2004 Archive – Jan-June

2004 Archive – Jan-June – 152,389 words total. Not responsible for broken links.

January 2 2004

Happy 2nd of January! It’s been exciting around here the last couple of days, some good and some not so good. Yesterday morning, we woke up to a ton of snow and no let up in sight. A virtual winter wonderland around here. The powdery stuff was coming down so fast, that the birds, who’s behaviors I am now painfully aware of, couldn’t find their food. And it’s not like we have only one bird feeder. So we periodically went out and sprinkled some around for everyone, only to have to repeat the process every few hours. After we had about six inches of snow, an inch of which I’m positive was bird seed, naturally, we ran out of bird food. So I stressed about that half the afternoon yesterday. I was particularly concerned about a starling we had hobbling around our backyard over the last few days with a broken wing. I really wanted to make sure he had enough to nibble on but I didn’t see him at all today. And I even went out there and looked. Oh well.

We spent the day clearing out the Christmas decorations and moving in the winter décor. WS made a loaf of caraway rye bread and between his bread and the rest of the holiday candles burning, the house smelled wonderful.

Yesterday morning, naturally on the holiday, our heater started making awful squealing sounds that sounded like a bearing was going out to me. A phone call later and WS had become educated on heater functionality and sounds and the guy said it should be fine until today, when someone could come out and fix it. And that it wasn’t a bearing. We spent the day clearing out the Christmas decorations and moving in the winter décor. WS made a loaf of caraway rye bread and between his bread and the rest of the holiday candles burning, the house smelled wonderful.

But during the night last night, we were both lucky to get two hours of sleep because the heater squeals were so loud they vibrated all the way up the walls into our bedroom which sits directly over the heater unit in the garage.

This morning, a repairman came out bright and early and sure enough, it was a bearing (just let someone tell me again that I don’t know what I’m talking about and I’m going to sock someone). Because our house is less than five years old, the heater was still under warranty and it didn’t cost us a cent. But if we absolutely HAD to have it fixed yesterday, the warranty wouldn’t have applied and we would be $450 in the hole. Things you don’t know until something goes wrong.

Because we didn’t get much sleep last night, we are both pretty cranky and snappish. The weather turned to warm rain this morning, washing away a good portion of the snow and making traveling nearly a breeze. We went and got bird seed and probably a good case of the flu because the bird shop girl was hacking and coughing on EVERYTHING in sight and then touching EVERYTHING else. We had spicy Thai food for lunch, after washing down our hands, arms, my purse and everything else possibly infected, and got in enough grocery shopping to easily last us a week or more. The weather tonight is supposed to return to more snow and freezing rain (no joy there) throughout the weekend and well into next week. WS is already predicting that he won’t be going back to his REAL job until later in the week.

Which brings me up to another situation we’ve found ourselves in. We know the weather has been bad here lately. Night temperatures have been around 25 degrees and we’ve got some 17 degree nights coming up shortly. Apparently, the Howler Monkeys have taken the holiday weeks off and left town, leaving the Cal-LEE-fornians to care for their howler monkey-sounding dog and their outdoor cat. From what we’ve seen, everyone dotes on the dog, who gets to stay indoors 24/7. The cat, however, is a completely different story. It’s a long haired thing with a front leg limp. Nice and has wisely not attempted to cross the street.

Now, I know that animals live outside all the time, in bitterly cold climates and they do just fine. At least that’s what we always tell each other (actually, any good vet will tell you differently). But doesn’t it make sense that an animal that is used to warmer temperatures might have a hard time instantly adjusting to the sudden drop in temperature we experienced last week? We did go from 50 degree nights to 25 degrees in one day. And just when does an outsider step in to offer shelter, food and warmth, not to mention attention, when someone else who is supposed to be doing this, isn’t?

From what we’ve seen, the cat has no shelter and sleeps all night on the front rubber doormat. From what we’ve seen, no one is feeding it either and it wanders, limping and meowing from the Howler Monkey house to the Cal-LEE-fornians next door all day and well into the night, alternating sitting on the door steps. I’ve watched this for the past few nights and tonight, I just had to do something. Because I happen to have several cans of good quality cat food in the house just for this reason, I put on a jacket over my shorts and t-shirt and my high-top shoes and walked over to the Howler Monkey house and dumped the can of food out for the cat to eat. And it didn’t waste any time whatsoever getting to it. Had I stuck my hand in the way, it surely would have been ripped from my wrist. I was able to get a pet in though and it felt as though it were nothing but fur and bones.

Then, about an hour later, we were looking outside and saw Ms. Cal-LEE-fornian walk over to the Howler Monkeys house. We thought, okay, they are watching their house while they are gone. But as we watched, Ms. Cal-LEE-fornian, unlocked and opened the door, then grabbed the cat as it tried to run inside and threw, THREW it back outside to the porch. Contrary to popular belief, cats don’t always land on their feet and this one did not. Ms. Cal-LEE-fornian then grabbed the dog and carried it back to her house and took it inside. The cat, tried hard to keep up but ended up getting the door shut in it’s face.

That was three hours ago. Half an hour ago, the Howler Monkeys arrived home and the cat eeled in between their legs when they were unloading their kids from the SUV, but they didn’t let the cat in when they went inside. Hopefully, they will have a heart when and if they pay attention to the temperatures outside and give their cat some attention and warmth. Currently, it is sitting on their doormat and all the lights to the house have been turned off.

I feel bad for WS because he is very aware of how this cat is being ignored now because I have mentioned it all week. I have to remind myself of my mantra, “I can’t save them all. I can’t save them all.” But it’s painful to do. I have no respect for Ms. Cal-LEE-fornian at all.

We took today off from work after all, even though all our coworkers at The Company were horribly disgruntled about MsNoManagementSkills and MrSmartButFakingIt taking time off around Christmas when no one else could. The reasons why we decided to take the time we requested off previously are many but simple: MsNoManagementSkills has taken the part five Christmas’ off for one reason or the other, forcing me to work each and every one of those. I feel I really deserve just one of those off. Whereas I didn’t get it off this year, I did get the chance to take today off instead and I selfishly couldn’t give it up for once.

According to MsNoManagementSkills online journal today, she is finally aware of how bad work is backed up right now. No shit, Sherlock! What did she expect? She takes off, MrSmartButFakingIt takes off. Did she really think anyone else wouldn’t be mentally affected by that? I still think the whole department is going to be verbally smacked for slacking around Christmas and you can be certain I won’t be sticking my neck out to point out why it happened at all.

But no worries right now. We’ve got the whole weekend ahead of us with a stuffed refrigerator, a quiet heater and a garage full of birdseed. Life so far this year, is good.

January 3 2003

Question: How many days do you think I will type in my 2003 journal before I remember that it’s 2004 now? Answer: Four. Okay, I get it now. It’s 2004. Where did Christmas go? Where did New Year’s Eve day go? I haven’t a clue and I really piss myself off when I don’t pay attention to time like that.

So, my New Year’s resolutions, other than the fact that I don’t do New Year’s resolutions, are as follows:

Pay attention to time before it passes. Enjoy my spare time and stop grumbling about going back to work.
Pay attention to my surroundings. It’s beautiful here, but do I see it every day? No.
Do not ever end another written sentence with three dots…
Get my eyesight corrected so I can read books again.
Get a mammogram.
Get rid of this belly!

2003 was a good year for me. I kept my job. I got a raise, a small one, but one regardless. I had all my teeth fixed. I currently own a sports car that won the most awards of any sports car of it’s kind in the entire Pacific Northwest. I finished landscaping our entire front, sides and backyards. Repainted our living room. Learned how to burn CDs. Found the right shade of hair color, the right kind of face astringent and the right kind of blemish concealer. Discovered that Atkins’ only works for me for so long which I can use to my advantage. And discovered some more really nice people with Blogs.

We had a fifteen second snow shower today and have been promised with more snow all day. It’s after 9 p.m. now and not a flake to be seen. Nearly all the snow from the other day is gone. WS and I are still holding out that tomorrow, Monday and Tuesday will be snow and ice filled. Joy!

Today, WS got a wild hair and vacuumed nearly every surface in our house. Blinds, door jams, cabinet recesses, window sills and screens. He was just a cleaning fool and who was I to stop him? Later, we took down the last of our Christmas decorations, which was basically our entire bedroom. The tree, the bedpost decorations and the long desktop at the foot of the bed, all taken apart, packed away and stored under our tall bed. A few hours later, after dark, WS brought up the subject of repainting some areas of our house; mainly the library which is currently dark, dark forest green and the two burgundy-colored walls in our bedroom. We haven’t decided what color to paint them yet. We’re waiting until we have better natural light to decide by. I think we are both looking for a fresh change of color to go with our beloved aged butter pecan walls: WS with anything from a brown to a terra cotta to a heathered lilac and me with a soft sage green. With our vanilla-cream hard wood floors and the maple wood trim with the aged walls, it isn’t too hard to find something that goes well but most of the stuff from the huge Rodda paint color palette just screams ICK! Whatever we decide, you can bet you’ll see pictures, before and after.

January 4 2003

My elliptical machine is supposed to be delivered tomorrow. I’ll be taking this very seriously, alternating using the elliptical with the rowing machine WS already has. The past two weeks here with WS who was on vacation from his REAL job was really nice. We slept late, stayed up late, cleaned and organized parts of the house and enjoyed the weather and ourselves. But we ate too much and much of that time, not good food. We need to get back to our good eating habit that we did well on last spring. By next June, we’ll both be in shorts and feeling like fatties if we don’t start something now.

MsNoManagementSkills started her new diet last Thursday. No word on whether she has seen any change yet but I know she completely ignored the diet over the weekend according to her journal. Chances are slim to none that The Company will send all of us, MsNoManagementSkills, WS and I to Company headquarters together again, but should that happen again, I don’t want to be the fat one this time around. It was too fun last time being the thinner one and seeing the look of sheer hatred on the face of MsNoManagementSkills.

I’ll be using Fitday.com for tracking my food, activities and goals. Currently, I’m 178 pounds and would like to get down to 150 by July 1st. That’s losing less than two pounds a week every week from today to July 1st, and a completely reasonable weight loss amount per week. A couple of weeks ago, I tried logging into another weight loss message board that was highly recommended but even with my uber-fast Internet connection, the site was molasses in January slow. Sure, if the slow part was meant to keep me in front of the monitor waiting instead of wandering out to the refrigerator, I guess that might work. But all it did was frustrate me and I haven’t been back. I really was looking for the motivation to be honest with you. I know I need to find it within myself, but my brain just won’t process or accept that. And I can’t force WS to motivate me. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have any either.

Today, the temperature outside never went above 29 degrees. Tonight will be down around 20. Tomorrow doesn’t look much warmer with another rare supposed snow storm coming tomorrow afternoon through Tuesday. Wednesday, the rains come back and our temperatures will get back to normal for this area and this time of year, up around 42 for the high and 38 for the low. This cold snap has been fun, but only because we get to stay home and watch the weather news from the safety and warmth of our own couch. Lookout Idaho, Wyoming and Colorado. If this storm is coming your way, it will be a dumper.

Today, we’ve been working on creating a small video of our backyard covered with snow and I hope to get it up over at my new location, Blogeois.com in the next day or two. It’ll be in QuickTime format and not very big. I’m sure I can figure this out. It should be easier than getting that elliptical put together.

January 5 2004

I woke up in a bad mood this morning and I think WS did to. It was a bad case of the Mondays. Because the weather was SUPPOSED to be bad, WS didn’t go into his REAL job and tele-worked from home. I say SUPPOSED because we haven’t see Jack Squat of the winter storm that the local news has been continuously over-hyping since last Thursday. Sure, it’s below freezing but not a peep of any snow and freezing rain that they insist we will be getting any minute now, for the last few days. All the schools in our area closed today and now look like idiots because no one got any snow or ice. I’m sure the kids enjoyed it but I bet the parents are all screaming for bloody murder now.

But for us people who like snow, let’s watch this short, silent, QuickTime video WS made of our backyard last week, shall we? Dial up users, beware. File size 8.52 MB.

I’ve had a bad attitude about the supposed storm and have been saying all day that I don’t think we’ll get anything. In addition to this, I’ve had a bad feeling that my elliptical machine wouldn’t be delivered today and sure enough, it wasn’t. When WS called, it seems there was lots of confusion about when it would be delivered at all. We received a call last week saying it would be delivered today, between the hours of 2:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. But when he called, they said they were supposed to deliver it last Friday. Either way, last Friday, we were sitting right here, getting our heater fixed and enjoying the day off. It sounds like the delivery company and the shipping people need to get together and figure out when they can get their shit straight. And if anyone thought I was in a bad mood earlier, I’m really in a foul mood now.

But either way, looks like another session with the rowing machine is in the works for tonight. Late tonight since work is so incredibly piled up. Everyone is expected to work overtime and it sounds like they want us salary people to put in some extra time too. MsNoManagementSkills claims that she might put in some extra time, but I bet she slacks near the end of the week. And let’s not forget that this is the time of year that she starts claiming to be getting sick and needing extra time off. Her demanding email today told all of us to “take Vitamin C and stay healthy.”

Maybe her real name should be MsNoMoraleBuildingSkills.

January 6 2004

It is so hard to concentrate on work today.

Okay, that part last night when I was complaining about no winter storm? I am very impatient and disillusioned by our local weather media people. But they came through for people just like me. We are completely socked in here today. We’ve got about five inches of snow so far today and freezing rain is expected on top of the snow sometime between 4 p.m. this afternoon and 4 a.m. tomorrow morning. Basically, it’s a mess out there and I love it. Of course, that’s because I don’t have to drive in it or work in it. It is beautiful. Our fountain and pond is nearly buried. If you were able to view the QuickTime video I posted in yesterday’s entry, here it looks just like that again except there is more ice buildup on our fountain. I’ll post a picture or two of all the ice tomorrow. Maybe we’ll get even more ice on it before then. I can definitely say that if the water wasn’t running out there, it would be a solid block of ice by now. Temperatures here are around 20 degrees.

“Hello, Domino’s Pizza? Yeah, we’d like to order a pizza for delivery. About how long will that take to get here?”

“Uh, how about…..Thursday. Evening.”

The poor birds are desperately digging in the snow looking for bird seed. The snow is coming down so thick, it’s pointless to toss more seed out there because it just gets buried within ten minutes. Still, I did throw some out there around our back porch close to the house foundation where it usually is clear (not today though). We’ve got a new type of bird visiting us today. A few Varied Thrushes, both male and female. Very pretty mixed in with the starlings, juncos and chickadees. We did witness a frenzied flicker this morning attack a starling who ventures too close. Usually flickers, which are large robin-sized birds are very timid and not at all aware of their size. This guy this morning just LAID into this poor starling and actually had the starling on his back in the snow as the flicker pecked at him. I never saw anything like it before. I guess the new rule out there is don’t fuck with the flickers.

No word on my elliptical machine and I’m fairly depressed about it. With this weather, I’m sure it’s a good week or more out from us seeing it around here. But as for WS’s new PVR, according to UPS, it’s on the truck and expected to be delivered today, amazingly, in this weather. On the TV news, they keep showing live shots of the roads and there are so many UPS trucks running around out there. His PVR just has to be on one of them. I’m jealous. My elliptical isn’t a UPS delivery.

Okay, I can’t stand it. I must go out and walk in this winter wonderland. Back soon.

Back. That was a blast! The snow is very sugary feeling. You can’t make a snowball to save your life. The neighborhood kids are trying to sled down the little hill but the snow is too thick. People are racing around the ‘hood with their ATVs which is just idiotic because they are trying to knock each other off at the same time. Lots of people out walking their dogs. Look out for the yellow snow! The snow has stopped and the ice pelleting has come in. Freezing rain is on the way, but by tomorrow night, Thursday at the latest, most of this should be gone, melted away in the 40 degree rainy northwest weather.

January 7 2004

Oh, it’s just been a riot around here today. Between work coming out of everyone’s butts and the inch and a half of ice coating everything, including my poor birch trees which are now bent in half and I can’t do anything about because it’s still freezing rain outside and the temperature is hovering around 20 degrees, I’ve been a nervous wreck all day. WS can attest to that when he graciously stepped in and helped me early this morning when a higher up coworker who knows nothing about my job wanted me to drop everything and completely change the way I do it all, to suit his tastes. WS, writing as me told him, “Uh, no. And this is why. Now go away” while I was sniveling over in the corner, wailing, “Make it go AWAY! Make it ALL go AWAY!”

Now, hours later, I’m only halfway overwhelmed with work.

A couple of hours ago, WS and I went outside and he shoveled the entire driveway and sidewalks while I tried hard to break and peel all the ice off my little birch trees. I thought by leaving the little white Christmas lights on them and keeping them lit over the past three days would help keep them from icing up. It didn’t in the least and probably helped make the problem worse. I tell you, there is nothing like getting up in the morning and seeing three 10-foot white birches bent over halfway down their trunks, touching the ground. I nearly puked when I saw them. That’s how sick I felt about it.

We constantly threw birdseed out for the birds in the backyard today, but it was difficult for them to get it because they just slid every which way but where the seed was sitting. I also noticed one of those new cool Varied Thrush birds we have had his beak frozen open. I don’t know how he could eat. Maybe he “tongued” the seed up?

Speaking of tongues, we have a good three inches of crystal clear ice on our front porch railing and being as I’m such a smart ass, I proved to WS that my tongue wouldn’t stick to it. Not even close, even as the temperature was around 19 at the time. Sure, it wasn’t a metal railing but it sure was cold. Tasty too in that icy kind of way.

Not many neighbors walking around today because of the ice. Our street is a virtual skating rink with three to five inches of ice covering the five inches of snow. Not much vehicle traffic either as you can well imagine. I did see SportsOrNothing next door about an hour ago, trying desperately to break up ice in their backyard so their big dogs would have some place non-slippery to poop. As much as those people take off and leave their dogs alone, locked inside for hours and hours on end, I don’t know why they just don’t continue to let them poop inside. God knows their carpet is already ruined.

