. Sure, he completely ripped apart the library getting all his papers together for tax season and even now, it’s a complete pig sty, but I have confidence that he’ll clean it up before going to bed. I just wish he wasn’t one of those kinds of guys who starts projects and rarely finishes them before getting sidetracked with something else. Must remember to keep shiny objects out of his view.
January 8th 2003
In the Positive column: I slept very late today but I don’t care. I feel really good, both because I slept 11 hours and because I spent last night making sure the rest of the house was completely clean. For some reason, I can relax when I know there isn’t junk sitting around and the house is clean. You’d never know that 20 years ago, I was a certified slob and pack rat.
In the Mixed column: Okay, it’s been a couple of days and I’ve had time to think about it. I actually kind of like the Joe Millionaire show…but only because I’ve known way too many gold digger kinds of women, my sister included. If I hadn’t, I probably would be offended by the show. But hey! It’s not like the guy is really lying to the women. The guy is being PAID to lie to the women. It wasn’t his idea for a show, he’s just the front man. I am already tired of hearing about women outraged over this show. I could think of millions of other things for women to be outraged over and this show ain’t one of them. Get over it and move on.
In the Negative column: This morning, and only because I personally placed myself on one of the more obscure company mailing lists, I received a private company email from one of the CEOs about company bonuses and a company ski trip. Both information about the bonuses and the trip are very hush-hush and not everyone is supposed to know about them. And that’s where it pisses me off. Several of us company employees, us grunts, haven’t received a raise or bonus, or even Christmas gift from this company since 9-11-2001, yet we’re all expected to pull the weight of 3 employees each. So you can imagine the poor timing of getting a secret mailing list email that talks about “Now that we’re getting company bonuses…” (uh, who’s getting bonuses??) and “A party bus for the ski trip and condos will be available for a select few” (a select few?? WTF??!?). Furious? Oh, I. Think. So. Motivated to do anything above and beyond for my job? Gee, what do you think?
In the Positive column: My weight is down a couple of pounds already and I’ve yet to feel hungry. The soy protein powder I bought yesterday in Banana flavor is awesome and with no carbs (I mix it with water and Stevia sweetener). The last of WS’s Christmas gifts was delivered this morning from a back-order. And did I mention the house is clean? Bean-less buffalo chili for lunch. wOOT!
January 9th 2003
In the Positive column: Windy weather today. Or as MsNoManagementSkills constantly says, “It’s hella windy!” But I like it. It’s change and I like weather changes. Where I used to live, it was nothing but sunny and then sunny again and then sunny yet again, on and on and on. Sure, we’d get the occasional not-so-sunny day, but it was rare. And boring.
Atkins is going well. I’m still amazed how I’m never hungry but the pounds are coming off. I’ll be starting the weight training this weekend, working on arms and legs in particular in getting ready for the upcoming car show season where my usual attire is tank tops and shorts.
In the Negative column: Don’t you just hate those kinds of people, especially those you have to work with, who recently discovered Up With People and then flood your email box with messages to “Work, work, work! C’mon! You can do it!!” Yeah, so do I. I’ve deleted 8 of them since last night. This is NOT a morale booster. I say Fuck Up With People.
In the Positive column: Last night, the car club asked me to redo the flyer I spent the weekend working on. It seems the new car club sponsor, who is eagerly spending all kinds of money and attention on our group, didn’t like the graphic pics I used, opting for his own professionally created graphics. Okay, whatever. So one of the club board members came by last night, gave us the preferred graphics and we whipped out a new flyer in a couple of hours, no problem. WS will be taking the finished flyer to the car club board meeting tonight. He doesn’t know yet that I’m not going so he’s on his own. Why aren’t I going? Because he still hasn’t finished and published the club newsletter from the end of December, and I don’t want to be there to hear people question him about it. Club members can be brutally frank and often are. I’m sure my not going has anything to do with the fact the meeting’s being held at Doormat Dick and his control freak wife’s house.
In the Negative column: Tonya Harding is still breathing. And what’s that on top of Arsenio Hall’s head?
In the Mixed column: We seem to be living in an area that has had, over the last year or two, a large number of over-religious men killing off their entire families. All the families had many similarities – Pushing religion to everyone they met, overuse of “God Bless you” with every conversation, multiple failed businesses or inability to hold down a job, home schooled children, heavily religion-based education, and wives hell-bent to reproduce enough sprogs to fill a small third world country within 5 years. Do you see a common thread? I do but apparently, few other do. It couldn’t be religion, could it? Naw… But it brings up a point. We currently have several families in our neighborhood, in fact, on our very street, who have jumped whole-hog into a religion, use “God Bless” for everything, home school their many, many children, husbands who have a hard time with jobs and businesses, hmmmm…..with these similarities, who would you expect to go postal on their own families in your neighborhood? We’ve got 2 definite candidates on our street and a possible 3rd.
January 10th 2003
In the Positive column: How long has it taken you to get used to writing or typing 2003 instead of 2002. It was today for me. I’m such an idiot.
In the Negative column: I spent half of yesterday hand painting a few brake parts for my car in getting ready for the car show season. Hand painting parts while they are still on the car is about as much fun as poking yourself in the eye with a sharp stick. Repeatedly. But still, it’s much better than hand sanding anything. I hate sanding with a passion and I’m sure you’ll read my hatred of it later on this year when I tackle finishing the drywall in the garage. Unfortunately yes, there is sanding involved.
In the Positive column: Today, I’m nearly done with that dreadful car part painting and to help me along, WS bought me a halogen light to use out in the garage. Okay, so it’s not anything romantic like roses or a diamond, but neither of those would help me paint, would it? Just need 2 more coats of screaming red enamel on these brake calipers and then I can get my life back.
I also order about a thousand bucks worth of chrome and stainless steel car engine dress up stuff. All that combined with a couple other surprises for under the hood and all the polishing I plan on doing next month and any car show competition ought to be impressed, not to mention other car club members. Not too many people know what I plan on showing up with this season.
In the Negative column: So, figuring that I did wonderfully all week long with eating Atkins’ style, that eating a few slices of the pizza WS brought home last night would be okay. Wrong-O. I ended last night feeling extremely exhausted by 8:30 pm and then barfed around 10 pm. Slept fitfully and dying of thirst half the night. Okay, okay! I’ve learned my lesson! I didn’t even like the pizza in the first place. That won’t happen again for a long time. It’s back to Atkins for me and gleefully so.
January 13th 2003
In the Positive column: Paint coat number 3 is on those brake parts. I should only need one more coat to finish it off. Unfortunately, the paint is oil based and take 24 hours minimum drying time. I’m seriously considering just spending the $400 to have the real painted parts installed. Sometimes, it’s better to pay for the real thing instead of trying to make something look somewhat like the real thing. I won’t make any decision, however, until all painting is done and I get it out into some sunlight, which won’t happen around here for another month or two.
In the Negative column: I hate it when I babble and hate it worse when I know I’m babbling but can’t stop myself.
In the Positive column: Over our vacation, WS put his massive CD collection (1000 CDs total) into large binders for storage and freed up the entire back wall of our living room. Since he used these big binder things for the CDs, he didn’t need all the plastic cases. I mean, who needs 1000 plastic CD cases? Okay, someone probably does, but it wasn’t us or any of our neighbors. So we started tossing them into the garbage until we noticed that tossing more then 10 cases at a time somehow often caused the trash bag to tear and rip. The plastic cases would shift themselves down along the sides of the bag and the sharp edges would catch on the bag and, well, a big mess.
So we carefully pre-bagged all those CD cases into heavy, double-bagged paper sacks and then bagged 4 of these large paper bags into their own plastic garbage bag. We were able to get 250 cases into one garbage bag but you wouldn’t believe how heavy 250 empty CD cases could be. I’m sure it’s more than the garbage regulations insist on but every extra bag costs extra anyway. If we were to put out all the CD cases at once and at the weight restrictions of the garbage collection, it would easily take 4 or more extra bags of garbage besides our usual 1 garbage can. So, we’ve piled 400 cases into one big bag and got that one heavy, double-paper-bagged, triple plastic bagged trash bag out there, sitting along our one, lonely, Rubbermaid trash can, hoping that A) the trash men take it, and B) when the trash men pick it up, it doesn’t split and spill 400 empty CD cases all over the street. The trash men in our development don’t pick up trash that spills out, regardless of what it is, and I don’t look forward to standing out there in the rain, picking up pieces of plastic cases after plastic cases.
Atkins is still going well and I think I may have talked WS into trying it out for a couple of weeks. He is overweight but hates to restrict his eating and just won’t exercise. You could say it’s because he works all the time, but that’s not true. He used to only work one job and never exercised then either. So, we’ll see. As for me, 4 solid pounds gone. Weight training has started. MsNoManagementSkills has taken to baking her version of “Atkins” cheesecakes. Great! Fine! The problem is, she’s eating the whole thing herself because FatHead won’t eat cheesecake and there isn’t anyone else living in the house! She’s also given up the elliptical machine she just bought. Gee, that only took 13 days. She’s still whining about needing to lose weight by August for something she’s going to but we’ve seen this all before. We’ll see about this too.
Joe Millionaire, or as we refer to it around here, “Cunt-O-rama”, is on tonight. Heidi is their queen.
UPDATE: The trash men took the heavy CD case garbage bag. No spills, no mess!
January 14th 2003
In the Negative column: Everyday, something reminds me that I’m unlike most of the people on this planet. For example, I don’t like the U.S. TV show “Friends”. I don’t like discussing religion or politics (which I feel are basically the same things anyway), I didn’t have a “happy” childhood or normal, loving parents, and today, after getting good looks at Jennifer Lopez’s butt, clad in both jeans and a thong, all I can say is “It’s a BUBBLE BUTT, people! The same kind of fat ass that everyone picked on fat ass-owning girls throughout grade and high school! It’s huge, it’s massive, it’s blobby, and the media has got everyone believing it’s all the shit! Wake UP!” I can only hope the media gets everyone to believe back fat is all the rage within the next few years.
In the Positive column: WS has worked just over 10 years at his primary job, so for his 10 year anniversary, he got to pick from a small list of commemorative gifts. Did he choose a money clip? Or maybe a framed, inspirational poster featuring the company’s logo in the lower right-hand corner? Maybe a way-cool pen and mechanical pencil desk set? Nope. He chose a fresh water pearl bracelet for me! He said I served his 10 years every bit as much as he did. What a romantic! I love it but good thing I have a skinny wrist!
In the Negative column: I didn’t want to get up this morning. Not that I want to get up any work morning, it’s just that this morning was particularly difficult. I drank relaxing herbal tea last night and we liberally sprinkled the flannel sheets with lavender linen water before heading to bed so these are the excuses I’m sticking with. I have a dental cleaning appointment today so that could be playing a part, as well as having to paint another coat on those damn car brake calipers. WS is trying to find a car dealership in our area that might have the pre-painted (and much prettier) parts in stock and the time to install them should I decide to just spend the money to do it right, but no one is returning his calls. He’s frustrated.
In the Positive column: All my car chrome and stainless parts have been ordered as of yesterday. Nothing is backordered. The total cost came in $500 dollars less than originally figured due to new price guides and I’ll have the stuff within the month.
In the Negative column: There is something that goes on in a lot of car show circles that not many people know about until it happens to you. People who tend to be very friendly and helpful in getting your start with showing a car don’t necessarily tell the truth. In fact, most of the time, they purposely leave out facts and information that would make your life a whole lot easier and sometimes, guide a person in a completely different direction. They do this more and more often as you get further and further into showing your car for 1 simple reason: You are becoming these people’s competition and they aren’t going to share any of their secrets.
For example: I had been talking to the 2 main car show guys from my car club for 3 months about painting my brake calipers. I researched the topic to death on the Internet as well, and we all agreed to paint all of our calipers over the winter. I’m the last one to actually do it, supposedly. We all talked about and agreed that we didn’t need to take our wheels off the car to do it, yet last night, I find out that these other 2 guys did indeed take their wheels off, after telling me they didn’t, and that they just finished painting their calipers, after telling me they did theirs over a month ago, and that it only took 2 coats of paint, which I’m finding takes 4 or more coats using the exact same paint out of the exact paint cans they supposedly used. I suspect that when I actually get to see these 2 other guys allegedly painted calipers, they won’t even be the hand painted ones but the pre-painted factory ones that I’m looking at buying and having installed. I’m starting to hear tweeting from little birds elsewhere in the club that the same mis-information may have been shared about the chrome stuff I ordered. Sure, I could just shut my mouth and not tell a soul what I’m buying for my car for the upcoming car show season, but the person I have to order my chrome and stainless parts from is one of these 2 guys. And his best friend, brothers separated at birth I swear, is the Other guy. God, I hate this crap. Can’t people just be honest with each other? Can’t we just put egos aside? I don’t care about “beating” these guys out in some car show. I just care about helping our car club make a good showing overall in our community. Really! It’s not a hard concept to understand.
January 15th 2003
Q: What is B wearing?
A: Her usual work-at-home attire – black Docker-style shorts that are getting rattier-looking every day, black tank top, black socks.
Q: What kind of mood is B in and why?
A: Black. No really, I’m feeling slow and tired physically, thanks to Aunt Flo.
Q: What is important to B at this exact moment?
A: I’m wondering why every time I start a serious eating/weight training routine, Aunt Flo makes a half-hearted appearance off schedule and thankful I don’t own white shorts.
In the Positive column: 5 coats of paint on those stupid brake calipers and the job is nearly complete. After this last coat dries, I need to lightly sand or scrape off the paint over the lettering so the bare metal on that part shows through like everyone else’s. Since the weather will be nice the rest of the week, and if I can get out there tomorrow and wash the car, we’ll take it to the car club meeting tomorrow night. I suspect several others will be bringing theirs too. I also got that Zaino polish order in the mail. I really wish that company would get with the program and allow online ordering. I did have a bunch of old stamps to use up though so I didn’t mind that much.
In the Negative column: It’s been a while since I mentioned her but dang it! MsNoManagementSkills is driving everyone at work bonkers with her conniption fits! Every day we get email from her to work, woRK, WORK! Lower those number! Faster, fasTER, FASTER!! ARGH!!!!
In the Positive column: She’s nearly off her diet already, admitting to snacking the nights away. Probably all those cheesecakes and the couple of cases of “low-carb” candy bars. So she’s starting all over but says that she “needs to adjust the diet her way” because she gets hungry the most at night. I’m sure everyone does but why can’t she just stick to the Induction portion of the diet and eat just protein stuff that’s recommended. Geesh, Induction is only for 2 weeks!
Yesterday, after the dentist visit, we stopped by a surf shop to see if they had the BG shoes I’ve been looking for in my size since last October Finally, they had them but when I was paying for them, the surly cashier guy asked wryly if the shoes were “for your son?” Uh, I don’t have children but I went with it anyway. “No. These are for me.” I replied to which he said surprised, “You aren’t even going to let him try them on??” “Nope.” I shot back, took the receipt and shoes from him and left the store. By the time we got into the car I was thinking maybe he thought WS, who was standing there with me, was my son. If you didn’t read it somewhere previously, WS is 10 years younger than me but we look roughly the same age.
So I mentioned that maybe I ought to start pawning WS off as my son here and there. I think it would be a riot, but WS is not at all amused. I still think it would be funny. I mean I am deep into middle age. I need to start finding ways to make old age fun ’cause you ain’t going to see me sitting around eating Jell-O (unless it’s sucked up noisily through a straw) and playing bridge (unless it accompanied with sharp swords and battle axes and lots of blood).
Just the other day, I was very tempted to roll down my car window along side some punks sitting very low in their winged, half primer-painted Honda, and acting like a senile old lady, ask where they got their crocheted knit caps or if maybe I could crochet a couple for them. Yelpers, really old age is going to be a blast…or a major embarrassment to anyone hanging around me at the time. (WS is rolling his eyes skyward).
January 17th 2003
In the Positive column: Today is Friday and thankfully, neither of us has to work tomorrow.
In the Negative column: I didn’t write anything yesterday (maybe that’s a Positive?). I felt like crap, all crampy, and tired both physically and mentally, and knew that I had to go to a car club meeting that evening. Ugh.
In the Positive column: Thankfully, the car club meeting went just fine. No dramatics, no immature lashing out at each other. It was all good.
In the Negative column: You know when SUV ownership has gotten way out of hand when ordinary housewives opening call their SUV a “rig” in public, as in “When you are done washing your car over there, I’ll pull my rig over so you can wash it too!” Shoot me now.
In the Positive column: Did I mention it’s Friday? Yeah, well, I only have 4 hours of work left, the house is nearly spotless, the laundry is done, and we’re both doing well on Atkins. Just need some sleep, that’s all.
January 19th 2003
In the Positive column: Worked on yet another paintable part of my car today; the back oil pan plate that comes from the factory unfinished and rather nasty looking. Driving behind the car, it looks like a large piece of metal that was drug along some street, then bolted to the car. Definitely, an unfinished look. Most owners of these cars cover this plate with some chrome adhesive stick-on cover that costs anywhere from 60 to 300 bucks. Since I plan on buying a different exhaust system later this year and one that will mostly cover this nasty looking plate, I’m not about to spend big bucks on some chrome stick-on that no one will see anyway. So I painted that area with gloss black to match the car and boy, oh boy, does it look sweeeet now! For the first time in a long while, I impressed myself.
In the Negative column: It’s taken me forever to get into the swing of things today. I didn’t want to get out of bed but couldn’t sleep. I didn’t want to do any cleaning, so I haven’t. I didn’t even want to paint the part mentioned above but forced myself. Maybe it had something to do with looking at the dirty pans sitting in the sink that WS promised to wash 2 days ago. Oh sure, I could go wash them and just be done with it all, but, damn it! There’s a point to be made here. He hasn’t touched much in the way of cleaning anything since New Year’s Day.
In the Positive column: The weather here was really nice today. Sunny, but chilly. I sat out in the sun for a half an hour reading, then walked around the backyard compiling a list of trees and bushes to cut back and trim come the end of March. A Jackson & Perkins catalog came in the mail yesterday and I’m inspired by a couple of the roses in there. Such new colors!
WS works at home for the next 2 days. He’s off for a holiday on Monday from his away-from-home job so he’ll be spending all day working at the home job with me. I’m sure he’ll wash those pans by Wednesday morning, don’t you think?
January 20th 2003
In the Positive column: It was a L-O-N-G work day but it’s over now. Afterward, I finally got to see the movie “The Others” with Nicole Kidman. Too transparent. I figured the plot out within the first 10 minutes of the movie. But I did like how everything was kind of in a haze, a fog, for days on end there, not really knowing what was going on, but still trudging through the days putting up the front like she had everything under control. Kind of like how I feel most of the time due to my job. No, I’m not dead. I just work in technical support.
In the Negative column: Last night, I lay awake in bed until the sun started to come up. I just could not sleep until dawn and a couple hours later, I had to get up for work. Tonight, it’s Tylenol PM for me. This sleep schedule of late sucks. As a result, I’ve been rather bitchy today with a short temper. Tomorrow, I’ve got a second dentist appointment, not for any real dentist work, but for some silly appointment with the bookkeeper about my upcoming dental implant tooth. WS and I think the bookkeeper thinks we will need to finance the work, when in fact, we will be paying cash in full at time of service. So we suspect the whole appointment will be a waste of time, and boy, do I ever hate wasting time.
In the Positive column: Got the remaining car painting done today before the rain came back in. No doubt, sometime before the start of the car show season, I’ll find something else to paint, but for now, it’s all finished. And no, I’m not telling the other car club members about all my painting. Let them find out on their own. I’ve got little reason to point it all out to them, with some of them thinking I’m their competition. Whatever…
WS washed those pots last night and all the pots he’s dirtied since then. He’s trying to make a point of cleaning up after himself after I let him know that it was depressing me to see the place slowly become a pig sty because I couldn’t do everything myself. Sure, it won’t last long, but let’s run with it for as long as it lasts.
January 21st 2003
In the Negative column: Today is s-l-o-w. I sat through a miserable company conference call, listening to MsNoManagementSkills mangle information and figures left and right (and remember, she ends all her sentences with oh-so-annoying uplifted words). It was very frustrating to hear that she has taken, yet again, another major department idea I voiced a year ago (and then shot down immediately) and made it her own idea. Really. This woman has never had an original idea. Ever. A few months ago while reading a “Working with Difficult Co-Workers” book, we were able to clearly identify her personality – the Turf Warrior.
- Quote: “…often referred to a empire builders. They grab projects, claim credit, and try to expand their staff and influence. They definitely aren’t fun because they play internal politics constantly. They tend to be rather manipulative in nature and covert in what they do. They won’t ever admit to what they are doing.”
Yep, that about sums it up. See? It isn’t me. Others, people who write books even, recognize this kind of behavior.
Next door, the dogs of SportsOrNothing, have been barking since 7 am. Apparently, no one came home last night and left those 2 large dogs locked up in the house. They only bark if someone is at the door (no one was) or when they have to go to the bathroom. The last time I was over there shortly before Christmas, the place reeked of dog shit. This is the 3rd time this month this has happened and it’s really hard to block out the constant barking, even with the windows here all closed. Last year when this was this out of hand, some other neighbor wrote a letter to SportsOrNothing about the barking and taped it to their front door. SportsOrNothing then went around the neighborhood bad-mouthing who they thought it was and it turned out, they were right in their assumption. I have no idea how they found out, but I suspect The Baseball Team family told them since they live right across the street and have nothing better to do than to watch for every little thing outside the norm. Another neighbor walking up to someone’s front door and taping something to the door definitely isn’t normal around here.
In the Positive column: The bright spot of the day so far was going for my dental consultation for an upcoming dental implant (I’M GETTING IMPLANTS! I’M GETTING IMPLANTS!! not THAT kind, silly!). The consultation was just downright strange. She kept asking me if I was okay and if I will be okay with this surgery. After the tenth time, and no, I’m not exaggerating, I started to get worried. I know it’s surgery. I know it’s in my mouth and I know it will be somewhat painful. I’ve already had the bone graft done, the REALLY painful part, so what’s the big deal now? Maybe most people aren’t as tough as I generally am around dental stuff? Maybe she was just thinking it would be awful for her and so maybe it will be for me? I don’t know. I’ve researched this topic to death by now and I know what all is involved. At this point, I’ll just assume she was just being paranoid or something but on the off chance she wasn’t, I’ll just choose to remain ignorant. Really. It’s not going to be that bad but from her constant comments, you would think we were discussing amputation of a leg or something.
I ordered a couple of my last chrome engine parts today. Because one of them are being etched, I had to call them voice. Do you know how hard it is to understand someone who has a VERY heavy southern U.S. accent combined with a nasty head cold? Geesh! Within 5 minutes, I just wanted to scream into the phone, “Take the dick outta your mouth and STOP SNIFFING!” Now watch, my order will be all screwed up just because I wrote that.
And finally, WS has admitted to becoming a big Sims and Sim City slut, something he accused me of a couple of years ago. He’s totally into The Sims to the point of downloading various Sim house patches today and even ordered Sim City 4 today. Ha! The fun I’m going to have with this knowledge in the coming weeks…
January 22nd 2003
Q: What is B wearing?
A: Tan khaki shorts (freshly washed), brown ratty sweatshirt (freshly washed), and black socks (also, freshly washed).
Q: What kind of mood is B in and why?
A: Just a blah kind of mood. Not happy, not angry, not sad, just nothing really but tired probably because my sleep schedule is off a bit.
Q: What is important to B at this exact moment?
A: Getting through the work day.
Q: What does B think about Bush and Saddam?
A: Where the hell did that question come from? Everyone knows I don’t get into politics. Okay, I think Bush is every bit as obsessive as Saddam is and they are both unstable people heading up their countries. Don’t ask me this again.
In the Positive column: I got a very early start to my work day today which means my work day will end before the sun goes down. Yippee! Yes, little things excite me. Only a little over 4 hours left!
In the Negative column: While I’ve embraced Atkins’ and so has WS, I’m disappointed that I haven’t lost any weight since Saturday and am still sitting between 166 and 168 pounds. I’m not eating anything but lean meats, cheese, and protein shakes (0 carbs) without any sweetener. I’ve even cut out the plain salad every day in case I end up being a hard loser with a tough metabolism. Still, I’m not giving up. I just won’t. I think I’m eating too much cheese maybe, if that’s possible. I also need to pick up some exercise and just haven’t had the energy, much less the time. Depressing, really.
In the Positive column: WS vacuumed the entire house last night, cleaned the kitchen, and cleaned up after himself in the office. I don’t know what’s up with that but I’m not complaining.
The weather is wet and windy today with temperatures in the high 40′s. Because we live partially in a small valley, we’re supposed get trapped cold air and the rare snow shower. This morning, we had 3 whole snowflakes and it was enough to make me stop everything and stand at the window for a half an hour, hoping we’d get more. But I’m denied. Nothing but rain. While living at our old rental house, a mere 6 miles away from here, we had snow, although not more than a couple of inches, 5 years out of the 8 we lived there. Since living here, 3 and a half years, we’ve yet to have any snow. Before moving me here, WS told me it snowed here often. Obviously, this was a case of remembering something as a child much differently than what reality was. I have to say, had I known how seldom it snows here, I would insisted we moved further north. I really kick myself for this. I mean, we had absolutely nothing here to start with when we moved here 14 years ago (although we were told we would have a helping hand – we didn’t); we might as well have moved somewhere else where it did snow every winter. We both like snow, could you tell? Not feet upon feet upon feet of snow, but some would be nice for a change. And no, we don’t do snow sports (we’re definitely anti-sports people) but we like to walk in it, look at it, and just enjoy the coziness of hunkering down under sweaters and blankets.
Still waiting for tax forms from one job so we can get our taxes done. We often file and get our refund by mid February but this year, WS’s main employer is dragging their feet. I haven’t heard a peep from that long-lost relative either about any inheritance check. I feel like I’m in limbo.
January 23rd 2003
In the Negative column: Why do some people feel that just because they were born on a certain day, that they and they alone OWN that day, and get all pissy when someone else plans something else on that specific day? MsNoManagementSkills is all up in a tizzy because her boss decided to get married on her upcoming birthday. “The NERVE of him!!” she writes. “Now I won’t be able to go back home (a whole 100 miles away) and see my friends who I haven’t seen since last summer!!”
Oh, cry me a fucking river. GROW UP, YOU PATHETIC BOOB!
In the Positive column: The Weblog Awards are being voted on right this very minute. No, I’m not a nominee.
While I was downstairs, before work this morning, and standing in front of the refrigerator thinking that cheese is no longer “all the shit”, I heard a loud whirring sound. Neighbor’s Kirby? Someone’s crappy car? No, it’s TOYBOY and his remote controlled helicopter at 9 am! Gee, I haven’t seen this guy since last summer when he repeatedly flew his heli-toy into his fence. No fence bashing today though, just up and down, up and down, up and down. Toyboy flying his remote control helicopter without crashing it! Okay, he wasn’t really flying it. It wasn’t like he had the guts to fly laps around his back yard. Just up down up down up down. Just the basics – take offs and landings. But for 40 minutes?? Strange man.
Yesterday, I whined about not losing any more weight on Atkins’. I figure I’m eating too many carbohydrates and need to cut back. No problem. I can do this. Then this morning, I weigh in and I’m down to 165. Only 6 more and then I really get excited! It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the 150′s.
January 24th 2003
In the Positive column: All the chrome and stainless engine parts I ordered last week has been delivered and plans are to install as much of it as possible tomorrow. I’ve also got a few other car things to take care of. After all that, I’ll probably try to wash the car and get it back into storage. Next month, my car polish should be delivered and I can start working on that part. Fun, fun, fun, but hey! What else is going on this weekend? Some sport event? Whatever. I don’t do sports anymore.
Yesterday was a very, very good day on Atkins’. I’m starting to pay attention to calorie count in preparation for the next step on the Atkins’ Diet. Today, however, while I’m eating good, my sinuses are giving me grief. It’s like I snorted a gallon of house dust before I went to bed or something. Not good. I’ll be avoiding all dairy today like it’s the plague.
In the Negative column: I hate the current Weight Watchers TV commercial. Why does this company always focus on women needing to lose weight? They never feature men. What? Oh? So THAT’S what those Subway commercials are all about. Yeah, right… And speaking of women who need to lose weight, the other day I clicked on the Virtual Model link from Danielle’s site and created my virtual self. It’s scary how much it really looks like me. Ugh.
The BaseballTeam’s house is back up for sale. They tried to sell their house last year at this time, when the economy was taking a big dump (not that anything has changed since in this part of the U.S.) but didn’t get a single interested party. Something tells me it’s because the house literally reeks of urine, dog shit, and baby cheese, not to mention seeing religious icons covering the walls, both inside and out. Note to prospective house sellers: If you have 7 children under the age of 12 and a large dog, don’t buy a house with white carpeting. Last time around, their house was up for sale for 5 months. Let’s see what happens this time around.
In a somewhat related note, WS’s Sim City 4 game was delivered today. When I stepped outside to grab the box to bring it indoors, I noticed Mr. and Mrs. BaseballTeam having a loud argument in their driveway. She, in her religion-approved “jeans” and sweater, he in full city motorcycle cop attire including helmet. Lots of frowns and waving arms. I didn’t eavesdrop.
Tonight’s plans include watching some dumb guy-movie with WS. Really, I had no intention of watching ”Minority Report” but will humor WS for the first half an hour before promptly falling to sleep.
January 27th 2003
Hello from my sick bed. Well, the weekend didn’t go exactly as I had planned. Remember my allergies I was whining about last Friday? Well, it wasn’t allergies. It was a full-blown cold. By late Friday afternoon, I was bedridden with sinuses that were alternating between pouring water and swelling so badly that my eyes were actually bulging. By Saturday, the headache set in, a cough had developed and dehydration hit. By Sunday, the cough deepened going into my lungs and affecting my asthma and my entire body ached badly from lying in bed for 36 hours straight. This morning, I feel like death warmed over and look it as well. I’m trying to keep my fluid intake high, but minutes later, my sinuses open up and WHOOOSH!
The good thing is that apparently, I’m down to 160 pounds. That’s what 2 days of eating nothing but chicken broth with a pinch or two of kale thrown in will do. MsNoManagementSkills could stand to have a cold like this. At last check (Friday) she had given up the diet once again and was looking forward to eating munchies with friends at her football party. No doubt, she’s started yet again today but history shows she can only start and stop so many times before she gives up entirely.
The bad thing is that I didn’t get any work done on my car this weekend. Not that I really care at this point. After being sick the last week of our vacation over the holidays, I’m really surprised that I caught something else so quickly. I can only trance this bout of illness to my visit to the dentist earlier last week. Since I only leave our house 2 or 3 times a month and rarely have visitors, it’s fairly easy for me to track down where either one of us might have picked up something. Several people were coughing in the dental office but nothing sounded really bad. You know, wet, phlegm-y sounding coughs. Still, I avoid anyone coughing like they have the plague but didn’t do a good enough job of it.
Another bad thing is that I have to work all this week. Our company has no sick time policy and any sick time needed comes out of vacation days. Unfortunately, after 2 years of not taking any vacation, I used mine over the holidays and there hasn’t been enough time since to build any back up. Work will definitely pile up today, at least, because I can’t concentrate on anything, including this entry which has already taken me 2 hours to type.
But the good thing is I don’t have to dress up and drive to an office to attempt to work. My previous job forced women to wear dresses or pastel blouses with skirts with panty hose (required still by that company) and low heeled shoes and all men to wear suits with white (only) shirts, bland, mild-colored ties, and polished dress shoes. And if you were sick? Too bad! You get to work anyway or find yourself with a merit against your record for each day you were out sick. 3 merits = you get written up. 4 merits = you get written up and talked to by the department manager. 5 merits = termination. I only lasted 2 years at that job and witnessed women fainting at their desks, one woman repeatedly vomiting into her trashcan (it turned out she was going through chemotherapy), and another woman have a miscarriage. While I was employed there, I heard of several lawsuits brought against this company but all were defeated. We were all told the company employs the best lawyers money can buy and we all came to believe it. Thank god, WS finally talked me into quitting. As it was, I already had 3 merits against my name for calling in sick 3 times over 2 years, once from a hospital bed. Yes, I’m definitely in a better job now.
January 28th 2003
Things I was thinking yesterday while lying in bed sick. Please ignore all the babbling.
Watching Oprah – I always come away feeling inadequate and unimportant and poor and bad because I haven’t dedicated my life to the betterment of children everywhere. I was disgusted by the audience reaction to learning they all were getting mink-trimmed slippers in a mink bag. Yes, mink as in real fur. I’ll bet PETA hears about this and sends Oprah hate mail.
It was 3:08 pm today that I finally felt hungry after 3 days of illness. Unfortunately, I had just eaten a small lunch. Then I realized that I was focusing in on all the fast-food commercials blaring on the TV in the background. Chocolate this and that (it’s the this and that parts that have all the calories), Dairy Queen, and KFC for god’s sake. I can’t stand KFC to the point that I haven’t eaten there since 1987. Food is mostly psychological and I know this, but conveniently forget it when stuffing my face.
WS just told me there is no car club meeting this week. This means I will not have seen any of the club members in nearly a month by the next meeting. A person can change a lot in a month if they want to badly enough. For example, I’ve colored my hair and temporarily have no more gray and as of right now, I’m 10 pounds lighter. I couldn’t imagine being 20 or 25 pounds lighter, enough of a weight loss for people to notice. Now I understand how some people who suffer from eating disorders think and I have to admit, after being fat my entire adult life, I would really get an ego boost from having someone notice that I’m visibly thinner (if only anyone would notice me at all, my small inner voice says). Of course, then the rumor would start that I was terminally ill or something.