WS’s PVR unit was delivered yesterday on time. Those UPS guys are good. Still no word on my elliptical machine. I am beyond depressed about it but there is nothing anyone can do. This area is literally shut down due to the bad weather. Maybe I’ll get it next week. Maybe someone will remember to get a hold of us next week. Maybe someone will figure out we’re still waiting for it’s delivery next week.

January 8 2004

I’m posting late today because it’s going to be a late kind of day. We’ve started work late, cleaned house late and I showered late. We shoveled ice and snow in the backyard to get to the bird feeders which were half empty and the top tray of the open feeder was completely empty. We gently shook most of the ice off all the trees in the backyard and inspected every else. Only spring will tell if I lost any of my beloved plants. I’m thinking maybe a couple of ferns, the Australian tree fern probably for certain and who knows what else that is still buried under five inches of snow and in some spots, a foot of solid ice. We’ve got a couple of hardy blue junipers in the front yard that I can’t even find, they are buried so deep in ice.

Yesterday evening, I went out front and gently shook the ice from my poor birches that were bent in half and touching the ground. Today, I repeated the process and then, holding them upright for five minutes, gently let them go. AND THEY STOOD UPRIGHT! My trees are saved! I am so proud of myself and those beautiful trees, I could just bust! I had read once somewhere that some plants and trees that were bent in the wind or harsh weather could be straightened again if they were “temporarily trained” to stand upright again if you “re-teach” it how it’s supposed to stand. And sure as shit, it worked. Color me amazed!

But all that work yesterday and today, shoveling snow has made me very, very hungry. I find myself thinking about food every couple of hours, even after eating a sizable meal. I think I’m just craving salsa but the weather is too nasty still to drive anywhere. We briefly talked to SportsOrNothing this afternoon and they said the town was just a disaster with all the downed trees. I know the power has been flickering here on and off all day and there is still a good foot of ice on the roads. No salsa for me anytime soon and that’s okay. I’ll live.

So, we’re firmly entrenched in warmer rain through the weekend and next week. Temperature right now is around 34 degrees but the rain is closer to 40 degrees. We shouldn’t have any more ice and definitely no more snow for a while, maybe the rest of the winter. This whole snow/ice thing was rare anyway. Next up will be the flooding that is sure to happen. Back in the winter of 1996/97, we had bad flooding around town and our favorite, now defunct, restaurant had a couple of feet of water in it. No steak and lobster that month!

Thanks for the comments and for thinking of us during our storm here. We’re doing great now!

January 9 2004

Oh, how I don’t want to work today.

Working until 1 a.m. last night probably didn’t help my lack of motivation today. Or maybe it’s reading MsNoManagementSkills constant stream of “OMG! We’re soooooo far behind! Work harder!” emails. Or maybe it’s that self-evaluation I have to write up today because The Company managers are all too stupid and swamped in their own little work worlds to know what their own department workers are doing. If they don’t know, why do I have to do their work for them? Don’t I already have my own mountain of work to do? According to MsNoManagementSkills, I do. Nope, I just don’t want to work today. Thankfully, I only have three hours left. If I can stretch out working on that eval, I’ll be okay. I just really don’t want to do that eval and I’m defeating myself.

Things are starting to thaw out around here. Our neighborhood is still buried under six inches of ice and unless you have studded tires or chains, no one is driving down our street, but I’ve heard the main streets through town are fine. Maybe we’ll venture out tomorrow or Sunday. We don’t have studded tires and can’t put chains on either one of our cars. Hey, it only snows here once every dozen years or so. We’re not buying chains or studded tires for that. If we lived on the east side of our state or somewhere where it did this every year, you can believe we’d have a way to get around.

Oh, and to the local newscaster who said that people with 2-wheel drive cars and didn’t have a SUV were living in the stone age, blow me, you spoiled bitch. You don’t even DRIVE your own SUV. You have a hired driver!

I can’t believe how much energy I had yesterday and the day before, when I was shoveling ice compared to how little energy and motivation I have today. Which is none.

Oh, and did I mention our phone is out? No phone service here today. And I’m sure that was just because WS was expecting a call from Motor Cargo on where the hell my elliptical machine is.

Well, I suppose I ought to print out this self-evaluation form at least.

January 10 2004

Latest picture sent back from Mars. You knew it had to happen sooner or later. I’m just wondering where the Wal-Martians are.

We ventured out today, having been cooped up here for nine days straight. It was treacherous getting out of our development with all the packed ice still on the roads, but once we got to a major street, it was much better and easier going. It’s been foggy here all day and only just a few minutes ago, did the fog finally lift. The first thing we did when we were out was to feed the spice monkey – satisfy our craving for spicy salsa and chicken fajitas for two with extra, extra, extra jalapeno. The chef made it so spicy, in fact, that they nearly killed themselves with the grilled pepper fumes and we nearly cleared out the restaurant when everyone started coughing. Those fajitas are deadly, but so delicious, it’s worth every cough.

Later, we hit the grocery store for supplies…and promptly forgotten half of what we swore we were going to pick up as usual. Some things never change. On the way home, we stopped at our local specialty wine shop and picked up that 93-year old bottle of port we ordered over a month ago that finally came in. We plan in storing it in the closet with the other 100+ bottles of considerably less expensive wine we’ve got stored in there. I tell myself, we’re aging them and we do enjoy around a bottle a week, but at the rate we buy wine and then consume it, we’ll be expanding the wine collection to the entry way, living room and kitchen by next summer. I swear, as soon as my elliptical machine gets here and I am ellipticalling every evening in front of the TV, I think I’ll be enjoying a bit more wine.

I started my car up and let it run for a bit to keep the battery charged and the engine lubed. I really need to drive it around to keep the transmission and rear end lubed, but there is no way that is going to happen with all this ice packed on the roads.

This evening, WS is working on getting the new PVR set up downstairs and swapping the old one with the really old one upstairs. We are so spoiled and this isn’t helping matters. At least we have a remote control that actually works now. I plan on taking that old piece of shit remote that gave us so many months of grief and unceremoniously dropping it into our fountain. If I could flush that thing down the toilet, I most certainly would.

We plan on going out in the big world again tomorrow, if for nothing else but to have lunch out and take in the sights of all the downed trees and broken branches. If I didn’t think the roads getting to our old residence, that drafty old rental house, wasn’t iced over and impassable, I’d drive by just to surely see those big-ass trees out front and in between the houses broken down. Those things, with all their creaking and cracking sounds, and the landlord who wouldn’t do anything about them, gave us the willies for the eight long years we lived there.

January 12 2004

Over on My Life is a Mess a topic a few days ago was past experiences in losing out on a job to blondie barbies who eat a forkful of watercress for lunch. That description stuck in my mind for some reason, and I found it hilarious btw, so over the weekend, during our grocery shopping, I happen to purchase some fresh watercress. And for lunch that day, I tried a forkful of watercress.

I am sorry to say that, try as I may not to be, I was still hungry. Starved would be a better word, actually. So I had two sandwiches. With watercress on them, of course, and cheese and liverwurst and pickle and mayo and red onion. I guess I won’t be a Barbie anytime soon.

MsNoManagementSkills moved in with her boyfriend this weekend. Lately, she has been getting testy with her boyfriend’s three horrendous-behaving children and retreated to her soon-to-be-gone apartment across town for some alone time. I can only imagine that the only refuge she’ll have now is the shopping mall, which will only worsen the situation. So much for her resolution to stop spending money. I predict that resolution will go the way of her New Year’s Day diet resolution, which has already been tossed to the wayside. I’m sure she’ll start another one in February.

Still, it frightens me deeply to know that she’ll be doing work from his place, which by-the-way is his foreclosed house that he is now renting from the new owners. Talk about a depressing situation. Still, he just refused for some reason to continue to make his mortgage payments and wanted to buy his geek-boy toys instead. Now, he’s renting his own house! What a bad situation that must be. I have no doubt that MsNoManagementSkills will be teaching her boyfriend how to do her job, if she hasn’t already. Her husband, FatHead, to whom she is not divorced from yet, often did her job when she didn’t feel like it until he finally laid down the law, allegedly. After all, he had his own job at The Company PLUS his other job to do. But that’s always been MsNoManagementSkills. Either get someone else to do her work or don’t do anything at all.

I can’t help but wonder though if her boyfriend expects her to baby sit his unruly kids all day when he’s a work and when she’s supposed to be working herself? And I’m wondering which she will find more necessary – go back on heavy medication, or hold off on the medication just long enough to get pregnant, her lifelong dream.

Yesterday, WS shoveled the rest of the snow and ice off our driveway while I took the Christmas lights down out of three of my birch trees, the trees that suffered the worst from the ice storm last week. All of them are now straight as a rod and I’m just busting with pride over that. I don’t know why but I take some things I plant to heart and if anything happened to them, I’d take it personally. Lucky for me, I seem to have one of the greenest thumbs around, something I chalk up to my “live or die – I don’t care what you do but I’m not going to waste time fussing over you” attitude toward everything I plant. And to date, I think I’ve only lost maybe a dozen plants ever, to death, in my entire life. As WS can attest, I have surely planted thousands and thousands of plants.

Tomorrow, we both go to get our eyes checked. I can definitely tell you that the eye doctors will wonder how I ever do my job, how I can read anything, let alone type this journal entry. My eyes are just shot now but knowing that I got this far without glasses or contacts is okay by me. Everyone else in my family had crappy eyesight from very young in life. I was lucky in that regard. Since the underlying skin on the sides of my nose swell up whenever I put any kind of glasses on, I have never been able to even wear sunglasses. If they try to tell me that the swelling will just have to be something I have to get used to, I’ll be laying down the law and telling them it will be contacts or nothing. I don’t know why I get swelling there, but I just always have. It ends up looking like I have a massive, underlying zit on the sides of my nose, and makes my nose look twice to three times the width that it really is and redness. Too pretty for words. No, no glasses for me thankyouverymuch. Besides, I’ve researched eyesight problems. A person can get contacts easily for the kind of eyesight problem I have.

Work is just atrocious. We’re close to 10,000 customer requests behind. So, let’s not talk about work today.

Sometime today, we’ll be getting bottled water service here. We signed up a week ago but figured with the bad weather, we’d be weeks out in getting a call back to set up a time to deliver a dispenser and big bottles but they called this morning. Sure, they called back later to say they were running an hour behind, but hey, we’re getting good water for once. And it will be today. Unlike that elliptical machine that sounds like is lost. I won’t deepen my depression thinking about it right now. But I have been rowing on WS’s rowing machine on and off last week. Between rowing and shoveling snow and ice, I lost two pounds last week. Unfortunately, it wasn’t along either side of my nose.

January 13 2004

Too much going on today to get work done. I’ll probably be working until midnight tonight all because I woke up late, took an hour lunch (we don’t get paid for lunch so I rarely take them), eye appointments at 3:15 and 4 p.m. WS is working on his REAL job here today instead of doing his other job with me, meaning he’ll be working that other job throughout next weekend, I’m sure.

I’m back to using my Bucky at night to help me sleep. I’ve been going to bed far too late and I want to strangle the daylight in the morning. The Bucky completely and totally blocked out all light. You just have to get used to having a soft strap around your head all night, which takes me a while to get used to.

I’ve also been sleeping very hot lately. Maybe it’s a spice consumption thing. Maybe menopause is teasing me again. Maybe I’m just not meant to sleep encased in thick flannel sheets and a down comforter next to someone who also tends to sleep hot.

Over at Blogeois.com, things are coming along fairly well. I just need to figure out a couple of things like how to get my comments to work right. I work nearly every day on transcribing my old handwritten journal entries into the Archives section and am currently working on my 1998 stuff. That leaves 1996 and ancient stuff (pre-1996). I swear I am going to get all this stuff typed up. Later, I’ll get it all printed out. I only wish any of this was good enough for a book. I ‘d already have volumes.

We got our water service yesterday. The oatmeal-colored cooler that we thought might not look too bad against our tuscan-aged colored walls, looks instead like crap. Obviously, the color on the water company web site and reality don’t gel too well. Naturally, the black and stainless cooler isn’t available any more. We just might try to buy one outright from Lowe’s or Amazon.

Back from eye appointment: What a hoot! We walk in, never having been there before and not knowing anyone from Adam, and the young guy behind the desk wrapping up a customer seemed to know us right away. I guess not too many married couples go in together or something. So he says, “Okay, I’ll be with you in a minute. I just hope you don’t give me as much trouble as this guy did.” And he jokingly gestured toward his customer. I shot back with “Probably” to which the guy behind the desk really liked.

So we filled out our forms and traded jabs and quips back and forth with this guy for a good ten minutes or so…and then found out that this was the eye doctor. At that point I was thinking either the exam was either going to be really good or really bad and it turned out good.

So, it turns out I have one eye that is perfect and the other basically sucks. Because I can’t wear glasses, something he confirmed (see yesterday’s entry), I’ll be wearing a contact in my sucky eye for a week to see how it works, and we’ll go from there, whether I need a stronger one or not. I’ve also opted to get slightly colored lens, mainly so I can get away from the “shit-brown” eye color I was born with and everyone reminded me of growing up, and just so I can tell when I actually have the contacts in. My week-long test contact is clear and I swear, I’m not wearing it when I really am. It only took a few minutes for me to not feel it in there at all. I’m really going to like this and I love that I’ll finally have “pretty” eyes.

WS is tempted to go with contacts too, after the doctor tested a bluer one on his. It really made his blue eyes look sparkly and deeper. Gorgeous. But WS only needs help seeing distances and only when driving. He barely even needs that and that in itself is a miracle since WS has been transfixed with computers since 1980. His close up vision is perfect. I’m jealous but I’ll have hazel-colored eyes now so I’ll deal with it. HA!

January 14 2004

First Contact

Well, it took a few minutes to get my one eye contact in this morning. Nearly as much trouble as I had yesterday at the eye doctor’s office. The Number One problem here is, the contact is clear and I.CANNOT.SEE.IT when it’s in or not. It’s not like I am totally blind in that eye and could tell an immediate difference when it is in. The difference is so subtle, that I literally can’t tell when it’s there or not. And because it is clear, if it happens to fall out instead of being in, and I don’t see that it’s fallen out when I’m trying to put it in, I will lose it in a heartbeat. In fact, this morning, at one point, I didn’t know if I had it in or not (they are that comfortable once in) and so I was looking at my eye left and right and couldn’t see it. The colored part of my eyes are bigger than normal so the contact doesn’t completely cover the brown part, making it impossible to see any contact edge. So, because I didn’t know if it was in or not, I pinched my eye to see if I could remove anything and eventually and sure enough, I had had it in correctly. Then I had to put it back in. No, I definitely DO NOT like this clear contact thing. I don’t know how anyone else sees it to put up with it.

Rare political rant of the month: Mars isn’t what’s really going on: I have nothing against space and other planet exploration. I, in fact, wanted desperately to be an astronaut when I was a kid, but be very, very aware when Pres Bush talks about this plan of his. Not because of the exploration plan, but of what history has proven that he does whenever he brings up something as big as this. History has already shown that while he directs our attention to some new plan, he is working and changing major laws about other stuff in the background while our attention is elsewhere. I so hope this doesn’t happen again, but I fear it will and I truly feel sorry for the future presidents of this country as they try hard to undo all the crap Bush has gotten away with changing, mostly uncontested, while our attention was on 9-11 and Iraq. If you don’t know what I’m babbling about, stay tunes in the years to come. You’ll get the picture eventually.

Beef: Being as I live in the same state as where the mad cow incident came from, don’t let the news media lead you to believe that everything is okay and it was just an isolated case. The cow farmers up here are being paid by the USDA and the beef industry to say it was just that; an isolated incident, and to complain about how everyone needs to get back to eating beef. We need to get back to eating beef because the farmers don’t get paid if we don’t. Don’t put your health or the health of your families at risk just so these guys can make a buck. It really pisses me off that people are willing to sell their souls and the souls of everyone else just to make a buck today, but that’s how the entire world is run and what do I know? I’m just a fat, middle-aged woman. One who no longer will intentionally eat beef (not that there isn’t beef products in nearly everything we eat anyway).

End of political rant. We now return you to your originally scheduled program now in progress.

…and no mention of what the lawyer thing was all about. WS thinks maybe both of them are being sued by each other’s lawyers in lieu of just getting divorces. I suspect both estranges spouses are pissed off about how it looks like they were both dumped for someone else, exactly what I expected to see happen. And porting a time-line on their Journal on how “events” happened doesn’t cut it, simply because it’s been altered and untrue. Some of us remember clearly, the excited posts when the relationship started. Oh the things one learns when someone can’t keep their mouth shut and needs to post every minute, every change, every bowel movement in their Online Journal.

I woke up today and for the first time in a long while, wasn’t instantly hungry. It’s now after 2 p.m. (only half a day of work left) and I’m just now thinking of food. We had spicy Thai food for lunch yesterday and WS made the last batch of salsa last night, bringing the Spice Monkey level down a notch to Medium. Salsa will be on my late lunch menu today. I think we’ll be having fondue and big salads for dinner tonight and later, I need to get on the rowing machine. I also need to start working muscle into my arms. Before I know it, it will be spring and summer here and I don’t want to go out sleeveless with old-lady-flabby arms.

Oh, and that elliptical machine that I still don’t have? It’s nearly as good as gone. After trying for a week to get a hold of someone, anyone at the delivery company because they just aren’t returning ANY calls, they told WS today that they were putting off all residential deliveries until sometime next week due to their delivery backup. Gee, poor planning on your part should not constitute a delay in receiving something we paid nearly $900 for. Chances are good that Nordic Track will be hearing an earful from WS, who normally doesn’t get riled up over anything, and it’s possible that we’ll be telling them they can just take back their elliptical because the delivery company sucks. Sure, I won’t get that particular elliptical machine but it’s all about voicing your opinion with your consumer dollars. Frustrating to WS. Depressing to me but I still have the rower.