I had a few more things I jotted down but I can’t even make out the writing. No loss there, trust me.
*end babbling*
*start rant*
Today I’m still sick but a bit better. The coughing is less, the nose is behaving for the most part. It seems I always feel much better in the evenings and worse in the mornings. I hate mornings and always have so that probably has something to do with it. WS completely gave up cleaning the house for me so I had to have a hissy fit about it, feeling that if I didn’t get out of bed, the place was going to fall completely apart. As it was, it was easily halfway there. So he vacuumed, cleaned up a pet mess, and promises to help me with my work later on tonight. Of course, he could of vacuumed last night and not had to do it today, but I didn’t mention that on top of all the other ranting I was doing while I was trying to catch up on the laundry he stopped doing 3 days ago. And naturally, he disagreed, saying something is seriously wrong if we have to vacuum and do laundry every single other day. Uh, hello? We have indoor pets and I have asthma. We agreed to wait out the lives of these pets in place of giving them away or euthanize them all so we’ve ALWAYS vacuumed every other day. And laundry? Hey, when we both stop wearing clean clothes every day of the week and using bath towels like Kleenex (trademarked), we’ll get to stop doing laundry every other day. Funny how he never bitched about this before but liked how the house always looked and how he never had to wait for something clean to wear. I really liked it when he blurted back, “Hey! Cleaning house is like a full time job!” BINGO! Gee, another man in the world finally gets it. Now, if he would only understand that it’s a job I don’t get paid to do!
*end rant*
Yeah, I feel better now…oh wait. Bush’s ranting speech is tonight. Crap….
January 29th 2003
Q: What is B wearing?
A: Surprise! Something different today. Ratty old levis, brown sweat shirt, and black socks. No shorts today. I can fit into this pair of jeans finally.
Q: What kind of mood is B in and why?
A: Reasonably upbeat considering it’s a work day and I am buried under a mountain of work but probably because I’m feeling much better today. Oh, and it’s raining hard outside.
Q: What is important to B at this exact moment?
A: Believe it or not, getting caught up on work.
In the Positive column: WS found an 18th century leather-bound book for me on eBay last week and won it. My first real leather-bound book! And for less than $12. Excellent condition. I love it. Oh hell, I love books!
As mentioned above, I feel much better today. That headache is still hanging around and my eyes still ache but my nose and lungs are being my friend today and I hardly have any cough. Along with the mountainous workload I have to catch up on today, I’m going to try to get some general cleaning done around the house too. WS did a fairly good job picking up after himself last night but his side of this office is nearing the disaster stage quickly. What is it with some people and their piles upon piles of papers? Look, just look at each one ONCE and then deal with it immediately or file it away now (file it away does not mean pile it somewhere – file it means put it in the filing cabinet bought for that purpose).
My car polish was delivered late last night and so I have to start squeezing that job in. That alone takes about a month of regular work but man, is it ever worth it! My car is black and this particular polish makes it looks like it’s made of deep black chrome. I’m determined to be as ready as my wallet will allow me to be for this summer’s car show season.
In the Negative column: I stuck religiously to Atkins’ while I was sick, however, barely ate any thing. From Friday to Monday, I consumed less than 600 calories a day. I just couldn’t eat anything (that’s rare! Mark your calendars!) The good thing about this is that I lost 8 pounds, 13 pounds total now, from 173 to 160. The bad thing is even though I didn’t eat any more than 600 calories Monday or Tuesday, I haven’t continue to lose anything. I’m still sitting at 160, denied the entry into the 150′s, something I am excited about. I’m sure this is just a phase. My body probably thinks this is starvation mode and will take a while to kick in again. But jeeze, I’d hate to think if I want to be lighter, I’d have to eat nothing more than 600 calories a day. That just can’t be healthy. Thankfully, I found a diet journal called tales of a bathroom scale from Danelle’s My Life is a Mess journal. Her weight loss plan is good reading. My current problem is I’m “tasting” beef something or other in my mouth and no, I haven’t eaten or drank anything yet today other than water. Don’t ask me where that came from. I haven’t eaten actual beef in over a week.
After reading MsNoManagementSkills’ “fun” in peeing on personal litmus strips last week, WS actually went out and bought some. I think that’s all I’ll say about that.
January 30th 2003
It’s all in the Positive column today: YES! Finally my weight is in the 150′s at 158 this morning! This is big.. And my cold is finally going away.
Another rainy day with 50 degrees. Wonderful! I turned off the fountain in the backyard so I could listen to the rain on the roof throughout the day. We are such rain lovers. All those evergreen trees and bushes I planted out back last year really like it too. This is the time of year when those things grow the best and this morning, I noticed several of the Hinoki cypress trees are starting to spread and have gained a few inches since early fall. The blue cypress in the back corner has grown a foot and a half since October, helping to block the bedroom window of the house sitting near that corner. Now if all those evergreens along DrunkTank Willie’s side would just grow. They’ve been sitting at just under the fence line for a year and a half but were supposed to grow fast enough to block that side up to 20 feet within 5 years of planting. We’re lucky if we’ve seen a foot out of any of them in a year and a half.
The BaseballTeam had their front yard professionally landscaped early this morning. Nothing like a leaf blower at 9 am to wake a person up. They got the standard flat or 2 of pansies and a thin layer of bark dust and half a dozen dead plants removed. Too bad they couldn’t do something for the interior of the house but it seems that they might be serious about selling the house this time around. They also got a sale flyer box today but I’m waiting for the cover of darkness before I go nab a flyer to see what they are asking for it. The last time around, they wanted $189,900 for it and that is the going price around here. It’s a good price for a 5 bedroom (SMALL bedrooms), 2 and 1/2 bath 2600 square foot house but last time they tried to sell, no one could seem to get past the smell and less than 3 year old ruined carpets.
We finally got all our tax stuff yesterday and were able to file taxes last night. We might actually get a refund this year! This will be a first. I haven’t gotten a tax refund since I was married the first time around and then, my then-husband would forge my name and spend it before I ever knew I got one. Still, this refund isn’t enough to get all excited about. I was hoping for one big enough to buy a new computer. This one is on it’s last legs, I’m afraid, and been updated to the max. There’s nothing more we can do for it but wait until it finally goes. Trust me when I say I’m kicking myself for spending money on car polish and holiday party stuff when I could have saved it for potential computer problems. Oh well. It’s always something, isn’t it?
February 3rd 2003
Well, I could go on and on about how WS came home from work with a bad cold Friday afternoon, just as I was getting over mine and how his is so bad that I gave him the bedroom to recover and I’m sleeping here, in the office, on the floor with a pile of blankets and pillows, hoping I don’t catch his new cold but after this morning’s space shuttle disaster and the loss those families are feeling, my life seems insignificant.
February 4th 2003
I’m alive. Just depressed. Here is the short list why:
WS has a bad cold
I had to cancel participating in a car tech day because I was still recovering from my bad cold so I couldn’t install any of my new parts
No one can help work on my car for the next month due to preparing their own cars for the upcoming car show season
After sleeping on the floor in the office for a week, I finally go back to sleeping in bed and my insomnia instantly returns
My weight has crept back up 2 pounds to 160
Our company handed out bonuses. Mine was all of $223
I confided in MsNoManagementSkills that my computer was dying and she told me the company bonus check should help with that. $223 isn’t enough to buy a new computer
Someone has taken to reading this journal, picking anyone’s name out of it I happen to mention, then sending me email using that name with porn pics and porn links attached. Creeps.
Our long distance service is screwed up, making it impossible to call out anywhere
I got a $1000 inheritance check today from the long lost relative…but it comes with conditions and stipulations
I tried to deposit check mentioned above but they won’t allow deposit unless I endorse it with both my real name and the maiden name it was made out to, thus, giving my relative and his private investigator my real name
$1000 is not worth giving up my personal information so I’m out $1000
How long will my relatives continue to control my life is the question I spent pondering today
Why couldn’t a huge chunk of Shuttle land on MsNoManagementSkills’ home?
But, in the Positive column (a column I should really pay more attention to):
WS has taken the last 3 days off work. I enjoy him here at home much better than when he’s at work
Finally got a hold of a custom car parts painter and we’ve agreed on a price for some parts work
Got 2/3rds of my car polished – 3 coats Zaino5 followed by 3 coats of Zaino2. The hood was 5 coats Zaino5 followed by 3 coats Zaino2
Hit the buffalo/bison meat sale at a local grocery store and bought 30 pounds of the stuff
After watching DrunkTank Willie next door pump 3000 gallons of water out from under his house this morning, we checked under our and found ours to be dry as a bone. Looks like Willie broke a city water main when he half-assed installed a sprinkler system last fall
After losing 12 pounds in January and regaining 2 pounds over the weekend (even though I didn’t eat much), my weight is sitting still. WS says it’s water retention from when I had my bad cold and was dehydrated for 3 straight days. He’s reminding me that slow and steady weight loss is the ticket
$223 company bonus money is still better than nothing, even if I haven’t seen a raise in nearly 3 years
I’ve taken to avoiding reading MsNoManagementSkills’ Online Jounal for a few days. She pissed me off with her posting on the Shuttle disaster, saying she remembers when she was in 5th or 6th grade when the Challenger thing happened and now she’s “soooooo old” and everyone older than her should be shot but “oooo, this is the perfect excuse to go shopping!!”
February 5th 2003
Strange day. This morning, I saw that the raccoon had eaten all the grapes I had put out for him and because I’ve taken to feeding him grapes, he rarely raids the squirrel food box. However, this morning, there was a pool of blood (yes, BLOOD! I checked personally.) on the porch with the grape stems sitting in the middle of it. All I can figure is that the raccoon has an injury of some kind. Maybe a fight? Maybe breeding season is on? Who knows? I instantly threw on shoes and did a thorough search throughout the back and side yards as well as half of Taliban Dan’s yard behind us. Nothing found except a few very small blood droplets down one walkway. Thinking about it more throughout today and not seeing any signs that it was an obvious foot, leg, or other injury, and seeing the grape stems in the middle of the pool, I have come to the conclusion that the raccoon has a mouth injury of some kind. I’ll be waiting to see if he shows up tonight and try to get a good look at him to see if I can see anything unusual. Not that there is anything much I can do. The local wildlife centers around here refuse to take in raccoons because they are so numerous and so destructive to their buildings and cages once they feel better. I’m trying not to worry about the raccoon too much today but I feel bad for it.
Also today, at morning weigh-in, I’m up 2 more pounds to 162. WTF?!? Less than 1200 calories over the last few days and considerably less than that last week when I was sick. Water retention, my ass! I’m gaining back weight and don’t know why! All I can figure is that my carbohydrates are too high even though I’m not eating many at all. Grrr…I’m sitting here now, wondering if I dare to eat anything for dinner and if so, what, exactly, and how little I can get away with eating.
Today is dragging by. I have to work until 6 pm this evening because I didn’t wake up and get connected to work until nearly 10 am this morning. However, I’m taking small breaks here and there to work on the car polishing. I should be able to finish the whole thing this evening. Only 2 more coats of Zaino2 on each door and I’m done. Since the weather has been so nice, I might even take it to the car club meeting tomorrow night, but only if WS takes his car as well. I’ll be finally picking up all that chrome and stainless engine stuff I ordered last month but I don’t think the boxes will all fit in my car. Yeah, I know. I should just take WS’s car and leave mine, all clean and shiny, at home but it’s sunny and 50 degrees out side. If you had a fancy sportscar, wouldn’t you want to take it out and drive it? That what I think about whenever it’s nice outside because it NEVER goes out when it’s raining or icy and it’s been a long winter so far.
We’ve been watching “Kingpin” on NBC TV and like it so far. We’re pretty jazzed that it’s going to be on twice a week for the next 3 weeks. All series/sitcoms should have this kind of time schedule. That way, the show’s season is only a month long, short and sweet, and then a person can get on with their lives or decide if there is something else they want to watch for another month. This dragging a series/sitcom on for years and years and years and years sucks big wankers and I’ve always hated it.
February 6th 2003
In the Negative column: Today is job performance review for me. I was really looking forward to this until I listened in on WS’s review late, late, late last night. MrSmartButFakingIt has finally learned that dreaded of all manager skills – Refusing to give high performance scores even if the employee deserves it just because “I never give the highest score no matter what.” This is a highly unfair practice. I feel that if the employee deserves the highest score, give it to them. Don’t play head games. Nothing shoots down my motivation faster than to hear this kind of control crap.
WS is the model employee for the company we both work for. Yeah, I know. I could be biased but I’m very aware of my connection to him and how that could affluence my thinking but in this case, I’m not being biased. WS is the guy who pulls together all the remote employee company meetings, who has created the very system we work efficiently under, and who constantly puts out the fires that FatHead and MsNoManagementSkills are constantly starting.
But last night, during WS’s review, MrSmartButFakingIt mixed a mild asshole ripping with all his compliments on WS’s job performance. If he could pick apart WS, he’s going to slaughter me today during mine, which is via phone call. I’m sitting here, waiting, waiting, waiting for the call.
MsNoManagementSkills claimed to have gotten her review yesterday and told everyone in her Online Journal that her’s was very good and she is loved at work. Good grief! If this is true, all I can say is WAKE UP, PEOPLE! She’s the number 1 cause of all our problems! Can’t you all see this??
Obviously not.
Another negative thing about this review, it doesn’t really matter anyway. The company hasn’t given out any raises to any department other than management in 3 years. This year isn’t any different. So it makes a person wonder if this is all lip service and what purpose does it really serve, other than management to exert control over lesser employees and deal yet another morale blow.
In the Positive column: We have a car club meeting this evening. WS finally finished the club newsletter last night after his job review. Now I can go to the meeting without feeling like I’m married to a slacker. We both can’t wait until September when he gives up his newsletter job and I swear, if he takes on any other project or job after that, I will smack him.
It’s very, very windy today and because of this, I don’t think I’ll be driving my car to the meeting tonight. This much wind usually means tree limbs are blowing around everywhere. I don’t need this kind of potential damage, especially after spending a week polishing it.
We’re thinking of taking a trip up to a big car swap meet Saturday morning. The weather ought to be wonderful and we could stand to get out of the house. We’ll decide whether we will go or not after tonight’s car club meeting. I refuse to get excited just yet.
In the Negative column: I have just got to be retaining water or something. This morning’s weight? 164. Another 2 pounds added. I am eating below 1200 calories a day, everyday, and below 16 grams of carbohydrates every day. I have stuck religiously to Atkins’ every single day since January 6th, but after losing 8 pounds in 3 days when I was sick, it is very depressing to see I’ve gained back 6. WS keeps jokingly telling me to stop drinking so much water since I do drink around 100 ounces a day and am rarely seen without my huge water bottle, but how could drinking this much water be bad? And how could it be adding pounds? This just doesn’t make any sense. Of course, there’s the issue with constipation…I’m sure I’ve said too much now.
Well, this waiting for my job performance review phone call is really pissing me off. I guess I should look at it this way: As long as I don’t hear anything, I still have a job at my current decent pay rate.
February 7th 2003
In the Positive column: I finally got my job performance review and I worried about nothing for nothing. Although not as high as WS’s review, I am within 4 points, reportedly the highest review given this year. The only way I could have gotten a higher ranking was to have some serious programming skills and taken time to come up with programmed stuff for our work process completely on my own. Coming up with the programming ideas don’t count; they want the actual programming done. Unfortunately, I don’t have a smidge of programming skills, and most of the time, I could care less about learning any. At least I still have a job, though no raise.
Our income tax check came in much earlier than either of us figured it would. Maybe now I’ll finally get a new power supply for my dying computer.
Last night, I picked up all those engine parts for my car. Unfortunately, I can’t get them installed for a couple of weeks and several of them involve removing my alternator and pulley brackets. In the meantime, I’ll try to install some of the easier ones myself like all the chrome tank caps and hose fittings. One of the Competition Boys, the 2 guys who feel I’ll be their direct competition in car shows this year even though I’m in a completely different class, shared information with me on where he bought a chrome and stainless bolt and nut kit. This would help lend to the overall look I’m trying to acheive on a budget. Who knew you could buy chrome auto bolts and nuts at Home Depot and Ace Hardware? The same bolts and nuts that cost 8 times more at most car supply stores.
No weigh gain overnight. That’s a relief. Of course, I didn’t eat any dinner but I wasn’t hungry anyway. So this morning, I was still at 164. I really think now that I’m just getting ready for Aunt Flo. We’ll see in a few days. In the meantime, I’m watching my eating, of course, and still happy on Atkins’. Today marks 1 month with Atkins’ and I couldn’t be happier overall.
Tomorrow, I’ll be driving a few hundred miles away with DrillSargent Dave and the Competition Boys to a huge sports car swap meet. WS has decided not to go but is okay with me taking his car. More stuff can fit in it anyway. But his car is filthy! It hasn’t been washed in about a month and it really shows. Probably why he doesn’t have a problem with me taking it.
Not really much in the Negative column: The Blinders across the street STILL have their Halloween pumpkins sitting by their front door. I can only image the smell by now.
DrunkTank Willie’s water under his house problem has been “solved.” He hired some teenagers to come out, dig a trench from under his house and across his back lawn that slopes down toward the rental house behind him. I guess the plan now is that when water fills up the area under his house, it will drain into his neighbor’s back yard. Nice guy, huh? Yeah, he does stuff like this all the time and cares about nobody but himself.
I don’t know what was going on over at SportsOrNothing yesterday, but it looked like the sports star kid, who shares ownership of his car with his twin sister, had his own car towed away. Maybe so his sister couldn’t take it? Boy, did she throw a fit less than a half an hour after the tow truck left with the car. After lots of screaming and slammed doors, she finally took off in one of her parent’s cars, which really isn’t theirs. It belongs to a brother-in-law and was given to this family to sell TWO YEARS AGO. The brother-in-law works overseas, somewhere in the Middle East, so he’s not really around to make sure it sells. In the meantime, the car was used to teach the SportsOrNothing kids how to drive and it was pretty much trashed. Unbelievably, it still has it’s out of state license plates on it, isn’t registered, and has outdated tags. Yet, they obviously have no qualms about driving it around town. BTW: The kids’ car was returned about an hour later.
February 12th 2003
In the Positive column: My weekend was good. I drove alone a few hundred miles away Saturday to go to a car parts swap meet and ended up not spending a dime. But I did meet up with several of the car club members. I didn’t eat anything bad and even took along an Atkins’ shake in a can, a bag of turkey jerky that I never opened anyway, and an Atkins’ mocha crunch bar. Good stuff.
In the Negative column: WS didn’t go with me on the trip, which he would have hated, mostly because it was only 35 degrees all day. I froze my ass off and was really kicking myself for thinking I’d be too sweaty and only took a sweater. So, when I got home, WS grilled me on everything I did and saw and I gladly told him. However, the next morning, it turned out he only listened to about a quarter of what I said. So, when one of the Competition Boys called Sunday afternoon to tell me to bring my car over so he could start polishing parts on it, as we pre-arranged, WS claimed he didn’t know anything about it and seemed very unhappy that he had to give up part of his Sunday work day to drive with me 45 minutes across town. Later in the evening, it turned out he hadn’t heard a few other things I mentioned and finally, I wondered if he had heard anything I said. At this point, I’m about 98% sure that he’s sick to death of me saying anything about my car and the upcoming car show season. I’m trying hard not to say another word about it, but it is difficult when I’m used to sharing everything with him. Besides, this is the exact way he drives me insane when he get all obsessed with something (which happens about 3-4 times a year.) It’s only fair that once in the 14 years of our relationship, that I get to be obsessed with something enough to drive him bonkers.
Of course, he would disagree…
In the Positive column: Yesterday, I installed the first of several chrome parts on my car’s engine before taking the car over to one of the Competition Boys’ home. He’s big on polishing stuff, a hobby he really enjoys, and he’ll be working on my rear suspension. He might even install some of the other chrome stuff I got last month since I took all the boxes of stuff over with me. Yeah, you could say I’m excited about this. I’ll be going back over there tomorrow night to help out as much as I can. I like being helpful with this kind of stuff.
In the Negative column: Even though I ate considerably less than 1000 calories both Saturday and Sunday, my weight continues to sit at 163. No Aunt Flo yet. I’m sure this is the reason for no weight loss in a week.
In the Positive column: MsNoManagementSkills has quit her Atkins’ diet. She’s been scarfing down McDonald’s, Jack-In-The-Box, and mexican food since last Thursday. Once again, she claims that this latest diet, Atkins’ doesn’t work. That sure didn’t take long but you can be sure that we’ll have to listen to another few diet attempts before her 10 year class reunion in August.
I finally grabbed a flyer for the BaseballTeam’s house that’s up for sale. Let’s see, last year at this time, they wanted $189,900 for the 2200 square foot, 5 bedroom house. This time around, they’re asking $213,900! Last time, they couldn’t sell it because it doesn’t show well. Soiled white carpet, awful smells, and mountains of religious icons sitting around everywhere. Oh, and the economy sucked. What’s different this time around? Nothing. Oh, the economy sucks worse. Now watch, it’ll probably sell this time around. I’ll never understand people.
February 12th 2003
Living with a few blah days brought on by severe insomnia. Bear with me.
February 13rd 2003
In the Positive column: I spent all of Tuesday night installing chrome engine parts on my car, which is sitting across town in one of the Competition Boys’ garage while the back suspension is being hand polished. Unfortunately, I could only install half the parts because the other half requires another set of hands and a bit more strength than I have alone. Because I could only install half the parts, I left after a few hours feeling fairly frustrated and so couldn’t sleep. So…
In the Negative column:…I tossed and turned all night and finally got up at 5 am and came into the office, logged into work, and promptly fell asleep on the floor until 9 am. WS didn’t help matters when he woke me up to tell me he got me something for Valentine’s Day, something that we had decided last year to quit celebrating because it adds another element of stress to our already crammed-full-o’-stress lives. So, I spent the rest of that day and last night, worrying about trying to find him something for Valentine’s Day at this late notice. No luck. So…
In the Positive column:…I told him I had nothing for him for Valentine’s Day and that I was very stressed about it and felt basically like crap. He told me not to worry about it and completely understood how I thought we weren’t celebrating it this year and it was all his doing and he didn’t expect or want anything in return. Then he told me what he got me. But I don’t want to ruin the surprise for you so I’ll shut up about it until I get it. Which may be next week at the look of things but is completely different from anything WS has ever bought before (he’s not that good at buying me stuff so I generally buy myself my own stuff if I want anything). My only question is…
In the Negative column:…is it still romantic if your significant other buys you something from their company store? It should be. It’s the thought that counts and I do believe in this. But is it really the same if the person doesn’t run all over town, shopping here and there, calling for the best price or the exact thing, spending half their lives pulling their hair out in lieu of just going online, typing in their employer’s company store, picking something and plunking down a credit card number? Welcome to shopping in the year 2003!
In the Positive column: Tonight is a car club board meeting. Yes, I’m going with WS, whom has to go since he’s a board member now. Strange. It’s my car and my interest that got us invited to join this car club, but he’s a board member, something I could never, nor would ever do. I hate that kind of attention.
Less than an hour to go for work today. Tomorrow looks like a 6 hour day for me since I’ve worked an extra hour or two nearly everyday this week. This morning, I had to give a training presentation via conference call to a bunch of co-workers for a piece of software and although I felt like an idiot the entire time, everyone said I did okay, including MsNoManagementSkills, who was supposed to do this job herself it’s suspected. So booYah to me today!
Speaking of MsNoManagementSkills, she’s officially quit dieting. At least for this month. She just couldn’t go without McDonalds everyday. This week, I myself have had the worst sweet tooth and ate nearly all the low carb chocolate WS bought last week. My weight is still sitting at 165 and not budging up or down. Aunt Flo still hasn’t visited and I am certain that at this point, that is the reason why. I’ve been feeling fat, bloated, and zitty for a week now, waiting, waiting, waiting, for things to start flowing….Too Much Information, I know.
The weather here has been beautiful for the last week and a half, but the rain is supposed to move in this evening, ruining what was supposed to be a dry weekend. Not that I really mind. We absolutely love the rain. But I can’t get my car back home until it’s dry again and at the look of the 10 day trend in this area, that might not be until March. Exactly what I was trying to avoid happening. Damn those weather people who don’t have a clue 98% of the time.
In the Negative column: George W. Bush is still acting like a mad dog. The rest of the world has lost all respect for the U.S. Someone stop him. Please.
In the Positive column: Vin Diesel looks better with hair. He has a smidge in his next upcoming movie. This was what it took to get me to notice him at all.
February 19th 2003
Q: What kind of mood is B in and why?
A: I’m feeling bad for not writing here in several days but promise to make up for it in the coming weeks. I’ve been running around, working here and working there, trying to fit everything in because I’m on a time line here.
Q: What is important to B at this exact moment?
A: I’m feeling all warm and fuzzy because I work at home and because I’m expecting very important deliveries from the brown man this week. Expensive, well thought out and many months kinds of planned for deliveries. Oh, and then there’s getting through work today…
In the Positive column: For the first year ever, the company I work for gave us last Monday off for President’s Day. As in a Paid day off. It was amazing. I’m still in shock. What really made it great was that WS had the day off paid as well from both of his jobs. Visualize a big, warm group hug because yes, it was that special.
Last Friday, on Valentine’s Day, WS bought me a gold heart necklace with teeny-tiny diamonds in it. It is beautiful and I cried. He’s never bought diamonds before and isn’t big on jewelry anyway. I also got a dozen apricot roses. Since no one other than myself has ever bought me a dozen roses before, I cried over this as well. Let’s just call it what it was: Last Friday was just a big, wet, tear-stained, snotty tissue day. Because of this, I woke up Saturday morning with a stuffy head. Oh, and what did I get WS for Valentine’s Day? Well, because I thought we had discussed not celebrating any more holidays because of the stress and media hype and cost, I just got him a mushy card. That’s all. Yep, I’m a romantic. *sigh*
In the Negative column: My car is still over at one of the Competition Boys’ garage with the suspension being polished. Not that this is really a negative thing, I’m just not used to having this much space in our garage and not used to being separated for this long from my car. Trust me when I say I know how sick and twisted this sounds. What can I say? Some people have children, I have my sports car. Feh!
MsNoManagementSkills has let everyone know via her Online Journal that she’s taking Friday off to go to a Wrestle Mania event in a city far away. Everyone that is, except her co-workers. This is the exact reason I feel I have to read her daily dribble of loggoreahia. If it wasn’t for stuff like this that comes out of the blue and screws up everyone else’s workday, including my own, I wouldn’t bother depressing myself daily with her entries about finding glitter in her bowel movements (she’s all about the GLITTER!, how she can’t stop stuffing herself with mountains of pork rinds and ice cream, and how her husband FatHead likes to chew on his toenails.
So she’s taking Friday off, or at least most of Friday off and she’s got a raging head/chest cold going on write now. And so what happens? FatHead and WS schedule a work meeting over here this evening. “What were you thinking?” I asked referring to bringing a potential cold virus person over here for hours on end, because FatHead is one of those kinds of people who JUST DON”T KNOW WHEN TO LEAVE. And WS replied, “Would you rather I meet over at FatHead’s and be fully exposed to MsNoManagementSkills’ cold, then bring that full exposure home?” No, but why did they have to schedule anything this week? Because they were supposed to meet last week and had to cancel because of other job conflicts. So we may be exposing ourselves to yet another bad cold this evening and the fun with cold medications and sleeping in separate rooms will continue. JOY!
In the Positive column: I’m expecting my most important car engine parts this week. Custom painted parts that I negotiated for and planned out with an airbrush artist months ago. These are the parts that will dictate how well my car will show during the upcoming car show season this year and I’m very, very excited. Later in the week or early next week, I’ll be getting the rest of my engine chrome from backorders. Then I get to drive an hour across town to the Competition Boys’ garage to install all this new stuff. The car show season starts the last week of April, leaving me just over 2 months to be ready. I still have some engine painting and polishing to do, a new exhaust system to install (mid/late March) and final coats of polish to apply (April) before I’ll be ready. This is definitely as nerve-wracking as actually showing the car.
And finally, my weight is sitting at 162 without any change since Friday. Aunt Flo still hasn’t made an appearance and I’ve never felt fatter. My body really hates it when I change my eating habits and I’ve been going whole-hog on Atkins’ since January 6th. I’m hooked for life and don’t plan on giving it up just to please my hormones. Aunt Flo will make her visit soon, I’m sure. Oh, and no, I’m not pregnant. That would be considered a virgin birth and most of the world still has problems believing in the first one. Very little if any sex occurs ever in this house due to WS’s debilitating disease and that’s just the way it is.
February 21st 2003
Don’t you just hate it when feel obligated to write something even when you really have nothing to write about? Oh sure, I could do my normal whining and complaining about work, my ordered car parts that still haven’t been delivered, the lack of real winter weather around here, something around here that needs/should be done/cleaned/fixed, my odd sleeping habits, or enter-your-own-complaint-here.
In fact, because I don’t have anything to say, I’ll gladly take all your complaints and post them here. Anonymously, of course. We don’t want those nasty email spammers to strike yet again.
Go on, vent away in the Comments area. That is, if the Comments area is working today.
February 23rd 2003
Well, MsNoManagementSkills went out of town over the weekend and surely is all rested up and ready to slave-drive us all into work. (imagine whips cracking over bare, sweaty backs…or maybe not). She hasn’t freaked out over anything since last Wednesday when she complained about the amount of customer email that had come in over the President’s Day holiday and then she “loaned” a high-production employee to another department, causing things to get further behind. And of course, it’s all the rest of our faults. Yep, fun at work never ends but you know what? Chicken Butt!
No, really, you know what? I still have my job and that’s one for the Positive column.
Over the weekend, we helped out some other car club people fix things on their cars and then stayed for a potluck. We were both very good, eating-wise. WS has lost nearly 25 pounds to date on Atkins’. Unfortunately, I’ve been stuck at a plateau since February 4th at 162. But I’m still not giving up. Actually, I think parts of my body are shifting around. My pants feel looser than they did just a week ago but I’m the same weight. Odd. And no, Aunt Flo still hasn’t booked her week with me. Soon, soon.
I got a wild burr up my backself and decided since my car is across town, waiting for parts to be installed (February 28th, I’ve been assured), I would take the time to start finishing our garage. Now, I thought when we built this house, we had paid for a finished garage but I must have been hallucinating that day because we didn’t and so, got a garage that was just drywalled and barely taped and drywall mudded. No baseboards, cold, bare and cracked cement floor and crap stuffed in plastic bin boxes from floor to ceiling. No cabinets or shelves, other than a couple of old, bad-looking bookcases that saw better days over 10 years ago.
As of late this afternoon, we got nearly half of it painted, floor to ceiling. I’m pretty proud of us and have no doubt that if we really wanted to bust our butts over it, we could finish the painting before next weekend, which is probably when I’ll be bringing my car back home. Unfortunately, we can’t afford any cabinets, shelves, or even any more plastic bin boxes until after car show season. And definitely, nothing on the bare cement floor until this fall. We really need to update our computers for work purposes and every penny from now until Fall needs to be accounted for. But when we get the garage finished completely, I will post pictures here of before and after. I think you’ll like the change.
The weather looks like it’ll be dry and partly sunny most of the week, however, the wind is really ripping out today. 25 mph with gusts up around 40+. If this keeps up, I’ll have to hunt down our trash can tomorrow morning because it’s trash day then and our empty can weighs less than 5 pounds. Even now, neighbors who have put their trash out early have actually decorated various other neighbors lawns with their plastic milk jugs, plastic and paper stuff, and no doubt, the dreaded disposable diapers from all the breeders in the development. I’m so glad we don’t live on an end house anymore where all the stuff usually collects like our last place. Some days after a wind storm and just before trash day, our lawn would have enough garbage on it to fill several trash cans and then, of course, we’d get charged for the extra trash pickup.
February 24th 2003
In the Positive column: We’re working our butts off trying to get our garage painted before I bring my car back home, mostly likely this weekend. We’ve finished one wall completely: White upper, dark grey lower wall and Caribbean blue 1×4 inch wood trim strip as a chair rail. I finished the ceiling this morning. Who’s idea was it again that we have 9 foot ceilings? Not fun at all painting ceilings, but it’s finished. I’m just waiting for the white part of the back wall to finish drying so I can get the dark grey color on it, then it’s back to the second coat of white on the third wall. My hopes were to finish all the white painting today and tonight and most of the grey painting, leaving only the 1×4 trim strips to add on Thursday night, but today, some of my long awaited car engine parts were delivered and I really need to get over to the Competition Boys garage to start working on my car again. I haven’t seen my car in a week and a half and I’m sure the Competition Boys are wondering where I’ve been all this time.
In the Negative column: The car engine parts I’m really looking forward to getting and the main parts that are holding up things still aren’t here. They are due to arrive from New Jersey on Friday and FedEx.com still shows them in Pennsylvania. C’mon, parts! I could have driven there and back with them by now myself for as long as this is taking. At this point, I just want my fricken’ parts, get them installed and get on with my life! I don’t think I’ve ever had this much trouble with waiting for something. I usually have tons of patience. Not this time.
In the Positive column: My dentist appointment for my consultation for my upcoming dental implant went okay. They caulked my mouth shut to get an imprint and I’m just glad my nose wasn’t stuffy or clogged up at the time or I definitely would have suffocated. As it was, the dental woman said that the caulk seemed to be taking a while longer to set up than normal and I could feel it start to run down the back of my throat. Icky stuff, and naturally, she smeared some of the white caulk on my cheek, then didn’t tell me and I didn’t even notice it until I was long gone from the dental office and getting ready to walk into a new home improvement store in our town. Nice…
In the Negative column: And speaking of the new home improvement store in our town, we have a Lowe’s Home Improvement store here and yes, I am Lowe’s newest and latest bitch. Lowe’s Home Improvement can have it’s way with me anytime. I’ve been there twice, gladly handed over some of our hard-earned money, and would have publicly sucked on Mrs. Lowe’s teets if asked. Yeah, I like the place that much. Okay, okay, yeah, so I don’t get out often. We also don’t have a home improvement store in our town, not counting Home Depot which is the oldest, crusty-est, and most customer-unfriendly place I’ve ever had the misfortune to visit. Like a week ago last Sunday, when I was trying to find a certain kind of bolts and nuts and the guy was so downright rude, I came home nearly in tears. I’m sure WS has different thoughts on Lowe’s and their acquisition of our money lately but that’s just because he’s yet to go there.
In neighborhood news, no news on whether the Baseball Team will be selling their house anytime soon. There seemed to be one interested party but we haven’t seen them back in a while and no one else has been over to see it. The SportsOrNothing family just got back from a week’s vacation. I don’t know how people can take their kids out of school as often as they do or let them stay home from school as often as those kids skip out. Ms. SportsOrNothing once told me she skipped more school than she attended all through high school so she didn’t see anything wrong with it.
We spent most of last week feeding a neighbor cat that lives way down the street. Apparently, those people also went on vacation and left their cat outside to fend for himself. I absolutely hate people like this. Anyway, he spent the cold nights sleeping on our porch, wrapped in big bath towels. Unfortunately, we couldn’t bring him in because I don’t know his vet history and we can’t risk exposing our pets to potentially nasty illnesses. Did that once and paid dearly for it.
The Blinders finally got rid of the rotted pumpkins on their front porch and replaced them with a huge blue Weber barbeque grill, bag of charcoal, and containers of lighter fluid. I don’t know what it is about this neighborhood, but it seems that no one barbeques in their back yard. Everyone barbeques in their front yard, on the front porches right next to their front doors, or in their front driveways. Does everything think it looks cool to grill in front of everyone else? I just don’t understand this trend. It seems very white trash to us. (Note: All of these people seen barbequing in the front of their houses have the biggest back yards in this development.)
February 27th 2003
Nothing much new today so far and no, I’m not happy about it.
My car engine parts still aren’t here and FedEx.com doesn’t show any change in status since last Saturday. They’re in transit, just as WS says, but it’s still unnerving to know that somewhere out there, some expensive stuff of mine is sitting and there isn’t any way for me to know exactly what’s happening to it.
My weight is back up to 164 for some reason. Okay, maybe it’s the after effects of the first non-Atkins’ meal we’ve both had since the first of the year. We went out to eat at a new local restaurant, and while we both did avoid most of the bread and any fried stuff, we did have dessert, wine, and coffee. Still, WS continues to drop weight and I’m very proud of him. He’s been great with this Atkins’ life change diet. I’ve had complete and total cooperation and support with him, unlike other people I know. FatHead, for example, who won’t hear of any eating change with MsNoManagementSkills and who, in fact, purposely sabotaged her many, many, many diet attempts. Of course, she has to be responsible enough to stick through it on her own but never does. Today, in her Online Journal, she excited talks about going out to eat for multiple birthday celebration dinners, including her own (which she celebrates over an entire 3-day weekend) but then complains about how she’s going to gain 20+ pounds. It’s like that line a patient tells a doctor, “Doc, it hurts when I do this…” and the patient pokes themselves in the eye. And the doctor replies, “Okay. So don’t do that.” So, MsNoManagementSkills, don’t eat everything in sight. Oh, that’s right. If you don’t eat everything and then complain about it to all your Journal suck-ups, you won’t get the attention you crave on a minute-by-minute basis. Bad me for thinking there was any logic here.
Aunt Flo hates Atkins’ and I think they are fighting within my body. My period has always been regular, except whenever I diet or miss a few meals. Atkins’ brought on a new way of eating, one that makes sense, makes me feel good and I know, will help me look better in the long run. Too bad, Aunt Flo. You’re going to lose this fight. Or, maybe menopause is showing it’s head finally? I know I’d truly enjoy not having to support the Proctor & Gamble company any longer with any tampon purchases and I don’t think the U. S. ecomony won’t suffer because of it.
Why are super heroes always young? Don’t’ think too hard about this. It’s just something that has bothered me for years.
The For Sale sign over at the Baseball Team’s house has a Sale Pending sticker on it. Maybe? Could it be someone finally overlooked over the babycheese smell and the dogshit smeared white carpet? Maybe this is the norm for the potential house buyers? I mean, who else buys a large 5 bedroom house other than someone with a ton of kids or who is planning on popping out sprog after sprog after sprog? Sometimes, when a person wishes and hopes that someone else moves away, what comes to replace them is worse. I’m reminded of this because often it’s exactly what happens, or at least to me, which is why I shouldn’t ever wish any of our neighbors would move away, as annoying as most of them are.
Have you ever been watching TV and seen some large woman talk about how she’s a size 6 or 8 and you look at her and in comparing what you see with what you know your body is like and say, “There is NO way that woman is a size 6 or 8! Maybe a size 60 or 80 but definitely not a size 6 or 8!” Yeah, it happens to me all the time and I wonder what size chart these women are using.
Work, work, work. 6 hours left today. Ugh. Co-workers have taken today and tomorrow off, including MsNoManagementSkills who just took last Friday off too. I need to start front-loading my work weeks so I can get away with doing this multiple weeks in a row. Maybe for this summer?
And finally, one of our pets is going to the vet this evening. She’s very old and just got over surgery to remove a cancerous tumor on her ear. She’s been barfing a lot lately and unfortunately, we’ve been through this before and it’s usually fatty liver disease for which there is no cure. This may be the end of the line for her but we’ll know more by this weekend. Funny, how last night I dreamed about losing her but taking in 2 more pets right away. This would never happen in real life, because we have too many pets as is right now. Really.
February 28th 2003
Mr. Rodgers has left the neighborhood and personally, I couldn’t be more happy. I’m sorry, but this guy has creeped me out since day 1.
At 9:14 this morning, ToyBoy started up his remote controlled helicopter to attempt to learn how to fly it yet again. And he appeared to be doing fairly well out there, dressed every bit like a portly Burl Ives minus the beard and sporting an Eminem homie-style knitted cap and huge, black L.A. Raiders jacket. This time around, ToyBoy was able to get beyond his helicopter’s take-off and landing, up and down, up and down, over and over again until he either stops after 20 minutes or until he gets brave, tries to fly it around, and smacks it into the fence. Today, he did actually fly it around, albeit, a very small amount of flying around in a very small area. Still, you could tell he wanted to really spread his remote-controlled wings and it didn’t take too long before he swung the helicopter wildly off to one side, then over-corrected back the other way, then straight for his head. He ducked just in time only to over-correct once again and the remote-controlled toy screamed toward the fence and hit it hard. Looks like it’ll be awhile before we see ToyBoy again. What does this make it? 6 times I’ve seen him total his sure-to-be expensive toy?
Waiting for a FedEx delivery today is driving me slowly insane. Every little sound forces me to get up, walk out of this office and look out the library window down onto the street for the delivery truck. School buses roaring through the neighborhood? Get up and check. Neighbor slams their fence gate? Get up and check. Squealing brakes from random car driving by? Get up and check. Birds chirping loudly? Get up and check. Stray leaf blowing by office window? Get up and check. So far nothing, but WS let me know that the packages I’ve so been waiting for are scheduled for delivery sometime today. Oops! Car door slam! Gotta go check.
Nothing. *sigh*
Dog barking somewhere on the other street. Go and check. Rain drumming on the skylight. Go and check. Stomach growling. Well, hell. I was going to go check for that delivery truck anyway…
March 3rd 2003
In the Negative column: I do NOT want to work today. The pets are being overly needy and when I ignore them in attempts to do my job, they barf outside the office door. I’ve cleaned the wall out there twice already this morning from splashed chunks. Ugh How’s your day shaping up?
Last Friday, I finally got my car engine parts from FedEx with only 45 minutes of horror when the FedEx guy decided not to knock on the door, left a note saying no one was home when actually, I was sitting just inside, within view, and then he drove off without leaving my parts. His supervisor advised him to return within the hour. No, I’m not saying how his supervisor came to make that decision but I’m sure one FedEx delivery guy out there doesn’t like me much.
So, all Friday night, I worked with one of the Competition Boys on getting my parts installed. Saturday morning, WS and I went back and installed the rest and Saturday afternoon, I brought my car home after being gone for over 2 weeks. We then spent the rest of the day finishing up cleaning and organizing the garage so both cars would fit in there.
Saturday night, we went to the local Rod and Custom car show. 12 bucks per person PLUS $8 for parking. But it was money well spent to see that I wasn’t missing anything and that my car could easily hold it’s own against others that are considered top beauties.
Sunday morning, I notice a hundred or so serious scratches in the paint on the driver’s side fender from someone, most likely me, leaning over the fender to work in the engine compartment. Serious scratches. Scratches that will eliminate me from winning any car show. So Sunday was spent, rubbing, polishing, rubbing, polishing, and even more rubbing and polishing to try to lessen the multiple scratch appearances. Only another weeks worth of work will get the hundred or so scratches to not be as noticeable. I swear, if it’s not one thing, it’s another.
In the Positive column: I got my car back and the company that custom painted my engine parts asked for hi-res pictures yesterday so they might be able to include them in their upcoming color product catalog. WooHoo! My car might be famous. Well, maybe famous if you happen to request a custom paint engine parts catalog.
Also, those hundred of so fender paint scratches aren’t as bad as they were yesterday at this same time.
DrunkTank Willie’s wife is pregnant. This coming fall season, not only will we be listening to Willie’s constant high powered hand tools screeching 20 hours a day but a newborn as well. Double ugh!
The Baseball Team is scheduled to move in April. Yeah, I remember hearing this last year, so whatever. I’ll believe it when I see it.
The weight plateau continues. I keep going from 161 to 163. I’ve gone entire days without eating anything, then eating low numbers of calories and I’ve still continued to stick with Atkins’ throughout it all. Aunt Flo didn’t make an appearance last month, not surprising since my period timing screws up whenever I get sick or when I diet. I suspect it will come back stronger than usual this month. Still, it’s getting depressing to see my weight numbers not change at all in almost 5 weeks.
Have you ever gone through one of those times when you clean, straighten, and organize cupboards in your house and end up with about 6 extra loads of trash? And you wonder if the neighbors think you’re getting ready to move out or something? I’m sure our neighbors don’t think this. In fact, I’d be willing to bet our neighbors don’t think of us at all but damn, if our cupboards aren’t all organized and neat looking!
March 4th 2003
Still working on getting scratches out of the paint surface on my car and making good progress. Still working on the weight thing too but nothing is budging. I’m really beginning to think I’d have a better chance of losing weight if I would limit my calories to somewhere less than 800 calories a day. Atkins’ is all fine and good and I’ve yet to go off it since January 6th of this year, but a 4 week plateau at 161-163 pounds is just too long a plateau. So, I’ll work on getting my head in the right frame of mind to start watching every calorie I eat so I can actually do it in a week or two.
MsNoManagementSkills is so far off her latest diet, she’s not even in the same zip code, says WS. 5 nights of pigging out (her words in her Online Journal, not my words) at restaurants all in the name of her birthday have loaded the pounds on already. Really, she should disconnect that web cam of her. No one wants to see her clothes stretched to the near busting point at the seams, necklaces squeezing into her neck fat, or sweat pants riding up her crotch.
I’ve felt overly tired since last Friday. Yesterday, out of the blue, I really felt that I needed a nap. I NEVER take naps because it screws up my already screwed up sleep schedule. So I laid down on the floor of the office here and slept, fitfully, for about an hour. Then I finished up with work, wandered around the house and looked through some catalogs at stuff I couldn’t afford, then went to bed. I was out by 9 pm and slept until 9 this morning.
It’s 2 pm now, and I’m starting to feel tired again. At least I’m getting through more of the day today than I did yesterday when I just HAD to lie down. Odd. Maybe I’m fighting off a cold or something. It seems that everyone has a cold right now.
The weather was supposed to be sunny today before 2 weeks straight of rain. So, is it sunny outside here? Nope. It’s raining. We never got out of the fog and mist yesterday. But it’s all good. This means I have plenty of time to work on my car and keep my latest improvements, the custom painted engine parts, secret from the rest of the car club. I’m expecting major razzing from some of the more vocal club members as is typical from what I understand. This means they really like you. Funny way of showing it but I’ll try to have a thick skin about it.
We’ve been running our fountain out back over the past week and just yesterday, we discovered that when the timer shuts the lights off at midnight, it trips the ground protection fault thing and shuts the whole fountain off. I don’t know what that’s all about but I’ll bet we’ll need to call the fountain guy and try to get him out here to look at it. Ugh. I really don’t like that guy and I seriously doubt he’ll come back out anyway.
We also are scheduled to get our fence gate worked on. Ever since the fountain was installed, our gate has been misaligned, making the gate extremely hard to get open. Another home repair involves getting the doorbell to work again. It seems something in it burns out once a year or so and we’re missing door visitors since people only want to use the doorbell. It’s so retro to knock on the door, you know…
March 5th 2003
Q: What is B wearing?
A: A ratty yet stylish brown sweatshirt with a dried fleck of white paint over the left breast, my best pair of black shorts which are also ratty yet were once stylish and my usual black socks.
Q: What kind of mood is B in and why?
A: Tired, yet motivated to work.
Q: What is important to B at this exact moment?
A: Getting through work in 2 hours, cleaning the George Forman grill, and finding a way to make my right shoulder feel comfortable since I slept on it weird or something overnight.
In the Positive column: I’ve slept nearly all night through over the past 2 nights. This is big, trust me, and I don’t feel quite as tired today as I had over the past week.
It’s raining, raining, raining. I love the rain, especially when I don’t have to drive in it. Let’s hope for dry weather around March 22nd when I have to have my car somewhere across town.
I’ve only got 2 hours of work left today. Thanks, WS, for getting me up early this morning.
In the Negative column: I slept on my shoulder weird last night. It feels like it’s pulled out of joint or something. That’s what I get for sleeping through the night. Oh, and WS, since you read this journal (that makes 2 of us), sometime we need to talk about the anti-feng shui thing I think is going on in our bedroom. I’ve put up with it for over 3 years now and I think you should know the skylights are cutting me in half. Maybe that’s why I only get a half-night’s sleep every night? Yeah, like we’re going to believe in this stuff and like we have any choice of changing anything in our bedroom…
I’ve been listening to an Internet radio station playing dance/trance music in hopes of hearing tunes worthy of creating a CD from but today’s pickings are slim. Some days seem to be that way whereas other days good tunes are the rule, helping me get through my workday. Yeah, I know. I’m an middle-aged woman and I shouldn’t be interested in dance/trance/techno music. Call me weird. Call me odd. Just don’t call me late for dinner.
I’m sure it’s just me but I really don’t like Nora Jones or anything by her. I think her “wins” at the Grammies were all politically motivated. Of course, I didn’t like anyone else in the running either but c’mon. Nora Jones? Boring, slow, mayonnaise music.
March 6th 2003
In the Positive column: I’m really kicking butt today on things that need to be done, thanks to WS who got up before dawn this morning and did some of those things for me. Tonight is a general car club meeting and I’ll be sitting in for WS who can’t go because of work crunch time. He got up early this morning, not to head off to work like the dutiful little corporate lemming, but to print up and fold all the car club newsletters for me to take tonight.
I only have about an hour left at work today and then it’s time to hit the house cleaning. There’s at least an entire bag’s worth of cat litter on the upstairs floors as well as various smears of something that I don’t want to even think what might be. So there’s vacuuming and mopping. And while I’m at it, I ought to take a microfiber cloth to the bookshelves, desk, and leather chairs up there. Then there’s laundry, some of which I need to wear tonight to the meeting. While I’m at this, I ought to change the bed sheets. On one hand, I’ve learned to like flannel sheets (never could afford them before this winter), but on the other hand, they sure do get smelly quicker than regular sheets. Maybe we’re just sweating more while we’re sleeping or something and don’t realize it. Or the flannel doesn’t breathe like regular cotton sheets. I couldn’t imagine anyone never changing their sheets if they started smelling like ours do after just a week. We used to know someone who allegedly hadn’t changed their sheets not once in literally years. Hmmm….crunchy and crusty? Yeah, probably.
Today, I’ve already done quite a bit of work on my car. I’m in the middle of polishing my new custom painted engine parts to get a good protecting coating on them before show season starts at the end of April. I’ve been trying to polish out the scratches on one of the polished stainless steel engine parts that we scratched up while installing other parts and I think I’ll be able to salvage the part after all, which is good because I can’t afford to buy a replacement part. I’ve also completely conditioned the leather interior with a Zaino car product called “Leather In A Bottle”. This stuff smells awesome! That is, if you like that new car, leather interior smell. I guess some people wouldn’t like it but I sure do.
Items I have left to do on the car before car show season:
Get exhaust installed – March 22nd
Install rest of chrome and stainless parts when they are delivered – after this weekend?
Research and purchase new engine fluids for replacement when braided stainless hose covers are installed – possible installation March 22nd
Final hand polishing of rear suspension
Continue to apply polish coats to painted engine parts
Apply rubber conditioner gloss to window/door and engine rubber and hoses
Continue detailing engine, rim, and wheel well areas
Register for all planned car shows this season
Today, I’ve decided to throw out some of the bad, holiday chocolate, cookies, and candy we have left over from all the holiday parties we threw. We had a lot of stuff left over that didn’t need refrigeration so I packed it away in a cubboard. But since I haven’t been losing any more weight on Atkins’ lately, some of those bad, carbohydrate foods have been calling to me. Instead of giving in, I’ve taken to throwing them out. Today, one box of cookies went in the trash along with 2 cans of rolled cookies and a box of chocolates. Last week, another can of can of cookies went into the trash. This has been helping me cope with the plateau I seem to be firmly stuck in. What I really need to do is get off my butt and get onto the rowing machine. Oh, I have excuses of why I haven’t to date, mostly revolving around stress, being tired, and how my job sucks my very will to live but I just need to get over it. I can’t be fat for this summer. I won’t be fat for this summer. I’ve got a busy car show season rapidly coming up this year and the last thing I want to worry about is whether I’ve got a fat roll showing somewhere. Pleasant visual, huh?
It’s still raining outside and smells wonderful. Yippee!
March 7th 2003
To clear up something that someone recently and offhandedly said of me and my current obsession with participating in car shows, yes and no to the comment that car shows are all about getting attention and being a selfish, attention whore. Yes, I like attention but not directly to me. I like attention to one or two things I own. I am extremely non-photogenic. I am not an attractive person by any means and I realize this. I actively avoid photographers and cameras in all instances. However, I’d love nothing more than for my car and my hard work on my car to be in the limelight and do well in this year’s car show season. And if it does do well, I’ll be looking for other club members or WS to be accepting any award the car might receive to avoid having to show myself if at all possible. That’s just the way I am.
On the other hand, while yes, some car shows are all about attention and winning awards and even cash prizes at the top show levels, at my level it’s all about paying a registration fee, possibly winning some small, low-cost award and knowing that the main portion of the registration fee is pooled together by the club throwing the show and then donated to several of the charities in our area and around the country. For example, a big portion of money we personally spent on the car club we belong to last year went to the Red Cross for the 9/11 fund in NY and in our own state, to the Doernbecher children’s charity in our area, and the club is investigating a couple of other charities to donate last year’s proceeds to.
So again, yes and no. Yes, the car shows I attend are about the attention, but it’s all for charity. And so no, I don’t think of myself as a self centered attention whore. But something tells me that this explanation isn’t going to change those people’s minds. It’s okay. They’re entitled to their opinion just like I’m entitled to mine and I know what they are. JUST KIDDING! Geesh!
Last night’s car club meeting went well although the other Competition Boy was fairly frosty toward me. I expected it and so just brushed off his glaring looks and short, snappy remarks. Tonight, we’re expected to attend a birthday dinner for DrillSargent Dave’s wife across town. We’ll be squeezed for time in order to make it, having to battle rush hour traffic and the pouring rain to get there but I think we’ll do just fine.
Five hours of work left. Today work basically sucks. The company I work for took a large portion of their employees on a ski trip. Naturally, us remote employees don’t get anything except the added work load of those who are now skiing. Sometimes, not often, okay only once, the CEOs of the company felt badly for their remote employees and gave MsNoManagementSkills 50 bucks or something to spend on doing something for us which was promptly spent on pork rinds and employee get together/bowling night (but only if we all paid for the bowling part so you can imagine where the money really went). You see, MsNoManagementSkills is in charge of keeping the employees under her happy and well, she doesn’t. Unless you like WrestleMania, shopping at Target for things just for her, or eating, she’s not about to make anyone else happy. Even if she’s being paid to do so. On the other hand, MrSmartButFakingIt, my official boss, is so into his own technical head, he wouldn’t know any unhappy, unmotivated employee if one smacked him in the face with a naked Don Knotts.
But hey, while most of the company is off skiing together, at least I still have my job and in this economy, that’s a good thing. So what am I whining about anyway? Hmmm….let’s not go there today.
Oh, and the sale of the BaseballTeam’s house fell through. The For Sale sign is back up and new flyers are in the sale box. On to round three.
March 10th 2003
In the Positive column: Aunt Flo finally has arrived, politely waiting until I was in the bathroom anyway and not at 3 am when I was asleep. Considering that it was December since her last visit, I suspect this time around I’ll be all crampy, bitchy and miserable and the visit will last longer than usual. And that’s what I get for radically changing my otherwise really crappy eating habit to one that is supposedly good for me. Weight is still sitting at 163 and for as long as these ravenous hunger spells, I’m not going to get any lighter anytime soon. I don’t understand what’s up with that. And no, I still haven’t started exercising. You know me, sitting on my butt all day working, moving very little if at all because, and I’ve said it before, my job sucks my very will to live. Hmmm…if I keep this up, it quite literally might.
Dinner last Friday with DrillSargent Dave, his wife, and one of the Competition Boys and his wife went fairly well. The other Competition Boy didn’t show due to a miscommunication or something with his wife. If that wasn’t odd enough, I came home late that night to find an email asking if I got my final car parts and if so, I could come over to install them at his house. Nice enough, but just the night before, I told him that I would be installing those final parts later in the month at a car club function. I suspect he remembered this and maybe, just maybe, he was looking for a way to see all the new, custom stuff I’ve done to my car. Yeah, I know. This theory sounds stuckup and like I think the world revolves around me, but there is a very good reason why this guy is called one of the Competition Boys. All that exists for these guys are car shows and winning. They will do nearly anything to know what they think their competition might be.
Of course, he could just drive over here anytime. He knows very well exactly where we live. It’s not like we’ve ever said, “No. We don’t like visitors. Don’t stop by.” It ought to be an interesting car show season.
I’ve been having the worse, bad food cravings and I don’t know what’s up with that. We’ve been eating those Atkins’ low carb bars at the rate of one, sometimes two, a day for a couple of weeks and I’m starting to wonder if that’s why I’ve been craving sweets and other nasty foods. I didn’t seem to have this problem before we discovered these bars (the Caramel Nut Chew is to DIE for). So I’m debating not buying anymore. WS doesn’t agree and I do realize that not everyone is going to feel the same. They are terribly convenient for him to take to work, but too convenient for me to look and lust after all day. *Sigh* I no longer can trust myself around such things. And I used to have discipline coming out the wazoo…
Today, since it was dry outside, for like an hour, I went out back and started weeding. On the east side of the back yard, I found a frog just sitting there, not hopping away or moving at all. At first I thought it was dead and picked it up. It was a little thing, all of about an inch long. I could see that he was breathing, but his skin felt dry-clammy, not at all frog-like which I’m fairly familiar with since we generally have a few here and there outside and I’m not at all afraid or grossed out by them. So I carried him over to the fountain and got him wet and that seemed to revive him a bit. That or else he really didn’t want me to do that. So I placed him in a spot near the fountain in case he wanted more water, then dug up a little earthworm I ran across while weeding and put that in front of him in case he was hungry, then I went back to weeding.
About a half an hour later, I checked on him and again, his skin was back to that dry-clammy feel and he wasn’t moving at all so I carried a little bit of water over to him and got him wet. Again, he was revived and slowly moved a couple steps away. I wondered if maybe he was dehydrated or something so about an hour later, when I was spraying down the concrete with the hose, I sprinkled some water over where he was, under a plant, hoping that would help. But a few hours later, after I was finished with work, I went back and checked on him and he was dead as a rock.
Oh well, I tried. If something doesn’t die on me at the beginning of every spring, it just isn’t spring and it just isn’t my life.
Welcome, spring. I’m ready for you.
March 11th 2003
In the Negative column: I just got a notice that another certified letter is waiting for me at the post office from my long-lost (and I wish would stay-lost) relative. “Now the fuck what??!!??” I’m wondering. Can’t you people just leave me ALONE? Obviously not. Either it’s the same relative saying they are pissed because I didn’t send my signed letter back fast enough to suit them (remember, it’s always been about control in my family) or it’s another one of my relatives who was given my “address” and now trying to contact me. I’m debating getting the letter or ignoring it completely and not picking it up at all. I’ve really got nothing to say to these people. Yes, I took the one thousand dollar check. Yes, I signed the letter saying I wouldn’t contest anything about the estate (who really cares anyway? Not me.). But really, a measly one thousand dollars isn’t enough for me to have to go out of my way, taking time off work, to keep in some kind of communication with these people, people I truly with all of my heart and soul, Can. Not. Stand.
Can you tell I’m leaning toward ignoring the letter?
In the Positive column: Well, there’s at least one living frog out in our backyard, but if you think I’m going to go out, hunt it down to see if it’s got dry-clammy skin as opposed to frog-like skin, you’re looney.
In the Negative column: MsNoManagementSkills, who claimed just last week that she didn’t have any more time off available at work, is taking off for Las Vegas with FatHead next week. Don’t know how she can get away with that, especially with a huge tax bill due on top of things. Maybe FatHead thinks he can “win” the money? Lately, he’s taken to thinking he’s big-time gambler material.
She’s also in the process of trying to get me signed up on a project that is doomed, doomed, DOOMED to fail right out of the starting gate. It’s a project I was involved in several years ago that ended with very bad results and actual mental scarring. Some of those coworkers directly involved with causing me so much emotional hurt still work for this company, include MsNoManagementSkills herself. My real boss, MrSmartButFakingIt wasn’t around then and I don’t think he realizes how bad things got so it’ll be my job to lay it on the line to him, clearly and in detail and without MsNoManagementSkills listening in on the conversation. Too much fun this will be.
In the Positive column (because I’m determined to find one today): I still have my job and WS says he loves me. Our house hasn’t been foreclosed on and I still have my car, which is sitting happily under it’s cover, all freshly polished. But damn it! I bought my car from the Trunk Monkey car dealer and now, I want my Truck Monkey souvenir!!!
March 12th 2003
Q: What is B wearing?
A: In a departure from my norm, I’m wearing my best pair of tailored tan shorts, a pair of black socks, and a sleeveless black tank top that I promptly ruined by dropping a blob of paint on.
Q: What kind of mood is B in and why?
A: Thank you for asking! Today, I’m officially tired of all the talk of war because I think Bush has officially gone mad dog. I felt he is officially encouraging worldwide hatred of other countries that don’t want to participate in his own personal agenda and setting us all up for World War 3, all just to get his name in the history books.
Q: What is important to B at this exact moment?
A: Getting through work so I can put yet another coat of polish on my car, play a bit of a violent computer game, and consider exercising a bit (yeah, I know! Shocking stuff!)
In the Positive column: It’s raining and looks like it isn’t going to stop for a week or more. Good. I like the rain, except when I have to have my car somewhere but even then, if it’s important enough to me, I’ll drive in it anyway. I love the rain. It’s why it’s green here.
My roses bushes were delivered today from Jackson&Perkins. I ordered them so long ago I had forgotten all about them. 12 small, pre-potted, landscape, Electric Blanket roses which are a dusty pink color. Along our back fence line and rock wall, we’ve got at least a dozen spots for something that needs color. These roses ought to fill it up nicely, nestled in with various rhododendrons, azaleas, viburnum, vine maples, short Japanese pines, and columnar evergreen cypress shrubs. I have no doubt that these roses will end up with aphids and black spot, maybe even powdery mildew as all roses I’ve ever owned have despite my attempts to keep them sprayed with the appropriate treatments, but if they do halfway decent, I’ll be happy. If not, I’ll rip them out next year and plant something else.
In the Negative column: On second thought, I should have foregone the roses and just planted something else back there. I hate dealing with aphids and black spot disease. I’m an idiot. Maybe I’ll put the roses in the front yard after all where they’ll definitely get more sun.
In the Positive column: Got another coat of polish on my car hood (bonnet to the Brits) today. I need another 6 or so coats on the entire thing before car show season. No worries. I have time. A week from this coming Saturday, I get to put my new exhaust on in a car club tech day event and I’m really looking forward to it. It’ll be the real sign that show season is just around the corner. I feel like I’m just sitting in a holding pattern right now.
In the Negative column: I had more customers call me foul names today at work via email than I’ve received in nearly an entire year. This is always entertaining, especially after the first 9 or 10. The first couple always get my hackles up but after a while, I’m just amused. Especially if the customer couldn’t spell anything right to save their pathetic lives. Oh well. No one said working email support would be a morale-building job. I can completely understand why most people last 6 years or less, considerably less in this field of employment. But just think of the tough character building this kind of abuse offers a person! Yeah, I think of it. Every. Fucking. Day.
March 13rd 2003
It’s going to be one of those long ass days. I can already tell. Not much work to do if you ignore those 40 or so emails sitting in my box for the last week or so. None of them are critical and most are just FatHead’s attempt to make it appear that he’s doing something on his end. Today I need to:
vacuum and mop the floors, especially upstairs
put yet another coat of polish on my car and then take it off after an hour or so
plant some if not all of those rose bushes that were delivered yesterday
of course, deciding exactly where to plant those rose bushes is key
tackle the ever-reproducing laundry pile
go through the pile of mail order catalogs and trash most of them
consider doing a small-ish weight workout
fill out WS’s calendar for car show event days
Oh, and then there’s:
work
on top of everything. No problem, right?
About the Elizabeth Short story and a point that everyone is going to get all their knickers in a bunch over, “Why didn’t she just tell someone?”
Well, there’s a behavior that not many people know about unless you’ve been in a similar situation. It’s called Learned Helplessness and basically, it’s when you’ve been told over and over and over and over and over and over and over again that no one will listen to you, no one will believe you, and no one cares about you except the person(s) who tells you this. I know. I was in a similar situation to this my entire childhood and no one understands this more after the fact than that victim that had they just continued to question that person or persons motive, they could escape their captivity. Learned Helplessness is more common than most people realize (most abused people suffer from it at some point) but it’s easier to just write it off to something else than to investigate what it really is.
Well, gee, only 6 more hours of work left *heavy sigh*
March 16th 2003
Jesus F**king Christ! What a weekend. First, Friday, I was deathly ill due to a severe allergy attack or something. I probably smelled too much good air the day before when I spent 2 hours in our back yard. By Thursday night, I was in shear sinus misery. By Saturday, I was determined to not let allergies rule my world so I “willed” myself to feel better. But WS informed me that we didn’t have any money to spend on anything I was interested in spending any on so we basically spent the day sitting around looking at each other.
Today, Sunday, we’re having a deep hearted conversation on exactly how much I hate my job and the pros and cons of applying at Burger King or Taco Bell and just ready to dive into a homemade Atkins’ pizza when who should knock on our door but BikerDude, the ex-coworker guy who held the company I work for hostage for a pay raise for months and months thus stopping the rest of the employees raises or advancement before the company finally got off their asses and told him no, and then he quit, burning quite a number of bridges behind him in the process. Seems he never did find another job and has been living back with mommy and daddy in another town and is now ready to move back here and perhaps, try to get his old job back. In fact, he “joked” about getting rehired, then reprogramming everything so that no one else could access anything. Nice guy, huh? Yeah, now you might understand exactly how bad an employee this guy was in the first place. But he told us he would be trying to get a job at a local hospital instead. I made a mental note to make sure I never am admitted to that hospital. This guy is just bad news, yet he thinks he’s the shit and apparently, MsNoManagementSkills and FatHead think so too. He’ll probably be moving back in with them when he officially moves back to town. Fun, fun, fun…
Before he showed up, we were discussing my distaste for my job but I realize it’s not really all about the job. There are a lot of factors going on right now that have affected my perception of everything: My weight is still sitting at 161 even though I’ve religiously stuck to Atkins’ stage one since January 6th of this year, my final car parts have been lost something back east, probably due to the bad weather they were having so I’m stressing about being ready for car show season on time (I have lots of time), and I get dental surgery for a tooth implant this week. Really, all I wanted to do was to go out and spend about $100 on some plants for the yard and I would have felt a whole lot better, but I don’t have $1 let along $100 to spend. Frustration has set in and on top of it all, BikerDude Just. Will. Not. Leave. (he’s one of those kinds who overstays welcomes and just cannot take a hint to leave). I have abandoned WS to entertain BikerDude on his own and have come up here to close myself off in our office, waiting, waiting, waiting for him to leave. It’s been 2 hours already.
Finally, BikerDude has gone. Our lunch is cold and tastes terrible and now, the weekend is basically over. *Heavy sigh* Well, at least I didn’t spend any money.
March 17th 2003
In the Positive column: After such a pathetic weekend, complete with enough whining and crying to sink Orson Wells, today is turning out to be wonderful. Okay, not perfectly wonderful. I Am working but only have an hour and a half left.