Is anyone else happy to see “Friends” go? I just never got the appeal of that show after the Monkey and baby episodes. And Paris Hilton said to be the worst dressed on Mr. Blackwell’s list? No! Ya think?

Saw the second half of “Starting Over” today as it is new to our area on TV, taking over one of our many dreaded Perry Mason timeslots, and I just don’t get it. Looks like a big dating pool or something. I’m sure I’m missing something but we weren’t given a premise on what this show is supposed to be about. Whiny women? Low self esteem women? House wives recently dumped and needing to find jobs? I’m sure this had to be a bad episode or something. If it’s on again tomorrow, I try to understand it better.

Any one able to get into Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice” show? Me neither. First of all, the title is too something that would be just another cop and lawyer show and I don’t know how many times I have passed right by it. Second, I have a real problem with women who rely just on their looks to get what they want, probably because I’ve never been able to. Which would explain why I’m not watching “Joe Millionaire Hawaii” this go around either.

January 15 2004

Not a thing happening today other than work, house cleaning and laundry. WS is still fighting with Nordic Track and Motor Cargo to get my elliptical machine here. At last word, next Monday should be the day but we still don’t know if I’ll be allowed to sign for it since WS put it in his name for some reason. He’s been told both that I can sign for it and that I don’t need to have my name on it to sign. No one at either business can get or seemingly are willing to get their stories straight. If anything, and I do mean, anything goes awry Monday, Nordic Track is getting it back and I’ll look for a treadmill instead. A non-Nordic Track treadmill that isn’t delivered by Motor Cargo.

No problem getting my contact in today. Second try and it went right in. Since I colored my hairs this morning, I put in the free, test greenish-colored contact in my other eye just to see how it looks. I’m going to like this, but a secret part of me wants a bigger change, just not a fake looking change. Is there such a thing?

It’s been semi-foggy here all day and is getting considerably foggier as the evening goes on.

Watching the end of Oprah, something I rarely do, I am reminded how much I hate how spoiled and unaware most kids are because of their parents who willingly buy and give them everything they can and often cannot afford. I just hate it.

January 16 2004

To clean or not to clean.

The first half of January has flown by, helped by our massive snow and ice storms and WS staying home from work. I know it’s only the 16th, but it seems like time is dragging by now. Last Wednesday, I thought all day it was Thursday. After discovering my error, I spent all day Thursday thinking it was really Wednesday. Thank goodness it’s Friday. It is Friday, isn’t it?

I’m working on a plan to get some stuff done around here over the weekend. I think WS has to work all weekend anyway, so I might as well get some more painting done. I’ll be working on getting the back short wall of our hallway painted apricot, the same as the rest of the foyer from the dark, forest green that it currently is (and shows fingerprints and scuffs like you wouldn’t believe). After that, I have one wall in our bedroom that I need to paint and age the same as two other walls in there. We have all this paint here already so we won’t have to spend any money on those projects. WS still hasn’t looked at or decided what color we might be changing the burgundy color in our bedroom to. I’m still leaning toward a sage green of sorts, but I’d like it to go with all of the other stuff in there, and I think at least one set of sheets is out. That’s assuming we think anyone, including us, will care what it looks like and what matches or now. We’re so anal that way.

All our French door windows need to be cleaned this weekend, although I’ve been enjoying knowing that The CalLEEfornians across the street haven’t had a clear view of me sitting here in our office.

And finally, we need to clean our bathroom. Ugh. It’s just awful in there, seemingly mere minutes after I clean it. If I were ever able to afford a house cleaner, it would be simply because of how much I despise cleaning bathrooms.

Nothing else planned. Oh, I’m mentally working on a yard sale list. We rarely participate in the annual neighborhood yard sale because we never have anything to sell. That’s right. We don’t have anything to sell. While we do have a lot of stuff, we aren’t busting at the seams with junk we don’t want anymore. Participating once every five years or so works well for us. I just wish we could afford to finally get cabinets up in the garage so we could get rid of those two ancient bookcases out there that is holding all that garage crap.

And I hope to get some reading in. And playing of an old computer game WS installed for me. And then maybe I’ll take a long drive and steam clean Mount Rushmore.

Something tells me that when I wake up tomorrow, I won’t feel like doing anything.

January 18 2004

Last Friday was supposed to be dry and sunny here. It wasn’t. We never saw the sun for all the fog. Saturday was supposed to be rainy and very wet. It wasn’t. It was mostly sunny and dry. So because it was dry, I took my car and WS out for a cruise up and down the freeway. Not many clean cars out there. Most everyone’s was mud and muck encrusted from last week’s snow and ice storms followed by liberal sanding and gravelling the streets. Luckily, I didn’t take too many rock chips. Must have been all the speeding.

Last week’s work week was horrible and hopefully won’t be repeated for a while. Between MsNoManagementSkills assigning work to and trying to get WS in trouble and Ego sending WS pictures of scantily clad women “as a joke”, I don’t care to repeat another week like it. I think they were both feeling insecure about their own jobs and wanted to try to stir up shit to get someone else under the magnifying glass. Assholes.

Friday evening, I was determined to get a lot of the things done that I figured I’d do on Saturday so I did, and due to the weather, it turned out better that way. I painted the short hallway wall and would have started on that bedroom wall if I hadn’t discovered I didn’t have any more paint brushes (How did that happen? Me, Ms. I-buy-paint-brushes-for-everything). So that painting will have to wait. We were able to get the rest of our Christmas lights down off the house and the remaining birch trees AND put the lights away, freeing up valuable floor space in the garage that was being taken up by plastic storage boxes.

We’ve decided on a nice sage green called Palmetto from Rodda paint company, which is very, very similar in shade to #8414 – Old Growth Forest. WS discovered the color actually and has verified that it goes well with everything in both our library and our bedroom, the two rooms we’ll be working on painting over the next couple of months. In our bedroom, the color will be covering the deep burgundy that is currently in there. In the Library, it will be taking the place of the deep, deep, forest black-green that’s on the walls now, but mostly covered up with tall, cherry-wood bookshelves.

Apparently, Rodda paint has released a new paint chip palette from the one I bought a couple of years ago, meaning I might think about buying the new one. On second thought, naw. The one we use now, containing hundreds of colors has the color numbers and recipes they use to mix up the paint so as long as I take this in with me, they won’t have any trouble mixing up what I want. Plus, I don’t see any need to spend $20 for a new palette when this one is perfectly fine and has served us well.

What if a city opened it’s first Krispy Kreme donut shop and no one came?

That’s what happened last week. With the big snow and ice storm, no one could get to the new Krispy Kreme donut business in town and sales didn’t live up to the hype. So the local newspaper let everyone know it. This weekend, anticipating the huge crowds that all the other Krispy Kremes get during the grand openings (and weeks following such), our new Krispy Kreme hired no less than four cops to direct traffic into the drive-thru and into the parking lot. How do we know? We were part of that traffic, opting to stand in line for ten minutes instead to walk through the building and watch those doughy morsels rise and plop into the fat, flip and be glazed and finally, to get one free before deciding on how many of those orgasmic ally, sugar-spiked, billion-calorie laden circlets of melt-in-your-mouth, cotton-candy-like nothingnesses you absolutely MUST have. We opted for two dozen which is only half a dozen from the truth. Today, we have eight left and we recommend sticking with the plain, glazed, eaten while warm (but a mere eight seconds in any microwave with revive any up to two days old). Good thing I was a rowing fool last week and started my annual bid for muscular arms and shoulders again. I need all the metabolism I can get to burn off what will surely be a pound of sugary goodness by the time these donuts are gone.

But at least, I’m working on compensating for eating this crap, unlike, MsNoManagementSkills who has publicly given up on her diet officially today. Funny, how now, with her new boyfriend, when he makes nachos and waffles, she calls it cute, but back when FatHead used to make the exact same thing, she called it sabotage. I’m amazed how similar FatHead and her new boyfriend seem and surprised that she doesn’t see it that way at all. Love may truly be blind…in the beginning at least.

January 19 2004

Elliptical machine is supposed to be delivered today between 1 and 3 p.m. I’m not holding my breath. I think WS is.

Have you ever really wanted to buy something but you didn’t have the money so you kept the idea of buying this something some day in the future, never expecting it to actually be worth something and now costs a fortune? I hate it when that happens.

Three years ago, when we finally got around to painting and decorating this office, we decided to purchase four movie posters, frame them (cheaply) and hang them in here. At the time, I was looking for three movie posters that I thought WS would like and I saved one for myself. Since I didn’t want to scare WS with one of my original choices which was for the cult film, Phantom of the Paradise, starring, of all people, Paul Williams (yes, THAT Paul Williams, I chose something else. Phantom of the Paradise is truly one of the oddest movies and probably most disliked musicals ever made, but I liked it because it was so odd and besides, where else do you think you’d ever get a good look at Paul William’s nipples? (Yes, he does have a couple.) Okay, maybe that was a bad visual but don’t let that stop you from stomaching this movie just one just to say you’ve seen it.

Three years, the movie poster for this flick costs around twenty bucks and three years ago, I didn’t have the $20 to spend. Silly me. Today, the cheapest one I can find that isn’t folded and looks like crap starts at $85. Reasonably nice ones go for around $150. Mint condition ones – $400. Ridiculous!

So I look up one of my other movie poster choices at the time, Jabberwocky, a Terry Gillian movie. Again, back then, just three short years ago, the cost was around $20. Today, try $85. And finally, a third choice, Wizards, a very odd animation. Movie Poster price starts at $60 and goes up to $150.

Obviously, we are in the wrong business.

So, I decide to look up a few of our own movie posters, not the ones I bought and framed, but ones that we bought years ago and are purposely forgetting in a back closet in hopes they will be worth anywhere around where Phantom of the Paradise is today. No such luck. My Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is still only worth between five and twenty bucks, our Star Wars/Disney Hoth poster isn’t worth Jack Squat but our original Star Wars Return of the Jedi poster, which is in Mint condition, originally purchased for $5 is now worth an amazing $19.95. At this rate, we’ll be rich on these items alone when we’re 214 years old!

January 20 2004

I don’t understand it really. I think it’s a combination of things but am I ever in a pissy mood today or what? Maybe it was the company conference calls that are always muffled and sound secretive. Maybe it’s MrSmartButFakingIt playing secret spy agent and “unavailable” every time I need something from him. Maybe I slept bad (I don’t remember…I was SLEEPING!) or maybe it’s that it’s that I’ve been watching my food intake for the most part and working out and I haven’t lost a single damn ounce. Maybe it was Saturday, when my contact was bothering me all day and my eyes just wouldn’t focus well and then when I took out my contact at the end of the day, I discovered the thing was in backward the whole friggin’ day. I’m an idiot and so, beware. Today, everyone is fair game.

WS, out of either the greed for Nordic Track taking $250 off the price of it or stupidity, is giving Nordic Track and Motor Cargo one last chance to deliver this elliptical machine today or else. I’ll go on record right now by saying he’s wasting his time.

Ever since last week, when MsNoManagementSkills announced some kind of lawyer action going on her Online Journal, both she and her new boyfriend have been very, very quiet. No more talk about blowjobs and lock jaw. No more bragging about penis size and longevity. No more pages of “I LOVE XXX” and how good in bed she/he is. Too bad it won’t last, I’m sure. We think the lawyer thing last week was someone telling each of them to knock off all the sex talk until AFTER they are both divorced because it looks really bad.

I keep thinking of back when MsNoManagementSkills told us she left FatHead because “he was immature.” Okay, so you post numerous times a day in a public forum details about having to pee, how much you love glitter and how many blowjobs your boyfriend wants, then you belittle your coworkers. Who’s the mature one again? ‘Cause I’m getting them confused.

Next door, the SportsOrNothing daughter totaled the car she shares with her twin brother and gave her parents the most lame story I have ever heard. And believe me, I came up with some pretty lame stories on my own back when I was learning how to drive. Supposedly, young SportsOrNothing was stopped behind a friend who was parked, then decided to pull out and park in front of the friend. While she was allegedly driving less than five miles per hour around her parked friend, her car stalled and she could no longer steer which made her ram a truck that was sitting at a stop sign waiting to turn left. All the air bags in both cars deployed and she had massive bruising across her chest and stomach from the seat belt.

But how do air bags in all cars involved go off if the speed was below five miles per hour? And how is it that at that speed, the car gets totaled AND massive bruising occurs?

I think someone told a bit of a fib and what surprises me is that Ms. SportOrNothing, an emergency room nurse and surely knows the difference between higher speed crash results and nearly no speed crash result, bought the stories.

So what is Mr and Ms SportsOrNothing to do? Why, they buy their kids another car, that’s what! Obviously, it wasn’t HER fault! The car just turned itself off!

Yeah right, whatever.

Got some other stuff on my mind that I can’t indulge just yet. Waiting to see what plays out before blabbing about it publicly.

January 21 2004

Color me shocked.

I had this great rant all typed up slamming Nordic Track and Motor Cargo for not being able to get their shit together enough to simply deliver my elliptical machine since January 2nd, but as WS is fond of saying, “I’ll be dipped in shit!” Mere minutes before we left for our eye appointment yesterday, who drives up? Motor Cargo with my elliptical machine. If you had been keeping up on this development, you’ll remember I completely gave up on ever seeing it and had already mentally decided which treadmill I thought I might have wanted instead (from a different company).

So, the eye appointment went okay, I guess. If I were looking for a job, I’d outright ask if he needed someone to work the desk and phone because he really needs someone to work the desk and phone. But after later thought, I couldn’t handle all the quassy-negative jokes and bantering back and forth. It’s fun when we visit but to have to listen to it day in and day out would get old quickly.

So, I’m trying a stronger contact in my one bad eye for another couple of days before deciding which strength I want. And I tried the solid colored contacts to change my eye color completely but discovered I can’t use them because my eye are bigger than normal and the colored contacts partially cover the part of my eye that I use to see with, making things look blurry. Oh well. I tried. I’ll be going to the less-colored, slightly tinted contacts in a week or so and be happy with it.

After the appointment and dinner, WS jumped right in on getting that elliptical machine put together and five hours later, yes FIVE hours later, I was ellipticalling away. Now, don’t think WS is anywhere near incompetent assembling anything. He is far from incompetent and actually quite good at it. It’s just the elliptical was just a box crammed full of parts, nuts, washers and bolts. You have to assemble the entire thing and from really poor instructions. You know the kind of instructions I’m talking about too. The kind that says stuff like “Do not assemble while asleep” and “Do not use when in pain”. In that case being as we are always really tired and experiencing mental pain after trying to read just the first page of the instructions, I think WS figured if he didn’t get it put together as soon as possible, we wouldn’t get around to it until May. Of 2006.

Today, I’m cursing doing all those squats Monday night followed by a measly six minutes ellipticalling last night. But I curse my fat globby-ness more often so I’ll deal with it. Over the next few days, I need to work on finding and creating a good workout CD. And yeah, I’m looking for musical suggestions.

Finally, the rant for today: Here’s a tip for all parents of kids who total their car? Don’t buy them a brand new SUV! If they didn’t learn how to drive in a regular sized car, don’t give them a bigger car in which they will certainly crash again and kill someone this time around. It’s official: Mr and Ms SportsOrNothing are idiots.

January 22 2004

Ugliness and renewal.

Something I nearly forgot about: Last week, we drove by our old rental house, thinking that the bigass trees on the property would surely have massive broken branches lying all over from the previous week’s ice storm here. We were shocked at what we saw. ALL the big trees are completely gone, including that cute eight-foot pine tree I planted from a seedling ten years ago on the west side of the house. Most of the remaining plants are dead as a box of staples. The remaining trees have had all their branches cut off. The fences have been removed. A miniscule patio cover has been added in back, meaning the twenty-year old beautiful wisteria and clematis has been removed. The lilacs are all gone. The huge vegetable and cut flower growing areas have been overrun with grass and allowed to revert back to being part of the crabgrass filled lawn. All bushes and shrubs lining the fence area, including numerous climbing roses and witch hazels have been removed. All flower beds out front of the house and running down the driveway have been overrun with grass as well and contain only dead, brown juniper bushes. The lawn itself is a week-choked mess with broken-down cars sitting on it. There isn’t a living, green plant to be found anywhere. Even all the conifer bushes are dead and look like they have been for years.

Sad, it was. Just five short years ago, people often stopped by while we lived there and marveled at how much the place DIDN’T look like a rental house but an inviting garden cottage. Four and a half years has been very cruel to that piece of property and I nearly burst into tears over the change. Unbelievable. It’s all gone.

Of course, should we ever sell this house and move from here, we are convinced that this place would go through the same ugly changes. The next owner would rip up everything in the front yard and fill it with grass. They would do the same with our fountain in back because we don’t have any grass at all back there and for some reason, everyone wants to be surrounded by grass, even though everyone then complains about having to mow it all the time. They would cut down all the trees we have lovingly planted, rip up the rock retaining wall and put in a fence. Then, they would plunk down a swing set and a couple of those god-awful plastic Fisher-Price kid playhouses which is already the scourge of this development and start parking oil-dripping cars in the grass. Depressing.

Now, if I were rich and famous, I could deed this property to some nature/garden society with the provision that it be maintained in the manner that I created it for all to enjoy for all time. How can I get to be this important? How can I save the beauty I create with my hands and a shovel in my little corner of the earth to prevent what happened across town at our old rented house?

Truly, this is the only legacy I wish to leave this world with.

The elliptical machine is working out well. As I earlier mentioned, I predict I will have a love/hate relationship with it but it will be worth the sweat. Fact: I am a pig and bordering on obese. Fact: I want to lose weight but in a healthy, livelong manner while gaining strength and endurance. Fact: I know I have a long way to go and usually have a low sense of motivation but I will elliptical at least four days a week. I already have two days done, at ten minutes sessions each which isn’t much but trust me when I say the normally overweight person cannot jump right on one of these things and elliptical away for an hour straight. I’d love to be able to, but I need to walk up and down the stairs here to get to my office, the laundry room and our bedroom. My goal is to do two sessions a day at ten minutes each and build up to a total of ninety minutes a day five days a week.