While I was sitting here working, (yes, actually working, I looked out our office FRENCH doors because I refuse to call them Freedom doors as our U.S. Congress would like us to call them now and noticed the rain has let up enough for me to work a bit in the backyard, either ensuring I’ll have another allergy attack by this evening or give me enough sunshine to ward off rickets for another few months. So, finally, in the backyard, I’ve transplanted almost all the bushes that needed it badly, making me very happy and checking another item off my To-Do list. Then, after hosing down the walkways, I found yet another small frog sitting in a place that would have guaranteed he would get squished or at least caught up in the hose when I rolled it up so I “rescued” it by moving him to the fountain area, an area that is rich in sun, shade, moisture, and small bugs and most importantly, no foot traffic. Yeah, it’s the little things that excite me.
While I was outside yesterday, wallowing in self-misery and breaking my back by weeding, I was buzzed by the first hummingbird around here of the spring season. So I stopped weeding (thank you!!) to mix up and set out a batch of hummingbird food in a feeder. Today, while working out back, I was buzzed at least a dozen times by the bird zipping around the backyard and didn’t even seem to mind me standing within 6 feet of the feeder where I could see it, him, actually, up close. A Ruby-throated hummingbird, very brightly colored signifying a male. If he’s one of the ones we had around here last year, he’ll be bringing his girlfriends around next month.
Today, WS caught my pathetic attitude from yesterday and is having a tough time at work, wondering what the point is. I can relate completely and hope he can find some small thing outside of work that changes his outlook like the weather and that little frog helped me today. Strange how sometimes, just the little things that 99.9% of all people will just pass by and not notice, can make a difference in one person’s life.
And now, today’s entire journal entry in French, because I’m being defiant today:
Dans la colonne positive: Après un week-end si pathetic, accomplissez assez la pleurnicherie et pleurer pour descendre des puits d’Orson Wells, aujourd’hui est s’avérer être merveilleux. Ok, pas parfaitement merveilleux. Je travaille mais ai seulement une heure et demi d’une gauche.
Tandis que je reposais travailler ici, (oui, réellement < i>working, j’ai regardé hors de nos portes du bureau < b>FRENCH parce que je refuse de les appeler des portes d’< i>Freedom car notre congrès des ETATS-UNIS voudrait que nous les appellent maintenant et a noté la pluie a laissé vers le haut d’assez pour que je travaille un peu dans la arrière-cour, l’unes ou l’autre s’assurant j’aurai une autre attaque d’allergie par ce soir ou me donne assez de soleil à la salle outre du rachitisme pendant des autres quelques mois. Ainsi, en conclusion, dans la arrière-cour, j’ai transplanté presque tous les buissons qui ont eu besoin d’elle mal, me rendant très heureux et en vérifiant un autre article outre du mon À- énumérez. Puis, après avoir arrosé en bas des caillebotis, j’ai trouvé encore une autre petite grenouille m’asseoir dans un endroit qui aurait garanti qu’il se ferait attraper écrasé ou au moins vers le haut dans le tuyau quand je l’ai enroulée ainsi I “l’a sauvée” en le déplaçant au secteur de fontaine, un secteur qui est riche en soleil, ombre, humidité, et petits bogues et d’une manière primordiale, aucun trafic de pied. Ouais, c’est les petites choses qui m’excitent.
Aujourd’hui, les WS ont attrapé ma attitude pathetic d’hier et ont un moment difficile au travail, se demandant ce qu’est le point. Je peux rapporter complètement et espoir qu’il peut trouver une certaine petite chose en dehors de de travail cette des changements ses perspectives comme le temps et cette petite grenouille m’a aidé aujourd’hui. Étrange comment parfois, juste les petites choses que des 99,9% de toutes les personnes passeront juste près et pas à notification, peuvent faire une différence dans l’une vie de la personne.
The mouse is under the table. Les souris c’est sous le table. The cat is on the chair. Le chat est sur la chaise. The monkey is on the branch. Le singe est sur la branche.
Hmmm….it doesn’t sound as funny as Eddie Izzard assured me it would…
March 19th 2003
In the Positive column: I’ve really taken to this whole “Let’s support the French because no one else is” kind of movement and so, I’ve decided to pepper upcoming journal entries with useful French phrases, complete with pronunciations! (lucky you!) Today, because I’m feeling a bit under the weather due to dental surgery yesterday yet still have to work, I find this phrase very useful for some of the customers I have to deal with:
“I’d help you, but I don’t like you. You’re a complete moron”
“Je vous aurais bien aide, mais je ne vous aime pas. Tu es completement debile.”
(zhe voo zaw – ray bien ai – de may zhe ne voo zaim – e pah. tu eh com – plet – e – men de – beel)
Education and entertainment all in the same place. Isn’t the Internet an amazing place?
In the Negative column: And speaking of the Internet, why don’t the people who have loved ones going over to Iraq just use the Internet to find out what the weather is like over there and save the rest of us from having to watch TV news reports about Iraq weather conditions? Look, I’m sure people here are concerned about the conditions those military people are living in, but it’s the fucking military!! It’s not supposed to be all comfy and cozy as if they were on vacation or something!! It’s become too obvious lately that we’re breeding all intelligence out of our species. Case in point: People who are boycotting everything thing French. Hey, Mr. and Ms. America, Mom, and Apple Pie, while you are slamming the French, don’t forget to shield your eyes when looking at or even thinking about all those “American” things, like all cars with the word “Chevrolet” on it and the Statue of Liberty, a gift from the French. Oh, and let’s not forget that the Bush family has French ancestry. Stories out of New York say that people have started to boycott all things German now as well. I guess people will be giving up beer and the idea of Christmas too this year. Yeah, I’d like to see that happen…
Yesterday was the first day that I’ve gone off the Atkins wagon and yesterday, I couldn’t have cared less. After eating Atkins’ style religiously since January 6th, 2003, I have only lost 8 pounds total. Yesterday, at morning weigh-in, I was up to 165 pounds for some reason. I could only chalk it up to a workout I did the night before with heavy weights and that I’m back to building muscle which weighs more than fat. My body fat level is still sitting at 37% and I’m nearly convinced that in order to lose weight, if that’s what I really want to do, I’ll need to limit my caloric intake. I never thought I would be this hard of a weight-loser, but apparently I am. But you know, I really don’t want to look like a thin stick, but more like a fit, muscular woman who could kick ass if I needed to and this is more of what my body leans more toward looking like anyway so I ought to run with it.
So I’ll be starting to work out hard with weights again, after a year’s absence, and working toward lowering my body fat by continuing to eat Atkins’ style (which I still really like for the most part). And that bad food I ate yesterday? Well, I’ll probably eat a bit more of it today until it’s gone but then it’s back to the discipline and you know, I’m okay with that. It’s more than MsNoManagementSkills could do. She quit her latest diet attempt back in February and she hasn’t looked back since, gaining from what she claims is 20 pounds already.
Oh, and if we miss tonight’s “Survivor” episode because Bush’s bully tactics, we are going to be pissed. “Survivor” over war? You betcha!
March 20th 2003
GAME ON!
Well, I guess the U.S. was has begun. That’s all I have to say about that. Oh except to say thanks to the swell people over at CBS who waited until after “Survivor” was over before beginning their real war coverage.
Last night, before heading off to bed, I did my heaviest weight workout in a year, with lots of squats, calf raises, and some shoulder work. Today, I should start some chest workouts if for no other reason but to reduce the size of my floppy breasts and build up my underlying chest muscles. I’ve only been doing half-assed bicep and tricep workouts for a week but already, my upper arms are bulking up. I only wish the rest of my body reacted this fast to heavy weight workouts. My legs take forever to look like anything but sticks o’ flab and my stomach…well, let’s just say my stomach has never, ever, looked like anything but a huge bulging spare tire, even back when I was a teenager. I tend to gain and hold weight in the most unhealthy area of one’s body – the entire midsection. Everything from the neck to groin area constantly looks and moves like a water balloon and to date, nothing and I do mean NOTHING has ever changed that. If I were considering (and could afford) liposuction, it would be my lower stomach area which just will not respond to any amount of exercise or diet. But hey, it’s not like I’m looking to walk around in a swimsuit anytime soon (or ever). In the past, I’ve kept an online log of my weight workouts, but found that after 2 weeks, I was literally too exhausted most of the time to constantly update it. Maybe I’ll feel differently in a few weeks and if so, you’ll hear me yak about it.
The remaining parts I’m waiting on for my car still haven’t arrived, after being ordered late February. I was supposed to have them installed this coming Saturday and as of right now, it looks like that won’t happen. The weather back east was supposedly the cause for the delay last week. No doubt, the war will somehow be the cause for the delay this week. There’s a general car club meeting tonight, one I had originally planned not to attend because of discomfort over my dental surgery earlier this week, but I may change my mind this afternoon and go anyway. I’m not feeling much discomfort anymore and I’m not willing to dramatically change my life just because of current world events, even though it seems nearly everyone else around here in this area is doing just that. Work places shutting down, schools staging walk outs, people freaking out. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions and reactions, including myself, and mine has always been to continue to go about my own business. I can only imagine what WS is going through at work today. One of his coworkers freaks fairly majorly out over the slightest thing. His ears are probably bleeding.
Very, very slow workday for me so far today. With MsNoManagementSkills and FatHead gone on spring break vacation, everything is running so smoothly, there is literally not much work to do and absolutely no crisis’ whatsoever. It is amazing how this happens every single time she leaves town and after the dozen or so times this has happened, you would think that someone other than me would notice it. No such luck and in fact, my coworkers at company headquarters have probably already pooled together their money to buy her flowers for her return next week. (yes, my coworkers are that dense.)
When they do both return to work next week, no doubt we’ll hear more about whether BikerDude will be returning to company employment. All I can say is it had better not happen or there will be hell to pay…
March 24th 2003
Because I will not let the war media depress me even though I know it really wants to, I’ve chosen to work on my car. Big surprise there, huh? And what fun I’ve had recently.
Early, early Saturday morning, just after it rained cats, dogs, hamsters, snails, and small hail, we had to drive about an hour out of town to DrillSargent Dave’s house in order to install my new exhaust system. Needless to say, less than a mile away from our house, my car was a complete and total mess. Oh well. We arrived first, just ahead of one of the Competition Boys, who was bringing my exhaust over in his truck since it wouldn’t have fit in my car for transporting, and we were able to start work right away. We ran into problems with not being able to lift the car high enough to get the old exhaust off but finally pulled it off. We installed the right side of the exhaust first because I had researched and read that the passenger side was the most difficult. Amazingly, that side went without a hitch. The driver’s side however, was not at all cooperative and we struggled with it for a while before getting it on.
The instructions on installing exhaust is to tighten everything up after aligning the tailpipes, then drive the car a short distance and let it cool down for a few hours. This expands and contracts the exhaust clamps and usually causes the pipes to sag slightly which means you have to re-adjust them. After a short drive and 2 hours of sitting. the driver’s side pipe had sagged enough to actually fall off and was dangling by the clamps alone. Hmmm….back up on the lift and this time, it gave us even more difficulty but finally, we got it all together.
After the long drive home in even more rain and mud, the driver’s side pipe was still firmly attached however, it sagged about 2 inches lower than the right side. Needless to say, I was fairly depressed all day Sunday with no way to fix the sagging exhaust.
This morning, WS got up early and called a car dealership clear back across town and found out that they could fix the problem today if I could get my car there by 1 PM. No problem and I was there and back at work by 2 PM. While I was there, I was talking to the Service Advisor, a youngish kid who knew a lot about my sports car and asked what all I had done to the car to date. I mentioned all the custom parts under the hood and 5 minutes later, we were all out in the service bay with about 18 other guys, and I was showing off the engine compartment. Lots of good comments and a fairly big WOW factor from nearly everyone. I’ll be taking those comments with me when I enter my first car show of this year which should be around mid-April, less than a month away.
In the Weight department, I’m still sitting firmly at 165 pounds. Hmpf. I did a couple of heavy arm workouts over the last few days and my arms and shoulders are firming up nicely. Tonight, I work on my legs, the weakest part of my body and the parts that take the longest to see any results in (not counting my midsection and stomach, both of which do not respond to anything).
Tomorrow, MsNoManagementSkills and FatHead comes back from spring break vacation in Vegas. Gee, we can all hardly wait…NOT. No doubt, she’ll send us all an email saying “Okay! I’m all rested and ready for work. You should be too!! Let’s GO!!!” Fuck MsNoManagementSkills and her god-awful attitude. I suspect my dropping moral won’t be the only one tomorrow morning, especially after the company department conference call and we have to listen on and on and on and on about how much fun they had in Vegas while a war was raging elsewhere in the world. Golly gee, we might even have to sit through listening to her babble on and on again about how she just loved all the Elvis impersonators and all the All-You-Can-Eat Buffets! And don’t forget her upcoming complaints about how much more weight she gained during vacation, like someone forced her to eat every waking moment.
Nope. There can’t be anything good about what tomorrow at work will bring. Can I just sleep through it instead?
March 25th 2003
In the Positive column: I still have my job.
In the Negative column: I might not for too much longer if MsNoManagementSkills has her way. She and FatHead are back from vacation and already have stirred up trouble. She “assigned” me to a doomed project a few weeks ago without my knowledge and both me and WS are fighting hard to get me off it. It will certainly reflect badly on me when it fails and it will certainly fail. I suspect that was the plan all along. Furthermore, MsNoManagementSkills talked to FatHead and MrSmartButFakingIt and got them to believe I was assigned to this job, all before she told me anything about it, making it extremely hard for me to get out of the project simply because everything insists on thinking that I’m on the project.
In fact today, FatHead publicly brought up that he thought the decision had already been made that I was on the project, even after WS broke in to correct him. FatHead just kept babbling about me and the project. It was a painful conference call and because of time constraints, everyone had to hang up and will all call back sometime this afternoon to rehash the whole thing yet again. And to make things more fun this afternoon, one of the CEOs, the one who just LOVES MsNoManagementSkills, will probably be attending. Too fun! No doubt MsNoManagementSkills is fuming over WS and my arguments over this whole doomed project thing, but is pleased that even more people on her side will be attending this afternoon’s meeting.
If anyone ever tells you that corporate life is fun, look them dead in the eye and tell them they are liars because they are and it’s as simple as that. Corporate life is exactly like war and there are lots of casualties that no one wants to talk about. God help you if you are slated to be a casualty because there’s always a chance that you’ll never be able to work in the corporate world again and will end up working at a local Taco Bell.
In the Positive column: I’ve got WS here to stick up for me and he is ready for this afternoon’s meeting.
In the Negative column: Are war protesters causing havoc with traffic flow in your town or city? They are in the major city near us. In fact, we’ve rethought making any trips to the city because we’ve seen too much media coverage about people lying down on freeways and roadways around here in front of cars, then jumping on those cars and vandalizing them. I was never into vandalism in my youth and just don’t see the point of it now either. Unless someone has a death wish or something.
My weight is sitting at 164 this morning. And I’m ravenous. Nothing in this house appeals to me. This is the psychological portion of any eating regime. It’s all in my head. It’s all in my head. Meanwhile, MsNoManagementSkills posted some rather unfortunate pictures of herself from her spring break vacation and I say unfortunately because she hasn’t gained 20 pounds since giving up Atkins back in early February; she’s gained nearly 50 pounds. People who weight this much should not post pictures of themselves wearing shorts, especially if those shorts are mostly lost in the fat folds of the genital area. Okay, there. I said it. And I’m not sorry.
March 26th 2003
Well, it’s official. The wars news is finally starting to get to us. The following is just part of the monologue in the B household just last night:
“I really like these guys.” in reference to a MMUSA music show on the group, Linkin Park. (why we were watching this is anyone’s guess because it’s not anything that has happened ever before).
“Hey! I found cheese balls on the Internet!”
“Cheese balls?”
“Yep! Cheese balls! I want my cheese balls!”
“Geeze, I just couldn’t live without my cheese balls. Could you send me some more cheese balls? I surely do like ‘em.”
“Hello? Yes, I ordered my cheese balls 3 weeks ago and I was wondering just exactly where my cheese balls are? I’m pretty patient but lordy, enough is enough. I want my cheese balls!”
Uh huh, this is how we spend our time together now. Sad, isn’t it? It doesn’t help that our local news station keeps popping in with what they call “A special report – America at War” and announcing that Bush has said “The war is far from over.” No shit? Ya think?? I hate it when the media treats us all like we’re completely stupid.
In neighborhood news: the Baseball Team shows no sign of having shown their For Sale house to anyone else, yet have told many in the neighborhood that they are moving out in April. They aren’t showing any signs of getting ready to move either.
A neighbor couple I mentioned months ago but removed from The Cast of Characters on the right because I never had any news about them, has been re-added and renamed. They used to be referred to as the NoWe’reNotHavingAnyKids” sarcastically because they told us they didn’t like kids and wouldn’t be having any but then started popping them out left and right, but now, they will be referred to forever more as “OurParentsDoEverythingForUs” because they don’t have to lift a finger to do anything at their own house; their parents come over every single day and sweep their front porch, mow their lawn, have painted, decorated, landscaped, and washed their cars as well as done all the grocery shopping, assembled kid toys, walked the kids, and picked up mail from right outside. They also bought the 2 mini vans and reportedly, paid for the house and all bills to date. Since Mrs OurParentsDoEverythingForUs doesn’t work, and Mr OurParentsDoEverythingForUs only works limited hours, one has wonder what exactly they are doing while their parents, from both sides no less, are doing everything else? Breeding even more, perhaps? Maybe they are also getting tips and help doing that too? Truly, it wouldn’t surprise me. Back when we used to talk regularly to these people, it was obvious that they were fairly naive about everything outside of their own little world but c’mon…let’s grow up and take some responsibility for anything in your life and stop letting your parents do every.single.damn.thing for you. You’re both in your 30′s. It’s embarrassing!
Oh wait. I could also be talking about MsNoManagementSkills and FatHead here since they are exactly the same way, with the exception that they still call their parents “mommy” and “daddy.” Is this how people are being raised nowadays? Isn’t anyone responsible for their own lives anymore? Is everyone expecting parental handouts?
Yes, I’m bitter about this topic. Couldn’t you tell?
March 27th 2003
In the Negative column: Hearing that everyone got excited over Celine Dion’s Las Vegas show. Especially her “gyrating” body. Ewwww…..
In the Even-More-Negative column: The fact that Celine Dion exists. Period.
In the Positive column: At least a dozen people out there agree with me.
In the Negative column: I finally figured out that I have to clay bar my car to get out the fine mist water spots I have all over it after last weekend’s adventure in getting the new exhaust installed, where the weather was raining one minute and glaring sunshine the next over and over again. Too fun. 2 weeks and 2 days away from the first car show of this season, and I have to strip all the polish I’ve put on over the entire winter, clay bar the spots out, then re-apply a dozen or more coats of polish. So why am I whining about this and not out there right this minute working on it? 2 reasons: 1) I AM supposed to be working today, and 2) it’s alternating between rain and sunshine out there again. Grrr….
In the Positive column: I’ve worked out 3 of the last 4 days, including rowing twice yesterday. Go me!
Thinking of the workout I’ll get as a result, maybe I’ll try working on my car now…
March 28th 2003
I’ve finally got my car appearance to-do list down enough to fit all remaining tasks onto our wipe board. Keeping a list like this at hand frees up space in my head (allegedly so I can sleep at night) and helps me stay on track. I’ve already finished 3 of those 22 items and hope to knock off a couple more by the end of the day. First car show of the season is just 2 weeks away, however, if it rains, I won’t subject my car to further water spotting and so I won’t go. I’m not expecting it to rain though. We’re nearly out of our rainy season here.
Yesterday, I did a light clay bar treatment on my car but it didn’t do much good. The only way I’ll know if I need to completely strip off all the polish and start all over is to get it out in some sunlight and unfortunately, it’s been cloudy and rainy every day since mid December. However, it looks like things just might clear up for a few hours later today and maybe half a day tomorrow. Now, you know, if it’s sunny and I take the car out and there are very noticeable water spots all over it, I’ll be depressed for the next 2 weeks, knowing I don’t have enough time to strip the car, re-clay bar, apply a minimum of 10 coats of polish plus do all the remaining things on the wipe board. And this is all because I really wanted my new exhaust put on last weekend and the weather alternated between sun and rain. What an idiot I was.
And so because I worked so much on my car, I didn’t get a workout in, unless you count the workout I got with the 2 hand car washes and the 2 coats of polish I put on and took off. Seriously, last night in bed, I couldn’t get comfortable because every muscle ached. Although that could have been partially because I worked out pretty hard the previous day.
FatHead may have that nasty new cold strain that’s going around. Remember, they just flew back from vacation. It’s amazing how many times MsNoManagementSkills and FatHead take sick time off immediately after taking a vacation. Really. At one time, a year or so ago, I was actually keeping track of this kind of information, back when this kind of thing directly affected my own work schedule. Now, it affects WS’s schedule by further piling more work on him that was FatHead’s to do (not that he does much but cause trouble anyway). So, do I care that FatHead and surely soon-to-be-affected MsNoManagementSkills have SARS and could become very, very ill? Now, ask yourself…what do you really think? Not that I’m going to remind you how much trouble and problems these 2 have caused both WS and I with our jobs, the constant threat of getting laid off or fired, not being able to tell anyone in the company I work for what kind of sports car I bought last year because of further threats of being laid off or fired (they already think both WS and I make too much money), the constant morale tearing down and job territory grabbing, etc. No, I won’t bring up those points and I also won’t mention how I really feel about whether they are sick or not. They had just better not show up unexpectedly over here anytime soon and I’m going to demand that WS not have any kind of personal meeting with FatHead anytime soon either. Seems like every time FatHead comes over here anyway, he’s always sick and he always wants to argue. Who needs this kind of stress anyway?
Our neighbor behind us, Taliban Dan, is enlarging his back deck and unfortunately, doing just as bad a job at it as he did last year with the original section. He’s still out of work, going on at least 6 months, but his oldest son has moved back home and is probably paying rent. I think this son has found a good paying job because he recently bought a new car, one of those god-awful looking Ford Focus’. Over the winter, the youngest Taliban Dan son, the dead ringer for Harry Potter, has grown about 2 feet taller and has dyed his hair a sickly yellow. It seems a lot of young kids in this area do this every year around this time, which would be fine with me if the dye jobs didn’t look so bad. Seriously, sticking one’s head in a bucket of yellow paint and then letting it dry would actually look better. No, I’m not exaggerating.
Day 23 and counting on how many days OurParentsDoEverythingForUs have had their parents over there working on something in the yard. Their small front porch also must have gotten very dirty since yesterday at this same time because it’s being swept off yet again. Must be hard work for anyone to do themselves, I guess.
Is war really war if people expect people to follow some rules? It’s WAR, you idiots. That means anything goes in order to kill you. Hello? Am I the only one who understands this? Apparently so.
March 31st 2003
I am sick of people trying to tell the world that it is April Fool’s day TODAY, when officially, it’s only the 31st of March. Coworkers, media people, people on various web sites in the U.S. C’mon people. Get a clue here. I never understood the point of the April Fools thing anyway, having being severely bullied throughout my childhood, teenage years, and part of my adult life (whether it was April Fool’s day or not) and for me, tomorrow is going to suck badly enough without people trying to tell me that it’s today, not tomorrow.
The weekend. Whew! I’m glad it’s over. I’m exhausted and very sore.
In the Positive column: The weather was beautiful after months of rain. 70 degrees and dry. I decided at the last minute because of the weather to go on a mountain drive with the car club and had a pretty good time. WS stayed home doing things that he wanted and needed to do.
In the Negative column: After getting back home, I discovered a couple more scratches on my car in a highly noticeable area as well as 2 serious rock chips along the bottom tire area. The rock chips I can fix fairly easily, but the scratches will take lots of work and lots of time that I don’t really have. The first car show is 12 days away. But I’m taking comfort in the fact that if it rains that day, I can skip this one because this one doesn’t count for season points.
So today, I’m back out there in the garage, polishing, polishing, polishing and my muscles don’t like it a bit.
Saturday, after the car club drive, I worked a bit in the yard and then got WS to go with me to Lowe’s (who improves home improvement) and he allowed me to purchase about $100 worth of much-needed plants: ground cover, dogwood bushes, an upright rosemary, and some evergreen bushes. I got all those planted just before dark but really wanted to go to a dedicated nursery and buy a lot more.
Sunday I got up fairly early, had tea outside, and enjoyed my plantings from the evening before. Again, I really wanted to go plant shopping but got the “we can’t spend any money” lecture from WS again. It’s okay though. He’s right. We go through this every spring…blah, blah, blah. I would think that after nearly 15 years of being together, he would understand that this is what I do, gardening is what I am, gardening is life to me but every year, he is badly frightened by how much I talk about gardening, how much time I spend at it, and how much I spend on it. And boy, can I spend a lot on it.
In the Positive column: There is an end to the garden nursery purchases. Really. We only have so much space, most of which is crammed full of plants and trees already, and a person can only buy so many plants to fill in any gaps. Yes, Virginia, there is an end. A light at the end of the tunnel, but I don’t expect WS to see this because he hates going outside anyway. As much as gardening and the outdoors is life to me, staying indoors away from bugs is life for him. In this, we have no compromise and we live our lives very separate and disinterested in each other’s accomplishments.
In the Negative column: And this is how we spent Sunday. Very far apart mentally, far apart physically. No, I didn’t want to sit inside watching movies or TV. No, he didn’t want to spend time outside because he was working anyway (and in front of the TV). So I didn’t acknowledge all the mental work he was doing and he didn’t acknowledge the physical work I did. But…
In the Positive column: …I did finish 95% of all the weeding and trimming in both the front and back yards as well as cleaned up both side yards and got a somewhat decent start on the last-to-be-planted westside area of our property. I think it’s absolutely beautiful out there and I think WS would say so too.
This week, I get the stitches taken out for my dental implant. I don’t have the actual implant yet…that will be a few months from now, but all the groundwork, actually, the jaw work has been complete. These stitches have been really bothering me badly, having partially unraveled and feeling like I’ve got a mouth of strings. Last night, before bed, I finally removed one of them. It was nearly 2 inches in length, most of which had been flopping around in my mouth for nearly 2 weeks now. I think I’ve eaten most of the long parts of the other 2 stitches because they look short now. Yums!
Tomorrow, I’ll write about news from the neighborhood and some important news about DrunkTank Willie and his wife Leona Helmsly. He says he’s finally “one-uped” us (???)
April 1st 2003
April Fool’s yada yada blah, blah, blah…if anyone pushes me into the mud today, I swear to you, I will flat out kill them. You all have been warned and I am not kidding.
In the Negative column: I never understood why every spring, usually at the end of March or the beginning of April, I spiral into a deep depression. But this year, I think I’ve finally figured out why. It’s because I don’t see many people all winter long, staying mostly indoors, working, working, working, and don’t socialize with friends (what friends?) or neighbors. Come early spring, people tend to mill around outdoors around our development, working in their yards or taking their kids for walks and stop to chat if I’m out there as well. It is this time of year that I learn things about my neighbors that I really didn’t want to hear about. Often, it something that bothers me like someone beating their dog or swerving in their car to try to hit a cat (or like last year in trying to “feed” a cat to their big dogs). Well, those things have already happened and I wouldn’t have witnessed them if I hadn’t been out front enjoying the spring.
But the really big hit this year came Saturday evening, when our next door neighbor, DrunkTank Willie rushed over and said, “Hey, you know, we’ve finally one-uped you guys!!” to which I replied, “What are you talking about?? Who’s playing one-up-manship??” Willies says, “Ha, yeah, that’s a good one…” and goes on to say that our developer has chosen to use a picture of his house on the front page of the developer’s web site. Uh, we would never WANT a picture of our house on anyone’s web site but obviously, DrunkTank Willie sees this as a high point in his life. One has to wonder if something we did or something we own has been eating at him for the last 3 years (the amount of time he’s lived in this neighborhood), but who knows. I have 2 words about DrunkTank Willie: Mentally Unstable.
And then Willie continued, “We’re selling our house and moving to 2 1/2 acres in (a miniscule town about 20 miles away) so we can buy (their 6 year old daughter) a horse! She’s saved her allowance for a year now and we’ve been paying for riding lessons for both girls and they want horses. We’re going to be horse people and the land has some grape vines and an indoor horse riding arena. Our loan has already been approved and we’ve made an offer on the property and my wife’s family is going to be so pissed because just a month ago we told them that (this miniscule town) sucked and talked them out of buying a house out there.”
To which I say congratulations and all that mush that is socially expected but then inquired, “So, what’s the deal with that water problem under your house?” And he just wrote it off saying, “Oh, it’s still there but no one will notice anything for a while.”
So, why did this conversation depress me, you ask? Didn’t I want this family out of this development if for nothing else but so I wouldn’t have to listen to hammering, drilling, sanding and other construction noises every evening and every fucking weekend loudly mixed with their out-of-control screaming and mouthy daughters?
Well, YES, but 2 things bother me a lot about it. First, I have never understood why this guy has never been able to say a single thing to us without insulting or picking on us in the very first sentence out of his mouth. Remember, this is the guy who has insulted both me and WS countless times, spread malicious rumors throughout the neighborhood about how we were able to purchase 2 nice cars and have a nicely decorated and landscaped house (but let’s not forget we don’t have the expense of children), and most hurtful to me, loudly accused me, in earshot of many of our neighbors, of poisoning animals when I gave the satellite dish installer’s dog a bowl of cool water last summer when it was 99 degrees outside. This is also the guy who helped almost kill a woman on his ATV last winter and did substantial damage to a neighbor’s truck, but has yet to step forward and tell them he was responsible and has hid his ATV ever since.
Second, I truly fear who or what might move next door once DrunkTank Willie and family has sold the house. It seems like lately, new families moving into the development are interesting to say the least with average rental/eviction family mentality. Unmowed lawns, junk and junk cars sitting around, huge motor homes and boats parked permanently in driveways and on our narrow streets and generally, no regard for any upkeep on the houses. Our development, in just the last 3 years has gone from a somewhat upscale area to one just a few steps from squalor. Basically, pretty standard for most of the surrounding neighborhoods too. We bought a lot here because we were told this development would be different and would remain neat and nice, you know, upscale. Yeah right. You can bet we won’t believe much that comes out of any other developer’s mouth ever again. We were outright lied to. But we’re learning….
These are my spring depression reasons. One shining spot is that car show season is nearly upon me and I will be spending several weekends elsewhere. The bad thing is, lately, every time I’m washing my car out in the driveway, DrunkTank Willie’s got some kind of derogatory comment to yell out, particularly when he’s got an audience with the rest of the neighbors. I don’t know how much more I can take of his mouth and after Sunday, when I was washing and drying my car and he told his daughters to splash their hose near my car, I just wanted to put my car up for sale, say “Fuck it all” to the rest of the world, and crawl into bed for the rest of my natural life.
April 2nd 2003
In the Positive column: We had the best chance all winter long to get snow last night. So, did it snow at all?
In the Negative column: Nope. Didn’t even rain, something of which we were all warned we’d be getting loads of since Sunday night. Here it is Wednesday and it’s been dry since last Friday. The weather people really don’t know what the hell is going on from minute to minute, I swear. They also say we’re supposed to be rainy around April 12th, the date of my first car show of the season. To be honest with you, I almost hope it will be rainy because then I won’t be going and won’t have to bust my ass getting my car in shape for a show that doesn’t count toward end of season points.
I woke up with Aunt Flo in full swing this morning and barely made it to the bathroom in time for the royal mess. She’s really throwing her weight around today and I’m having to hit the bathroom every hour on the hour. I feel fat, bloated, constipated, greasy, sad, pathetic, and downright ugly. Thanks, Flo.
In the Positive column: On the other hand, I’m looking at Aunt Flo’s visit this month as a good thing because it means I’m back on a normal schedule, having screwed things up for a couple of months when I was both sick and first starting Atkins’. While I am still sticking to Atkins’ religiously, I still haven’t lost anything since the beginning of February. That’s an 8 week plateau for those of you who are counting and I’m just as much at a loss about why as you might be. Nothing really makes sense and I don’t have the time to really worry about it right now. It seems that every day that I work on my car, polishing it or washing it, I gain 2 pounds and sit at 165. Every day that I don’t work on my car, I drop back down to 163 and just sit there. I’m just not going to accept that I’m “supposed” to weight 160+ pounds and that’s all there is to it. If I really think about it, I really think I need to cut calories to the bone in order to lose weight, but that is anti-Atkins’ and makes me feel weak and like crap, not to mention, the havoc it causes Aunt Flo. What to do? What to do?
In the Negative column: MrSmartButFakingIt, my real boss, and one of the company CEOs (the one who LOVES MsNoManagementSkills) is flying here from company headquarters at the end of the month. Great timing to potentially bring that SARS virus here. Thankfully, we’ll all be meeting for 2 straight days over at MsNoManagementSkills’ and FatHead’s house and not here, but their house is always covered in dirt, dust, and cat fur, not to mention the urine covered bathroom. Oh, and the CEO wants to be taken out to the local hick dive bar that MsNoManagementSkills and FatHead frequents. You can be sure WS and I will be finding something else to do. Believe me, if there was anyway of avoiding this entire meeting, we’ve find a way to do it. These people are always sick or are always bringing some nasty cold/flu bug with them and have absolutely no compassion for anyone who may be suffering from asthma/low immune systems, both of which describe both WS and I. Oh, and MsNoManagementSkills and FatHead insist that MrSmartButFakingIt stay overnight at their house. We can be sure that BikerDude will be making an appearance and maybe even making a pitch to get his job back since reportedly, he doesn’t want to work anywhere else. Oh, the fun this meeting ought to be!
Day 26 on how many days in a row OurParentsDoEverythingForUs have had their parents over there doing yard work. DrunkTank Willie and Leona have yet to have a For Sale sign in their yard but are assuring the neighborhood that it will happen soon (overheard this morning when Leona was screaming it across the street to The Blinders). It’s now April and the Baseball Team shows no signs of moving out. They were supposed to be moving out the first week in April. Their house still has not been sold or even shown since early March. Really, this is just NOT the economic time to be selling a house, especially when asking more than what it’s worth and especially in this area of the country.
And just because I’m feeling mean and bitchy today: Have you seen the guys in the band “Bowling For Soup”? Bad hair, bad clothes, bad music, and the bass player is seriously a wide load and looks a lot like MsNoManagementSkills. Scary! Maybe they were separated at birth? Don’t go look if you are at all faint of heart.
April 3rd 2003
In the Positive column: WS might help me work on getting my car into show season shape by working on fixing a few rock chips I have in my hood. I tried fixing them but just can’t get the hang of it. From what he worked on last night, it looks like he’s got a better touch at it than I. This will free up my time to work on some engine cleanup I have to do as well as fix one of the new chrome parts that broke it’s tab off last weekend. I think I have a better way of installing it than the original instructions advised but only if I can find a 2 X 3 inch block of plain black rubber (where the heck can I find something like this? It’s not like there are rubber stores anywhere…) If WS works on those chips, I can easily get over half of the remaining cleaning things done rapidly and this will take a lot off my mind. Especially at 4 am every morning. Yes, my insomnia is trying to come back.
In the Negative column: I really don’t feel well today and wanted to take the day off from work. Now, if you’ve been reading here long, you know that I always guilt myself into working whether I’m sick or not and have yet to take a sick day without making up the time later in the week. I’m doing the same thing today, working when I’m under the weather. Maybe I’ll take a day tomorrow. Yeah…sure I will….
MsNoManagementSkills is inventing work for us to do since our normal work load is under control. She’s doing all that corporate kind of busy work that makes her look like she’s doing something and making herself stand out to the CEOs. She’s learned this behavior from FatHead who is a master at it. I hate this kind of crap. Either we have legitimate work or we don’t. Don’t make shit up to do.
She really pissed me off yesterday too when the CEO who is coming to visit from company headquarters at the end of the month, asked both MsNoManagementSkills and myself to find a restaurant for all of us to dine at during the visit, and naturally, MsNoManagementSkills didn’t even consult me before firing back a company wide email saying we’d be eating at HER choice of restaurant. Jesus Christ on a hand truck! If I ever get one friggin’ say in where we, as a company group, get to eat, it will be a miracle. Extremely rude corporate behavior on MsNoManagementSkills’ part and just wait until I hear her or FatHead ever, EVER whine again about anyone “grabbing territory” or “empire building” and I promise to let them have a piece of my mind. There was absolutely no excuse for this kind of behavior and I do believe she knows better.
Wait, you might ask. Isn’t this just petty shit that doesn’t really matter in the scheme of the big, everyday world? Sure it is, but if you hate your job and don’t get any respect back from your supervisor, how are you really going to feel about yourself and the rest of the world? Pretty sucky, I’d imagine. Unless you’re one of those perky, rose-tinted glasses kind of people and I am definitely not.
In the Positive column: The foggy clouds have lifted just enough today to see the hills far off behind us and there’s a sprinkling of snow on them. Nice view. A single dove has taken to liking our backyard for the past couple of days. I’ll take this as a good sign. At least until The Blinders’ Cat from Hell finds it and if it continues to just sit on one of the walkways, it won’t last long around here. I can’t sit out there and keep a 24 hour protective watch on it.
Thank goodness it’s Thursday already. Tonight we have a car club meeting and neither one of us wants to go. WS has work to make up and I just feel crappy. I know that if I went, I’d feel better about things because lately, the meetings have been more on the fun side. Then, there’s always the chance that one of the Competition Boys will have gotten in the remainder of my polished stainless steel car parts I ordered 2 months ago or that another member will have finished those embroidered towels I requested a month ago, but if neither has them, it’ll just be another thing to depress me and another thing to make me question this whole car show obsession I currently have.
5 hours at work left today. Someone asked me once if I did 8 hours of work a day or if I just worked 8 hours a day. A long time ago, I used to happily squeeze 10 hours of work into an 8 hour day but now? I think you know the answer…
April 4th 2003
Wouldn’t it be interesting if you could smell love? Personal love for another person, not love of one’s self or love of material things. Don’t ask me where that came from. It was part of something I was dreaming about.
In the Negative column: I am very tired of receiving company emails that talk about parties being thrown at work during work hours at company headquarters to boost morale and at which include free beer, pizza, ice cream and such. None of us remote employees get any ot this or anything at all to boost morale, thanks to the repressive regime of MsNoManagementSkills. We desperately need a regime change but apathy has taken a hold of most of us, so we just don’t care.
Sorry if that sounded odd. My eyes just won’t focus today. Mentally, I am very tired. Physically, I’m doing well. I’m feeling fat but okay. Weight is 164 today. After pooping most of yesterday due to something off I must of have eaten, my weight is just not budging. Again, I think it’s all about the calories now. No one can plateau for 2 solid months on Atkins’.
In the Positive column: It’s Friday and I only have to work 6 1/2 hours today if I want to. I’ve got about 4 hours left. I sure would like to know how exactly it is that MsNoManagementSkills is able to adjust her time to read that she’s been working more hours than I know she actually worked. For example, as of yesterday, company reports showed she had 28 hours in by the end of her day for the week. Yet early this morning, the time was adjusted to 34 hours. This occurs nearly every week and I am convinced she has found a way to manually edit her time within our company software, but WS disagrees. I know I shouldn’t care less. How much she works or doesn’t work doesn’t really affect me anymore, but it just does bother me because I don’t like cheats and liars, especially when everyone else does. Damn me for having a stronger than normal sense of right and wrong.
Looks like it’s certain to rain on April 12th around here so I won’t be attending the first car show of the season. No skin off my nose over it. I could use the extra time to finish up cleaning the car and to avoid getting both extra mileage and potentially extra rock chip damage. Of course, one could easily point out that had I not bought a black car, I would probably not care so much about the appearance and would probably drive it much more often than I currently do. Would this mean I would have more fun? Could be. Or I could be telling myself every moment, “Yeah, my car looks nice, but just think of how it would look if I had bought a black car!” That’s just me. Never happy. Never satisfied. Always thinking, “What if…”.
The weekend is nearly upon us. I have no idea what I’ll be doing this weekend. WS will probably be working. Other than car cleaning and detailing and general house cleaning (which I could do today to get it over with), I don’t really have anything that needs to be done. I’m getting my hairs cut this evening and WS has a couple of movies he’ll want to watch. Looks like a blah weekend coming up. Hope yours is good!
April 6th 2003
In the Positive column: Saturday was a nice day spent shopping for the first time in months after a rather nasty start between me and a credit card company who raised my interest rate from 8% to 24% without any notice and for no legitimate reason. I lost that round but WS thinks we’ll be able to completely pay off that credit card in just a couple of months and close the account. BTW: If you have a Providian credit card and you owe anything on it that you carry over from month to month and your interest rate is anything less than 24%, be afraid. They’re raising everyone and they just might not have gotten to you just yet, but it’s coming. Ridiculous to rate interest rates in this economy.
In the Negative column: WS is feeling another attack of his debilitating disease coming on strong. His vision is nearly doubling, his balance is bad, and he says he’s been feeling off. I’ve noticed his concentration has been wandering lately myself, especially while he’s driving. It’s been about 2 years since his last bad attack when he was unable to drive, read, or walk much at all and nearly 4 years since he was unable to lift his right leg to walk at all for 3 weeks. Looks like I’ll be picking up the slack over the next week or weeks, doing all the driving and running errands. Stress is the biggest cause of most of these attacks and he has been under terrible stress and fear lately at his main job. Let’s hope he won’t lose the ability to walk at all this time around and the attack will be short-lived.
In the Positive column: When he’s been able to, WS has been working on my car’s rock chips in the paint. We had 5 nasty chips, all in highly noticeable areas. Now, we’re down to 3. 2 and 1/2 actually. Repairing rock chips in paint takes lots of patience and I just do not have any. I have finished half of the last 22 listed items left to do on my car in preparation for car show season, which begins officially next Saturday. I, however, won’t be going to that show because nothing but tons of rain has been forecasted and I believe the parking lot where the cars are to sit isn’t paved. It’s dirt, or will actually be deep mud next Saturday. By not going, this will give me 3 extra weeks to prepare for the first show I’ll definitely be attending on May 2-3. It’s an overnight trip a few hundred miles away. We’ll have to watch WS closely between now and then to see if he is still up for going.
In the Negative column: Today, Sunday, has been horribly slow, depressing, and boring. The weather outside varies between hail, light rain, and sunshine, but it’s only 40 degrees with a wind chill of 36 degrees. Definitely not fun trying to sit outside, especially since all our sitting areas are directly in the wind. So I’ve been cleaning here and there and trying to stay away from food. I’m bored to tears actually and anything fun sounding doesn’t sound fun in the least.
In the Positive column: And finally, Friday night, while driving home from the grocery store, I realized exactly how far I’ve come and how fast time has gone by. 17 years ago this month, I was trying to live on my own, having been divorced a couple of years earlier and having lost literally everything to my name, scraping by, eating Meow Mix cat food and desperately trying not to become homeless. My car had just blown it’s motor, my last trusted friend had just taken me for the last penny I had, and I was about to lose my job because I tried to file a harassment report against my boss and regional supervisor. It doesn’t seem like 17 years have gone by. It feels more like only 6 or 7 years. The memories are still too fresh and they are what makes who I am today. Now, I’m desperately trying to make time slow down so I can take a deep breath and look around me to take in what I have in my life: WS, a good paying job, health insurance, all my material things that make me happy, but I think I’m doing a bad job of absorbing it all. I hope that someday, when all this stuff is gone, isn’t the day I finally realized what I had.
April 7th 2003
Stolen from elsewhere on the Internet:
In the off chance the U.S. is taken over by Arabic speaking rebels, here are some handy phrases that may ease the transition from free citizen to harem slave:
AKBAR KHALI-KILI HAFTIR LOFTAN = Thank you for showing me your marvelous gun.
TIKEH NUNEH BA OB KHRELEH BEZORG VA KHRUBE GOYAST INO BERGERAM = The water-soaked bread crumbs are delicious, thank you. I must have the recipe
FASHAL-EH TUPEHMAN NA DEGAT MANO GOFTAM CHEESHAYEH MOHEMA RAJEBEH KESHAVAREHMAN = If you will do me the kindness of not harming my genital appendages I will gladly reciprocate by betraying my country in public
More handy phrases in Arabic can be found here.
In the Negative column: I had to take WS to work today. He has little balance left and his eyesight is unfocused. Don’t ask me how he can function at his main job, but he pulls it off somehow. I suspect his coworkers there are a bit more sympathetic there than at Job #2 where he also has to deal with FatHead and MsNoManagmentSkills (who has officially declared herself old and ancient at the ripe age of 28 when she found a second grey hair last week. Gee, I wonder how she would feel to being shot now, since that’s what she has always said should happen to all old people.).
Bringing in the trash cans today from garbage pickup, I noticed my car sitting uneven. I started it up and checked the gauges and yep, I have a flat tire. Wonderful. Definitely not something I want to or have the time to deal with right now. WS isn’t going to be happy either when he finds out. There goes any money I might have gotten to finish landscaping and the bark dust purchase. Let’s just hope I don’t have to buy a brand new tire at $250 each plus tax. My tires have less than 5000 miles on them.
It’s going to take me a solid 3 weeks to get used to this silly daylight savings time thing. I grew up in a state that didn’t recognize this change and to date, no one has been able to explain what the point of it all is. Can’t we all just live in the now and not in some other time frame? We’re not fooling ourselves here. Daylight savings time is NOT saving time. It’s downright stupid and in a thousand years, some civilization is going to laugh at us for this.
I’ll probably work late tonight because I got up late and had to take WS to work. After work, I plan on taking sleeping medication and hopefully, not waking up at all until early Tuesday morning when I have to be at a dental appointment at 7:45 am. If I’m real lucky, I won’t wake up until Friday afternoon, but I don’t suspect that will actually happen. Ever have one of those periods in your life when all you want is for everything to go away and to sleep for a year or so? I’d imagine I’ll be thinking this a lot more this year when SARS makes it rounds in my town. Myself having asthma, this virus is scaring the crap outta me.
April 8th 2003
In the Positive column: I got my flat tire fixed and it only cost me $12. Well, $32 really if you count the $20 I greased the mechanic with to take extra special care of my car, which he did a beautiful job of, perhaps because I was standing right there the entire time. Everything I know, I learned from the movie, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”.
In the Negative column: MsNoManagementSkills is taking too much medication. The tip off? Today, she’s fascinated on how much lighter her hair is when it’s dry than when it is wet. I’m not kidding.
In the Positive column: Because I got up at the crack of dawn, my work day is nearly over. But, because I’m a dedicated worker, I’ll work a few extra hours today so I won’t be off work until around 5 pm or so. Actually, I’m doing this in hopes of being able to work a shorter day later in the week. Not that anything will come up to justify working a short day, but you never know.
In the Negative column: And you wonder why I would try to work a shorter day? MrSmartButFakingIt eluded to news that the company has renewed a contract with an out of the country company who employs people who work for $300 a year and who will most likely take all our jobs here away eventually. Hooray for cheapskate business owners, huh? Maybe I should move to the third world country just so I can keep my job.
April 10th 2003
In the Negative column: SARS has come to my small town and to WS’s main place of employment. Some woman, traveling in Singapore and not paying any attention to any health news or why so many people were wearing face masks, came back home, went back to work, came in close contact with 30 other people before coming down with a raging fever and cough. Monday night, she finally drove herself to the local ER, most likely infecting others, before the doctors told her to go home and made her promise to quarantine herself for 10 days.
I had to find all this out from our local TV news station. WS nor any of his coworkers are being told anything, including her name, where exactly her desk is located, and who exactly are the 30 people she came into close contact with. I am LIVID with rage. Bitch, how dare you so carelessly spread this virus to people who will no doubt infect others including other coworkers, their families, anyone casually minding their own business at the local grocery store, department store, mall, restaurant, etc. I want to hunt down this person…and have some serious violent discussions with her while wearing a heavy NG-95 respiratory mask. While there is no way of knowing if WS will get sick, if he does and if I do as well, there will be hell to pay!
UPDATE: Our local TV news is now reporting that it is likely this woman does have SARS and out of the 30 possibly infected people, 8 are being watched very closely. No one is talking about any of the people possibly infected by those very closely watched 8 people and (sarcastic mode enabled) I’m SURE this woman, after “promising” to stay inside her house for 10 days, didn’t run to a grocery store to stock up on food and toilet paper not to mention infect people in the store before going home to a 10-day exile (sarcastic mode disabled).
But in the Positive column: While I am still extremely mad, I’m determined to make this SARS scare work for me. So we will be skipping tonight’s car club board meeting, which is guaranteed to be boring anyway, not to mention attended by yet another possible SARS carrier. DrillSargent Dave and his wife fly down to San Francisco last weekend to pick up a new car. San Francisco is a hotbed for SARS in the U. S. right now. This will also give me the ultimate excuse not to attend this weekend’s first car show, which I wasn’t going to anyway because it’s going to by raining cats and dogs. Fellow car club members give tons of flack to other members who won’t drive their show cars in the rain and personally, I’m tired of it. Of course, those flack-giving members have cars that look like crap and don’t care what they look like anyway but then wonder why they don’t win any show competition…
The weather was pretty nice yesterday so I got a lot of yard work accomplished, including moving a huge New Zealand flax plant that was threatening to take over our front yard. If it survives the transplant, no doubt in 4 years I’ll be doing this again. I had no idea these things could spread so big.
Surfing the ‘net last night, I find that I’m a sucker for nearly every Movable Type style online journal. I really like Movable Type, but can’t, for the life of me, figure out how to do it. I’m under the impression at this point that I have to install something on my computer in order to use it in place of Blogger? Well, that’s a problem because I can’t install anything else on my computer because it’s an ancient one and doesn’t like anything else. It barely tolerates the software I have to run in order to keep my job. Maybe someday I’ll get WS to explain it to me. Without his enginerd words.
I’ve noticed in the last 2 months that I’ve been on my weight plateau with Atkins’, the areas on my body that gain and hold weight, namely my breasts and stomach, have grown bigger. This really pisses me off because last month, I bought 3 new sports bras for the summer and now, they are all painfully too tight to wear. I think it’s the high fat in Atkins’ eating not being burned off and so I’ll be making a few personalized changes. I’ll be cutting out the cheese, which is the new heroin anyway, the bacon, which I never ate before anyway, and anything else that is higher fat content laden than 20%. While I like the EAS Low-Carb protein drinks, I don’t need them feeding their 35% fat content directly to my already floppy breasts. Over the next few days, I’ll be making up a list of all the low carb and low fat foods left for me to eat. I don’t suspect there will be many, but having limited food choices hasn’t really bothered me in the past. I can deal with this just fine.
April 11th 2003
In the Negative column: I truly believe that the main company WS works for is squashing all news on the suspected SARS-infected employee because we are having a very difficult time learning any more about it. I guess a person has to die or some bigwig has to come down with it before anyone around here will take it seriously. WS has worked here from home for the last 2 days and from what I understand, a couple other employees with low immune systems are doing the same thing.
In the meantime, check out this story of an employee who refused to stay in quarantine and went back to work anyway. Now 200 other people are in quarantine and legal action against this moron might be taken. This is serious shit, people.
In the Positive column: I’m within minutes of being done with work today. I couldn’t really do dick today at work because attbi.com is in the process of changing to comcast.com and they are playing with disconnecting/reconnecting areas around here, including us. So all I could really do was sit here and play with software. Software for work, you might ask? Let’s not ask.
In the Negative column: The Cat from Hell got one of the squirrels yesterday and there wasn’t a thing we could do about it. Glancing out the front window before starting work, we saw Cat from Hell running across the street with the limp thing in his jaws. Welcome to spring, the season of dead things picked off in our back yard.
In the Positive column: At least I haven’t had any squirrel parts to pick up out there yet. Sure, there are bird-bits out there right now, but I’ve been avoiding that area lately.
I’ve decided to start actively watching my caloric intake since my Atkins’ plateau is continuing since the first week of February. 1655 calories total yesterday. So far today, I’m sitting at 805. I’ll be working on keeping it under 1600 calories, 1500 if at all possible and continuing to eat Atkins’-style, sans cheese. NO ONE needs as much cheese as I was eating.
Well, I’m off work and off to put another coat of polish on my car. I’ll be working on getting 2 more full coats of polish on this weekend, while working on detailing the interior – vacuuming, scrubbing, conditioning, and lovingly wiping all surfaces. Then I’ve got to tackle those under-the-hood and trunk water spot areas and finish off with polishing my aluminum wheels. Then, and only then, will I be completely done and truly ready for car show season. May 2nd-3rd is coming up soon.
April 13th 2003
Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy that 7 of the U.S. POWs have been found alive. But I am soooo tired of the American public rewriting the definition of the word “hero”. A hero is someone who saves someone’s life or something of high value. Just going to war does not make a person a hero, nor does being a POW. The 7 found U.S. POWs in the Iraq war did not save anyone’s life nor did they save anything of high value. They simply lived through what they had to endure. This does not make them heroes. If by simply enduring their captivity, I’d be a hero many, many times over given my abusive childhood and first marriage and I’m sure many of the readers of this journal would be too. But you don’t see anyone calling us heroes, do you? Again, being a POW does not make someone automatically a hero. Pass the word.
Also, how would you feel if you found out that something deemed “historic” and shown repeatedly on TV as a “monumental moment in history” was actually staged like a scene from a movie, and not at all anything that would have happened on it’s own? Cheated is how I feel.
Case in point: “A statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down on Wednesday, in the most staged photo-opportunity since Iwo Jima.” Just as bad as finding out that all those young girls screaming over The Beatles visit to the U.S. was staged as well. Is nothing sacred in this country?
World Health Organization daily count of SARS cases around the world. Updated regularly. Unfortunately, several countries including the U.S. refuse to report it’s probable cases per World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, only confirmed cases. What is the U.S. trying to hide? It’s getting scary how similar we’re acting like China and Malaysia, who are doing lots of scary things regarding SARS patients and are blacking out all blogs mentioning SARS.
And finally, a new category for the time being: Links to blogs from people living in SARS infected areas outside the U.S. These could be fun!
April 14th 2003
In the Positive column: We’re working on getting our own web site at last. I’ve finally found a journal name I like and can live with for a few years and I’m really becoming disillusioned with Blogger. Running a huge web site a few years ago, I’m confident this journal will be more stable and updated more often. You don’t know how many times I update here only to have some error come up on why it can’t be updated for a while.
When I’ve got things in place, I’ll post the new address and mirror both journals for a few weeks to hopefully make everyone’s move from here to there smooth. I’d really hate to lose anyone.
I’m watching my caloric intake religiously now, using FitDay.com to keep track of food intake. I really like this site, 100% because it’s free. I really don’t want to pay someone for something like this. Yeah, I’m a cheapskate sometimes.
Anyway, I ate pretty good yesterday and surprised myself with my 1201 calories for the day. Of course, it could have been that I was miserable all day yesterday…
In the Negative column: The weekend was a complete waste of time for me. I didn’t do anything I wanted to do and instead, sat around waiting for WS to magically make my day better. I hate it when I do crap like this, almost as bad as I hate the “we can’t spend any money” talk. Enough said there I think.
But furthermore, lately I’ve felt nothing but frustration at nearly everything I try to do or want to do. I’d like to think it’s due to lack of sleep (it’s not) or that I’ve been consuming too much caffeine lately (TWEAK!) but I think it’s just the acumination of everything getting to me. Okay, maybe I do need to sleep more. Sleep has always been my escape in life and damn it! I’d fight for the right to keep it that way!
(don’t ask me where that came from.)
And I physically feel like I just spent the last hour bawling my head off, but in reality, I haven’t even sniffled. Odd.
In the Positive column: Only 2 hours of work left. Today has been d-r-a-g-g-i-n-g, regardless of the other things I’ve been doing. Vacuuming, mopping, laundry. Too much fun.
April 15th 2003
I just did NOT want to wake up today and so, as a result, am having a very slow day. You know the kind I’m talking about.
Friday is a paid holiday for me. How the heck did this sneak up on me? Oh yeah, I finally get paid for some holidays around here and the company I work for finally recognizes a few holidays. Looks like the weather might just be nice and you know what that means…Plant shopping!
(imagine WS cringing because he will be when he reads this).
DrunkTank Willie and his wife Leona next door are having their house video-ed and have been moving stuff out of the garage over the last few days. It seems they are hell-bent on actually moving out, unlike The Baseball Team who shows no signs of moving whatsoever, not to mention show their house to anyone else. Their house has been on the market for months, whereas DrunkTank Willie’s has only been on the market for a week and has had well over a dozen interested parties. As WS says, there is just something wrong with the Baseball Team’s house (which he also calls the “Baby Cheese” house for obvious reasons).
So, knowing that Willie and Leona will be moving out soon, I’m trying to figure out what we need to plant on that side of our house to provide the fastest screening from the next occupants, not that I’m expecting neighbors as bad as Willie was, but you never know. Already there have been several couples with LOUD screaming children looking at the place. I have to expect the worst because if anything else happens, it can only be good, right?
From The Agonist’s SARS report:
“There will be 100,000 cases on about June 20, 2003. A million cases will be reached on about August 6, 2003, and ten million on about September 21, 2003.” Also Agonist member Crawford asks: “Assuming the 14-day doubling rate continues, and the present 4.5% mortality rate continues also, simple calculations suggest about 1.6 billion cases by the end of the year, and the whole planet infected before the end of January. That would give us about 75 million deaths by Christmas or New Years and maybe 250 million by the end of January 2004.
That seems highly implausible, but even if the spread slows down dramatically, and mortality falls as we learn how to cope with the virus, we should still anticipate tens of millions of cases and many millions of deaths.
We should also expect “collateral damage” in the form of deaths from illnesses that can’t be adequately dealt with in the midst of a pandemic. The economic and political consequences are incalculable. What happens if SARS breaks out among senior government officials in the US or China or Russia? What if whole armies are quarantined?” Interesting thoughts, yet I refuse to reread Stephen King’s “The Stand”. Who needs that extra kind of paranoia??
April 16th 2003
After an “interesting” email exchange between WS, FatHead, MrSmartButFakingIt, and the company CEO this morning that really woke me up, I decided to just “be around” regarding work today instead of sitting here 100% of the time and working nonstop like a working fool. If there is one thing I’ve learned about MrSmartButFakingIt, when he gets pissy, he can lash out and do something completely irrational, like fire hard working people for the slightest thing, while non-working company idiots get off scott-free. I don’t plan on sticking my neck out at all today and will be very quiet around work. Of course, MrSmartButFakingIt only has himself to blame because he didn’t tell any of the rest of us of a company marketing decision that is going to create lots of email from angry customers, and in fact, he approved the marketing decision again, without telling the rest of us, the very people who have to deal with the customers firsthand. Then FatHead didn’t make matters any better by calling him on the decision in FatHead’s usual destructive, not at all constructive, way in front of the company CEO and going over MrSmartButFakingIt’s head. Bad move and typical FatHead move in order to make himself look more important than he really is. As a result, everyone else is prone to getting their heads bit off or worse.
I’m still taking WS to work everyday due to his illness’ most recent attack so after dropping him off this morning, I drove to a new plant nursery in our area that’s been heavily advertising on TV. Nice place. Nice plants. Not so nice prices so I decided to head several miles out of town to THE nursery of nurserys. Now really, I was looking for white bark birch trees, 6 of them actually, at a good price and figured that since it was so late in the pre-spring season, that all their birches would no longer have their roots balled up in burlap bags but potted up in plastic pots. Which means they would be double the price. But surprise! All their birches were still burlapped and the prices were exactly what I was hoping to find.
So I bought them. All 6 of them. And yes, it was expensive. $350 expensive. And I’m not sorry.
These are the absolute last trees we wanted for our property (really! we couldn’t fit one more tree anywhere around here!) and so my feeling was to just buy them and be done with it. They’ll be delivered tomorrow afternoon and if it’s not raining, I’ll be digging 6 deep holes for 6 large birch trees. Yes, I’m very happy!
Now all that is left to buy is bark dust, which is shredded bark that is used extensively in this area of the U.S. to retain moisture in the soil and keep down weed growth.
I also found a home for a weeping cherry that has to be moved from a bad spot in our side front yard. I really liked this tree and really wanted one, but I’ve since found out 2 things that I can’t live with. 1) It suckers, meaning it sends up little trees up to 6 feet away from it’s root ball, and 2) where it is located blocks our view out of our driveway and is a danger to oncoming traffic, especially bad in our neighborhood where not a single person will stop, even if in an emergency (secretly, I think everyone’s looking for insurance money and new cars).
I’ve been doing okay on watching my caloric intake over the last few days. Yesterday morning, I weighed in at 161.6, a drop of nearly 2 more pounds. Unfortunately, I completely forgot to weigh in this morning but I’m okay with that. I hate feeling tied to the scale and have been known to literally go years without weighing myself. So far today, as of 4 pm, I’m at about 800 calories and 13 grams of carbs (the key is to stay under 20 grams of carbs a day).
Next door, at DrunkTank Willie’s house, people continue to stop by and look at it. Earlier today, a huge unknown woman allowed her 2 toddlers to play in the backyard for over an hour. Frightening when you really think about the fact that no one’s been home over there all day yet people are coming and going left and right without a realtor. I really think their house will sell soon. Meanwhile, the Baseball Team’s house is not selling at all. How odd.
Late last night, taking a cue from someone who reads here (you know who you are who stayed up so very late working), I got a wild burr under my saddle and decided to do lots of work around the house. I finally dug up a large dead houseplant and got rid of it, dumped a couple vases of near dead flowers, vacuumed upstairs (again), finished laundry of car cleaning towels, and finished detailing my car engine area. This evening, I hope to repeat the same: vacuuming, microfibering shelves, and detailing the back truck area of my car. My car detailing is finally coming to an end. After detailing the truck and door jams, all I’ll have left is the interior cab – carpet, floor mats, seat conditioning, and glass cleaning. Whew! That only took forever and of course, I’ll be repeating most of this over and over again throughout the summer car show season. I’m just glad all the polishing is done and so are my arms.
April 17th 2003
What a day so far.
Took WS to work. Picked up the rest of the plants WS and I agreed on my purchasing this morning (while I should have been working). Came home through 2 different city police speed trap setups and watched people all around me nearly get pulled over (for once I wasn’t speeding). Logged into work and waited for the tree delivery guy. Had lunch (520 calories and about 4 grams of carbs). Saw that Dr. Atkins died on the noon news. Took delivery of the trees. Talked briefly to a neighbor who was asking about the new trees. Picked WS up early from work after he had a terrible work day.
Dug up weeping cherry tree and potted it up for a neighbor to take off my hands. Dug holes and planted 3 of the 10 foot birch trees. Transplanted one huge daylily, one short Mugo pine, and the clump of coreopis from hell. Filled in all holes and raked back the remaining bark dust. Hosed down the tools, the driveway and myself in the pouring rain (yes, the neighbors were looking at me as though I was mad but the tools, the driveway and I was covered in mud).
Came indoors and jumped right into the shower because…in 2 hours we have a general car club meeting. Hmpf! Who wants to go to one of those? Especially since WS’s work on the club newsletter lately has been ignored? It’s also been decided that the club sponsor doesn’t want to pay for the newsletter costs now after all and so we’re still footing the bill ourselves!
Okay, it’s not just the car club that has us frustrated lately. It’s everything all piled on top of one another. The economy, the lack of job raises, the continued backstabbing and morale issues with our jobs, the war, SARS, WS’s latest illness flare-up, and now to keep having to pay for the club newsleter out of our own pockets. We’re just tired. But you know, we know that everyone else is too and we’re not alone. Let’s all just try to hang in there for ourselves and each other, m’kay?
April 18th 2003
Today was a great day and you know I don’t have many of these. Off from work for a holiday, I got up early, checked journals online, made coffee, watched some news, then dug into getting the rest of those trees planted.
3 hours later, all 6 trees are planted along with 5 clumps of apricot daylily, 4 Crater Lake rhododendrons, 3 dwarf Lingonberry groundcover bushes, 2 large laurel bushes, a sorry-ass-looking red flax, and little assorted things here and there that needed to be divided and moved. By then, my back and shoulders were sore but wait! There’s more!
I finally took WS’s advice, got out my Dremel (I love my Dremel) and a tube of red Wenol polishing compound and went to work polishing the exposed parts of my new exhaust to a mirror-like finish. Even I’m impressed with how good it turned out 2 hours later (and my middle name is “anal”.) Beautiful is all I can say about it and I can’t wait to show the Competition Boys tomorrow at a club tech day. Because the weather looks like it’s going to be dry after all, I’ll drive my car over there to show off a little. It’s only 5 miles away this time around.
Final things to do on my car before the May 2-3rd show on the coast: Clean carpets and floor mats, clean interior glass, condition seats, vacuum front bra, and burn some more CDs. I’m thinking another Trance CD since my other one has skips in it (yeah, yeah, I know. What’s a middle-aged woman doing listening to trance??) and some 80′s hair band stuff – Great White, Guns’N'Roses, Poison, Motley Crue, Bon Jovi, you know, hair band stuff. I also ought to do a pop 80′s CD with stuff like Pet Shop Boys, Flock of Seagulls, T’Pau, New Order, Heaven 17, etc. I’ve been just waiting for driving weather like this to remind myself to make some more CDs.
Late this afternoon, after showering for the second time today, and because the roads were dry and the temperature around 60, I took WS for a drive in my car. It’s been just about a month since the last time I took my car out, back when I put on my new exhaust and got the car completely water spotted. It felt really good to get it out and open it up a bit on one of the main road going into town. WS was grinning like a opossum when I really let it rip down the quarter mile road and I’m back to being one happy boo.
April 21st 2003
Happy day after candy and rabbits day or whatever that holiday was supposed to be about. We have never celebrated that holiday since being together (some 15 years now). Neither one of us are big on eating candy and religion? Not hardly. Going to hell in a hand basket where all the interesting people will be anyway.
MsNoManagementSkills nearly threw a fit when her “mommy” forgot to get her an Easter basket according to an entry, (now conveniently deleted) on her Online Journal. Yes, MsNoManagementSkills is almost 30 years old, still calls her mother “mommy” and demands that mommy and daddy buy her candy for Easter. She’s also preparing for our company CEO and MrSmartButFakingIt’s visit next week by having mommy re-landscape their yard, put up window treatments, and rearrange furniture. MsNoManagementSkills insisted that our company meetings will be at her house and MrSmartButFakingIt will be spending the night over there (poor guy!) where FatHead can rant and rail about how he’s not being paid enough and not in charge.
MsNoManagementSkills is also starting a new diet today, she says. Actually, it will probably be tomorrow because she’s already caved and ate more easter candy this morning (really, she shouldn’t have that web camera pointed directly at her face.). Now, we’ll get to hear all about how fat she’ll say she’s gotten over the last 3 months and read nothing but food, food, food entries. I thought I was obsessed with food but reading her is like watching McDonald’s commercials 24/7.
And speaking of food, I finally hit 160 lbs Saturday morning and felt great. Unfortunately, we went out for a big non-Atkins meal yesterday afternoon where I ate a lot of bread and some scalloped potatoes with ham and my favorite drug – cheese. This morning, I’m back up to 165, but I’m flushing my system today and I’m okay with that.