One thing I can say though, I need to either find a cover for this machine or make a reasonably attractive cover. I don’t want pet fur or general house dust to settle on the runner parts and get ground into the machinery. A search on the Internet didn’t turn up anything which I thought was odd. Maybe I’m not looking in the right place.

I’m hoping to buy paint over the weekend and get started repainting our library. I’ve checked and rechecked the sage green color in the sunshine (since we have some today) and it looks like this color is a go. This will give me something to do over the weekend when it’s supposed to rain, rain, rain and might possibly snow again come next Tuesday. We really need to reorganize our library anyway. Too much crap mixed in with the books.

January 23 2004

Absolute TONS of crap going on at work right now. So much stress that I can’t even talk about it without having a near nervous breakdown. I’m going to be giving that portion of my writing here a break until things settle down. If you really insist on knowing, email me.

I’m tearing my hairs out trying to get this house cleaned while working harder at work than usual. I have nearly all the laundry done and have mopped the downstairs floors three separate times now but they are still streaking like crazy. Swiffer liquid sucks, as does “Streak-Free” Windex. Plain water just doesn’t clean and everything else on the planet really makes those Pergo-like floors look like crap.

We may be meeting some new people that WS works with tonight or sometime over the weekend. I’ve gotten the impression that they aren’t all that enthused with meeting us either so what’s the point? Is it going to make WS’s REAL job any easier? No. Are they going to have anything in common with us? Probably not. And I’m not about to sit around with them and talk babies and cooking. To be honest with you, I’m not looking forward to meeting them. Aunt Flo hasn’t been kind to me this month and remember, I’m using the elliptical machine every day now. Between the cramps and bloating and hormonal zits, and being unable to walk normally because of the workout pain, I probably look like death warmed over. I know I certainly feel like it.

This whole meeting thing sounds suspiciously like another couple we met a few years ago that we really thought we’d get along famously with but it didn’t turn out that way. That couple is highly intelligent and highly paid and bought a mansion not far from where they and WS work. They were ALWAYS adamant about never having children and enjoying life with just themselves and all the materialistic things they ever wanted to buy: Grand pianos, 4×4 trucks, the biggest and best computer systems, pinball machines, pool tables, big screen TVs for every room in the house, including their huge bathrooms, a true gourmet kitchen, etc, etc, etc. I just heard last week that she was pregnant and they had “entered a new phase of their lives”. So much about all those “We never want children” statements and once again, we are the only couple we know that have stuck to our word about never having kids. Naturally, they don’t want to have anything to do with us anymore, just like all those other “once wanted to be childless” couples who now look at us and say “tsk, tsk” under their breaths.

I’m hoping to pick up that paint over the weekend to start repainting our library. If that goes well, I’ll be working in our bedroom sometime next week maybe. Emptying and moving the six-foot tall bookcases, filled with books are going to slow us down a bit, but if we stick to it, maybe put on some good, loud music, and take a Zantrax, I might just be able to finish the library in two days.

I’m really trying hard to get into this “Starting Over” show and I’m not quitting yet, but man, some of these women are fucked up in the head. And they are doing it to themselves. Are any of these women on medication? Because if so, maybe they need to either up their medication, reduce their dosage or quit it altogether. I could never live there. I’d be murdered in my sleep the first night because of my mouth.

Back to work. Something is up with MrSmartButFakingIt now and I just hope he isn’t thinking of firing anyone else.

January 26 2004

No, I didn’t post over the weekend. I was shopping and painting and redecorating a room from dawn to well after midnight from Friday on. Also, the work situation of which I whined about last Friday has not improved. Therefore, it will be called “The situation of which I cannot speak of” until things change. If you simply must know, and I know you, email me and I may be persuaded to indulge.

Today, I’m working on cleaning out our crammed-with-crap bookshelves. While I can’t bring myself to get rid of my AD magazines going back to 1990, I didn’t have much trouble getting rid of decorating and knitting booklets from 1975 when people actually thought that knitted vests were all the rage in local discos. I didn’t get rid of anything that I thought might bring me more than ten bucks on eBay. Like, I’d ever do that.

Saturday morning, we found yet another good decorating source in the form of a wallpaper outlet shop across town. Lots of cool lamps and artwork and more wallpaper than you could shake a stick at. Not that we do the wallpaper thing; we don’t. But we do usually need a lamp here or there and we are big time artwork sluts.

So, because we were doing so much running about shopping, picking up paint and such, then getting busy painting, I didn’t workout Saturday or Sunday. One thing about paint fumes, it usually knocks out any hunger pains I might have and yes, I realize that the reaction mean I am being exposed to bad chemical fume things. It doesn’t matter if I’m wearing a respirator or not. I just don’t feel hungry when I’m painting so I think some of it is psychological. I can all tell you, as if you really wanted to know, that I don’t generally sweat while I’m doing the manual painting, but when I’m working on getting the decorating part done afterward; you know, putting a vase here, placing a couple of books there, arranging an ivy just right up there, I sweat bullets. It’s like the creative, thinking process of redecorating raises my temperature or something. I’ve always been this way and have never understood it. If only I could do this at work and the fact that it doesn’t work that way, tells me I’m not really thinking at work. Big surprise there, huh?

January 27 2004

For the love of god and all that is holy, please let “the situation of which I cannot speak” be a bad, bad dream. Some people might see this as karma coming back to bite me in the ass, but I don’t believe in karma and I didn’t do anything wrong. Sure I dis’ people around me who affect my life but only because they do just that: affect my life and it is yet to be in any good way. Yet, this. this “situation of which I cannot speak” has dropped out of the clear, blue sky and is making me neurotic and I find myself every few hours having to, no, needing to calm myself down, telling myself I can deal with this “situation of which I cannot speak”, that this “situation of which I cannot speak” could be fun in a twisted sort of way and if the creator of this “situation of which I cannot speak” thinks that I will crack first, that person doesn’t know the real, tough, strong-minded me.

Sweet jesus but do I ever need some chocolate.

The hawk was back sitting on top of our main bird feeder this morning. WS got to see it in it’s full glory for the first time before I shoo-ed it away where it landed on a neighbor’s rooftop and sits even now, waiting for lunch. I like hawks but I don’t like leftover bird and squirrel bits scattered around our backyard. I haven’t seen the Cat from Hell in months thankfully and I don’t want to replace a killer cat with a killer bird, even though I fully realize that this is what hawks do. If I lived closer to the thick woods that are just two blocks over, I’d tolerate it completely. I know there are more birds and squirrels over there than over here. I think the hawk is looking for a freebie. Shoo! Shoo!

I don’t know if your local news is still reporting on the whole Mad Cow disease thing, but they are still finding it in cattle here and killing herds left and right, including dairy cattle used to supply milk to cheese manufacturers. Now, just two weeks ago, the government stated that there was no way Mad Cow disease, which is also found in cow blood, could get into the milk supply, even though it is a fact that there is a small percentage of cow blood in each and every gallon of cow’s milk and one of the ways Mad Cow is discovered is by taking a blood test from a suspected cow. I wonder when people are going to start crying foul when they realize that Mad Cow isn’t just going to be found in hamburger and steaks, but in cheese, yogurt and all millions of other stuff that milk protein and milk powder is added too. Yesterday, we heard that the government decided to tell vitamin and supplement companies to stop using cow protein, i.e. ground up kidneys, liver, heart, brains, blood, etc. All those vitamins and supplements out there on shelves and no one is pulling them. The government says it’s very unlikely that anyone will get Mad Cow disease, but I remember them saying that about West Nile Virus and SARS and before that, HIV and herpes and malaria. It’s all a crapshoot anyway. I have just as much chance to win a lottery, except I don’t play the lottery and I do eat cheese. Sometimes, lots of cheese. Be careful out there and tell your family members that should you be the one in a hundred thousand that comes down with Mad Cow disease, sue the government’s ass off.

Getting my hairs cut after work today. Hopefully, this time it will turn out well (unlike last time around – ugh!).

January 28 2004

Nobody notices what I do, until I don’t do it.

Ever have one of those times when you get the feeling that someone undesirable may be reading your blog and you find yourself censoring everything? I’m going through that right now so bear with me.

After not using the elliptical machine for four days, I nearly killed myself trying to get five minutes in last night. This morning though, I was able to rip through a high-powered running-style workout for four minutes straight. Only four minutes, you scoff? Hey, you come over here and try it! Let’s see how long you last at this speed.

Rain, rain, rain outside. Nothing but rain for the next week or so. Maybe a peek of dryness on Sunday?

January 29 2004

Even though I am a social retard and once I open up, I can yak up a storm and seem completely into myself, I’m a great observer of things that most people never think twice about and if you have been reading me long, you know that I often hone my observance skills in my own neighborhood. There are literally tons of people living in our little development that I don’t know, or wouldn’t know from Adam, but I do know more about them than they might know about themselves. Like the neighbors who’s teenage kid sneaks out of the bedroom window at night, or the neighbor who thinks no one can see through his windows at night (Think curtain, man, CURTAINS!) Or maybe they know but choose not to care. Like the neighbors who have had a partly torn apart car sitting in their driveway for the past four years waiting for their sons to get out of the pokey. They might not care about how junky it looks, but I have seen the faces of all the surrounding neighbors who show visible disgust when walking by. The same is said about the neighbors who routinely leave their garbage cans out at the curb, only to have them blown into the street by the wind. They might not care, but I see all the drivers who choose to either avoid the cans and lids or choose to drive right over them. Bless the driver who gets out and moves them back to the sidewalk out of the middle of the street, only to have the wind blow them back later.

We have neighbors who’s yards are littered with more children’s toys than I’d be willing to bet all the daycare centers around here have combined. And neighbors whom, before leaving for work at the same time every morning, obviously, TOO obviously, follow the same routine every morning: Get up, turn off the outside lights, open the blinds for a half an hour, then close the blinds and turn back on the outside lights before getting into their cars and driving to work. Like clockwork. Some people thrive on routine and can’t live without it. I like to call these kinds of people stupid. Burglars call them stupid too, as do the police. Because they are telegraphing to everyone when they are and when they aren’t home.

We have neighbors who sing loudly in the shower in the morning and neighbors so close, that through their open windows, we can hear them use their bathroom. I can tell you the first names of most of my close neighbors parents, siblings and bosses because no one can get a cell phone signal here inside our homes and to use a cell phone around here, you have to walk around outside to get and make calls. And you know how cell phone people talk louder than normal. And the one-sided conversations I hear during this cell-phone-signal dance. Who is sleeping with whom. Who is doing drugs. Who is ditching class. Again. Who is calling in sick (while wearing golfing/fishing attire). Who is pissed off at who and E.X.A.C.T.L.Y why! Who has really put on the pounds and who looks like what while wearing that. Who wrecked the car this time around and who overdrew the bank account again. If I had the time and didn’t think I’d get sued, I’d write a book about just this. Around here, life is just as interesting as any soap opera.

January 30 2004

I truly live in a beautiful place. As I type this, I am able to see out my office window, across the pine-tree covered hills and see a rainbow set against a distant dark, stormy sky. White seagulls seem to float in and out of the clouds. The only things that are missing is the sound of waves crashing upon a shoreline and WS working in here with me. The rich people who live across the valley, up in the timber-stripped, raw red earth of the mountainside, in their million -dollar, sprawling mansions are really getting pounded by the storm today. No doubt there are some erosion issues up there. If so, serves them right for stripping every single tree out of there over the past few years.

Cap’t Dan is planting tall bushes along the side of his house that I have a good view of, completing his plan to block himself off from his neighbors. I’m looking forward to him finishing because it will help block the view of people we really don’t like and ones I never mention. The Screamers are a December/May couple with a couple of horrible children who regularly beat on themselves and their poor little dog.

As stressed as I was last weekend about a situation that has developed in our lives, I am not as stressed today. Maybe it’s because I’d had time to mentally run through all the potential upcoming scenarios, or maybe I realize that there are much worse situations out there and for those people going through those worse situations, I’m sending good thoughts your way.

The weather has been one of those rain on, rain off, sun on, sun off kinds of days that I like so much. It makes me think of spring and getting our back yard into shape for all the flowers that ought to come up out there in just a few weeks. I don’t have much to do out there really. Just pick up a few dead branches here and there, rake a small pile of leaves into the trash and remove a beautiful pink scotch broom that has overgrown it’s spot and is determined to push over a twenty foot blue juniper. Crocus bulbs are already pushing up as are mini iris and some early flowered daffodils. Just six months before our backyard’s five-year anniversary of being in landscaped existence, it should be our prettiest year out there to date. It makes me wish for a deck but I’ll settle this year for our first patio furniture. With TWO umbrellas.

I’ve started painting in our bedroom today with the mossy-looking sage green color. We’ve decided to “age” the green color after I get at least three coats up, to go with the other two walls which are cream/butter in color and already aged to look like an old Italian villa. Or a castle, which is more what it looks like in there with wrought-iron fixtures and chandelier. I’m going to shoot for getting the paint finished by tomorrow and spend Sunday “aging”. Of course, if it doesn’t work out that way, I’m sure I’ll be “aging” myself in front of the TV.

February 1 2004

A whirlwind weekend followed by another windy trash day Monday. Why is always and only windy on Mondays? This morning, nearly all the trashcans on our street have already blown over, spilling their smelly contents. Even now, I can hear the bob, bob, bobbing sound of plastic milk jugs bouncing down the middle of the road off to where ever all the trash blows to. As the SportsOrNothing trash litters our yard with soda cans and Gatorade bottles, let me go over the highlights of the past weekend around these parts. This is quite honestly the first time in the last few days that I’ve had a chance to take a breather, unless you count the hour I was able to peel out of the work to watch Survivor.

It was a green Friday. On his way home from work, WS picked up my green contacts while I started painting our bedroom, changing it from the deep burgundy color it was to an aged sage green. Reading the back of the glazing agent I decided to try out this time around, I discovered that the base color has to be on the walls for 24 hours before another color was added. Well, I don’t have that quite that long to wait around so I needed to finish the base sage green color Friday night as fast as possible. With WS’s help, who rarely ever helped with this kind of thing previously, I was done moving furniture and painting the walls by 9 P.M. It was only then that we ate dinner, or in my case, the first time I had eaten all day so it was breakfast, lunch and dinner for me.

Checking my email before literally falling into bed, I discover that Drill Sergeant Dave had wanted to drive all the way across town to stop by but I didn’t get his email in time for him to do that. I emailed him back apologizing and told him we’d be home all day Saturday if he wanted to call us. We then slept with all the windows open on what was a 38-degree night to prevent us dying from paint fumes.

Saturday, I got up bright and early and was aging the sage green walls with a darker shade of the same green and a wad of cheesecloth by 9:30 A.M. At noon, I finished the aging just in time to get the phone call from Drill Sergeant Dave, who still wanted to drive across town to talk to us. That’s an hour drive for him if the traffic isn’t bad.

In that hour, we raced time to clean the house which was sorely in need of vacuuming, wiped down counters and tables, cleaned up most of the paint supplies which was substantial, I moved all the bedroom furniture back myself and then we were able to take quick showers, make sure the guest bathroom was clean and that the house didn’t smell too badly of paint. We made it in time and welcomed Drill Sergeant Dave in.

He told us that since we had seen him and his wife on New Year’s Eve that he had just been diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes and had made significant lifestyle changes. Exercise, eating, pricking him self three times a day with a blood sugar tester and is reading food labels for the time in all his long years of living. We are very interested in learning what we can do to help him and what he will be going through as it seems like everyone is coming down with Diabetes anymore. It just might be in our own futures.

The second thing that has happened to him is that his wife left him. In fact, the whole New Year’s Eve get together with him and his wife was a big sham. Sad, but he isn’t the easiest guy in the world to get along with. He can be quite abrasive and often is. But that’s him. Either you like it or not and apparently, after eleven years of marriage, she didn’t and moved out a short time ago.

This has made Drill Sergeant Dave’s life both awful and easy. He misses her horribly and didn’t want the divorce (the papers have already been signed – it’s over) but he is very civilized about the whole thing and would never be an ass like some people can be during a divorce. But at the same time, now that he’s changed his exercise and eating habits, things are easier because no one has to fix two different meals for two different people and he can, and does, exercise whenever he wants without any distractions. So far, he’s lost ten pounds and an inch off his waist. And it shows already! What motivation this is for the two of us here! We can’t have Drill Sergeant Dave, a fat, bald wrinkly guy looking hot this coming summer while we both look like slugs. This just will not do.

While I will miss Drill Sergeant Dave’s wife, I will not miss her constant drinking habit that scared me half to death. I hope she finds whatever it is that she’s looking for and that she puts down the bottle before driving ever again.

This also makes four separate couples around us who are going through a divorce, all without any reconciliation. To date, only Drill Sergeant Dave’s seems to be civil. All other couples are literally fighting over who gets which fork and which spools of thread. Seriously.

After Drill Sergeant Dave left a few hours later, we finished cleaning up from painting then headed off for the grocery store, something we had put off for over a week. Frankly, we were down to our last three rolls of toilet paper and things were not going to be pretty rather rapidly at the rate we were going through it.

After grocery shopping and putting all that away, we finished up putting our bedroom back together and I started the mountainous pile of laundry (which I am still working on even now). We finally collapsed into bed after midnight.

Sunday, the first thought that ran through my head upon waking up was, “Thank god I don’t have to paint today!” We got up around ten, showered, played with some new hair gel and hair wax stuff we bought and decided to head out to Bed, Bath & Beyond to finish our bedroom with some new sheets and a duvet cover to go with our newly painted walls. I don’t even want to tell you how much we can spend there two or three times a year because it’s embarrassing and yesterday was no different. In fact, it was a new all time high. But, there was just so much stuff there I needed and had always wanted and if we aren’t just the consumer whores, then I don’t know who is.

I bought buffet plates (as if we’d ever have anyone over for a buffet…), WS got the coasters he always wanted, I found a fancy whisk for whipping up eggs (yeah, we’re living large here, aren’t we?), new doormats, a new kitchen glass to replace one that was broke last week (whee!), napkin rings and napkins because we actually use them, the start of our wooden hanger collection (no more wire OR plastic hangers!), new toothbrush holder, new hand soap dispensers, a magnifying mirror because I have an irrational fear of mono brows, and then we lost ourselves in the sheet and comforter section. About a thousand dollars later (hey! Seventy of it was tax!), we’ve got two new duvet covers in suede, new sheet, extra pillow cases and new French door sheers plus all that other stuff previously mentioned. Just absurd this trip was! And crazy. And some of the most fun I’d had in ages. But of course, I’ll pay for it, probably dearly.

You see, my job eval is tomorrow. I think I’ll go in right now and hug that suede duvet cover just in case I have to take it back soon.

February 3 2004

Okay, so sometimes I’m slow. And sometimes, it takes a while to get through to me. Or it takes something so in-your-face that reality finally hits me. And sometimes, reality makes me mad.

Recently, a situation was thrust upon me and I was completely baffled by it. I figured I was the recipient of this because of this reason or that reason. No REAL reasons. I was just looking for some logical explanation and nothing really made sense. So of course, it had to be an illogical reason and who knows why people do illogical things? But today, I discovered that there was no logical reason and no illogical reason. It was done intentionally and purposeful and perhaps even maliciously. Fine. Whatever.

My job evaluation was scheduled for today. Twenty minutes before the scheduled time, MrSmartButFakingIt sent me an email saying he had to cancel it. My entire day, nay, my entire week was scheduled around this eval and making sure I could be here at his appointed time. He has done this to me so many times, it is ridiculous. For a supposedly big company, this Company sure does allow some fairly crappy stuff to go on and on, over and over. Yet it is us who get nailed for it under the “Determination” metric in our evaluation sheets. I notice there is no “Tolerance” or “Flexibility” metric on our eval sheets, yet every.single.day. I have to wait for and pry information out of him (not to mention MsNoManagementSkills as well) and at any given time, I have a minimum of eight things that I’m at a stand still over just because MrSmartButFakingIt isn’t talking that day and can’t be bothered.

No, I’m not happy. I can hardly wait until he decides when a better time for my eval is. In the meantime, I could have gotten that dental cleaning done and out of the way today, but noooOOOooooo. I scheduled it for another day instead and I’ll be willing to bet, that will be the day MrSmartButFakingIt will want to reschedule for that day. It’s just the way things work around here.

After hearing about Drill Sergeant Dave’s daily workout routine over the weekend, I put in twenty minutes on the elliptical machine and eight minutes on the rower yesterday. Today, however, I’m struggling to stay awake and barely had enough energy to wipe down the elliptical machine when I was cleaning earlier. I just might need to go take a nap for the first time in years. If it messes up my sleep schedule tonight, I’ll have to hunt down that bottle of Tylenol P.M.

February 4 2004

Sometimes, you just gotta wonder.

Yesterday, I witnessed Ms. Howler Monkey rush outside, strap her youngest kid in the backseat of their car sitting in their driveway, all the while leaving their front door of their house wide open (they have no screen door), then she hopped into the driver’s seat to start up the car. After about a minute, she got out of the car, I assumed she realized she left the front door wide open, but no. She then goes into the house for five minutes, leaving her youngest strapped out in the car with the car running in the driveway while she was in the house for a solid five minutes.

Today, she decided to take the oldest kid to school herself, I guess. The oldest, a 6-year old rushed out to the sidewalk, followed by the toddler mentioned above who ran right out into the street and promptly did a face plant into the asphalt, right in front a speeding car. Where was mom all this time? Back inside the house doing something. The 6-year old was fascinated with something in the gutter and the toddler is screaming his head off. The speeder never even stopped, slowed slightly and drove around him. Finally, Ms. Howler Monkey comes out, rushes to the street and yanks up the screamer who, mercifully, stopped screaming immediately. She was never aware that her kid almost became a smear in the road and simply stuffed the kid into the back of the car and off they sped. Everyone speeds around here anymore. Scary for a street that is only a car and a half wide and densely populated with children.

MsNoManagementSkills is all full of herself today. Work life ought to be a barrel of monkeys this week. And still no word from MrSmartButFakingIt. What a cluster fuck.

Mr. Dimmer next door doesn’t show any sign of having a job yet, but several times a day (and night) he will sit out in his truck, engine off, listening to the radio loudly. Talk radio. What’s up with that?

I saw someone who looked like a young girl the other day directly out front, getting the mail from the community mailbox, wearing only a skimpy t-shirt and a large bath towel. Uh, the girl, not the mailbox. It was around 35 degrees at the time. Turns out, the “girl” is Ms. Ca-LEE-fornia from across the street. Looks like she has lost a bundle of weight since the last time I saw her, moving in just before Thanksgiving. Too much weight perhaps. Anorexia-looking kind of weight with rail thin arms and bony protruding hip bones. Of course, people would have you believe that this is the way everyone is in California.

Cap’t Dan spent last weekend, in between rain showers, planting trees. It looks like he was in the middle of planting a new birch when he gave up or something. A bright red hand truck is still sitting out in his yard along side a potted tree and a half-dug hole. I love that he is planting trees, and not too shrimpy ones either. But this habit of leaving shovels, hammers, power tools, hand trucks, etc out in the yard, through weeks, months and in some cases years of weather, is just silly. His yard is really, really nice looking but no one likes looking at a rusty power saw lying in the side yard for over a year now.

February 5 2004

I’m a deep thinker by nature. Some people would say that the things I choose to think deeply about are minor, trivial and pointless. But I don’t let that stop me from spending countless hours every single day in the back of my mind thinking about why this or that are the way they are. Eventually, a deep thinker has to come some kind of conclusion about any given topic of thought and here I offer mine:

1. My neighborhood is inhabited by aliens who believe it is important to air out a vehicle from time to time. On my street, right this very minute, is no less than three (3) minivans all with either their side doors wide open and/or their back doors wide open. No one is in sight. The doors have been open for hours. And it’s been raining. Now, did someone just forget to close the doors like SportsOrNothing often do next door? Did someone else open them? Are they victims of a crime as in car breaking and entering? Did baby A and/or baby B cheese all over the seats/floor/window/cup holder and things smell rank inside? Is someone trying to capture the fresh scent of Northwest rain? Or are these people idiots? I think you know my conclusion here.

2. Some people are destined to repeat the same things over and over again. No matter what. Even if the evidence proves that the end result will be the same, they act as if this is the first time and do not attempt to change the course laid before them. I’m talking of really stupid things. Like driving drunk and telling the officer that you didn’t drink anything. Or the employee who doesn’t understand that sexual harassment isn’t tolerated at work. And the boss who continuously allows it to happen, time and time again. Or the woman who picks the same kind of bad boyfriend/husband over and over again. I realize for some of these people, that repeating the same bad behavior is just staying within their askewed comfort zone, but in the words of Dr. Phil, “How’s that working for you?” It’s like the old conversation:

Patient: “Doctor, it hurts when I poke myself in the eye”
Doctor: “So don’t do that. I, for one, am tired to listening to those people cry, “Why?”
Yep, I bet you know my conclusion here as well.

3. Apparently, everything I eat is crap and the effects show on my face. I am currently on the short side of 50 and I have the zits of a hormonal teenager. I use deep cleaning astringent every day so I can actually go out into the world. The stuff keeps things from literally erupting onto grocery store cashiers, the dry cleaning guy, other mall shoppers, my car, etc. I always try to eat fairly well, meaning, nutrition-wise and indulge in the obvious crap on a very limited basis. Here’s a list of what I eat in any given year (and these are in no particular order of importance nor represent how much or how often item is consumed): Bottled water, fruit juice (contains sugar – obviously bad), soy milk (contains natural sugar – obviously bad), white rice (bad), raw or mostly raw veggies including broccoli, cucumber, radishes, lettuce of all kinds, tomato and all tomato products such as sauce and paste, grilled chicken, Atkins’ bars, peppers of all kinds except green bell, carrot juice (no sugar added) ice cream (way bad – rarely eaten), turkey jerky, ground turkey, all cheese, the occasional pizza, wine, tea (no sugar added) and the occasional lower carb Lean Cuisine. To have the skin of a Hollywood star, say like Calista Flockheart or Michelle Phieffer, I’m assuming I would have to eat watercress and water with the occasional watered down herbal tea tossed in. If I want a bit more substance to my facial skin, I get to eat like Kathy Bates and basically eat everything above with the exception of anything that has sugar in it. It could also mean that everyone I see on TV is under perfect lighting and/or is wearing a mountain of carefully applied makeup. Doesn’t matter. I still have zits and I’m getting damned tired of them.

4. Murphy’s Law is indeed correct. The jam side of a piece of toast will always fall jam-side down when dropped. The slowest drivers will always be in the lane you choose. And your boss will always call just before or during “Survivor”. Can you tell I’m expecting a call tonight?

February 6 2004

One comment about Survivor: Rudy out but they kept the “eye-candy” women? WTF was that all about?

The weather seemed like it was mostly sunny here the other day. At least, every time I looked out the office window, I could see the sun shining off the back of Cap’t Dan’s house. Being as I’m a gardener at heart, I thought it would be a good time to take advantage of the dry, sunny weather and start getting the back yard into shape for spring. Besides, I just had to know if I had any tulips coming up yet.

But by the time I got out there, in fact, the minute I stepped out the door in my official gardening gear – shorts, t-shirt and hooded jacket (I refuse to call it a hoodie!), it started raining. Big drops. Big, wet drops. So, again, being as I’m a gardener, what’s a little spring shower? Five minutes later, I gave up and came back inside drenched. A half an hour later, it was still raining hard.

A couple of hours later, again, the sun was out, beckoning me back out there. Since I had just about had it with my coworkers that day, I logged out of work, threw on my jacket and headed outside again, garbage back and shears in hand. And again, the clouds dumped on me, although a bit lighter this time. I was determined to keep working though, clipping back the dead ornamental grass, picking wads of fall leaves from under bushes and raking up old, wet daylily leaves that had turned into a jellied mass that would make any garden slug proud. Just as I found that I DO have tulips coming up, I noticed something else out of the corner of my eye across the yard. Doves. A small flock of mourning doves had been nestled in under one of our weeping maples, next to the tall pine and had all perked up, craning their necks to see where I was in the yard, deciding whether it was time to fly away or not.

I really like the doves. We’ve had a dozen in our back yard at once recently and yes, I know most people see them either as just small pigeons that poop on everything, or as something to shoot out in the field. I absolutely love that they have a safe haven here in our back yard. I just wish they picked a different day because I really wanted to work out there, exactly where they are all sitting, looking so soft and gentle. I’m the only person I know who has created a wildlife sanctuary in our own back yard and then is too enchanted by the wildlife to shoo them all away for a day or two in order to get some spring clean up work done.

Am I really this silly?

Yesterday, after I had REALLY had it with my coworkers, I stormed out there, scaring off at least one dove and a dozen other birds and chopped down a pink flowering scotch broom that was supposed to only grow to 3 feet, but had instead grown to nearly seven feet tall, up over the neighbor’s side of the fence, at least eight feet in diameter and was working on knocking down a twelve foot blue-gray juniper tree that we both love. Over the weekend, WS said he would help me get the rest of what’s left out of there.

Before dark, I was able to trim up a few other bushes that I should have trimmed last fall but didn’t and I swept the walkways. Today, it’s pouring rain but as of tomorrow, we’re supposed to get a week of sun, the first dry spell we’d had since last November. I’m thinking of going out and picking up a flat of white pansies to plant out front. They ought to look good out there until June at least and look good against the dark green boxwood growing in front of the stone on the house.

So, during that dry, sunny spell next week, I’m going to have a rough time wanted to do any actual job work. Especially since I haven’t had my job eval yet. WS tells me not to worry about it; that the eval is already typed up and done. At taking what I heard from my Company head quarter’s source, the evals are all just repeats of last year, nearly down to the exact same typos. So, I’ll be spending some quality time with my spears and loppers and filled a couple of garbage bags full of dead branches and debris, much to the chagrin of WS who hates it when we have more than one bag of trash on trash day.

Thinking….I’ll bet it will be windy again this Monday for trash day. Maybe I’ll do some early trimming and anchor our garbage can down with additional bags of yard debris.

February 7 2004

I no longer need to punish, deceive or compromise myself, unless I want to stay employed.

As you may have noticed, or not, my list of Blog Favorites has been cleaned up a bit. No offense to anyone there who might have actually wandered over here at any time. If you know you were on the list and now, you’re not and you’d like to be here, let me know and I’ll return you immediately.

I hate it when people blatantly lie to me. Especially, when it entails something that directly affects me. I don’t have a problem when someone just changes their mind. It’s the talking out of both sides of their mouth kind of stuff that pisses me off. And when it directly affects me, I take it personally because it is personal to me. Years ago, SportsOrNothing next door promised us that they would be building a rock retaining wall to divide their sloped lot from the lot behind them. They were so adamant about it, it made up our minds to do the same. And so we did. But they later cheesed out and built a wood fence instead. DrunkTank Willie who used to live on the other side of us did the exact same thing: Said he’d built a rock wall on his sloping back yard, but also put up a wood fence instead. As a result, we look like the sore thumb without a fence, but with a lovely native rock retaining wall that I’m just sure Cap’t Dan and the Smokin’ Clan just loves. NOT!

So many other neighbors over the years have promised us one thing or another and then done something completely differently. Cases in point has been several of the yearly neighborhood holiday parties and let’s not forget that disastrous Halloween party.

Sometimes, it’s my coworkers who say one thing and do something completely different, making me basically wonder “WTF? And all I have to say about that is if you are going to call in sick, don’t post all over your friend’s Online Journals that you called in sick in order to go shopping and “aren’t we all dummies for not knowing any differently by now?” A person just might have the nerve to publicly share the URL to such Online Journals with others.

So, in a round-about way, this brings me to a list of work excuses that I know have been previously used at my place of employment, and accepted at the holy gospel truth, and that I keep handy in case I should ever need an excuse myself.

My connection was down – used ALL the time.
My computer was locked up and I didn’t know it – also used all the time.
I thought I was off today.
I thought today was Saturday/Sunday.
My mother shut off my alarm clock.
I felt asleep in my car after a party last night and just now woke up.
I’m sick with “insert illness of choice here”.
I’m in the middle of moving.
My other job made me work overtime.
My doctor/dentist/chiropractor/lawyer/labor board appointment went long.
I fell asleep in front of the computer.
I had to take my date from last night home.
My dog ate my computer – actually used and accepted. Dog was a 3-month old teething Doberman. This excuse was used for four months.
I was on the phone.
I was in a meeting.
I was working on another computer.
It’s the solar flares.

Anything you think I forgot?

February 9 2004

The past weekend had to be the quickest one on record. I feel that I didn’t get anything done and every single time I looked up at the clock or my watch, three hours had whizzed by! What was up with that?

Something that really threw me off for the weekend was that the rain just never let up. We were supposed to have showers Saturday morning, followed by dry, sunny weather all weekend. Nope, didn’t happen. In fact, it was still cold and showery late last night. I was not at all happy because this alone prevented me from getting our back yard cleaned up and ready for spring. It’s still a swamp back there and I can only hope things finally dry up this week and we actually see some sun at some point.

So, as I’ve been wandering throughout the house, complaining that I didn’t get anything accomplished, WS has been telling me that I’m being too hard on myself. That, indeed, we did get stuff done. We went grocery shopping, found and bought the outside pots we need for the tree roses, tomatoes and herbs I’ll be planting next month, found the front runner in the patio furniture we’ll probably be buying next month, decided to attend both the big Home and Garden show and the Flower and Yard show this years and washed both cars in between rain showers.

What I didn’t get to do was clean and wash out all the bird feeders, dig out the rest of that monsterous scotch broom I chopped down last week as well as get the rest of the back yard cleaned up and trimmed, spray wash the patios, clean up and vacuum our office which is covered in pet fur, clean the floors with that Pledge cleaner we bought weeks ago, get WS to go through his bookcases for old books to get rid of and get rid of the old books in our garage.

Oh, and let’s not forget that I still need to squeeze that pressure washing of Mt. Rushmore in somewhere. Yes, I’m hard on myself. And my excuse is that I hate it when things pile up and start to get out of control.

And Drill Sergeant Dave called this weekend and we didn’t call him back. I was too busy getting nothing done.

Ahem…

Things of note from the weekend: The grocery store deli department didn’t take off the thin plastic covering from the pepperoni before slicing us up two pounds. I can’t tell you how much fun it is to stand there and de-plastic thinly sliced pepperoni before using some. I wonder how many calories/carbs are in thin plastic?

It is becoming increasingly difficult to find good, plain cheesecake without any fruit flavors or chocolate added. Unfortunately, I know how many calories/carbs are in plain cheesecake.

Saw an emotional vampire ex-friend after a long absence. It’s amazing what drugs and a breakup can do to a person in a short period of time, especially when they believe that happiness is only a pill, a drink, a cigarette and a forkful of food away.

I didn’t watch more than three minutes of the Grammies. Bores me to tears anymore and I didn’t need the extra depression. Anyone who thinks the Grammies are good nowadays has been brainwashed into believing today’s music is “good”.

MsNoManagementSkills acknowledged she is a big crybaby. This tidbit will be instantly forgotten.

It’s trash day and not windy. Mark your calendars.

February 10 2004

Okay, it’s quiz time.

Ms. Ca-LEE-fornian, living directly across the street from us, is washing and drying her mini van using an entire roll of paper towels. No sponges, no rags, no cloth towels. What is more wasteful?

Duh! Using a roll of paper towels to wash and dry the mini van.
Owning a mini van.
Knowing that Mr. Ca-LEE-fornian also owns a mini van.
That the paper towels are not Bounty ™, the Quicker Picker-Upper brand.
The fact that I bothered to post about it.