Another rainy day here and I’m happy. The rain is good for all those newly planted trees and bushes. The gold finch birds and swifts are finally back from their winter roosts. So far this spring, we’re getting regular visits from red house finches, one mourning dove, robins, stellar jays, scrub blue jays, pine Siskins, a pair of towhees, white crowned sparrows, red-winged blackbirds, starlings, 2 pairs of flickers, chickadees, juncos, and now gold finches and swifts. Not bad for not having any wildlife whatsoever just 3 years ago when this development was under construction.
Today, other than work, I plan on starting to detail the interior of my car. It’s the only big, time-consuming thing I have left to do before car show season starts for me in 2 weeks. So far, it looks like the weather might be rainy that day, but it’s really too far out to be sure. Either way, I’m going to this show. Supposedly, there will be 2 car wash areas set up in case of rainy weather so I’ll be counting on these. Black cars just don’t stay clean and yes, I knew this before buying one. Hopefully, I’ll find the motivation to start compiling new playlists of music so I can burn a few CDs before May 2nd too. I drove my car last Saturday and was bored to tears with the CDs I currently have in there.
April 22nd 2003
I’ve been experiencing a couple of strange days in a row. I don’t know what exactly is going on but I think it’s just an off biorhythm period. For example:
Yesterday, I could seem to do anything right. I had tons of energy and a big list of things to accomplish, but every time I started something, I felt the overwhelming need to rush through it, doing a half-assed job of it, and that in itself caused that task to turn out badly. Not at all fun, so by the end of the day, you can guess correctly that I was pretty frustrated and only a small portion of what needed to be done, was done and of all of those, done poorly.
So I decided I just needed some time spent away from chores. Some quiet time, or as the case played out, some silly time in which I found and downloaded some Commodore 64 game music like that happy little ditty from M.U.L.E. and with which I drove WS crazy for a brief period of time and he asked me to stop. Personally, I thought the music was much better than that dot-matrix printer symphony music I found last week.
But obviously, that time spent didn’t break me out of my funk or whatever this is and today, I seem to still not be able to do anything right. I’m bumping into stuff, dropping stuff, opening my mouth and saying things that truly annoy people, and although I still have most of those things to get done on yesterday’s to-do list, I don’t exactly have the motivation to do any of them because I don’t want to do a half-assed job of any of them. So here I sit…whining and doing a half-assed job of that (oh yes! I can certainly whine much better than this! Trust me!). To make matters worse, WS seems to be completely irritated at me today. I’m sure it’s because I’m just irritating everyone today.
Just give me a day or two. I’ll get through this. That, or else, someone will shoot me first.
In the meantime, I just can’t get into TV’s ” Mr. Personality.” I feel like some TV execs are trying too hard with this reality show trend. And failing. But no doubt, lots of bug-eyed, Wal-Mart shopping, AOL-luvin’ worker drones love it. (see what I mean by saying things that irritate everyone??) Also, Classmates.com is slated for an upcoming reality show. Oh boy. Another class reunion-type reality show. Yawn.
Update: I think I figured out why I’m having a couple of “off” days. The vanilla soy milk I’ve been using in my morning coffee for the last few days might have, uh….gone over sometime last week. GROSS!
*spit..spit…spat…spit..blelch!*
April 24th 2003
Is it really only Thursday? Ugh. Well, at least it’s already April 24th. I feel like time is just dragging. Soon enough, time will slip by and I’ll wonder where it all went and why I wasted a single second of it whining of it’s perceived slowness.
Ever had one of those flashes of brilliance, where you know with every fiber of your being that you couldn’t write something meanful if it smacked up clearly upside your head with a large trout? Yeah, I used to think I could be a writer for a living.
After purposely not thinking about SARS for nearly a week, I’m truly beginning to be terrified now after reading Peking Duck’s Journal from the SARS front lines in Beijing. Hospitals closing with officials telling possibly infected people to go home, 90 minute+ waiting lines to check out in grocery stores because people are racing to stock up on packaged and canned foods before the businesses close due to SARS, all the restaurants and other service places already closed due to SARS…and all those thousands of people fleeing China all together. Where are they all going? Why does no one in my area seem to care? Why are educated and seemingly intelligent people I personally know all mumble about how SARS is “a third world country disease and it won’t be seen around here.” Hello??
NEWS BREAK – a small 3.1 magnitude earthquake just happened in my area (12:26 pm PST). Nope, I didn’t feel a thing and nothing here is wobbling. Nice rant break though…
Regarding “Take your kids to work day”, My Life is a Mess says it best. Just don’t do it. ESPECIALLY all of you who find some reason to bring your kids to work once a week anyway. Do you know how much you people are hated? Do you care? I didn’t think so and so my point is again made on who the real selfish people are in the world.
April 25th 2003
Okay, enough is enough. You know I like the rain. I love rain. Rain, rain, rain any way, any day. But c’mon now. Our area has just set an all time record for amount of rain this spring and we’ve only had 1 day this month that has been dry. The weather forecast for the next 2 weeks shows nothing but rain too. I could really stand a couple of sunny days in a row but since I don’t have an “in” with any of the local weather people, I don’t think that will happen anytime soon.
“When you drive a car you don’t have to think about,… what will you think about”? This is the new Honda car commercial. Here’s a clue to the creators of this ad. How about “LET’S THINK ABOUT DRIVING SAFELY AND IN A MANNER THAT DOESN’T CAUSE NEAR ACCIDENTS EVERY 30 FEET!!” God, I want to physically hurt the people behind this new ad campaign.
And speaking of morons, apparently, I’m the only person on the planet that comes to a complete stop at stop signs anymore. Was there a memo I missed somewhere that said stop signs are really just pause signs? After nearly being creamed a few times over the last few months by morons who barely slow down, and in some cases, don’t slow down at all but just careen through the stop sign, I’m really very, very angry about this. To make matters worse, I’ve yet to see any cop in our area come to a complete stop at any stop sign. Yep, obviously, I missed some new public announcement pertaining to a change in traffic laws.
I’m in a bit of a poopy mood today (couldn’t you tell?) I got a wild hair yesterday afternoon and decided it was time to repaint our master bathroom. WS hated the dark grey color we had originally painted in there 3 years ago. I kind of liked it and called it the Zen bathroom. But lately, it did seem a bit drab. It was time for a change. Actually, it was high time for a good cleaning as it’s become downright scary with papers piling up on the counter and stuff growing in the shower. Ick.
So I painted it a nice Butter Cream color which is similar to the color of the header of this Blog site. I really like this color and have used it as a base color before “aging” or “antique-ing” walls in several areas of our house. I won’t be aging this bathroom though and it looks nice and fresh up against the white tile of the shower and the clear maple cabinets. I then, cleaned up all the papers and trash that had been accumulating in there and plan on working on the crud growing in the shower. Really, I don’t know how it got so bad looking in there and I’m disgusted in myself.
Today, I have a bit of a headache, probably from sniffing too much paint fumes. And I slept badly, waiting for WS to come to bed, which he did only around 4 a.m. after working all night on a work project. I’m sure I’ll feel much better tomorrow.
MsNoManagementSkills is going all out for next week’s company meeting over at her house with a company CEO and MrSmartButFakingIt. She’s already had her “mommy” re-landscape the lawn and put up window treatments, she’s had her hair cut and colored, and even gave up glasses for contacts – all over the past week. Now she’s crying for FatHead to get her some more stuff for their patio before the meeting but FatHead claims to have no time to do anything for her, which just pisses her off. And when MsNoManagementSkills gets pissed off, guess who pays for it? That’s right, her coworkers.
Geesh, I just want this work day to get OVER with!!
April 28th 2003
After a fairly good weekend, today has been very strange. With a storm coming in sometime tonight, we’ve had unexpected windy weather all day blowing in from the east which is very strange in spring around these here parts. To make things stranger, the temperatures have gone up to nearly 70 degrees after weeks around 50 degrees with an odd feel to the air similar to that of just before a tornado. Very quiet and just…strange. Late this afternoon, in a small town a about 50 miles away in a neighboring state, there was a minuscule earthquake (1.3 magnitude). Nothing anyone here would feel in the least. But leave it to MsNoManagementSkills to insist we just had a major earthquake. Now, knowing that she has a hard time distinguishing between earthquakes and flatulence, I had to question whether or not we had one. We, in fact, didn’t have one. It was that small town far away that did, but maybe her butt is sensitive to minor jiggling or something.
Within 5 minutes of her telling me we had a “major” earthquake, she goes off on things that other coworkers are and aren’t doing at work. Quickly, I check her Online Journal and see that she’s just pecked out a stressful entry about going to the grocery store to load up her house with munchies for tomorrow’s visit from our company CEO, while simultaneously complaining about having to give up her diet last week to accommodate coworkers and the CEO for the next 2 days. She seems to forget that she insisted that we have the company meetings at her house. She seems to forget that the meetings were the reason why she’s had her house re-decorated and re-landscaped over the past 2 weeks. She seems to forget that the meetings are why she’s finally chosen to forego the glasses she’s worn for the past 20+ years to finally get contacts and her Online Journal entry on why she had to take work time off last week to get her hair cut and colored. She’s forgetting a lot of stuff lately. Which only means one thing:
Over-medication. Yet again. Pray for me tomorrow evening at her house. I will need every ounce of self control I can muster to not want to call her what she is to her face for all the crap she’s put me and all my coworkers through over the past 4 months, especially over the past 2 weeks.
But wait! The fun isn’t over yet.
Within a half an hour of MsNoManagementSkills’ earthquake claim, who shows up on our doorstep? Ex-coworker BikerDude, who is here looking for a job and waiting for tomorrow’s meeting. Allegedly, he will be, conveniently, showing up over at MsNoManagementSkills’ and FatHead’s house during our meeting to ask for his job back. I can assure you that if this happens, I will most likely walk out of the meeting and if I don’t do that, I will positively sit there, glaring at everyone, fuming and stewing, and will refuse to speak to anyone. Rehiring this loose cannon would be the worst thing this company could ever do in a million, billion, gazillion years, especially after he told WS he only wanted to get rehired so he could get access to all company secure sites, then go in and reprogram everything. He wants to hack the company system and cause all kinds of havoc. Nice guy, huh? And yes, MrSmartButFakingIt, my REAL boss has been alerted on this, but I really don’t think MrSmartButFakingIt took anything WS told him seriously. As much as I hate my job at this company, I would still like to hold onto it for another year, however, if BikerDude is rehired, I will be tendering my resignation just as fast as WS and I can re-work our financial budget. WS may well tender his resignation as well and while money will be unbelievably tight for a good year or 2, we will survive as we always have in the past and at least we won’t have BikerDude, FatHead, or MsNoManagementSkills to worry about anymore.
Either way, the next couple of days should be interesting in a work-sort of way. On the other hand, it promises to be incredibly boring as we sit through hour after hour after hour of dry corporate discussion about marketing statistics and strategy.
May 1st 2003
Back from an interesting 2 days of meetings with the company CEO and MrSmartButFakingIt (who may be renamed “MrStretchedTooThin” sometime in the future). Yes, I still have my job and yes, there was more light-hearted-and-not-really-serious talk of us moving down to company headquarters, but nothing will come of it. WS doesn’t want to move and although it would be very exciting, we would lose everything we currently own in order to do so and still be in the hole about 50K. Our house is just too new, our cars are just too new, and our debt is currently too big. No one is really serious anyway. The moving talk sounded more serious when directed at MsNoManagmentSkills and FatHead although MsNoManagmentSkills refuses to drive in any big city and told everyone loudly that she has to cover her eyes anytime anyone else drove her around. This would get real old after a while in the huge city that our company is located in.
As expected MsNoManagementSkills had a mountain of candy, bakery items, and crap to eat at her house where the meetings were held. I was stunned at how large she has become and unfortunately for her, her hips has spread to that monstrous size that only says “too much sitting around eating and not enough activity” as well as “Hello!! It’s breeding time!!” As much as I was shocked by her size, I felt it was highly inappropriate to see FatHead occasionally poke her harshly in her large, overlapping stomach. He is such an ass most of the time and spent the rest of the meetings whining about still not getting a raise (none of the rest of us have either but we don’t whine constantly about it) and showing off how cool his 8-year old computer battery pack is (oh please!).
Today is May Day. The day that people in some areas used to pick flowers, drop them on someone’s doorstep, ring the doorbell and then run away. Unfortunately, in the town I live in, no one does that or has even heard of that and May Day means Riot Day. Yep, the city police have been patrolling the streets in the big city close by and riots and vandalism is expected both tonight and tomorrow night. Already, several militant groups have filed for licenses to march downtown Friday night and damage to businesses is expected. Over the last 2 years, a Starbucks and a McDonald’s have been hit fairly hard down there. I just don’t get it and it really pisses me off to hear that this groups bus in known trouble makers from other large cities across the U.S. and Canada to swell the numbers of their marchers and cause more havoc.
Tonight is a general car club meeting and we’ll be getting information on first car show of the season being held this weekend. We’ll be leaving town with a group of other members tomorrow evening for the drive to the coast, then spending the night before getting up at the crack of dawn to wash the cars and get ready for the show. It originally looked like the weather was going to be rainy, then it was supposed to be sunny. Now, it looks like it will be sunny tomorrow (Friday) and rainy Saturday for the show and parade. How fun. I suspect I’ll be working my ass off all next week cleaning up the mess the rain will cause. I’m just hoping it doesn’t turn out to be another one of those rainy-sunny-rainy-sunny days. Those are deadly waterspot days that I can live without.
Last weekend, the car club had a spring burger run cruise but I didn’t go. While the weather turned out nicer than I thought it would, apparently it brought out all kinds of Sunday drivers and tons of motorcycle riders. A few miles out of town, the car club with 12 cars participating was winding through the mountain roads when around a corner they came upon a big traffic block. Everyone stopped without problem but a few minutes later, a Harley rider came around the corner fairly fast, saw all the stopped cars and dropped his bike. Car club members who witnessed it said it looked awful and unfortunately, the guy was wearing one of those small beenie-type helmets which left the majority of his face and jawbone on the asphalt. A large group of people tried to render assistance but to no avail. By the time paramedics got there, it was way too late and the guy was pronounced dead. The second awful thing about the whole incident was that there was only 153 miles on the gentleman’s bike. He was 57 years old. I expect people will mention him at our car club meeting tonight and respect whomever he was with a moment of silence. Please think of him as well. He could have been anyone’s family member or any one of us.
May 5th 2003
Last Friday, just before I was about to post here, that CEO who visited here last week sent me an email telling me I was being given a brand new computer for work. To date, and after nearly 5 years of working for this company, no one has ever been given a work computer to use (not including MsNoManagementSkills and FatHead who complained for 2 straight years to get one). As remote employees, we are required to use our own personal computers for work and no, we don’t get any compensation for using our own computers. That’s just one of those perks for getting to work from home.
So, because I was completely stunned by the news of getting a free computer (with a DVD burner, no less), I totally forget to post my journal entry before leaving for the weekend car show on the coast. Really, I felt bad and neglectful and I apologize.
The car show turned out to be a bust for me. I didn’t put the bra on the front end of my car at WS’s advice and then was peppered with rocks and sand on the 2 hour trip. Short of a repaint job, there is no way to fix all those new chips so I’ll just live with it and get on with my life. It rained most of the day Saturday during the show and I must have wiped down my car 5 times before giving up completely around 1 pm. 4 car club member’s cars won awards but I didn’t win anything, much to WS’s disappointment and a bit to mine. It was a weird show, judged by non-car people who didn’t know what they were looking at anyway. Either way, the show didn’t count toward any car show season points standing so I can live with the results. The first of 5 car shows that count toward season points is the first weekend in June and I have a few weekends until then to re-detail the car.
In the meantime, WS bought my car a new CB radio since the one we currently use rarely works, PIAA hyper-white headlight and fog light bulbs, new drilled and slotted Baer EradiSpeed brake rotors (they look pretty), and has plans for a Valentine 1 radar locator all of which I’m pretty excited about, but I’m hoping that WS isn’t doing this because he thinks this will help us automatically win every show we may enter from now on. It just doesn’t work that way. In fact, winning a car show is about 50% how good the car looks and 50% political and if the judges don’t like you for some reason, you may have an interesting time trying to win anything. The good thing is, some car club judges don’t like anyone so it evens out most of the time. Kind of sounds like banging your head against a wall, doesn’t it? Well, if I wasn’t banging my head against a car show wall, I’d just be banging my head against some other wall. It’s just the way I am. I’m always drawn to difficult things that seem stacked again me.
We drove home Saturday evening in the pouring rain with a couple of other club members and we had time to hose down the car before dark. I’m planning on going out there sometime today to apply another coat of polish and to scrub down the exhaust which is still covered in road muck.
Yesterday was spent grocery shopping and eating food we normally wouldn’t go anywhere near like Pesto, homemade salsa, and chocolate. Since we’ve both been so good on Atkins since January and since we both had the whole weekend off together (the first in a long, long time), we spurted on calorie, carb-laden food. I had completely forgotten how good pesto is. And since last week, my weight is down from 163 pounds to 158. I didn’t weigh in today, however.
Today, work is piled high and MsNoManagementSkills is breathing down everyone’s backs. In the neighborhood, The Baseball Team, who was allegedly going to move in April, still haven’t sold their house and so they are still there. DrunkTank Willie and Leona next door haven’t sold their over-priced house either, despite Willie’s insistence that it would be sold within the first week or 2. His gloating attitude toward The Baseball Team who have tried to sell their house 2 separate times now, just looks stupid, cocky, and downright mean now. But we all know how much of an ass Willie can be, don’t we…
Thanks again for reading.
May 6th 2003
All over the local news channels today is the return of some war aircraft carrier ship to a large city several hundred miles away after being at sea (and killing people) for 9 months now. Big whoop. It’s like no other news is occuring anywhere else in the world today. Irritating.
Over at Escribitionist, Jane writes a good entry about the decision not to have children and what goes along with that. I only wish I could have ever explained it so good and am thankful that rarely does anyone press me anymore for why I didn’t have children. Getting old does have it’s benefits.
So, because today is partly sunny outside but cold, because I have a mountain of work to do both for my job and around the house, because WS is in a bad mood I suspect because today is his last day of vacation from his main job, and because I just can’t get my brain in gear, I found myself playing this mindless game of Scissors, Paper, Stone. Nicely done (even if the music is driving WS bonkers).
It’s one of those mindless, forgettable Tuesdays where absolutely nothing is going on and nothing is happening. Everything and everyone is quiet. That is usually a good thing but today, it’s so calming, all I want to do is take a nap or something. I never take naps because it screws up my normally screwed up sleep schedule.
Only 5 hours of work left. Yawn.
May 8th 2003
Right now, I’m in a painful conference call that seems like it will never end. No one should have to listen to MsNoManagementSkills with her lilting voice this early in the day. I don’t know how FatHead does it. Or maybe I do and now understand why he’s always so cranky in the morning.
The meeting, brought about by MsNoManagementSkills in lieu of her usual mid-week freaking out session, shows how badly she conducts meetings: She slaughters the English language by constantly mispronouncing common words over and over, she ends every frickin’ sentence by uplifting the last word in the sentence (no, she’s not from Minnesota; she thinks it’s “cute” and has said so.), and she asks after every couple of sentences if a coworker (who is constantly AWOL at meetings) is online yet, while not saying a thing about other AWOL coworkers, making one wonder what is it about this one guy (use your imagination). We also have listening in the conference meeting an outsource company that is located in another country. Unfortunately, few of us can understand much of what they say because of their heavy accents. I can usually quickly pick up on accented English and generally don’t have any problems, but these people just sound like they are talking gibberish to me. Have you seen that “South Park” episode with the African boy and Sally Struthers? If so, you might remember how the creators of “South Park” depicted the Africans as speaking in mumbles and clicking sounds. Really, listening to the people from this outsource company isn’t much different.
If you’ve been reading here for any length of time, you know that I love the rain. In fact, part of the reason we moved here was because of the rainy weather this portion of the U.S. is known for. But even a rainy person can get tired of constant day-after-day gray days and today, I’m tired of it. We should have been starting our dry season halfway through the month of April but instead, we are setting records for both amounts of rainfall and the number of consecutive days of rain. Both yesterday and today are very dark, gray days. We might see a dry day this upcoming weekend, but then again, we might not. 10 day future forecasts show nothing but rain too. Could we just get a couple of short dry breaks every once in a while?
On the other hand, rainy weather means I don’t drive my car and the mileage stays low. This is a good thing as the value goes up for every mile I don’t put on it. Of course, I’ll have to own the car for 10 or 20 years and keep the mileage low to be able to realize any extra monetary value. It’s a constant balancing act: To drive it or not to drive it.
Tuesday night, I started detailing my car again after driving it this past weekend to last weekend’s car show on the coast, where it rained all day and the car got completely covered in road grime and muck. It wasn’t as hard to clean as I thought it would be and I’ve got it nearly finished and ready for the next show on May 17th. That show will be a big one, although again, not a points standing show. Our car club is putting this one on and we’ve all been working on the planning of it for 6 months now. Immediately after that show, around 2 pm, I have another show to attended a few miles away. Both of these car shows will be for trophies, but not points. I’d like to win a trophy this year but honestly, I wouldn’t know what to do with one. I don’t have room for that kind of stuff. Maybe I can find a kid in the neighborhood to give it to?
Today, I’ll try to finish up my car detailing. I’d prefer to have it finished completely well in advance of any car event but really, who could stand to work on detailing a car every day for weeks? Not me.
Tonight, WS has a car club board meeting to attend. Things could get interesting because the club president’s wife, the woman who poorly runs the club’s web site, is supposed to allow WS password access to the site so he can add newsletter info and daily updates to it but because she’s a control freak, she’s been stonewalling WS since last year. This time around, the whole club is behind WS and she’s been backed into a corner as to why she won’t give him access. I’m not going to the meeting. Me and this woman already don’t get along and I don’t think my presence would help matters. I’m not a club board member anyway.
May 9th 2003
Watching “Survivor” last night, you wouldn’t believe how much I want someone to hurt the twig known as Jenna. She’s even more of a whiny, little sorority bitch than I originally thought she was and like Rob, only thinks of herself. Heidi isn’t too much better and I was glad to see her go. If she had lost another half ounce, you would have been able to read the serial numbers on her implants through her skin. Ugh. And yes, unfortunately, it’s been telegraphed for the last couple of months now that Matt could win everything. They had their chance to vote him off several times, but who knows what goes through people’s heads when faced with swimsuit models, breast implants, and people who lie so well it’s frightening. Oh, and did Jenna actually bring a “pledge crown” as her personal item? Hello? This isn’t the Beverly Hilton. It’s a bug-infected jungle. For a moment there, I thought I was watching the beginning of the movie “Legally Blonde”.
WS said last night’s car club board meeting was really pretty boring all in all. No, he still doesn’t have the password for the club’s web site. Sounded like another minor technicality prevented that, but I think it’s just another stall tactic. Oh well. We really tried hard to improve this club’s Internet presence from something that looks like an 7-year old created it, but if other people in charge don’t seem to mind all the animated gifs, flashing text, and the dog-slow loading time, it’s just as well that they have to put up with it. Most of them probably have dial-up access to it anyway.
NO! I wasn’t slamming on dial-up Internet access. I used to have it myself until just recently and kind of miss the connection sound.
Thank god it’s Friday. I can barely stand to work today, not because of the weather. It’s another wet, gray day. Not because MsNoManagementSkills is over-medicating herself again (that’s no different from every day of the week anymore). I’m just completely and 100% burnt out on work. 4 1/2 years into this job and only 2 very short, less than 1 week in length, vacations later and I could care less if this company went belly-up tomorrow. Of course, WS would freak out and our monetary situation would instantly become disasterous and the chances of me finding another decent paying job at my age and in this economy would most likely be nil, but for about a minute and a half, I would feel wonderful. And I promise, that’s the exact moment I would finally, after living in this house for almost 4 years, finally, I would stop, take a breath, and take notice of all the things I’ve surrounded myself with but have ignored and taken for granted all this time due to my high-level job stress.
And then I’d go apply at Taco Bell and promptly have a nervous breakdown.
In 3 hours, my weekend begins. Tomorrow I could participate in yet another car club tech day and have my CB radio and antenna installed. Or I could just ignore anything having to do with car stuff and sleep all day. I could go to the grocery store tonight, pick up a dozen bottles of some kind of mineral water, a chocolate cream pie, a bottle of Tylenol PM, and purposely sleep most of the weekend away. Honestly, this sounds heavenly right now but you know I won’t do it. Two of a kind, sleeplessness and I. We’ll find a way to work it out.
May 12th 2003
I don’t want to talk about last night’s “Survivor” show. It’s too depressing and I just can’t let a silly television show affect my life negatively.
But I will say that it’s a sorry state of affairs when a self-admitted spoiled and lazy cunt wins a million dollars over people who were none of those. And I strongly suspect that the jury made up of past voted off members, create an alliance of their own and vote accordingly. I just haven’t figured out what the perks are of forming such an alliance.
MsNoManagementSkills is on a tirade today, most likely because she is pissed because FatHead didn’t buy her anything for Mother’s Day yesterday. Let’s mention here that MsNoManagementSkills isn’t a mother. But apparently, she thinks she deserves some gifts anyway. Today, she’s taking it out on her coworkers, sending out morale busting emails on the amount of work we all have to do, how far behind we are, and sending the emails twice just to get the point across. If you remember the second half of last week, she was driving everyone insane with similar tactics and we all suspected she was over-medicating herself again. Really, this gets old. Someone needs to just push her over the edge so this company’s department could function normally and efficiently for once.
Today and tomorrow are car washing and detailing days in preparation for this coming weekend’s 3 car shows. I need to be very clean for the 2 Saturday shows, unless it rains. Sunday’s show is back over on the coast and is more of a parade participation than a show. It’s definitely going to rain on that parade and why would anyone want a group of wet and road grimy sports cars driving in their parade? I don’t know but I committed myself to going anyway.
With the upcoming car shows, I will be eating less and dropping more weight. I’m always nervous on car show days and rarely eat anything. 2 weeks ago, at that last car show on the coast, I dropped 5 pounds and have just today put them all back on, thanks to a chocolate cream pie I lusted for and bought over the weekend. Today, my weight is sitting at 163. We’ll see where I’m at next Monday.
May 13th 2003
Odd day at work today. MsNoManagmentSkills and FatHead were both AWOL today and no one would say anything about it. I suspect yet another grandparent died. If so, this will make Grandparent number 4 for her, number 7 for him over the past 4 and a half years. NO ONE has that many grandparents!
After calling 7 times to the company that installed our fence and side gate, they finally came out to re-align the gate part, only to tell us there was nothing they could do that wouldn’t screw up something else. They suggested we change our plastic, non-noticeable pull latch with a rope pull to fix the problem. Okay, I can do that.
On her way to class, a neighbor that lives around the corner stopped by to drop off a neighborhood cheap-kitchen-gadget,-candle,-and-stamping-supply party flyer and to see our fountain in the back yard. She could only stay a minute, but promised to come back after class with her husband to visit longer. Like all the previous times she’s done this exact same thing, she didn’t stop back by, but hey! Our house is spotlessly clean now.
We’re completely off Atkins’ today, having Thai food w/rice for late lunch, followed by a bottle of 1999 Sauvignon Blanc (Chateau St. Michelle – Horse Heaven vineyard), and then a few hours later, pizza from Papa John’s. We have enough pizza left over for dinner tomorrow night so we’ll jump back into Atkins’ eating later in the week. Because of my 3 car shows this coming weekend, I probably won’t eat much so I’m not concerned about eating bad today. As it is, I’m already feeling the effects of carb loading by feeling overly tired and cranky. Carbs are just evil.
WS finally got a password for the car club’s web site from the control freak woman who “runs” it. I put the word “runs” in quotes because she admitted today that she doesn’t actually do anything on the site. Her teenage son does it all. She doesn’t have a clue on how to do it. Now, how the hell does a club vote in and appoint someone who knows absolutely zip about web site creation and maintenance to a board member position of club webmaster??? We have no idea and I don’t think the rest of the board members are going to be too happy to find out that they have been deceived and perhaps lied to about her club position. What really could make this bad is that this woman’s husband is the newly elected club president. As I understand it, something like this by someone’s spouse could be grounds for impeachment for both spouses if they both hold a club office. Things could certainly become politically more interesting in the coming months.
Anyway, it turned out, she didn’t know how to create another account in order to get a second password. So she finally just gave WS her own password, something she could have done last fall instead of stone walling WS over and over and over and over again. I predict it is only a few months before WS is running the car club’s entire web site which, although, yet MORE work for WS who has absolutely no time left in his life, can only greatly improve the car club’s web presence and get it away from a site that looks like an eight-year old created it.
May 14th 2003
Strange things continue:
In a town about 60 miles from my location, a gunfight occured near a grade school. No one was hurt or killed but you wouldn’t know it if you listened to one mother on the local news station: “My daughter lost a shoe running from the playground to a nearby building. That is totally unreal to me.”
Lost a shoe is “totally unreal” to someone?? Sure, a shooting nearby a grade school is dangerous but does she know how stupid that statement sounded? I’ll bet a million other people do now.
The Blinders family across the street from us is having children problems today. The teenage boy is home from school for some reason and is refusing to unlock the door for his teenage sister who just came home from school. LOTS of pounding on the door and yelling through the windows is going on. I’m drowning them out with hair band tunes playing from my computer. Next door, at the SportsOrNothing family, one of the twin teenage kids is ditching school again (reportedly a problem according to the parents) and has invited several other kids with cars over. The tunes pounding from that house isn’t all that bad and is a nice compliment to what I’m listening to here. The bass notes from their rap is remarkably similar to the stuff The Scorpions, Motley Crue, and Great White put out in the ’80′s/’90′s.
Behind us, Captain Dan & the Smokin’ Clan planted 5 large trees in their backyard yesterday along their side fences. Unfortunately, nothing was planted that blocks our view from them or their view of us, but I think they’re working on it. I just love seeing people plant big trees, especially since there aren’t any left in this development.
Still no word on what’s up with MsNoManagementSkills and FatHead. I’m sure it’s something serious but before anyone reading this thinks I’m a callous person for saying yesterday how their absence is probably due to yet another relative dying off, let me stress that for all her claims of grandparents dying previously (4 already to date for her, 7 for him), all but 1 of these claims have been proven to be falsehoods. You see, neither one of them lies very well. Actually, they both lie very, very good, but they can’t seem to stick to any one story for longer than a few weeks. Eventually, the actual truth slips out, causing coworkers to feel lied to once again and to lose even more respect for the 2 of them. I always felt that if you are going to lie, especially about something serious like a relative dying, just don’t. Someday it will come back to bite you in the ass and then, who will look like the callous person?
May 15th 2003
Is it just me or does it look like the media is trying to make Renee Zelwegger into a modern day Doris Day? The new movie “Down With Love” just looks nauseating.
Nothing is more frustrating at work that to receive an email late at night saying a meeting will be held early the next day and to expect to be teleconferenced in, only to not have anyone call you. A few minutes after the appointed time, I contacted a coworker to see if he would be present at the meeting and he told me they would be calling me in a few minutes. Minutes pass, then an hour and still no call. This happens all too frequently to me and leaves me feeling that my job at this company is unimportant and I, as an employee, do not matter.
I think the only thing more frustrating is hearing that the meeting was held on schedule, that it was a good meeting, and then am asked why I didn’t attend. “Uh hello?? You said you were going to call and tele-conference me in, you fricken’ dolt!” Grrrr….
May 21st 2003
Yes, it’s been a week since I’ve posted. And I have some very good reasons. Maybe they will be of interest to you and maybe not.
Last week at work, things were strange. Very strange. MsNoManagementSkills and FatHead unexpectedly took Tuesday off from work. She later claimed she hurt her back but then retracted that and claimed that she was having relationship problems with FatHead, felt trapped, and had to run home to mommy for a week. She worked maybe 20 hours last week. FatHead worked maybe 6 hours. While MsNoManagementSkills is back home with FatHead, they are still not talking and she isn’t telling all in her Online Journal, something highly unusual for her. She usually can’t go a day without telling the world about her daily bowel movements!
While her taking time (she doesn’t have) off work doesn’t affect me too much, FatHead taking time off does strongly affect WS because basically, ALL the work in their department is left for WS to do. Fine. WS can handle it, but doesn’t feel he should have to do everything, especially since he isn’t getting an explanation on why all the work is being left for him, where FatHead has been all week, and at the same time, FatHead is still whining about not getting a raise soon enough. Things are so very, very odd right now at work. I have to wonder what will happen if these two left each other, yet both continued to work for this company in this same department (they cannot be transferred to another department because this company has no other department for us remote employees).
So because of all of this, my real boss, MrSmartButFakingIt was in a sour mood most of last week. One of those kinds of moods where he fires someone just for the hell of it like he did last year. In order to stay out of the line of fire, I was fairly quiet last Thursday and Friday, working hard in the background, actually doing stuff that needed to get done but is rarely seen and appreciated. I’m still working in this mode and still have my job. I guess it’s working for now.
Saturday was the car club’s big car show and it went off with only a minor hitch – it rained, then hailed briefly in the afternoon, but thankfully, after judging had taken place. We did very well, taking 1st place in our class of Host Club. Next show is June 7th and this one is serious and for season points. The entire first week of June, I will be working on every square inch of my car, getting it as ready as I can. Of course, I’ll have to drive 200 miles to get to the show and then re-clean everything, but I can still do some parts here at home beforehand that won’t be terribly affected by the drive. I refuse to think too much about that show right now. Those kinds of shows are horribly nerve wracking.
My weight has remained the same all through this, hovering around 163-165. At least I’ve been able to keep off the 11-13 pounds I lost with Atkins. I suspect I’ll lose more when summer weather gets here. Our area is still in early spring with cold nights (36 degrees F) and semi-warm days (65-70 degrees F). Allegedly, it’s supposed to be 78 degrees here tomorrow. Yeah, right. Like it wasn’t supposed to rain yesterday.
Again, sorry for my absence. I certainly won’t make this a habit. Thanks for reading.
May 23rd 2003
It was not my fault that this didn’t get posted until today. Blogger didn’t like me or something.
Neighborhood observations:
Cap’t Dan (leader of the Smokin’ Clan) behind us is mowing his lawn. He keeps it up very nicely in contrast to 95% of our other neighbors who let their lawns become yellow, dog-pee stained and completely dead in spots due to crane fly infestation. Today however, something is different about Cap’t Dan. He’s wearing a larger than usual eye patch and this one covers a good portion of his nose too. Maybe they didn’t have his normal eye size at the local Rite-Aid or Gap store?
SportsOrNothing next door planted a few new trees 2 weeks ago, replacing a couple that they killed off last year when they “forgot” to water them for a month. It just must be that time of year for them because those new trees are wilting. I don’t think they have been watered since they were planted.
DrunkTank Willie on the other side of us have been telling everyone in the neighborhood that he sold his house. This was last month. In April. It’s now what? Nearly the end of May? They haven’t moved out yet and the For Sale sign is still sitting in their yard. Yeah, sure you did, Willie. To make matters worse, his wife’s, Leona, family has come up from another state and has parked their big-ass motor home in their driveway, blocking our view of the street both from any window in our house and from our own driveway when we leave the house. Not to mention how white trash it looks having this behemoth sitting there with a bunch of fat extension cords running from the motorhome windows into the house garage. I’m suspecting a big party will occur over there in the next few days. One of his infamous drunken brawl kind of parties where Willie yells at the top of his voice that his wife is a bitch and how much his neighbors suck.
Willie has also told the neighborhood that The Baseball Team’s house was also sold back in April. Yet The Baseball Team shows even less motivation to move out and absolutely nothing has been packed over there. Nothing. Zip. Nadda.
Gee, could Willie just be spouting off his mouth again? Hmmmm….could be.
This morning, when I went out to put food in the bird feeders, I came around the corner and was nearly frightened by running into a large frog. Not that frogs scare me, but we usually have tiny, 1-inch tree frogs around here. We don’t have frogs that are the same size as most of the birds we feed. Where the heck did this guy come from? And is it eating our tiny frogs? Probably. It’s welcome to move in here, it’ll like the fountain. And I won’t be so likely to step on it.
In work news, I’ve been working my fingers to the bone this week, trying to help us get caught up before the 3-day weekend. It’s not helping in the least. Leave it to this company to release a new major software version that no one can seem to be able to update to without major problems and no one in company seems to think it’s of enough concern to fix it.
MsNoManagementSkills and FatHead are in marriage counseling. We find it hard to believe that FatHead would have anything to do with going unless it was between that and paying alimony. Although they both have been present at work all week, neither one has done any actual work.
A 3-day weekend coming up for me. WS will have to work Sunday and perhaps part of Saturday too so it’s not really like a 3-day weekend for me either. We don’t do anything on holiday weekends and prefer to stay close to home, just in case any of our neighbors get out of control with fireworks, water hoses, or drunkenness. It’s lessons we’ve learned in the past at every single place we’ve ever lived at. Yeah, we’re boring. and if you listen to DrunkTank Willie, we suck too.
May 27th 2003
Had a reasonably good 3-day weekend, despite WS having to work all day Sunday. We did some shopping on Saturday and got nearly all our front yard work done for the summer which is supposed to make an appearance today when it hits 84 degrees for the first time this year. A scorcher. And I still have a few things to plant, move, and dig out but it isn’t going to happen today with this weather. Yesterday, it was cloudy and muggy all day and ended up sprinkling in the late afternoon, but not until we got to go for a long drive in my car for no reason at all other than to do the usual American thing of wasting gasoline. Hey, at least I get decent gas mileage (20-25 mpg) which is much better than most of what’s on the road anyway.
Back to work today and MsNoManagementSkills has wasted no time freaking out about the huge amount of work we are all facing. Of course, she feels it is her job to jump all over our backs instead of actually do or help with any of the work. Last week, when things were just a bit behind, she processed less than a dozen customer emails yet sent out over a dozen anti-morale emails to her coworkers. The rest of us processed anywhere from 200 to 400 customer emails.
To make job morale worse, something is definitely up at work and WS thinks that a small group of people we work with are getting ready to be laid off. He’s been instructed not to talk to them about a work related thing that he created just for them. I’ve been having this overwhelming feeling lately that something strange was going on at work and all I could think of was that lay offs were coming. While I don’t know if I’ll be part of it, I hope not. I’m not ready to leave this job yet and definitely can’t afford it right now. If this does happen, all I’ll be able to do in the bad, bad, BAD economy we’re going through in our area will be to apply, for the first time ever, for unemployment benefits. There are just no jobs around here right now. This part of the country just released the worst recession and economic figures since 1978. Even the local McDonald’s joints have “No Jobs” signs posted, according to the local news. Hopefully, WS will find out what exactly is going on sometime this week when he talks to MsSmartButFakingIt, our real boss. That is, if WS can get ahold of him. MrSmartButFakingIt has been making himself even more scarce than normal lately, a true sign that something very odd is going on.
Next door, DrunkTank Willie has assured WS that he and his family will be moving out a week from tomorrow. We’ll see. He obviously has lost interest in taking care of his lawn for the first time ever and for the first time ever, hasn’t mowed either front nor back yards in nearly 2 weeks. He religiously mowed the lawns every Sunday and every Sunday and Wednesday during the summer months since moving in. Looks like the new owners, whomever they might be, will get a house with grass 2 feet high or more. Let’s just hope they even own a lawn mower. Still, DrunkTank Willie is still an asshole.
May 28th 2003
What is up with Blogger lately?? I haven’t been able to view my own blogs since last week nor some others I regularly visit. Typical…
You know what really pisses coworkers off? Sitting here, working our fingers to the bone and watching MsNoManagementSkills SLEEPING at her desk on her Web Camera. And after receiving several “Let’s all work our butts off this week to catch up!” emails from her too. How dare this woman then try to talk shit about any of us to the company CEOs!! Good thing I took a snapshot for evidence. Too bad she doesn’t have the time stamp enabled on the camera, making my snapshot worthless.
I worked an 11 hour day yesterday. Today will be no different. In a meeting with MrSmartButFakingIt yesterday evening, WS learned that indeed, several people working remote will be laid off. No names yet and I will be hoping between now and July 1st that I’m not one of them, although right now, I think I’m safe for a while longer.
Still, this reinforces our need to pay off our debt as soon as is humanly possible. That means I’ll have to give up that patio umbrella, table and chairs I’ve wanted for the past 4 years. We still don’t have any outdoor furniture other than the few white plastic resin chairs that won’t hold anyone over 175 pounds. It’s better than nothing and much better than having to sell everything and live under a bridge. I can live without patio furniture.
So DrunkTank Willie and family will be moving a week from today supposedly. Couldn’t be soon enough given the scene we witnessed just the other day. Leona had come home from wherever with their 2 young daughters, aged 5 and 7. For the brief period of time that I will introduce you to these children, let’s refer to them as Bitch-In-Training #1 or BIT1 and Bitch-In-Training #2 or BIT2. Now before you all call me a heartless bitch for naming these children such harsh names, read a bit further. BIT1 has been overheard several times calling her mother, Leona, a bitch and whore in public at the top of her lungs, obviously learned from her father, DrunkTank Willie, who “fondly” calls Leona that at every drunken party they’ve thrown to date.
When Leona came home, she loudly told BIT2 to bring in the trash cans from the sidewalk. Leona then turned and walked into the house and slammed the door. BIT2, a small child, much shorter than the trash cans themselves, started screaming that she didn’t know where they went, didn’t know how to move them, and, at the top of her lungs, “GET OUT HERE RIGHT NOW, YOU BITCH AND TELL ME WHERE THEY GO!!!”
Needless to say, Leona never made an appearance and after a bit more screaming and profanity, BIT2 drug the trash cans to the back fence area and ran screaming into the house after her mother.
Could you imagine living next to children like this for years? Could you imagine what these girls are going to grow into? And I thought it was bad back when BIT1 used to tell BIT2 loudly in public that she wished BIT2 had never been born. DrunkTank Willie sure taught them well. Just like Daddy.
May 29th 2003
I started work before the crack of dawn yesterday and got a lot of work done. Over 100 emails processed. At 8 am, MrSmartButFakingIt restarted the server. Twice. And it wiped out all the work I did, returning all those emails to the unprocessed state. No one cares and is telling me “Too bad. Suck it up and get back to work.”
Yeah, I really hate love my job.
So I spent an hour in the morning watching Odd Todd Cartoons about being Laid Off and not having any mon-ay. It just seemed right. Odd Todd is now my hero. If I do get laid off next month, Odd Todd will become my God.
…which brings me somehow, to saying a word about Atkins Endulge Mint wafer crisp bars. “Sinful” is a word that comes to mind. “Delicious” is another. But with the good, often comes the bad. “Flatuence” comes to mind.
Sometime in the last few days, I must have slept on my right arm wrong because my upper arm and shoulder have been killing me lately during work. Sitting here typing really seems to aggravate it after a few hours. Today, I’ll be dipping into the Advil bottle. I can tell it’s going to be that kind of day. This evening, we have a impromptu car club meeting at one of the Competition Boys house near us to debrief the club on the big car show held a couple of weeks ago. Personally, I think having this meeting is too late. Everyone will have forgot most everything by now, except those people in the car club who live their lives for the club. But at the same time, I have to pay both of the Competition Boys for car parts we bought last month so I’ll be going to the meeting.
May 30th 2003
“A career is just a job you’ve had too long.” My favorite saying right now. Don’t ask me why. Maybe because I’ve never had a career although I always figured I would by this stage in my life, much like other people just figure they’d have kids. You have to actively plan/participate in these things and I just never have. Or maybe I should clarify that: I really wanted to have a career twice in my life, once in my first foray in community college (Horticulture/Botany) but those plans were squashed by my parents. The second was in my second and last foray in a different community college years and years later (Business Administration) but those plans were squashed by my employer at the time (Farmers Insurance Group) when they let me know that I was too old become a manager for their company in the amount of time it would take me to graduate (yes, discrimination still legally exists in this country if you didn’t already know that). So I’ve bounced from job to job, sometimes staying years longer than others. Thankfully, I won’t be the only human on the planet who went through life without ever having a career.
Where did that come from?? Oh, I’ve got lots of pent up stuff in my head. That’s the point here. My head is full. I write it down, sometimes in detail. I don’t bring it up again. Usually. Hardly ever. Most of the time.
Looking out our bathroom window early this morning, I saw something I’d never seen before and it was both exciting and startling. Cap’t Dan (neighbor living behind us) was out on his deck watching the birds in our feeder and smiling. The kind of big smile that shows teeth. And I wasn’t even sure up until that point that the man even had teeth, let alone the facial muscles required to smile with.
Seen that commercial on TV for the cheap-o store called “Big Lots!”? With Jerry Van Dyke? I hate that commercial. Actually, there are several commercials running on TV right now I can’t stand in the least. And to think that as a child, I loved TV commercials better than any show on television. Either I have gotten more intelligent or marketing executive around the country have embraced stupidity. You make the call…
My shoulder is still very uncomfortable and Ibuprofen is my friend again today. I think it’s bursitis. Ibuprofen is good although I think it is affecting my mood. For some reason, I became incredibly depressed last night and am still feeling that way today. I think the upcoming big car show next weekend is starting to eat at my conscious although I’m trying hard not to think anything about it until next week.
It’s Friday. I have 5 hours and 36 minutes of time left to spend at work, doing mindless tasks that only require 2 brain cells and won’t make much difference in the long run. Our department is incredibly behind due to both last weekend’s holiday and other coworkers lack of work ethic. Sometimes I really do feel I am the only one working on all this customer email because I will process some for an hour or so, then go do something else for an hour or so and then come back and find everything exactly where I left off. No one else has processed a single email, making me wonder, “What are the rest of you doing?? Am I the only one working here??”
June 2nd 2003
I have officially moved to this site and thank everyone who has followed. To everyone who has just stumbled across me, welcome! I’m still looking for a solution to the comments issue so it works right (or works at all) but most comments plugins are closed to new members or aren’t being maintained. Stick with me though. I’m working on it.
This week is going to be hectic at best, particularly near the end. The first, big, season points car show is this weekend in a city a few hundred miles away and we’ll be leaving Friday afternoon/evening. My car has to be as perfect as it can be before the trip so it won’t take so long to clean and re-detail it once we get there. So I’ll be spending every spare moment throughout this week, detailing noticeable car parts most people haven’t even heard of. Too fun. Thank goodness I’ve only got 5 of these high-level shows this summer. The stress level will be incredible by Friday but at least the weather will be cooperating. Summer hits us hard this week with temperatures in the 90′s by Thursday.
…which leads to summer weather and being outside and the whole West Nile Virus thing. The first case of the year has been diagnosed on the other side of the state I live in. Any week now, we should be hearing reports of people in my area coming down with it. Because we live near a green space with a major creek running though it and farmland on the other side, we get lots of mosquito’s. I’ve given up thinking about having a summer barbeque or party over here this year just because of the mosquito factor. We’ve done everything we can by burning all the citronella torches surrounding the back yard and treating the fountain just like a spa with chlorine stuff in the water to kill anything but it doesn’t seem to do a thing.
But the nice weather also means I’ll be able to get a small tan this week and maybe, just maybe, look like I haven’t been sitting here at home in front of a computer most of the time. One of the reasons I don’t mind doing car shows is because it gives me that chance to get out in the world. We just don’t go or do anything really. Having 3 jobs between the 2 of us prevents that. That and our over-sense of responsibility (for which we’ll never be rewarded for anyway).
It sounds like MsNoManagementSkills got a bit of a clue over the weekend and discovered that….men don’t act just like women “gasp!” Must have learned it from one of those Dr. Phil books that FatHead claims to be reading. I say “claims” because FatHead has always strongly let everyone know that he isn’t a reader. Hates reading I think was the exact words. Which also explains why he does a crappy job at work most of the time. That is, when he is working. He put in 12 hours last week. Only 12 hours. Obviously, being married to MsNoManagementSkills, the company CEOs favorite, has it’s perks.
How can someone get to 29 years old and not realize (or claim to not realize) that males and females don’t act the same about everything??
June 3rd 2003
Work is a bitch right now. We are swamped. Horribly swamped, but MsNoManagementSkills has no intention of helping out and conveniently keeps coming up with busy work. FatHead has cut back his hours to nearly single digit numbers without telling anyone except MrSmartButFakingIt, leaving WS bewildered with a huge pile of extra work (that FatHead had been ignoring for a while) and leaving WS with no time to work on a project MrSmartButFakingIt assigned to him and that needs to be completed soon. In addition, FatHead has been working overtime with his whining to company management to get him hired on full time and permanently so he can quit the other job that he hates. This will be a BIG mistake that the company will only see after it’s too late. It’s also infuriating to hear that FatHead may be brought on full time when WS, who does most of the grunt work, will not be. Truly a case of the squeaky wheel getting the grease and WS has never been a squeaky wheel.
Oh, and we are all expected to work overtime. All except FatHead, that is.
In short, our department is falling apart and only WS and I can see it (or want to see it). So very frustrating. We really don’t need this kind of stress this week. And let’s not forget all the side stepping around the potential upcoming lay offs. Stress is definitely at the orange-y red stage right now.
I had an allergy reaction to some ice cream I ate over the weekend and spent last evening blowing, blowing, and blowing my nose constantly. Slept poorly at best and today, my right shoulder bursitis is flaring up again. We need to go get cat food, the fountain guy is supposed to show up this afternoon to fix stuff he’s been ignoring, my work computer is supposed to be delivered sometime this week, and I HAVE to detail my car. Because I felt so bad last night, I didn’t do a thing. There was no use because my nose would just drip all over things. Gross, I know.
Summer hits here full time this week. Highs in the mid to upper 90′s by week’s end. I spent a half an hour out in the sun yesterday afternoon and got more sun than I thought I would so I won’t need to do that again for a while. And you can bet I won’t be eating any more ice cream for a while either.
Back to work. The rest of you…hang in there and remember, 5 years from now, none of this will matter.
June 4th 2003
Lots of interesting things going on this week not to mention finding out we may have the ability to buy a penquin.
Okay, so the real interesting things involve strange things afoot at the job (someone’s constant whining may be reaching it’s grand finale), someone else may be getting a ton more work to do and a small raise to go with the load, and someone else may just be on the verge of a complete and total breakdown.
Let’s also not forget today is the day DrunkTank Willie, Leona, and BIT1 AND BIT2 move out from next door. Sure, all Willie’s vicious and untrue lies and rumors will stay behind – the damage has already been done and friendships broken for good in this neighborhood. Still no sign of who (or what) will be moving in and when. At this point, we are estatic and at least for a while, I’ll feel comfortable going out in my own front yard without being yelled at and called names by that drunken sot.
No sign of when (and if) the Baseball Team is moving. We still don’t believe their house was ever sold in the first place as the sign remains posted in their front lawn and they have yet to show any sign that they are moving.
Today, I’ve got a ton of car detailing to do as well as a mountain of work to get done, both at my job and around the house. Tomorrow night is a car club meeting, leaving me no extra time to get this house and my car in shape before leaving Friday evening for the car show hundreds of miles away. Laundry, vacuuming, bed sheet changing, polishing, wiping, cleaning, cleaning, and more cleaning. The fountain guy was supposed to show up this morning but of course, he hasn’t and we’re on the verge of filing a Better Business report on him. WS is in a foul mood because he has completely run out of time to accomplish the club newsletter for this month and needs to spend all his time for both jobs which are pulling at him hard in opposite directions. The snap factor is high around here today and I don’t expect it to lessen until…oh…. September or so. Stress level is still sitting at Orangey red and I can’t hardly wait until we get to that car show location and he really gets pissed when he has to help clean the car to a level that even anal people would think was extreme.
Are we having fun yet? Maybe. We’ll have to wait a little while longer.
June 5th 2003
Have you ever been eating something, in my case it was turkey jerky (like beef jerky only made from turkey breast), then heard or read something that made you chuckle and a piece of whatever you were eating tried to go up in to your sinuses? No? Okay then, it was just me…
Still no sign of FatHead at work at all this week. He seems to have taken the week off without telling anyone. MsNoManagementSkills isn’t talking about it either. We suspect they are no longer living together. This ought to make their working relationship with the rest of us coworkers interesting to say the least.
As we figured would happen, DrunkTank Willie and Leona haven’t moved out yet. They are next door right now, moving little, piddly stuff in and out of the house while exchanging barbs with each other. Anyone can tell you that the process of moving from one place to another is pretty stressful. Add a bitchy, self-centered pregnant woman and a self-centered, half drunk asshole to the situation and you have less than ideal neighbors.
I worked several hours on my car last night and it is nearly ready to go tomorrow evening. Today, I need to clean the inside glass, vacuum the console and carpet, check the oil, gloss the tires and wheel wells, put on the front bra, and check the CD changer for good tunes. Tomorrow, I’ll pack cleaning and detailing supplies and towels, portable chairs, and our stuff (plus coats this time around!)…hang on a sec.
Odd. Very odd. About 10 minutes ago, I heard a loud thump on one of our fences outside, immediately followed by a louder whack on our back sliding door glass. “Great!” I say, thinking some poor bird just flew into our sliding glass door (which has yet to happen, btw). It’s very windy outside today for some reason that wasn’t mentioned on the local TV weather forecast. But as I get downstairs, one of our pets looks scared to death and won’t go near the glass door and the 6×9 foot rug that sits in front of the glass is halfway across the room. Looking outside, I don’t see any bird or anything amiss, so I arm myself with a small, but sharp kitchen knife, and head outside through the garage. Just before opening the door, I hear another loud thump against the fence outside. I take a deep breath and open the outside door and see…nothing. Look over the fence, nothing. Check the gate latch, nothing different. Look down the walkway towards the backyard and see….a pile of half-eaten barbeque chicken parts. Nothing else. Just half a drumstick with thigh and what looks like a wing. Sitting there, alone, in the middle of our walkway.
Now, either someone, eating their lunch, thought they could cut through the neighborhood by walking through both our and Cap’t Dan’s backyard, dropped their lunch, and hopped the fence several times, or an animal carrying his lunch decided this was as good as any place to leave their leftovers, or someone just tossed their trash over our fence into our yard. Hmmm…..DrunkTank Willie is supposed to be moving out. He would pull such a thing but he’d do more damage. An animal wouldn’t normally leave any kind of half eaten food on a walkway and would probably hide in the heavy bush nearby. I think it was someone wandering through the neighborhood. I don’t need someone wandering through this neighborhood, especially through my yard. So, after talking to WS on the phone, who is at work today, the house alarm is on, I’ve verified the location of my amorement and weaponry, and I back here, typing away when I really need to be working (that mountain of work is slowly diminishing). Of course, I’ll have to shut off the alarm to go out into the garage to work on my car today, but I think that can wait for a while longer. Besides, it’s going to be around 95 degrees today. It won’t even start cooling down until after 8 pm. I can wait…and I won’t think about all those home invasions going on across town last month.
June 6th 2003
Oh my! FatHead was just fired. Mostly because of his attitude but partly because his records show he hasn’t really been doing anything for months on end. I guess the CEOs finally got tired of that squeaky wheel trying to extort the company for more money for less work. Amazing. Of course, MsNoManagementSkills is completely and totally freaking out! This means a cut in her household income, mainly her personal food, glitter, and tattoo budget and believe me, I guarantee she is already plotting the demise of the other coworkers who were put in charge of FatHead’s long neglected job duties. Life could get very, very interesting in the coming month or so.
Which is probably why I woke up at 4 this morning worrying about my new, additional job duties. Yep, I have been assigned half of FatHead’s job. We’ll have to see if I get any compensation for this. You won’t hear of me asking for any. Seems that people who ask for or demand pay raises around here don’t keep their jobs long.
So I laid in bed, literally sweating and trembling a bit, worried sick about how the hell I’m going to do his old job, the one he was supposed to be doing all along and I came to the conclusion that I haven’t a freakin’ clue. So after I spent an hour feeling completely overwhelmed and like I was starting to drown, I forced myself to think of NOTHING AT ALL and within the next hour, I was able to fall back asleep.
Of course, I was exhausted when I got up this morning but that is just too f**king bad. Today we leave for the BIG, FAT, HAIRY-SCARY, car show that in the whole scheme of the world doesn’t mean anything, but in the car show world, means everything. My car is ready and halfway packed. I’m waiting until I get off work, around 4 pm, before showering and packing the rest of the way before leaving shortly before 5 pm. By this time tomorrow, we’ll both be complete nervous wrecks waiting for our show results which won’t be announced until 2:30 pm. Then it’s time for the 3 hour drive back home and dinner. Regardless of the outcome, I’m expecting to feel totally drained as usual. This time around and because WS is going along, he’ll understand why all I want to do when I get home is shower and sleep.
But let’s not think of that right now. While I’m sitting here, working the background and typing this in the foreground, I’m listening to a bunch of 80′s pop music and now, I’m feeling all happy and bouncy. Remember the tune “Talk Talk” by Talk Talk (catchy, isn’t it?) I never realized that there was some serious bass to that song. Nice. Also in the mix is some Kim Wilde (Kids In America), Heaven 17 (Let Me Go), Gary Numan (Cars), INXS (What You Need), Wang Chung (Everybody Have Fun Tonight), ReFlex (The Politics of Dancing), and A Flock of Seagulls (I Ran [So Far Away] – a personal favorite of mine).
And so, I gotta run. Have a good weekend, whatever you’re doing.
June 8th 2003
Yesterday, Saturday, was one of those rare, perfect days where you don’t expect much and you get back tons in return.
Friday evening, on our couple hundred mile trip to the first really big car show of the season, my car was hit with a huge rock that took a chunk of the driver’s side window and 3 pea-sized chunks of paint, down past the primer, out of the body portion behind the window. It hit us so hard, we thought the windshield has cracked. When we finally found the damage, we assumed that was that for any car show win. Paint and glass chips like this are heavily frowned upon, no matter how recently the damage occurs.
But we stuck to our plan and entered my car, hoping for a big win not for us, but for a couple of other club members who came with us, Drill Sergeant Dave and the nicer of the 2 Competition Boys and their beautiful cars. The weather, while supposed to be cooler than the 98 degrees it was here at home, wasn’t. It turned out to be a 96 degree day and we got completely sunburned, regardless of the sunscreen and tanning lotion we applied.
We were parked in a prime location…for all the dust in the planet to be blown up from the road and onto the car. Right next to the mall parking lot roadway, but also less than 20 steps from the registration tent. Which meant, nearly everyone there got to walk by our car. So after cleaning and re-detailing it for the first 3 hours, we re-wiped the car down every 5 minutes and waited for the judges to come around. By 1 pm, we had been judged and were finally free to walk around and look at our competition and all the other cars in different classes. We felt certain we would score poorly if at all and Competition Boy would take his class hands down.
A little after 3 pm and just about the time our stomachs had calmed down from all the stress and worry (and around the time we finally felt hungry for the first time that day), the scores were announced and awards handed out and boy, you could have knocked me over with a feather. We took 3rd place in People’s Choice, 2nd place in Concours – our class, and took overall best, sponsor’s Best in Show! That’s a 1st, a 2nd, and a 3rd all in one car show. Hooo-doggies!! I think I gots me a show car here!
Unfortunately for the Competition Boy and for whatever reason, he was completely shut out of his class with the win going to some dorkie guy that no one really likes and whose car is more pimp-ish with all kinds of pinstriping, flash, and stuffed animals and seems to win everything. A completely political win in many people’s eyes. We’ll find out what the real story is once we receive all our score sheets within 2 weeks. It was a very quiet drive home with the Competition Boy who rarely said anything on the CB or over dinner. He was very upset and rightly so. This guy’s car is 10 times better looking than mine, and without any rock chips.
So after we got home and got unpacked, we celebrated with a bottle of Champagne, took showers, and headed to bed. The day was completely exhausting but worth every minute. WS was wonderful, cleaning and re-detailing every part of the car like a madman. He’s the real one that made our wins possible and he’s even talking about going along on the next small show in early July.
Today, I’ve been taking things easy, getting the laundry done, cleaning up around the house while WS is working on getting through all of FatHead’s leftover work. We’re waiting for the sun to go down so I can wash my car and we can start planning on how we’re going to fix that rock damage. We’ve got a neighbor who lives on the other side of the development who runs a car window repair business. Maybe he can fix that big window chip before the next biggie show at the very end of July, giving us lots of time to get this fixed.
June 9th 2003
I’ve gotten a request or 2 (thanks, you guys!) for more info on what happened to FatHead last week so here goes. I apologize in advance for the length.
A little background for those just joining us – FatHead is the husband of MsNoManagementSkills, my supervisor who freely admits she hasn’t a scrap of management skills. It shows. Badly. But that’s another story. FatHead is a young, immature and irresponsible, spoiled child of the 80′s when he was the golden only child of his parents and everything was done for him. Enter his working years and he became a bitter man for having to work at all. This bitterness has been in the forefront of his constant and endless complaining at every job he has ever held. Until last Friday, he worked for, as a 2nd job, the same company that WS and I work for. Not that he was qualified to do the job, he was adequate, but mostly because he was the husband of MsNoManagementSkills who just happens to have been the very first employee this company ever hired. She is the CEOs golden child and gave her a job opening to give to her husband, FatHead.
FatHead, on the other hand, always felt that he deserved to have this job, not because of his wife, MsNoManagementSkills, but because he thinks of himself as the voice that every company needs to hear and finds his whining and complaining “charming”, thinking that everyone else thinks so too. For nearly the past 2 years, FatHead has had the personal ear of one of the CEOs and has never missed an opportunity to talk about how poorly other coworkers were doing while how outstanding himself was, and that alone proved that the company should hire him full time with an engineer’s salary (40-50K to start). In his mind, the company “needed” him and without him, all would fail.
But it seemed that all those day-in and day-out weeks and months of whining takes a toll on a person and occasionally, FatHead would announce that he needed to cut back his hours because he was becoming burnt out. I will point out here that like WS, he does have a second “real” job; one that pays well but generally isn’t fun or emotionally rewarding. But unlike FatHead, WS has never become “burnt out” or cut back his own hours. Whenever FatHead would cut back his own hours, other coworkers would have to pick up the slack and weren’t given any opportunity to voice the strain this put them under. But we all just sucked it up and did our jobs and in a couple of weeks, FatHead would be back to his regular working schedule and his constant complaining.
Then something different happened.
It all seemed to start a couple of months ago when FatHead started looking for another job to replace his “real” job. Not paying any attention whatsoever to newspapers, TV, or radio, he was oblivious to the shape of the economy and was shocked to find that he couldn’t find a new job anywhere. It was like he had no clue that the economy was sucking pretty badly in our area of the U.S. and, unable to leave the “real” job he hated so much, he started complaining that much louder to the CEO about hiring him on full time. When that didn’t happen soon enough for him, he decided he would start working overtime at his “real” job, telling everyone who would listen that he was “forced” to work 12 hour shifts because our company, his 2nd job, wouldn’t hire him on. Because he “had” to work 12 hours shifts, this meant he didn’t have time to work at this job so once again, he cut his own hours. But this time, he only told his wife, MsNoManagementSkills, leaving the rest of us completely in the dark as to where he was. Because he had done this so many times in the past and gotten away with doing it, MsManagementSkills didn’t fill in the blank for anyone, assuming that we would all understand and take up that slack.
Around this time and probably partly because of all the complaining that brings forth extra stress, FatHead and MsNoManagementSkills began having marital problems. Not that they ever got along great in the first place in their 5 year marriage. He always did his own thing, she hers. He refused to clean any part of the house, shop for groceries, cook, or even eat things other than Nacho Cheese Doritos, burgers (no lettuce, tomato, onion, or mustard or ketchup), pizza, and soda. She refused to let him learn how to do anything for himself, preferring to step in just where his mother left off. He would belittle her constantly in front of others, she would nag about not being able to go shopping often enough. He would poke and elbow her breasts in front of his friends, she would just sit there like a doormat. They went to see a marriage counselor and from what we can gather, the counselor has convinced MsNoManagementSkills that everything is her fault. FatHead did acquire several books on the topic that he was allegedly reading for a while. Then MsNoManagementSkills cut back her own hours for a week, leaving everyone to wonder what the hell was going on and it turned out she spent the week at her parents. The following week, she returned to work as usual, but FatHead remained away from his desk. Several more weeks followed along with plenty of additional complaints about how he wouldn’t have to work his other “real” job so much if this company would get off it’s ass and just hire him like they should have done long ago.
By this time, WS was swamped with work as was the rest of us and still FatHead wasn’t anywhere to be found. Finally, having had enough, MrSmartButFakingIt, my real boss stepped up to the plate and called, “ENOUGH!” It was finally felt that FatHead had complained too much, too long, that he was neglecting his job here by cutting his own hours without approval, and was basically extorting the company so as to get hired on. So he was “let go.” A complete opposite of what FatHead thought was certain to happen – that he’d be hired into the company full time with lots of time to loaf around and a fat salary so he could quit his “real” job, the one he hated, for good. Down the road, he believed he would be placed in a management position by his wife, MsNoManagementSkills, and perhaps even run this company himself one day. We shudder at this thought.
Personally, I wish the company would have done this a year ago. There has been a lot of damage done to this department by this guy alone, damage that I don’t believe can ever be fixed. And now, employees who are piled with his work will have to find a way to break through walls that he helped build and re-gain the trust of those he hurt.
But it doesn’t end there. Over the weekend, MsNoManagementSkills moved out into an apartment close to one of her favorite shopping hangouts. Now, who’s going to feed, clothe, and bathe FatHead? And what’s he going to do now, with less money in his pocket, a job he hates, and a huge house to clean? And wasn’t this the weekend that FatHead was going out of town himself to a WWE wrestling event with BikerDude and a company coworker? What is and what isn’t he going to find when he gets home??
June 11th 2003
DrunkTank Willie and Leona next door have finally moved out and we have new neighbors moving in. Because I haven’t met them yet, I haven’t come up with nicknames however, if their little daughter keeps screaming at the top of her lungs every half an hour like someone is amputating her leg, I’ll officialy dub them, appropriately, The Screamers. But for now, they’ll just be known as the Newbie Neighbors.
In an interesting side note, last Sunday at 9 am, there was a Carpet Cleaning/24 Hour Emergency Water Removal van running some kind of noisy equipment over there. Either someone was having the carpets cleaned early on Sunday morning, or someone was pumping out under the house again. Remember that DrunkTank Willie screwed up installing his sprinkler system and it was flooding the underside of the house a couple of months ago? Well, maybe that wasn’t really fixed after all. I’d be willing to bet that he “forgot” to tell anyone about that too.
The Baseball Team still shows no sign of moving or that their house has sold.
In a good news update, I’ve twice spotted the cute orange cat who used to live at the rental house kitty-corner behind us at her new residence less than a half a mile away from us. Cinnamon looks just as cute as ever and looks like she has put on a bit of weight. If you remember me mentioning her months ago, you might remember that this declawed cat with a slight birth defect causing her to walk jerkily, was mercilessly picked on by The Blinders Cat From Hell, the neighborhood bully. I’m hoping that her life has vastly improved and she is happy. She looked good.