Are people really this stupid and wasteful? ‘Cause my brain is having a tough time understanding this one.

Weapons of Mass Destruction were found in our house last night…in the form of wet, rotting bird seed mixed with a winter’s worth of assorted bird poop. I cleaned out the biggest of our four bird feeders, the mixed seed one. Holy crap but if that didn’t stink like something had definitely died in it. After having to disassemble the whole thing meaning every last screw, nut and bolt from the big metal and plastic thing, I had to sterilize the entire kitchen for fear that something had been splashed with the toxic-smelling gruel that came out of the thing. Just horrible the whole ordeal was and you know what? I still have two more to clean, albeit smaller versions of the monster I cleaned last night. Fun.

So, yesterday, as I took advantage of the sunny, yet still very cold weather and weeded in the back yard, I look up and Cap’t Dan is standing near our rock wall looking in my direction. So I said hi for the first time ever and we started up a conversation. I had yet to say a word to this guy or anyone in his Smokin’ Clan family to date. They have lived there for three years now and we just never were out there at the same time, in the same general area.

We chatted about liking each other’s yards and trees and bird visits and we talked about the backside of our rock wall, his viewing side and he asked if he could plant ferns there. I couldn’t get the words “Of course! Please do!” fast enough. A couple of years ago, when they were off on vacation or something, I weeded back there and found a couple little natural ferns trying to make something of themselves before Cap’t Dan got back out there and poured Round-Up on everything.

It was a nice chat. He sounded very soft spoken, something that is completely opposite from his look. I got the impression he is much more comfortable talking to women than men, something WS found interesting as I was telling him about our talk. WS talked to Cap’t Dan years ago and they didn’t hit it off well at all. It could have had something to do with one of our retaining wall rocks being four inches over the property line onto his side, or that WS literally fell over the rock wall trying to talk to Cap’t Dan, but I don’t think so.

And finally, I broke our French press coffee carafe this morning. It was still warm from coming out of the dishwasher and I tapped it with the coffee grinder brush. Big crack down the side. Sigh, that thing served me well over the past seven years, teaching me the difference between good coffee and swill. I hate having to replace things.

February 11 2004

I’m determined to make today an easy-going kind of day. It’s sunny outside but very windy as the next storm is being sucked into our area for tomorrow and Friday. Over the past two afternoons, I have busted my butt getting our back yard cleared of dead leaves and branches and discarded bird seed and empty peanut shells. Four heavy trash bags later, (that WS said not to worry about) the back yard is beautiful. Yellow crocus that were previously buried in last year’s fall leaves are blooming everywhere and tulips are poking up left and right. I could spend this afternoon fiddling around out there picking up the stray leaf here and there but why? I’m not that anal! The birds don’t know what to make of the clean bird feeders, well, all the birds other than the starlings who will eat anything out of anything. I still have two other feeders to clean out and I’m really dragging my feet on getting those done. Maybe I should have started in on cleaning those before I ate lunch. It would have prevented me from longing after that quart of Starbucks Java Chip that magically appeared in our freezer recently.

Speaking of food, I have been ravenous over the past few days. At first, I chalked it up to working hard outside in the cold weather, but today I’m not so sure. Aunt Flo’s visit is coming up, sure, but I hate this “every month I have an ‘I’m starving!’ week. I am Aunt Flo’s bitch and I don’t like it anymore now than I did back when I was 13-years old.

At work, MrSmartButFakingIt has been a real ass lately, refusing to talk to many of us, canceling meetings, not showing up to work for some reason. I suspect the upcoming birth of his kids are in play here but who really knows? I still haven’t had my job eval and there has been no moves to reschedule that meeting. He won’t talk to me in Company chat requests, keeping me from doing a good job as I’m still waiting for about a dozen items of information from him from last month. It really sad that I don’t get to be a voice in HIS job eval because I’d really have something to say about his complete lack of the ability to communicate with his department workers. I know that other coworkers at Company headquarters feel the same way and this compounded with MsNoManagementSkills’ constant morale-busting behavior has really taken a mental toll on us all.

Since the weather was just so very nice and it’ll all going to go back to rain, rain, rain tomorrow, WS decided to call it a day early in the afternoon as did I and we took my car out for a couple hundred mile spin up the freeway and back. I finally hit 10,000 miles on it and got rid of all the old, surely crusty gasoline by now gas and refilled the tank. There’s nothing like good tunes blasting through the speakers with the sun shining down on you while cruising in a car that makes most men drivers want to lick the glass. I caught myself today looking at all the local, and not so local, car club web sites today looking for upcoming car shows. Nothing. Too early in the year for car shows and I have a strong feeling that there just won’t be as many this year anyway. Most of the people who put them on are getting up there in years and the interest, with the current economy in our area being so bad, doesn’t exist like it did last year. Out of the fifteen shows and one 1500-mile trip we made last year, I’ll be lucky to find half a dozen car shows this year. Maybe I should just park it and polish it for a whole year until interest picks up again. Couldn’t hurt. It’s not like the car is depreciating or anything.

February 12 2004

Okay, we’ve lived with our new bedroom wall color for over a week now and we officially proclaim it good. I was pretty skeptical there for a while because it was such a big change, going from dark burgundy to sage green. It gave the room a completely different feel. I like the royal, jewel-tone colors of things and how it makes me feel. Sage green was very different and I didn’t think I would end up liking it, even after I “aged” the green with a shade darker green. But, it’s grown on me and I really do like it now.

There’s nothing like getting up in the morning, talking yourself into facing another workday and then discovering that your Internet connection is toast. I’d checked connections, unplugging and re-plugging everything up to ten times all to no avail. Some people would say, “Okay, celebrate this opportunity and take the day off.” But it doesn’t work that way when you work online. If I don’t work, I don’t get paid. If I can’t work today, I’ll have to make up the time tonight, tomorrow and probably Saturday. I have fifteen hours to get in before Saturday, when WS will be off and we had planned things so that we would both have a three-day weekend. Now, it looks like I’ll be working Saturday. Poop.

But this reminds me of all the jobs I’ve had in the past, where I would work every Saturday and every Sunday as well. At 6 a.m. and worked an eleven-hour day. Anyone who tells me I don’t have a life now should have seen me then. Going to work in a heavily male-oriented, female-discouraged atmosphere before sexual harassment was taken seriously (not that it is now either), being splashed and smeared with what came off the sides of beef, working in 50 degree temperatures and feeling half-frozen day in and day out, sawing chicken carcasses in half or quarters before packaging them up for the ever-hungry customer. Oh, and because the customers could always see us working behind the glass, we had to have a smile pasted on our faces for ten of those eleven hours, six days a week.

I hate smiling, even to this day. In fact, I’ve not gotten jobs because the potential employer has told me flat out that they couldn’t hire me because I don’t smile. They say my smile looks more like a grimace and they aren’t too far from the truth. Whatever. I enjoy jobs where I work behind the scenes anyway, away from “scaring away the customers” with my “smile”.
Hmmm….Where was I going with this before it turned into bitterness?

Oh, no Internet connection. Apparently, there is a problem in our area. Well, nothing I can do. We should have half a sunny day today so maybe I can try to enjoy the day after all and stop re-plugging cables now.

February 13 2004

So, I met someone the other day. Actually, I re-met them. They used to work for The Company and really sucked at it, I might add. But MsNoManagementSkills hired this person who was later, thankfully, laid off back on Black Monday before 9-11 so The Company CEOs thought that this person just HAD to be smart and a good employee catch. That person literally made many of us Company employees’ lives a living hell. Everyone was constantly scrambling trying to patch up the major customer screw-ups this person left in their wake and we were always having to re-do this person’s work. Every day. During evals, this person was told of the problems they were creating and they always promised to try harder, but later, they only tried harder to screw-up more often. It was awful and a lot of Company money was spent needlessly to keep this person onboard and even more money was spent on fixing their destruction.

Of course, as I stood in line at the local cheap-O grocery store, I didn’t say anything about any of this as this person slowly rang up my over-priced wine, Lean Cusine frozen dinners and Midol. She recognized me. I feigned mild ignorance. It hasn’t been the first time I’ve run into an ex-coworker. The sad thing is, not a single one of them have gone on to better things and standing before me, in a badly designed, shapeless bag of a chain-store uniform, wearing a stained and worn-looking wrist brace that spoke volumes of long hours of repetitive movement, this person was no different. It’s like The Company sucks the very best of all of us, leaving an empty, fragile shell. And that’s frightening because I have felt it happening to me for quite some time now.

February 14 2004

“How could this happen?” her mind raced in time with the speedometer. “It was only once. I don’t even know him!” The young man didn’t say a word and stared glumly out the passenger window. Somewhere, miles ahead, a sleepy Justice of the Peace was pouring himself a cup of coffee. “We’ll tell everyone later, when it shows,” she tried to calmly reason with her nerves. “Later.”

Seventeen years later, a young woman wants to go to a high school prom. A boyfriend has something special planned, but the date is the same day as a secret ceremony held years before that’s never been revealed. The prom goes on, a promise ring is given, a mother is crushed.

Twenty-four years ago, a struggling woman handed over a small diamond ring for $6.50 in return. The man said the diamond was fake and cracked anyway but though she knew differently, it didn’t matter. It bought enough food for two days. Some things will never be forgotten or forgiven.

I’m in a mood.

Have you ever had one of those instances where you tell someone something and they don’t believe you? You tell them the same thing for years on end about a certain thing, something that happened or continues to happen for years and regardless of how you explain it, that person just will not believe what you are saying in the least? Really makes you wonder what else they don’t believe that you talked about, doesn’t it? Really makes a person feel about an inch tall. Really makes a person want to clam up. I talk too much anyway. Like I said, I’m in a mood.

Have a Happy Marketer’s Dream Day. And for all you with just a glimmer of romantic hope left in your hearts, have a Happy Valentine’s Day too.

February 16 2004

Why, oh why is it only the middle of February? We’ve been having terrific weather here, feeling more like April than February and making me itch for gardening and polishing my car. Odd combo, huh? But that’s just so me.

Last Saturday, we ran errands and bought a ton of good-smelling French soap from a little shop no one seems to know about yet, followed by a late lunch. Around 7 p.m., we visited Drill Sergeant Dave to see how he was fairing, considering that his wife just left him about a month ago and he was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. He’s lost close to 25 pounds already and is starting to look good for a bald, 60-year old guy who NEVER took care of himself and looks much older. During our visit, I paid him for some new brakes that he bought from me last year when I gave up waiting for them to ever be delivered (they were backordered for about eight months). Since the brakes were finally delivered to him just two months ago, but his wife took the car they fit on, the same year model as my car, he asked if I’d be interested in buying them back from him since he didn’t have anything to put them on now. So, in a few months, I’ll finally have the drilled and slotted brakes I’ve always wanted for this year’s car show season….and yes, there will be a car show season this year. Drill Sergeant Dave let us know that the main car show organization took a vote from all the area car clubs and everyone voted for one. So, it’ll be another spring and summer of washing, polishing and nit-picking my car to death, all to help raise money for charity and to receive some hokey wall plaque for my labor.

But hey! It sure beats working all the time. I’m dreading going back to work tomorrow because after any 3-day weekend, the work load is overwhelming. Absolutely overwhelming. Not to mention all the un-motivational emails from MsNoManagementSkills we’ll be receiving. Here is an example we got late last week:

Hi All!

Have a happy 3-day weekend! Remember, we need you to work overtime. If no one volunteers, we’ll be making it mandatory!

I’ll be out of town for the weekend. If you really need to get a hold of me, here is my cell phone number XXX-XXX-XXXX.

Yeah, I know I wanted to knock people out of the way just to get to my computer and work over the 3-day weekend. Especially knowing she was going out of town on vacation (taking her boyfriend to a local dive-y “resort”.)

Today, it rained all day but was fairly warm out. Naturally, and because it was trash day, this morning was windy and I had to prod WS out of bed to catch our trash can before it ended up in L.A. or somewhere even further away. We hung around here all day, watching “American Chopper” reruns and cleaning. WS finally used that Pledge floor cleaner for wood floors and we both proclaim it good, especially if you mop with the grain of wood so no streaks show up. Only time will tell if this stuff is our final solution to non-streaky floors but this is the best we’ve found so far.

Pizza for dinner because Aunt Flo’s made this weekend a pain to live through. I’ll hit the rowing machine tonight for the first time in five days. No elliptical for me tonight. Things are too….uh….juicy yet.

February 17 2004

Welcome to “The Day most people end their New Year’s Resolution to lose weight” Day. If anything, we’re renewing our commitment after having a pizza last night for dinner that promptly put us both into a coma. Ugh. No one needs that much carbs at once. Ever.

Note to self: Stop it.

Snaps to WS today. He’s finally got my teeth into the best shape of their lives. In my dental appointment today, no cavities found, no root canals needed, no crowns or implants needed and I’ve got my gums into good enough shape that I only need to have my teeth cleaned twice a year now, instead of four times a year. If it wasn’t for WS and his concern about my blackened mouth years ago, I probably wouldn’t have a tooth left in my head today.

After talking to Drill Sergeant Dave last Saturday night, and listening him talk about other people who had been asking if I was going to show my car this year when I realized the madness has begun again. That car show madness. You may want to run screaming from the room now.

For the past three mornings, the first thing on my mind the instant I wake up is something to do with my car and what I need to get done before mid-April, when the first possible show/cruise occurs, depending on the weather. This morning, it was about a side-view mirror that I was going to have custom-etched last year, but never got around to it. Yesterday morning, it was about getting all those coats of polish put on over the next two months. Sunday morning, it was getting a custom-painted acrylic sign created. I really need this sign as it’s about the only thing I’m lacking that really screams that I’m serious about this obsession….er……hobby.

Note to self: Stop it.

Yeah, right. Not until November. I will in November.

I’m trying to get back in touch with the nice Competition Boy, the one who’s wife left him before Thanksgiving last year and the one who did so much polishing work on my car last spring. He’s got a part for my car that I need and had already paid for months ago. Both Drill Sergeant Dave and the not-nice Competition Boy have thrown this guy’s friendship to the wolves because they don’t agree with his split up and will be appalled when they find out that I don’t share their feelings for him. Personally, I could care less if the nice Competition Boy split up with his wife or not. My friendship with him had nothing and continues to not have anything to do with his marital status. Rumor has it that the nice Competition Boy is now sleeping with Drill Sergeant Dave’s newly-separated wife. Okay, I can understand Drill Sergeant Dave being upset if this is the case. Drill Sergeant Dave doesn’t care to find out for certain one way or the other. But I don’t see why I should shun everyone that he shuns regardless of who it is or whom is sleeping with whom.

Okay. Well, that got messy fast, didn’t it? Not exactly where I thought this entry would end up.

February 18 2004

Amazingly, my first thought upon waking this morning was not car show oriented. It was “Damn. I need to go to bed earlier!” I think not thinking about my car first thing had something to do with WS ordering triple-chromed wheels Monday. No more scratched up, stained p.o.s., “polished” aluminum stock wheels for me.

I worked out hard before falling into bed exhausted last night. Ten minutes on the rower to warm up (100 calories burned), a few bicep and tricep curls and fifteen minutes straight on the elliptical at the medium speed setting (100 calories burned). I’ve figured out that by setting up a fan that blows directly on my while I’m ellipticalling, I can last a whole lot longer. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner. I’m disappointed in the low calorie numbers though. When I’m sweating buckets and my heart rate is up there around 150, I’d think I would be burning thousands of calories, not just a measly 200. But I do need to remember that I am raising my metabolism which will burn more at rest. Sitting here in front of a computer screen for the last five years has not done my metabolism any favors.

Other than the Starbucks coffee we both had yesterday after the dentist trip (and probably counted in the millions of calories), we focused on eating smaller portions and lower carb stuff and even though we were both a bit hungry when we went to bed, it felt good to know what hungry really feels like while knowing that we got in a decent amount of exercise. I’m going to work extra hard to do this all week long.

So, it’s plain oatmeal with a few raisins for breakfast, a few raw veggies for mid-morning snack, a low-carb or protein shake for lunch, more raw veggies for mid-afternoon snack, then a minimum of a half an hour exercise (I’m working up to one hour) and a low carb Lean Cusine meal for dinner.

Good thing I love raw veggies and Lean Cusine meals. I’m keeping the much smaller image of Drill Sergeant Dave in mind along with something I heard on TV a few weeks ago on a story about that gastro-bypass surgery and how people who do that can only eat meals that are no bigger than the size of four grapes. FOUR grapes! Geez, one piece of sushi is bigger than four grapes! No wonder I’m a tank! I can knock back nearly an entire large pizza myself.

I also just read after doing some research on a few of the bigger name weight loss clinics that the main complaint about all of them is the smaller portion sizes of the meals. People in this country are so conditioned to eat plates full of food. And to eat ALL of it, from when most of us were children.

As long as we continue to eat large portions, we will continue to be large.

I’m not looking to starve ourselves to death, but just as we got used to eating whole pizzas, or a mountain of pasta, or a skillet full of fajitas, we can slowly get used to eating less and feeling just as full WHILE still enjoying the taste of the food we like.

And hey, if we just happen to feel better and look better as a benefit, there ain’t nothing wrong with that.

Thanks, WS, for seeing this with me and being as supportive as ever.

February 19 2004

Oh my! Shoot me now because the drama around here has just gotten to be too much!

Yesterday afternoon, WS surprised me by leaving work early and took me to a local Home Improvement and Garden show. We had decided to go a couple of weeks ago and I was very happy that we could go during a time when it wouldn’t be packed with wall-to-wall people.

As we were walking down one aisle way, with contractors for awnings to the left and concrete finishers on the right, I glance over and see the nice Competition Boy and Drill Sergeant Dave’s wife, hand-in-hand, walking down the next aisle over. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I mean, I knew we would see them eventually, but not this soon and not together.