MsNoManagementSkills has only worked an hour so far this week, pulling one of the same things that FatHead did that got him fired last week. I have to assume she has gotten the blessing of the company CEOs to take time off that she technically doesn’t have to get her new life in order. It’s not like she’s been doing any actual work in the past few months anyway so her absence only affects the rest of us in a positive way. No annoying “Get to work!” or “You have to work overtime!” emails lately either. However, yesterday, I did find out in a rather surprising way that I had been doing one portion of my job completely wrong for months now, affecting the workflow of my coworkers, and all because I specifically had been told to do it one way by MsNoManagementSkills when in fact, it was supposed to be done a different way.
Now why would she tell me to do something completely opposite of how it’s really supposed to be done? I don’t want to believe that someone would purposely lead me astray in order to get me into trouble, but, what’s a person to think in a case like this? People have been fired from this job for doing things wrong like I apparently have been doing for months. Now, on top of all the extra work I have been given to do, I have to re-learn how the process is supposed to work and hope I don’t get negative manager feedback in the meantime for everything I’ve done. Whom ever said office politics don’t exist in work-from-home jobs, never had a real work-from-home job.
And speaking of jobs, I got my company-paid-for computer yesterday. WS got it set up and so, I’m working on 2 different computers now, with 2 different kinds of keyboards. Too fun switching between an ergonomically correct one to the carpel tunnel inducing one.
June 12th 2003
We met the new neighbors next door and while the husband appears to be okay, the rest of the family may well be responsible for me giving that household the nickname of “The Not-Brights” or maybe the “Dimmers”. Apparently, she takes off during the day with the 2 definitely NOT BRIGHT children leaving the house completely open: front door, back door, and the big garage door. These people have most of their entire lives sitting in boxes all over the yard and driveway and yet, no one will be home for hours on end with everything open and in plain view. Do they expect their new neighbors to watch over everything for them? Hello? There aren’t that many neighbors who are home during the day and the ones who are, are mostly working from home. The key word there would be “working”, not “watching”.
Now about those children. This morning I watched, from my office window, the 2 (approximate ages 5 and 3, boy and girl respectively) run around the backyard in the sprinklers in their pajamas, robes, and slippers. Totally drenched. About an hour later, they were playing a game they made up involving the swing set slide that’s back there and a plastic baseball bat. The “game” was for one of them to climb the ladder and slide down the slide while the other one whacks at them with the baseball bat. If they whacked them on the head, they got to switch sides. Needless to say, the object was to hit each other over the head with the baseball bat and these kids were swinging that bat with all the force that a 5 year old and a 3 year old could muster. Every time the 5 year old connected with the 3 year old’s head, the 3 year old would drop like a rock, yet not once did I hear a screaming wail (unlike yesterday when Every. Little. Thing. was worth a screaming match. I have to admit the 3 year old got in a few good whacks herself, mostly because she didn’t stop at just hitting her brother over the head but instead kept on hitting and hitting and hitting, catching him one time squarely in the face. No crying from him either but I think I detected a black eye later on in the day. Where are the parents all through this hour of game playing? Who knows. It’s not my week to babysit new neighbors.
In MsNoManagementSkills news, yes, she has acknowledged that she has moved out and given out her address to everyone on her Online Journal which is back up and running today. Of course, anyone wandering around the Internet could come across it and now knows exactly where she lives. Silly, silly woman living alone. This is a first for her so you’ll have to excuse it if she doesn’t appear too bright either. If she keeps this up, she’ll be posting her S.S. number to all the world too. It’s about the only thing she hasn’t given out. She’s also indulged that the reason behind moving out was that FatHead wouldn’t grow up. I’m not sure exactly what that means and she does promise to post all the torrid details someday soon, but I do know that she’s been talking a lot about wanting to start having kids and he had recently changed his mind about having any. Sure, there was a lot of other stuff going on as well, like his desire to pick up a gambling habit similar to a coworker of mine and enjoying going to strip bars with BikerDude and this same coworker and that night she woke up in the middle of the night while he was taking pictures of her sleeping naked and then, there was this whole out-of-control shopping habit she’s got. If you’ve been reading me long, you’ll know that I’m not a big one for children and never wanted any, but someone who changes their mind after 5 years of marriage is not getting any sympathy from me. This is something that needs to be discussed in great detail and length well before marriage not to mention all through a marriage. I don’t really think it’s fair to switch horses in the middle of the stream, you know?
I think my brain has been working overtime lately on the new job responsibilities I still can’t figure out for the life of me (don’t you just hate it when so much of a task to do is assumed and NO ONE has the EXACT method or steps to actually DO the job?). I also am background processing (how’s that for corporate-speak?) how to continue to do well at all the upcoming car shows. And as a result, I’ve actually been sleeping at night all the way through the night. Yes. This is big for me. For the past 4 days, I haven’t woke up once at 4 am and laid there stressing for hours about all the stuff I still have to get done. Of course, I just jinxed this.
Car club board meeting tonight. I’m not going but WS has to. Seems Doormat Dick’s wife, the club webmaster (who doesn’t really do the website; her son in college does) got all upset when she had to give WS access to the website a couple of weeks ago and has been throwing her weight around. I don’t need this crap so because I’m sure the topic will come up somehow tonight, I’m not going. But, I’ve been known to change my mind at the last minute before, especially if I have a day at work that gets my into one of those rowdy, I-Need-a-Confrontation-with-Someone moods. But until I make my mind, it’s back to work for me. Only 4 and 1/2 hours left today.
June 13th 2003
Today is one of those days that is wonderful if for no other reason than just because it simply exists. After a few dry, hot weeks, this morning we woke up to a cool, misty rain. A light fog is wafting in and out of the housing development and other than the bird sounds, including a lone seagull high up somewhere, outside is silent. No children yelling, no dogs barking, no traffic sounds. It’s as if everyone is just sitting still and taking in the cool, misty relief. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear it was early September, when the mornings are still warm with a touch of cool in the air that smells of greenery and crisp apples, and school is back in session. I love days like today…
…but the reality check is I have to work. Indoors. All day. I have just short of a mountain of work, and a house that is filthy. *sigh*
A few days ago, I found the journal of someone we used to know quite well but after a few years, we abandoned because they were emotional vampires and in reading through their journal, they had dedicated an entire entry to wanting to find me again “because I really miss the conversations I had with her.”
Funny, because as I recall, our “conversations” consisted of basically this:
EV: “Hey Blogeoise! I’ll be back in town this coming weekend. Why don’t you throw me a party?”
Blogeoise: “…uh…”
EV: “Great! I’ll want to get real drunk so have lots of alcohol, okay? Oh, and have some Snapple for my girlfriend who refuses to drink. See you then. How’s 2 pm sound?”
Blogeoise: “…uh…I think I have to work.”
EV: “No problem. Your job is just right there in your office, right? C’mon! It’ll be fun! See you soon!” *click*
After a few of these kinds of conversations, we got smart and got caller ID. We also uninstalled our Instant Message programs. Later, we stopped answering our doorbell and finally, blacked out our office window with heavy black fabric and became hermits, telling no one where we ended up moving to.
So, do you think I’m going to pop up out of nowhere and let this guy know we’re still alive? Not. A. Fat. Chance.
Oh, and he’s right in the middle of getting a divorce too. What is it with relationships all around us breaking up lately? While we do feel somewhat sorry for most of the breakups we’re witnessing, it kind of makes WS and I feel superior at the same time. Is that so wrong??
June 15th 2003
Happy Sperm Day!
If you came here looking for happy stories about Father’s Day, puppies and getting to tinker around in the garage, you can go elsewhere.
If you came here whining about how fathers can sometimes beat and rape their children or completely walk out of their lives – completely denying a child’s existence, you don’t need to go much further. And neither do I.
June 16th 2003
A MAJOR CLUSTER F*CK ON YOUR PART DOES NOT CONSISTUTE AN EMERGENCY ON MINE and other weekend escapades.
Friday night, I went grocery shopping and left WS here to work on some job stuff he needed to have done weeks ago, before he got straddled with FatHead’s work when he was fired. At the grocery’s deli section, I decided to get about 3 pounds worth of sliced Boar’s Head pepperoni. It’s a decent Atkins type thing to eat and 3 pounds should last around here about a week. The deli counter guy was real nice about making sure the outer paper cover was removed before he sliced it this time around, and knowing that this would take about 10 minutes, I went to do the rest of our grocery shopping.
When I came back to pick up the sliced pepperoni, I was dismayed to see that he only had about half of the 3 pounds sliced. Okay, no problem. I’m not in any rush. But then I notice that every single slice had a piece of paper in-between it. Every. Single. Slice. That first pound and a half of sliced pepperoni, with a piece of deli paper in-between was nearly a foot tall and from what I could tell, it was quite likely, that I would be paying for just as much paper as I would be for pepperoni! I tried to get the deli counter person’s attention to ask him why he was doing this but he was busy talking to another worker and seemed to be completely ignoring me. After several minutes, I could only shake my head and walk away to finish up my other shopping.
45 minutes later, my pepperoni was sliced and he wasn’t too happy to hear me ask for a couple of pounds of turkey ham. In fact, he handed off that job to another worker who happened to be wandering by. So, now that I’m back home, we’re eating our pepperoni but we are saving all the deli papers and plan on weighing them after the pepperoni is gone. If it turns out we did pay for all those 400+ papers, at $8.99 a pound, WS isn’t going to be too happy. Of course, he’ll have to have the time to be upset. He’s feeling a bit overwhelmed already this week and it’s only Monday.
Over the weekend, the work program we are required to use for our job went down. In addition, one of the main hard drives at company headquarters failed, resulting in no customer requests getting through. Nothing in. Nothing out. Weekend employees were shut out of the system. Then, in order to fix the hard drive, one of the IT engineers had to reset all of our passwords to our email accounts. The problem there was…he sent the new passwords via email AFTER resetting them. Now, how the hell are we supposed to get our new passwords if we can’t get to the email that contains it??
As for the customer requests not coming in because of that part of the system shutdown, things are backed up again to mountainous heights. We’ll be lucky to get things under control before July 1st. And then, let’s not forget that the July 4th holiday is right around the corner, creating yet another several thousand request backup. Good times….
Before we learned about all this chaos, WS and I decided to order a 10 yard load of bark to cover all the exposed dirt in our flowerbeds. This is one of those kinds of things that people do up here in the Pacific Northwest. Placing a good 4 inch or so layer of mulched and chopped up tree bark on any exposed ground helps keep the soil moist thus reducing the need to water in the summer and it helps keep the weed population down. 10 yards is a huge amount of bark and when it’s delivered by dump truck, it fills nearly our entire 2 car wide driveway. We then shovel it into our wheelbarrow (yes, the one with the constantly flat tire), dump the bark in areas around the yard, and then rake it all out. 10 yards worth of bark takes us about 6 hours of hard work but the results are completely worth it.
The problem here was, we were told the bark would be delivered Saturday at 1:30 in the afternoon. After several phone calls, we finally got it delivered at 6:30 that evening. I can’t begin to tell you how *fun* it is to be shoveling and raking bark furiously at 10:30 at night, just to get that load off our driveway, not because we really didn’t want to spend all weekend working on it. But because several times during the evening, a couple groups of kids rode by on their bikes making comments to each other on what kind of havoc they could create with an unguarded pile of bark overnight. We didn’t feel we had any choice in the matter and we spent the last hour Saturday night, in the dark, wheel barrowing the remaining 20 loads or so into our backyard and onto the concrete. I would just have to get up Sunday and get right back to work on spreading this stuff in the near 90 degree heat.
So, I wasn’t able to get any job work done yesterday like I had planned and I really needed to go through some new job procedures that are confusing to me with WS. But hey! That bark looks swell!
This week will be hectic but only because I’m working on getting everything to fall neatly into place before Friday night, when we’ll be packing my car to go on an overnight trip to Twin Falls, Idaho with the car club early Saturday morning. The car club is making the long trip to Bowling Green, Kentucky for our sports car’s 50th anniversary celebration in which thousands upon thousands of our cars will be gathering in Kentucky, where our cars are produced, over the next 2 weeks. Unfortunately, WS and I won’t be going on the whole trip, for several reasons, one of which was not being able to get the time off work together. But we will be going on the first 600 miles with the group Saturday/Sunday. Ought to be an adventure and we’re already predicting that several of the club members won’t be on speaking terms by the time they get back around July 7th. Heck, we might even start a secret pool on this.
June 17th 2003
I was reading someone else’s Blog early this morning, re-reading an entry they posted last week and one that I found amusing and so last week, I had left a comment along with the many others that were already there. In going through those same comments this morning, I found that my comment had been removed. Hmmm…I’ve been removed from people’s blog links before but never had one of my comments removed before. And it’s not like I used bad language or insulted anyone. It was a nice comment. Gee, maybe this is partly why I don’t comment more often or maybe I’m just being too paranoid. It’s not that this would be a first.
After all my bark hauling and spreading over the weekend, I have a HUGE open blister on the webbing area between my first finger and thumb. Naturally, it’s bright, screaming red in color and in a spot that no bandage on earth will stick to, so I have to come up with inventive ways of covering it up whenever I go out in the real world. Like last night, when I had to go to Lowe’s (who improves home improvement) and I resorted to using a Band-Aid that didn’t stick but wrapped a long piece of masking tape around the entire thumb area so the Band-Aid would stay on. Hey, it’s better than looking like I’m a leper or something. Oh, and did I mention the pain? Yeah, it’s good.
WS, in a higher than usual perturbance at the world’s stupidity factor, has been looking for a catchy name for a web site he wants to create but naturally, all the good names are already taken. Mostly by people who aren’t using those catchy named web sites anywhere near the name’s potential, thus perturbing WS even further. (I think the answer to your search is somewhere in that sentence, WS, but don’t ask me exactly where.)
Had a couple of fairly productive conference calls with MrSmartButFakingIt today. Naturally, this caused me to miss out on doing the usual amount of work I normally do on any given day and yes, gee, I’m all broke up over it. NOT!
In neighborhood news, The Baseball Team has once again taken down their For Sale sign from in front of their house. Still no signs they are going to move out and I still question the rumor that they’ve already sold the place.
Apparently, there is a car prowling gang in our area and someone around the corner of us has had their daughter’s custom Acura nearly stolen twice. Uh, don’t you guys have a 2 car garage? Maybe you should park in there especially since you spent so much on her car to make it look EXACTLY like the cars the car gangs like to steal. I guess I just never understood why people use their garages to store crap instead of their cars. Hey, if you need your garage to store other things than your cars, you should have bought a bigger house or you need to get rid of a bunch of stuff that you know darn well you don’t need.
It’s hot here today and yes, I’m not really in a good mood if you couldn’t tell my now. But good news is coming! It’s expected to start raining Thursday and continue through the weekend. JOY!
June 18th 2003
Ah….glorious misty rain. I stood outside in it for a minute or two this morning before starting work. Revitalizing. The real rain is supposed to come in Friday and I am more than ready for it.
This coming weekend is our driving trip to Idaho with the car club on the first leg of their trip to Kentucky. Yes, I know, it’ll be raining the entire time and generally, I don’t drive my car in the rain. However, this is the one time this summer that I don’t care. I want to go. My car needs the mileage so I can get out of this horrible, anal, car show classification I’m stuck in as long as I have less than 10K miles on the car, and I’d like to see how the car and us holds up on a long 16 hour/2 day drive. I think we’ll do fine.
But this means I have a lot of stuff to get done before leaving here at 5 am Saturday. Over the last couple of days, I’ve been working hard on getting laundry done, piles of stuff put away, getting the trip list put together, working on my latest car paint rock chips, trying to burn new CDs, planting the last of the ground cover outside, oh, and then there’s my job. I’m just waiting for WS to say he can’t go after all, given how much work he’s backed up with.
Tomorrow night is a general car club meeting. I’m willing to bet the entire meeting will be overridden with talk of the club’s trip to Bowling Green, Kentucky, leaving the rest of us who aren’t going feeling definitely left out. You know the feeling you get when you aren’t part of the main clique, like you’re the 5th wheel. Since I feel like this nearly all the time, whether in a car club or just in everyday life, it’s something that really bothers me especially when I see other people going through it too.
So, tonight I hope to finish the rock chip repairs and get some polish on those areas, then I’ll start packing the car with tools, our folding chairs, and the other little stuff that I can pack early. I don’t want to be doing it Friday night when I should be sleeping. We’ll be getting up around 4 am and we’ll have a l-o-n-g 2 days ahead of us. I need to try to get a couple of CDs burned with that 80′s pop stuff I was listening to earlier in the month. Only then can I start to relax a bit, knowing that most of everything will be done. Now, if I could only get WS to clean up this office. It’s a disaster.
June 19th 2003
My car’s paint rock chip repair isn’t going well and I am stressing over this, although I’m trying hard not to. I don’t know what to do about it. WS is trying hard to fix it, but it’s just not going well. Neither will I have the money or time to fix it correctly after getting back from our upcoming trip to Idaho. Yesterday, I got back my scores from that big car show a couple of weeks ago. The show that was for season points and the difference between my second place win and first place was miniscule. However, I do know that one judge didn’t count me off on the bad chips because he was present when it happened. He won’t be able to ignore it though over the next 4 shows knowing that I would have had enough time to get it fixed as if I had the money. So my options are to just try to fix it as best as we can, knowing it is still very noticeable and will count against us in future car shows, or drop out of the season points race now. I’ll go with option #1 but, no, I’m not happy.
And speaking of not having any money, MsNoManagementSkills, after moving out from her marriage to FatHead, had her checking account frozen for a week. FatHead probably did that because he knows, as we all do, that she has a big-time shopping habit. But did that stop her? Heck no! She blew through about a thousand dollars in one day in ordering all kinds of new furniture for her apartment on their credit cards. Apparently, FatHead didn’t or couldn’t freeze or close those accounts. I predict lots of money squabbling between these two in future months and I’ll be willing to bet FatHead has been hard at work hiding some of his assets. I do know that he purposely didn’t add her name to a small side business he started up a couple of years ago. Community property state or not, it something is hidden well, there is nothing the other party can do unless they want to spend lots of money having those hidden assets uncovered.
MsNoManagementSkills is also reporting that when she goes over to her old residence, FatHead has put her stuff out on the porch. She says she doesn’t want to go inside, but I’d bet my life that FatHead wasted no time changing all the locks.
Naturally, this all means that MsNoManagementSkills isn’t spending all that much time at work, leaving her job to us, and is alternating between freaking out and over-medicating herself. Mood swings and all this drama are not good for company morale, so just stop it now.
The new neighbors living next door will be officially named The Dimmers as of today. Definitely not the brightest bulbs in the pack. I also found out why the youngest Dimmer screams all the time; it’s not because of that head-wacking game I witnessed last week, it’s not because she seems to fall down every 20 steps or so. It’s not even because she occasionally falls 4-6 feet off the wooden playstation that pollutes their backyard.
It’s because someone has said the word “No” to her. Apparently, the word “No” means scream your bloody head off. For several minutes straight.
Of course, when other neighbors discover this little tidbit of information, it basically means someone could shoot this child and she’d probably never make a peep. But the minute someone says “NO!” loudly, she’ll scream her head off and the rest of us will glare at them. Really. I hope this is just one of those phase things with this kid because if it isn’t, I’m sure someone is going to say something to Ms. Dimmer, who unfortunately, is rarely seen or heard telling little Dimmer to shut the fuck up.
The Baseball Team moved the huge fishing boat that was stuffed into their garage out yesterday with the help of Mr Baseball Teams’ work buddies. Exactly how many uniformed police officers does it take to remove a boat from inside a garage when it’s pilied will the crap of a messy wife and 8 children? Apparently 4. Who all showed up in their own police cars. It’s nice to know exactly what the taxpayers are paying for in this town.
So does that mean The Baseball Team is finally moving out? Hmmm, I don’t know. But I can tell you that more than half of the other stuff in that garage has been moved out and away as well. Whether they really sold their house and are finally moving out is still anyone’s guess.
Today, work is crawling at best. It really should be 4 pm by now, but in a cruel twist of fate, it’s only just after 1 pm. I’m down to about 50 things left to do on my to-do list before we leave early Saturday morning and I expect tomorrow to be nothing but hectic. But hey! I did get 4 new music CDs burned yesterday and plan on one more today. Let’s hear it for new driving music!
June 20th 2003
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Grandma is beating off the Indians.
Now we know why The Baseball Team wasn’t showing any signs of moving. They were simply waiting until the last possible minute and so, in an obvious rush to get out, have enlisted the help of 84 of their closest modern Mennonite friends to move them. Right this minute, there are 3 Ryder moving trucks backed into the driveway and lawn, 5 Dodge Ram pickup trucks (the officially recognized and accepted Mennonite vehicle manufacturer), 7 Dodge caravans, no less than 14 Ford Excursions (the OTHER officially recognized and accepted Mennonite vehicle manufacturer and vehicle model), and 4 city police cars (remember, Mr. Baseball Team is a city cop). The entire street as far as the eye can see in either direction is lined with assorted other vehicles and the neighborhood is virtually swarming with people and children in assorted dress, some in obvious Mennonite attire while others look like Marie Osmond wannabees, carrying boxes, bags, and lots. LOTS of Rubbermaid containers (apparently another approved Mennonite item). Because of the 3 large Ryder trucks backed into the driveway and on the lawn, the front half of the trucks are totally blocking the street, forcing neighbors who can actually get out of their driveways and around all the blocking cars, to find an alternative route out of the development. There is only one other route out so you can imagine the mess this is creating. I don’t think there has been this much activity in this neighborhood since back when they were loading up the cattle that used to live on this land, before the construction teams came in.
There is a neighbor family in the ‘hood we don’t talk about much. The Quiets. They keep pretty much to themselves and are quiet, just the way we like our neighbors. Lately, odd things have been noticed over there though. He works in a military group and she only recently got a job outside the home. They have 3 children: a teenage girl who we are certain will come home pregnant some day, an 11 year old boy who used to be a recognized genuis of sorts before pre-teen rebellion took hold, and a 7 year old girl who doesn’t like to go outside. The teenage girl has been a royal bitch lately, flexing in full all the teenage fury muscles she can muster up at her parents. But that’s another story for another time.
Around noon today and shortly after The Baseball Team’s caravan of moving vehicles left for parts unknown, I noticed the front door of this neighbor’s house standing partly open, a strange occurrence in it’s self, and their indoor-only cats wandering up and down their driveway. It was the cats that did it for me and I rushed over to try to shoo them back indoors. No dice. So I went up and rung the doorbell a few times. No answer. Okay, maybe no one was home and the door “popped” open somehow and so not at all being one to open doors and look around inside, I went back to the front yard bushes where the cats were now hiding. A few minutes later, a very, very scruffy-looking man came out of the house, mumbling something. Hair in all kinds of directions, pinched, sleepily looking face, several days growth of beard. Not really recognizing him, I apologized for the disturbance and told him his front door was standing open and their cats were wandering around. He mumbled that he didn’t think this was normal (?) and then sat down and lit a cigarette while watching me strangely. I have to confess that this guy looked only slightly similar the neighbor man that lives there and to be perfectly honest, I still don’t know for certain if this was our neighbor or not. Maybe a relative? Maybe a transient for all I know. But the cats finally ran back inside and I apologized again and walked back across the street home. Odd.
Today, all our local news stations appear to be out on our satellite system. So I have to surf the “net to find out what is happening in my town and what the weather is supposed to be like over the weekend. Yeah, I know I said it was supposed to rain, but the rain was supposed to start Wednesday night and well, I felt a slight mist Wednesday morning but nothing more.
We’re halfway ready to go on our weekend trip tomorrow morning. Still to do: Final polish on car after working one last time on those nasty rock chips, final laundry load, vacuum house, pack clothes and personal items (include tampons thanks to Aunt Flo’s premature visit this morning), put bra on car, fill water bottles, fill bird feeders, check camera batteries, and take out trash. Sounds simple, right? I’m already sure I’m forgetting something important as usual.
June 24th 2003
There’s too much blood in my caffeine system!
Back from our trip to Twin Falls, Idaho and all I can really say is that southern Idaho is boring and boy, am I ever tired.
Apparently, southern Idaho has miles upon miles of flat, half dead land filled with sage brush. Land prices ought not to be too bad out there but bringing in water or electricity would be expensive. Too dry and boring for me but the trip was interesting nonetheless. I had a very hard time saying goodbye to the rest of the car club as they continued their ways to Kentucky while WS and I had to head back home just to go back to work on Monday. It’s times like this that make me really hate my job, but then I realize, if I didn’t have my job, I never would have been able to go to Idaho with them in the first place.
The trip out to Idaho took over 14 hours. I swear, we stopped at every other rest stop on the way but being as Aunt Flo visited me a week early and I was taking her along, I didn’t mind all the stopping. No problems with my car; it performed beautifully and we were both fairly comfortable for that long trip. The trip back home from Twin Falls was considerably shorter as we only stopped a couple of times for gas and bathroom trips and forgot about eating anything. I was exhausted from driving the entire time and crashed pretty hard Sunday night and most of Monday. Now, I’m working on getting the car back into shape and am working on removing the latest big scratches on my front fenders from grit and sand getting under my car bra and scratching the crap out of the paint there. At least I didn’t take many rock chips this time. I can live with this.
Yesterday, I got a big THANK YOU from our quiet neighbors for letting them know their cats were loose outside. And I was right. The scruffy man I talked to wasn’t our neighbor, but a relative staying with them who didn’t know (or care) that the door was standing open and the cats had escaped. Gee, sometimes it pays to be nosy.
New people are moving into The Baseball Team’s house, so I guess The Baseball Team is gone. In our usual pre-profiling manner of checking out any potential stand out issues with this new family, we see that she is short, average weight, with short dark hair. No facial view yet to determine age because the HUGE ASS moving van is blocking most of our view. But they do have at least one child, a toddler. Ugh. I predict kid toys littering the lawn and screaming throughout the day. She drives a 4 door non-descript (read: safe) vehicle. He, on the other hand, appears to drive an old early 80′s Skylark 2 door with custom wheels. Maybe he’s the type that hasn’t quite let go of his teenage years although he appears to be at least late 30′s or early 40′s with grey hair and a sizeable beer gut. Out of state license plates and mountains of boxes with the moving company’s name plastered all over them. The new family is sitting on an old car seat bench in the garage watching the movers and not lifting a finger to help. Not that I blame them. For the price I know this moving company charges, I wouldn’t help either.
Back at work, MsNoManagementSkills is freaking out over the work load but after this past weekend and all the stress I went through to get ready and feeling good after getting out of town for a day or two, I can’t be bothered with stressing over her latest “We’re swamped so get busy!” emails. Besides, you all know what I’m thinking. Maybe if she did some of the work, we would get caught up that much faster. Fat chance of that happening.
Dentist appointment early this morning for getting a mold for an upcoming dental implant. Fun. I’ve also got several other things to catch up on: Haircuts for the 2 of us, grocery shopping and back to Atkins’, need bird seed, and need to get on that rowing machine. All of these are items I will do this week, today if at all possible. Hmmm…that didn’t sound too positive. Okay, I WILL get back on the rowing machine today.
How’s that?
June 25th 2003
MsNoManagementSkills, now living alone, is spending a LOT of time with another Online Journalist, a single father, and the level of comfort ability mentioned in her Online Journal makes one wonder exactly how long something may have been going on between these two. I strongly suspect it’s longer than she’s lived alone and makes me wish we knew FatHead’s side of the story now. WS hasn’t heard a peep from him surprisingly, although neither one of us are really looking forward to talking to FatHead anyway. That guy was always such a negative drain on everyone and just would not stop bitching about what the world owed him.
While I haven’t been sticking to Atkins’ in well over a month or two, I didn’t put on any additional weight. Sure, I’m badly out of shape. Working in front of a computer 8-10-12 hours a day 5-6 days a week can do that to a person. But over the past few days, I’ve been pretty good and am jumping back on the Atkins’ wagon. The past two days have been a breeze but mostly because it’s been hot and I never feel like eating when it’s hot, and because I’m working on re-polishing my car which means I get to smell all that tropical polish smells which usually quell my appetite. Probably a chemical reaction that’s really bad for me or something.
This week promises to be upwards of 95-100 degrees before the end of the weekend and the return of cloudy weather so I’m taking the time to wear very little and get some sun during work breaks. A few weeks ago, at the first big car show of the season, I got a seriously good tan but one of those tank top tans; meaning if I wear anything that is low cut or has spagetti straps, I look like a mutant with dark arms and upper neck and a lily white chest. I really need to even this out.
While the sunny weather is a nice change, it’s really sapping my energy to the point where I basically have little to none. Already today despite consuming caffeine, I really want to take a nap or something. Of course, if I do, that will screw up my night sleep schedule, which by the way, has been wonderful lately. I haven’t slept all the way through the night this often since….well, never. So THIS is what most people experience when they sleep at night. Okay, I take back my statements about sleep being highly overrated. Those were made because I rarely got any and most of what I did get was troubled and restless. Unfortunately now though, I just do not want to get up in the morning. Can’t I just sleep until 1 or 2 in the afternoon every day??
June 26th 2003
The gene pool could use a little chlorine.
It’s very hot here today and The Dimmers next door have set out a Slip’n'Slide for their 2 children. As I understand it, the Slip’n'Slide gets hooked up to a hose and you run and belly flop on the plastic and slide all the way to the end. Then get up and do it all over again. Titillating.
I don’t remember anything about exposing your butt and getting spanked by your sibling after each run though. Or maybe that’s just the way The Dimmer kids play it. Their boy, around 5-6 years old, seems to be going through a “I’ll drop the back of my pants at the drop of a hat” phase and I’ve accidently seen more butt in the last 2 weeks than I’ve seen here in my own home in the past 7 years.
They also seem to have a rule over there that no one comes in the house with wet clothes. So in the morning, when the kids run around in the sprinklers (in their pajamas) before Ma Dimmer gets up or pays attention, the young boy strips down to nothing before going back into the house. Trust me. I’ve praying for the evergreens between our houses to GROW so that the view from our house is permanently blocked.
MsNoManagementSkills may be having problems with FatHead and getting what she considers “her” furniture and television from him. Remember, she moved out and he kept the house. They had just spent a buttload of money on new furniture and electronics when she moved out and now, she’s been going on wild spending sprees in furnishing her apartment. But apparently, it’s not enough. Now, she wants some of what she left behind. Hey, at least while she’s going back and forth with this, she’s staying out of her coworkers’ hair (for the most part).
Still being good on Atkins’ and getting lots of vigorous exercise with polishing my car. After our Idaho trip last weekend, I had to strip all those 20some coats of polish off and start all over from scratch due to all the crap I couldn’t get off the car with a simple car wash. So WS worked on removing or at least, reducing, most of the new, big, noticeable scratches with a combo of Mequire’s Scratch-X, a 3M dark car swirl and scratch remover, and Red Shit, a mystery compound that our car club members swear on. Then, I washed the car with Dawn, the official car wax and polish stripper, and started re-applying all those coats of polish. I’m currently in-between coats 3 and 4. LOTS to go but it’ll look good for this weekend when I have a couple of cruise ins, not official shows, to attend. Sunday, there is a general, all vehicles car show that I’m seriously thinking of attending because it’s part of the city’s official summer celebration, but I’m just not sure yet. Depends on how the weather is (supposed to be hot) and how good the car looks Friday and Saturday night.
We’ve dug out our ice shaver machine and we’ve been cooling down with snow cones all week (using Sugar-Free syrups from the Low Carb store – Yippee!!). What a treat! Still haven’t gotten to the grocery store since coming back from the Idaho trip and we’re nearly out of anything else to eat around here. Thank goodness the house has been cleared of high carb stuff for months now.
June 30th 2003
I prefer both my beer and coffee to be dark and bitter. That way, they fit in so well with the rest of my life.
Have you ever wanted to tell someone that you are really tired of them thinking only of themselves and that life is rough for the rest of us too so just stop being angry 24/7 as if the world is hell-bent on destroying them and them alone and just too fricken’ bad for anyone else who gets in the way? Hmmm? No? Okay, it just must be me.
The weekend was a whirlwind of car shows. I’m completely exhausted as usual. Cleaning a car constantly and sitting in the baking sun for 6-8 hours really takes everything out of me. But compared to the company I would have had to endure if I hadn’t gone, well, I don’t know what was worse. WS was on call all weekend and that added to his already usual angry demeanor. Yeah, great company there. To be fair, he did made a good attempt to be nice and outgoing, instead of his usual grumpy, shutdown, and “I really, really, don’t want to be here” style, at a 2-hour car cruise-in Saturday night that turned out to be a bust. I thought he did fine but later when he asked me if he was okay, I had to question exactly how used to his personality I have become. I was reminded of when I was young and thought everyone’s parents beat their children and how shocked I was to find out that some parents actually loved their kids and never laid a hand on them.
So today, I have laundry to do and I have to wash the car sometime and I have emails to sent out. Thankfully, WS vacuumed yesterday so I don’t have to do that. The kitchen is a mess and as usual, the glass tables around the place are a smeary mess that seems to come out of nowhere. I need to start getting my car ready for next Saturday’s big car show, the one where no one from our club has ever won anything at, I strongly suspect, because of political reasons. Late Sunday, the car club members who went to Kentucky get home and I’m sure they are going to be exhausted so I haven’t planned any welcome home thing other than to send them all emails saying so. As much as these people can get on my nerves from time to time, I have to agree with WS in that we miss them. Of course, that could just be because we ran into Ms. Large-And-In-Charge (easily well over 500 lbs now) and her enabling Not-To-Small-Himself husband and realized that our club member friends aren’t so bad to be around after all.
How shallow does that sound? Hey, for some reason, we’ve always been people who have attracted the weirdest, oddest, nastiest and most unreliable people on the planet and sometimes it just gets old.