I jerk WS aside and tell him who I just saw together. It was true. Drill Sergeant Dave, still reeling from his wife leaving him a month ago nearly to the day, suspected they were an item but didn’t know for certain. It’s certain now.

We continued walking the aisles and chatted a bit about whether we should approach them or not and decided that if we ran into them face-to-face, we’d deal with it then. Otherwise, we wouldn’t tell a soul.

About twenty minutes later, as we were standing at a California Closet display, Drill Sergeant Dave’s wife walked up behind me and put her arm on my shoulder. I look over and there is the nice Competition Boy absolutely beaming, standing next to her. They did look so cute together and both WS and I noticed right off the bat that Drill Sergeant Dave’s wife was quite possibly sober, which would have been the very first time we’d ever seen her as such. Ever.

We immediately hugged them back and told them we had missed them and how happy they both looked. It got a bit sappy after that for a brief period of time and before we went our separate ways, we group-hugged and promised to all get together for dinner or something soon.

Of course, we will. But we’re not going to run back to Drill Sergeant Dave and tell him that his suspicions are true. If he hears that we all saw each other, then it will have to come from them and we’ll just deal with Drill Sergeant Dave then. If he finds out what we know and that we didn’t tell him, he will see it as much as betrayal as his wife leaving him for the nice Competition Boy.

Truly, I feel emotionally drained as if it were me going through all these separations and divorces. First, it was The Blinders across the street from us. Then it was FatHead getting fired, followed no more than three days later by MsNoManagementSkills leaving him. Next, the nice Competition Boy and his wife separate, not once, but twice and are now close to divorce.

Next, the “situation of which I cannot speak” occurs and is still going on for those in the know, making our lives here nearly unbearable (however, if the watcher thinks they are the ones watching, they aren’t paying attention to how much they themselves are being watched – Confusing enough yet?).

Then, Drill Sergeant Dave and his wife separate and he is diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. He drops the bombshell on us just last Saturday evening that he felt in his heart that his wife and the nice Competition Boy are sleeping together making us think, “WTF?” And yesterday, we run into them both and they confirm it. They are even thinking of getting a place together, but for the time being, the nice Competition Boy is staying mostly at Drill Sergeant Dave’s wife’s new apartment. Meanwhile, the nice Competition Boy’s wife felt the need to leave town. I can’t imagine why.

At least I won’t have to worry about the nice Competition Boy being car show competition against me this coming season. He assured me that he won’t be having anything to do with car shows this year. They will be spending the year being “into themselves”. Ah, I remember new love like that.

This coming Saturday, I was invited to the not-nice Competition Boy’s house, along with Drill Sergeant Dave to help work on some car club members cars. I had made up my mind to go before I found out that the whole reason I was going (to watch and learn how to install brakes on a sports car like mine so I can install mine myself) isn’t even going to happen now. It turns out that the not-nice Competition Boy spent the week installing them instead of waiting until Saturday, meaning I won’t have any thing to learn and no reason to show up after all. It’s not like I want to work on car club cars when I don’t care one hoot about that club anymore, a club I refuse to be a member of.

But then, I thought I would go for a short period of time, just to not look like a bitch, knowing that the not-nice Competition Boy will be my main competition this coming car show season. I don’t want to start off the season not having talked to the guy who lives just a few miles from us and who got us into showing our car in the first place (even though secretly, I wouldn’t trust this guy any further than I could literally throw him.) I wanted to start out the show season trying to be friendly and everyone’s friend. These things can be so political and I just won’t get into all that kind of crap.

Now, after yesterday’s confirmation, I’m questioning whether having anything to do with anyone anymore is worth it. Like I said, I just feel emotionally drained over all these split-ups.

Isn’t anyone staying together anymore?

February 21 2004

Is it really called “trying to lose weight” when you work out all week, lower your food intake and just “feel” thinner when the scale and the mirror says if anything, you gained a few?

I’m not irritated at the weight thing not budging. I’m not into numbers; age, weight, math…I just want to not look like a toad with a pot-belly. I could care less about my weight number, as long as it isn’t 200 pounds and 40 percent body fat. I carry a lot of muscle on my body normally, and I’ll never be a thin, whispy reed, unlike my tall sister who eats maybe once or twice a year (yes, I said YEAR) and wallows in heroin and coke all the other days.

So, this morning after chowing down my cup of oatmeal with a few raisins thrown in …

B’s subconscious: “Ooooo…carb-city!”
Blogeois: “Yes. I know. “It’s also called fiber and lowers my cholesterol. Can I get back to my post now?”

So, after eating my oatmeal and washing it down with a quart of water, I reflected back on the exercise week and am proud of myself for working out four of the last six days. I’m still not up to anything beyond fifteen minutes on the elliptical, but I’ve been close. I still haven’t found time to make up any kind of music playlist or to burn a CD of stuff I might want to listen to for motivation. So far, I’ve just been watching TV which is okay, I suppose, but I can see where it would get old fast.

What I really want is a MP3 player with ear-covering headphones so I can really crank up Republica’s “Ready To Go” or maybe some old Berlin, or maybe even some old KC & The Sunshine Band and Donna Summer at an obscene level just because I can.

B’s subconscious: “You’ve rally dated yourself there with those musical selections.”
Blogeois: “Shut UP!”

But looking at a local and always overly-crowded electronics mega-store last weekend, I could find anything I really liked and figured out that I really don’t know what I need. I already have the MP3 files (recorded legally!) but by working in the MP3 business, I learned that oodles and oodles of things can, and more often than not, go wrong transferring them to any player. Why, oh why, didn’t I just keep one of those “loaned out” players, like all of my laid-off coworkers did? Sometimes, I really an idiot.

B’s subconscious: “…”
Blogeois: “Okay, I’ve had about enough of you today.”

February 23 2004

Well, that was a quiet weekend around here. And we really didn’t do a darn thing of importance but that’s okay by me.

Went for coffee Saturday morning, stopped by the not-nice Competition Boy’s house for less than five minutes before leaving. The wind was really howling there and there wasn’t anywhere to go to get out of the cold because there were already lots of other people filling the garage. We stayed just long enough to look at his newly installed brakes and to look at his wheels which are exactly what WS ordered last week for me. My wheels were delivered last Friday and whereas the faces are beautifully chromed, the interior part of all the wheels are discolored, scratched and beat up looking. Apparently, this is normal and what you get for $1300. Now, if I wanted to spend $4000, I could get perfect wheels without any flaws. What a rip!

But, by looking at the not-nice Competition Boy’s wheels, it was obvious he got the exact same thing. The big difference will be whether I spend more money to get all that discoloration and scratches buffed out.

Which brings me to what we’ll be doing Tuesday, in between work, of course. And it also gives us a chance to check out one of the few good auto painting places we’d ever consider to paint my car, when it comes time for that someday in the future.

We sat around here, cleaning and working the rest of Saturday and just because that was so fun, we did pretty much the same thing all day Sunday, with the exception of a speed race across town to check out some patio furniture place that was promptly eliminated from our list of places to check. We hit the grocery store on the way home just so we could stock up on Lean Cusine meals and coffee filters, more raw vegetables and toilet paper.

How was your weekend? Hopefully, more exciting than this!

February 23 2004

Apparently, The Dimmers next door have stopped putting their trash out every Monday. God only knows where they are storing it, but I have a strong suspicion that it’s some place that their cute little dog has access to. Their back yard is nearly entirely covered with chewed up trash, children’s toys that haven’t been touched since last summer and spare tires. It looks like a landfill over there now. If we start getting rats over here, I’m calling the county.

At work, MrSmartButFakingIt is completely fed up with Company higher ups not fixing some problems our department is having that directly affects how we can help our customers. Unfortunately, the rest of us have given up on getting these problems fixed month upon months ago so we don’t really care one way or the other at this point. And this is also pissing MrSmartButFakingIt off. Hey, we tried to tell him months ago, but he didn’t want to hear it then. We don’t want to hear it now.

Finally saying good-bye to her apartment, MsNoManagementSkills has officially moved in with her boyfriend and his full-custody children and now, he’s going through another bout of massive depression. This guy has taken huge amounts of medication to counter his depression ever since he was a teenager (he’s thirty something now) and it’s got to be affecting their relationship. Or maybe it’s his obsession with Japanese animation women, something MsNoManagementSkills is the complete opposite of. Either way, she’s freaking out over everything and I’m fully expecting everyone to feel the brunt of this week at work. Last week in her Online Journal, she admitted to dipping into her boyfriend’s medication and things only get worse around work when she medicates herself. She had a long work chat with me and it became apparent quickly that she’s been in denial about nearly everything over the last year or so. It sounded like for the first time ever, she’s worried about her job. And for all the crap she and FatHead put us through over the years in trying to get us fired or laid off, I just can’t be sympathetic.

But I tried hard to sound like it and hung on every word she said, trying to offer support without having to actually do anything. After all, this is the very first time she’s ever said anything civil to me at all without the threat of losing my job in all the five years we’ve worked together.

And then there’s that whole thing about her not knowing that I read her Online Journal and know what is REALLY bothering her. I think she may be getting a glimpse of what she has chosen her life to be and it’s not pretty. I think she’s dying from not getting to have a shopping fix. She’s a shop-aholic. She moved from a big, beautiful home where she had money coming out of her ears between her job and FatHead’s two jobs and not enough stuff to spend money on to scraping by with someone who prefers to spend his small income on video games instead of bills and his three kids who are in constant need of something to eat and wear, leaving her to raise and support children that aren’t even hers.

But she wanted children, remember? And FatHead decided he didn’t. And they split.

So I can’t help but chuckle a bit when one of her loyal Online Journal readers tells the world in a comment that MsNoManagementSkills’ boyfriend, the one she dumped FatHead for because he didn’t want children, had a vasectomy five years ago and the loyal reader remembers the boyfriend posting entries about it in HIS Online Journal. Exactly where are these children of her own going to come from now? My thoughts are, if you want children of your own, you might want to bring this topic up before you throw away your old life and move in with someone else who has to rely on someone else to tell you that you can’t have any more kids.

I’m waiting for her to tell the world now that she’s begging him to get the vasectomy reversed.

February 24 2004

I’m posting this late. It’s been a long, long day, seemingly longer than it really is.

Had a miserable Company meeting this morning and an even more miserable meeting after that where it became painfully clear how much in denial MrSmartButFakingIt is in and how much he’s become the Company “switchboard” meaning he alone dictates how much information gets out and to whom receives any. That isn’t going to change anytime soon and to hear us complaining about it, made him clam up even more. In fact, he told us not even to send him email anymore; if we want to get information out of him, he said to call him voice, using our own phone on our dime.

I don’t know about you, but I am not going to start ringing up long distance phone call charges to Company headquarters halfway across the country just to get information out of someone who is supposed to be doling it out in email anyway. I so wish I had some Company higher up on my side I could squeal to. This is just unacceptable any more.

But, because I want to keep my job, I’ll just suck it up.

Again.

Then after the meetings, we drove 40 miles to some place to have some guy look at the new wheels WS ordered for me to tell me what I need to do to get all the scratches and discoloring out of them. In keeping with how the day was going at that point, we got about a quarter of the way there before remembering that we’d forgotten to load the wheels into WS’s car. So, screaming back home where I really, really should have gotten a ticket for speed and aggressive driving, we grabbed the wheels and headed out yet again, only later to have the guy tell us in a roundabout way that he couldn’t do anything with them. So we stopped for a light lunch, then hunted down an even more cryptic guy at yet another shop, only to hear him tell us everything he thought we should do instead of just telling us that he would just do the work at such-and-such price.

Basically, we wasted four hours, learning very little and making no decision, getting nothing done, only to have to come back home, unload the wheels and pack them back into their shipping boxes, and get back to work where I had at least six more hours to put in and WS had at least ten.

But later we did have a nice Lean Cusine dinner, supplemented with veggies and WS had a bottle of wine and later still, I got fifteen minutes solid in on the elliptical at the fourth setting (out of eight). I couldn’t do a minute longer.

Again, today, I felt thinner even though the scale says I weigh the exact same weight, down to the ounce, that I weighed all winter long. My weight is redistributing, just as it did back when I used to do step-exercise, back when I was into body building and back when I used to ride my motorcycle.

February 25 2004

I’ve only been up for an hour and already, the day feels like it is dragging. Probably even more so for WS, who worked from home yesterday, but has to attend boring meetings all day today. He’s been working ridiculously long hours at both jobs over the last few days. He deserves a nap although, I’m sure that wouldn’t go over well at his REAL job. He deserves a good night’s sleep. Heck, he deserves a year’s vacation and all the sleep that can come with that. He’s really a good guy who never gets any kudos.

Last night, before bed, WS rowed hard for a half an hour or more. He’s really taking this seriously this time around and so am I, after getting inspiration from Drill Sergeant Dave’s new look with his dramatic weight loss. And last night, for the first time ever, and with the help of WS’s headphones, I was finally able to get in a 20-minute session on the elliptical machine. I really thought I was going to die and couldn’t have done a single minute more. Music and the fan blowing on me really helps. Go me.

We’ve also been eating good and watching the portion sizes. Low carb Lean Cusines are perfect for that, along with a cup or so of additional veggies. It’s working, We’ve both seen a change in how our clothes fit.

Nothing exciting on tap for today. Just work, work, work. I’ll probably start putting polish on my car and call a few sign painting places. Survivor is on tonight and it sounds like there is a good twist to the game happening. Tomorrow is work again, but we might both make it a short work day. Saturday, we’ve agreed to dine out with Drill Sergeant Dave’s ex-wife and the nice Competition Boy, who are pretty much living together now. We’re not going to press them for what happened with each of their marriages; if they want to tell us, they will; but I’m sure the air will feel thick with unanswered questions.

Yesterday, in between working on customer work problems, we were trying to get this scratched-up wheel delivery thing all sorted out. We’re fairly certain we’ll just send this order right back to the company, as they are not as advertised and I can’t have wheels that look this bad on my car for show season. To correct their scratched, discolored areas and peeled spots, it would cost us a minimum of another $2000 and that just isn’t gonna fly. We didn’t buy these to have to turn around and pay someone else to fix them. So, back they’ll go as soon as we find out exactly how they want us to do that so we can out money back (minus $90 for shipping back and restocking which just sucks). We’re just not ready to get custom wheels yet if this is the kind of crap we have to put up with. I’ll try to clean my old ones up and they will have to do for the upcoming show season. I’m okay with that.

In the meantime, I’ll get my new drilled and slotted brakes installed in a couple of weeks with Drill Sergeant Dave’s help. WS ordered me a set of stainless mirror-finish brake pad covers that I’ill install at the same time as the brakes. And I’ll start working on getting all my paint polishing started. I have to use the machine polisher on portions of my car hood because of serious scratching that occurred last year when I came back from a long trip in really bad weather. At that time, lots of sand on the road got under my car bra and scratched the crap out of the paint. With a few weeks of work, I think I’ll be able to polish most of the damage out and in the meantime, I’ll work on the rest of the car so it’s as mega-shiny as it was last year.

I’ve been starting to go around to all the car club web sites in my area, taking note of upcoming shows. Show season starts around here in late March or early April. So far this year, it looks like the first show is set for May 1st over on the coast but that’ll probably change as more people get in the show season frame of mind. I have lots of time to get ready but I have to get started NOW.

February 27 2004

We went to a local flower and garden show today instead in between working and it’s put me in a gardening-kind of mood (even though we ran into the much-hated MIL from whom I walked away from because I will never have anything to say to that viper).

I planted more berries in our back yard the other day during a brief break in the rainy weather. I was happy to see the nursery I ordered the berries from at the garden show. The berries are evergreen huckleberries, planted in a row to make a nice, green hedge along the back of the square patio that was once going to be a hot tub location but is now my much-hoped-for future outdoor livingroom. We already have several blueberry bushes in that area because they are my favorite fruit and trust me when I say there is nothing like wandering out in your own back yard (on a dry day), in pajamas with a bowl of oatmeal in your hand and pick fresh blueberries to add instantly. Yeah, it’s the little things that excite me.

We also have several other plants that grow berries, but nothing that most anyone has heard of: Winterberry, which taste like Wintergreen mint, Kinikinick, which I’ve never eaten but the Indians used to love them, Cotoneaster, which isn’t really edible although the robins like them in the dead of winter and a ground covering creeper kind of plant which I completely forget the name of right this minute, which the robins also like. We also grow Lingon berries on the side of the house but they were just planted last year and we haven’t seen any berries yet.

Most of this is technically for the wildlife, but the blueberries are mostly mine. With all the other good food we provide for the birds, they pretty much leave my blueberries alone and I don’t think they’ll mess with the huckleberries either. Me and the birds; we’ve got an understanding.

Now, if those hummingbirds would just come to the same understand and stop zipping around our heads during the summer, threatening to stab us with their beaks. We provide a good source of food for them too, with all the Monaria, salvia and assorted other hummingbird-attracting perennials and annuals, but you just can’t reason with a hummingbird.

I’ve been seriously thinking of digging something up to make room for a rugosa rose that creates big, orange rose hips over the winters. I nearly bought one last year, but didn’t want to dig up the white Iceberg rose that I have a love/hate relationship with. I love Iceberg roses because they’re in bloom all summer long well into fall. I hate roses in general because, no matter what I try, I’ve never been able to get away from black spot disease, and I’ve tried them all. It’s just too rainy and wet here to keep any kind of chemical (of which I really hate to use but try anyway) on the plant without it washing off. I keep all the lower leaves picked off to keep the foliage away from the ground. I routinely pick off all infected leaves and I routinely pick up all the dropped leaves, but it does no good. So, I just live with it and enjoy the blooms and try not to look at the spotted foliage.

I know rugosa roses get black spot too. I’d just like to have the additional food in the form of the rose hips for the wildlife to munch on, as well as the orange-y red color throughout the fall and winter, and to have rose hips for our tea. Rose hips are huge in the vitamin C department and I like that.

March 1 2004

Happy March! March means flowers start popping out around here and this year, I am very much looking forward to spring. Today begins March Madness, an online rowing competition that WS is going to participate in. Me, I’ll be ellipticalling and working on gaining more arm and shoulder muscles. We are determined to be in good shape for the summer.

Last Saturday night, we went out with Drill Sergeant Dave’s now ex-wife and yes, she is dating the nice Competition Boy. They were both there for our dinner together. They are very serious and while I don’t have any problem with that whatsoever, I found that it didn’t take too long for my brain to become very, very tired of listening to all the details of both of their breakups. Their stories are pretty different from their ex-spouses and we are thinking that the truth lies somewhere in between. Still, I so hate it when people lie for the sake of making themselves feel better. I can’t help but feel that Drill Sergeant Dave has been much less than truthful to us for quite some time, but then again, that just might be his ex-wife talking. Either way, I REFUSE to be caught in the middle of all this. No doubt, sometime this summer, during car show season, Drill Sergeant Dave, his ex-wife and her new boyfriend, the nice Competition Boy will all show up to the same place and lots of immature shouting and name calling will ensue. And as much as I don’t want to be anywhere around when this happens, and it WILL happen, I also don’t think this should involve or affect me or my desire to show my car. But because they are all my friends, and now seeing how immature they all are, I can’t help but think that it will.

I am also questioning something that Drill Sergeant Dave said he did for me at his last regional car club meeting; That he had a new by-law drawn up to allow anyone not a member of a club to still be able to show their car for season points. I’m questioning now if he used my love of car showing to get me to believe his side of his divorce show.

I am just so tired of talking about breakups and divorces but we’ve promised Drill Sergeant Dave that we’d see him in a couple of weeks. Since he is still hurting (and being hurtful), he’ll probably want to talk about nothing else. I need to find a way to help him move on when in our company. While we are good listeners, we are sometimes too good and this just causes us mental stress afterward.

So, so, so very tired mentally. Tired brain be gone!

Watched the entire Oscars last night for the first time in years. It was good. Best in years.

It was supposed to rain all day today which would have been good. I have a lot of job work to do. Unfortunately, the weather people were wrong again and it is sunny, sunny, sunny. So the work can wait one more day. I REALLY have to get that huge pile of branches cut down to put out in the trash. I think The Dimmers’ rats might have moved into that pile and I just won’t have any of that happening. Besides, it’s the last yard cleanup I have left to do. Might as well just get it done and over with.

I’ve got one coat of polish on my car today and I’ll polish it off later. The madness has officially begun. The first official show is exactly two months away, on May 1st, and not over on the coast, but at the dealership I ordered my car from. I think it’ll be a good show just for that reason.

March 2 2004

A sunny day here and I’m working. I just may have to find a small sliver of time to spend out in the sun before dark. If it were warmer, I’d consider making sun tea (yes, I know I can make sun-less tea but it’s just not the same somehow). WS is working from home today with me which is nice and doesn’t happen often enough.

Company conference call today, reminding me that I want to wash my hands of anything MrSmartButFakingIt touches. Unfortunately, I can’t because technically, he is my boss. But I will say that over the last year, he has easily become just as unstable as MsNoManagementSkills and people working under him are truly frightened for their jobs. At anytime, he’s shown that at times, he’ll just blow up and fire people.

Today, the Company is talking about hiring people. Unfortunately, this means some people will be let go and the official statement is that the people let go will be the outsource company, but we all know that official statements and reality are always vastly different from each other, at least it always has been for this Company.

In MsNoManagementSkills’ world, her boyfriend, with whom she lives with now, has just gone through his tax situation and things look very dire. Past history as shown that when things get stressful, he: A) Takes extra medication so he has an excuse for why things are not dealt with, B) Spends all his money on video games and porn, and C) Ignores his kids even more so than usual. MsNoManagementSkills, while having to do her job every day, now is raising his kids, which is affecting her job and the rest of us. But doesn’t seem to be spending as much on them as she once did. She’s been spending her money on getting their new residence decorated, forcing her boyfriend to spend both time and money on his own kids. And, boy, is he already resenting it. It’s becoming more and more clear that he may have been looking seriously for someone else to take care of his kids, other than his separated-wife, and along came MsNoManagementSkills in an Online Journal comments area. There have also been some references in MsNoManagementSkills’ Online Journal that she might be seeing this as well, but she’s stuck now. I do hope they can work things out, but I guarantee there are some nasty times ahead when they both have to face the IRS and separated spouses.

In the ‘hood, Captain Dan is wandering around in his backyard, making me hope he’s thinking of planting more trees or something. His yard is looking good, if you overlook all the weeds growing up in his big gravel bed surrounding his deck. Glancing out there, down from my office window, I notice a hawk soaring above and grabbing my binoculars, I see it’s a bald eagle! That’s two sighting so far this year and about as many as I ever see in a single year.

March 3 2004

WS ordered the rest of my chrome engine parts yesterday and tomorrow, we’re sending the scratched-up wheels he ordered last week back to the vendor. In just under two months, I should be completely ready for this year’s car show season. I’ve also got two polish coats done. Only a dozen or so left to go. Over the past weekend, I worked on getting as much of the old, fine scratches out of my hood (or bonnet, if you are UK inclined). It’s the hood that will need the most polish attention.

Last Monday, I received emails from some people, asking if I would be showing my car this year. Apparently, and without my knowledge, I’ve become the 800-pound gorilla that everyone is concerned about. Now everyone seems to be sizing up their competition for the coming car show season and amazingly, to me at least, I’m competition! How did this happen?

Sometimes, I have to stand outside of myself and take a hard look at what the hell I’m doing. And often, I think, “I’m not doing this! This is the kind of thing other people do, but not me!” and “Other people have nice things, not me. Other people have show cars and some money in the bank, not me” It just isn’t anything I ever, in a million years, thought I’d be able to do and sometimes, it’s a bit overwhelming.

WS has stuck to his participation in his online rowing challenge, March Madness. Last night, he did a double shift, meaning, instead of 5000 meters, he rowed 10,000 meters. He’s feeling it today but is proud of himself. I’m proud of him too. I can’t wait to see the change in him by month’s end.

I spent twenty minutes straight on the elliptical machine last night, then before bed, I did four sets of twelve squats and reverse leg ups. Tonight, I work my arms and triceps again, along with another twenty minutes on the elliptical. I do feel better and my lungs don’t start wheezing as often as they did previous to working out, but I still don’t see a smidge of weight loss. I’m still redistributing it. Usually when this happens, my legs and arms get thin while my mid-section stays very apple-shaped. I can keep up with working out for about six months but then, since I only see my arms and legs getting thinner, my mid-section remaining large and round and my weight not budging, even with reduced calories, that’s when I give up. If I could only see my hip bones, or some semblance of an ab muscle.

This time, I’ve already planned that things will be different. The elliptical is an ass-kicker. I don’t care if I weight an ounce less but I do care if I’m solid as opposed to squishy and squeezed uncomfortably into my largest pants. And my pants have been feeling pretty good lately.

March 4 2004

After a brief hailstorm this morning, I looked outside my office window (as I do countless times every day because my job is oh, so exciting…not!), I saw the hawk sitting on top of my bird feeder. “I opened the window as loudly as I could and yelled down at him “I SEE YOU!” as if he didn’t already know that. Being only thirty feet away, you’d think he’d fly off. Well, apparently, hawk rules state that if you are a hawk and unless someone walks right up to you, as a hawk you stay exactly where you are as if you have staked a claim on that spot and that spot is your birthright.

Okay, I’m certain that that exact spot IS a hawk’s birthright, generations past at least, but as much as I like hawks, eagles, osprey and all the other big birds we sometimes see around here (although not anywhere near THIS close), I really don’t want to hear one lunching on any other bird who happened to be used to dining on seeds that I’ve been providing for the past four years.

So, I had to physically shoo him away only to have him perch on a neighbor’s tree, then return to our fence twenty minutes later. It was during his perch on a neighbor’s tree that I noticed something else, scurrying around in our backyard and it didn’t have feathers. Today, I’ve officially verified that we have a field mouse living in the boulders surrounding our fountain, something I was fairly certain of since last fall, but positive of now, as it sat there on a boulder and under an overhanging branch of a small bush. It’s no bigger than WS’s thumb, about a third the size of a chickadee for the bird-knowledgeables, and I have named it “Cheese”. No doubt, Cheese isn’t the only one, as the same saying goes for cockroaches: “If ever one you see, you’ve got hundreds more.” I’ve fairly certain we don’t have “hundreds” more, but probably do have a few. I mean, I do have bird seed out there and there is a green space, a huge wild field and a stream just the other street over. Maybe this is who the hawk is looking for.

Shortly after seeing Cheese scurry back to some hole in the rock, a flock of goldfinches, with a bare hint of bright yellow showing, flew in to the feeders, pecked away for a moment, then fluttered off just before the hawk reestablished his perch.

Yes, it’s wildlife day at the Blogeois’ homestead.

Today, I’m waiting for some transportation truck to come pick up these scratched up wheels and take them back to the dealer. Then, we begin the wait to see how long it takes the dealer to refund our money so we can move on with our lives. No new wheels for me this year. But we’ve learned a good lesson in what dealers call “chrome” and how much real chroming ought to cost.

At work today, MsNoManagementSkills isn’t in the greatest of moods. Nothing new there. It was her birthday this week, something she made sure everyone On.The.Planet knew about for the past two weeks, especially her boyfriend, who failed miserably to give her the day she felt she deserved. She didn’t get “the ring” she’s so looking forward to and in fact, got another pair of earrings from him…and she doesn’t like earrings or even wear them. No flowers, no stuffed animals, no balloons and no checks in the mail. And she’s miserable because she’s 29 (“so OLD!!!” she whines). I guess, according to everything she’s ever told me in the past, she’s only got one more year to go before going before the firing squad. As she’s always said, “Everyone over 30 should be shot!” I can’t wait.

March 5 2004

Yesterday evening was job eval time, via conference calls, with MrSmartButFakingIt, the guy who couldn’t tell you whether he put his tidy-whitey underwear on facing front or back any given morning, but supposedly knows how well or poorly WS and I are doing our jobs remotely.

But, according to him, we’re both doing good. Okay, so I had to fight long and hard to get one of my “average” metric points raised up one point because of a previous major project that FatHead deliberately made fail in a bid to make himself look better before being fired, and that I took over completely and made work wonderfully and that somehow, MrSmartButFakingIt totally forgot about, even though he works in that project every single day.

So, I spent the rest of the evening with my stomach in knots because I was both happy and irritated that I had to fight so hard to point out my improvements from the previous year (and seeing that no one is paying any attention to what I’m doing yet again), it was no wonder that I didn’t feel like working today. I already was sitting at 39 hours for the week and because I don’t get overtime, I just farted around until I had forty-something hours in and called it a day.

And because WS wasn’t feeling well, but well enough to run around town with me to get Thai food for lunch and groceries for the rest of the week, he didn’t even go into work at his REAL job today. But, it’s okay. He’s well liked there and has something like a month of vacation time floating around somewhere. I could only wish to ever have that much time built up. AND to be able to take it.

No sign of the mouse I named Cheese, or the hawk today even though the weather was exactly the same as yesterday when I saw them both. Rain, harder rain, dark, dark, dark storm clouds mixed with tad bits of sunshine. Welcome to spring in the Pacific Northwest.. My daylilies have poked up about six inches above the ground in the past week and I’ve got buds showing a bit of color on the early daffodils. The crocus are in full bloom and my Iceberg rose is showing new growth. Cap’t Dan’s trees are budding out too, but all my six-to-ten foot maples still look dead. It’s usually May before they look like they have any life in them. Early rhododendrons ought to be showing color by the end of the month, making me think about buying more, even though I don’t have a pinch of space for anything else. A month from now, WS will be looking for his tomato plants of choice this year (I think he’s going for Roma tomatoes this year) and basil plants. I still need to order a couple of tree roses that I’ve been putting off and later this month, we’ll be getting patio furniture for the first time ever! Yeah, it’s exciting to me. I’ve never actually owned a real sun umbrella before.

March 8 2004

The weekend completely and totally got away from me…but only because we accomplished so much. Spring cleaning, yard cleanup, cabinet organizing, grocery shopping, car polishing and online ordering of most of those things I’d been patiently waiting for the right time to purchase. Bill paying, laundry, office cleanup and library shelf organizing. Bathroom cleaning, filling bird feeders, replacing plants that didn’t make it over the winter and then falling into bed early both nights out of sheer exhaustion.

Today is filled with more of the same, except I’m getting my car windows tinted and there’s that whole job thing so I’ll be working half my work day this morning and putting in the rest this evening. Or maybe I’ll just work an extra long day tomorrow. Either way, I’ll get in my forty hours by next Saturday. Today is probably the nicest day outside we’ve had since sometime last fall. Sunny, clear and temps in the high 60’s.

After I get back from the window tinter, I need to find some place local that can paint up a plexi-glass car show sign. I’ve never had a car sign, but noticed a ton of them last show season and not surprising, most of the cars that did have signs painted up, won their car show classes. So, this year, I’m ready for one. The sign painting place I called last week never returned my call which is unfortunate because they were the only one listed in the phone book that had an ad advertising exactly everything I needed. And they were located close by. The hunt continues.

Other than all the yard work I did, I didn’t exercise one iota over the weekend and I feel terrible about it. In fact, my pants are tight today because of it. Eventually, I’ll get it into my head that no exercise equals clothes not fitting. I refuse to simply go out and buy bigger clothes when I outgrow my current Extra Large size like MsNoManagementSkills constantly does. I hate buying clothes anyway, probably because nothing off the rack has ever fit me. At least not since I hit puberty. I’d really rather spend money on other things. Just give me my 501 levis, a black tank top and my DC shoes. Oh, and to be in shape so I don’t look like a chocolate-glazed donut crammed into a straw wrapper.

March 9 2004

Have you ever had one of those instances where you get the distinct feeling that what you are saying is not being believed? Yesterday, at the window tinting place, I got that feeling. True, it was from a couple of high school aged kids working there and I’m here to say that high schools do NOT know everything, regardless of what they think or say.

So, I was explaining, for the fourth time to the window tinters, firmly but politely, that absolutely, under no circumstances, could they drip soapy water down the leather interior door panel because it would damage and spot the leather and I was saying “This is a show car and soapy water will streak and damage the leather and I won’t be able to show the car any longer” all the while the kids were nodding their heads in that bobbly-headed dashboard dog way saying “sure, sure, sure” and taking only mild precautions to not damage the door panels. I’m not sure if I imagined the rolling of their eyes as I was talking to them but I’m sure it happened after I left. During the tinting, one of the kids was good about not doing anything damaging inside the car and out, and the other kid, while not damaging the interior, allowed soapy water to run all over the outside door paint, which promptly stripped all the polish off in nice running drips from one end of the door to the other. He “justified” this by saying he couldn’t wipe the door down because he didn’t want to scratch the paint. He didn’t have an answer to why the other kid didn’t have a problem with dripping soapy water all over. Obviously, the two had different window tinting styles.

Okay, I’d rather strip the entire door of all polish and start over rather than have a scratched up door. But still. I am constantly dismayed by people just not listening to me when I talk. Either it’s that, or customer service just does not exist anymore in this country. Both irritate me to no end. It’s not like I don’t go out of my way to find good, solid, reputable places to work on my car, my house and/or my things. And it’s not like I’m paying the bottom dollar either. But maybe I should because it has been YEARS since I have truly gotten what I paid for on anything.

In fact, the last time I got what I paid for, you could say I got more than what I paid for. That was surrounding the building of our house, of which construction began five years ago this month. We are still ecstatic over the place. I miss that feeling.

After being promised a flood’s worth of rain today, the rainless clouds have parted for the rest of the week here. Frogs have moved back into our fountain and are croaking 24/7. We’ve had a pre-visit of the swifts that frequent our area in the early mornings and evenings, and just in time, we put up a swift house in hopes that someone will move in. Next door, SportsOrNothing always gets a swift couple to move into their lone birdhouse mounted on our shared fence, but then the SportsOrNothing family takes up noisy, baseball and football-throwing and teenage partying residence out there just about the time when the nested eggs should hatch and end up permanently scaring away the parents. To date, no swift-lettes have ever hatched over there and I hope to change that with our dedicated swift house and our quiet lifestyle.

21 minutes on the elliptical last night
20 minutes total weight workout on arms

March 10 2004

Have you noticed lately that there is a pill for every thing. The latest I’ve notice is a pill for fatigue. Hello? That’s what caffeine is for. Why do I have to pay a pharmaceutical company for this? Why do I have to fear additionally for my heart, liver and kidneys if I take this drug when I can just drink a cup or more of strong tea every day? This is just silly, people, but I have no doubt that hoards of people are lining up to get this drug pronto.

Of course, on the T.V. ads, they show professional-business type looking people (in suits, white shirts, pocket protectors and ties) and women with screaming, demanding young children. Don’t’ even get my started on the stress over children thing, because I will go on and on for days on just this topic alone.

The other day, one of MsNoManagementSkills’ loyal readers of her Online Journal complained in a comment how she was just so freaked out about taking a trip out of town, a trip she had planned herself, and MsNoManagementSkills’ boyfriend jumped in on the conversation and suggested immediate and heavy medication. When the reader replied that she was already on heavy medication, his response was to seriously up the dose.

This is an ongoing streak with him as is many people nowadays. If something doesn’t “feel” right, take medication. If it still doesn’t “feel” right, up the dose. One has to ask sooner or later, if someone is taking medication, what exactly does right “feel” like? Drugged? Not drugged? There is no “normal” or right “feeling” if you are taking medication to alter something, and this guy ought to know better. Especially since both he and MsNoManagementSkills have admitted to sharing their medication and choosing to medicate, over-medicate at rowdy times, his kids. What are those kids learning? Not what right “feels” like, I can tell you that. These kids will support pharmaceutical companies for the rest of their lives. Does no one else see anything wrong with this?

Maybe we all have to wait until those kids grow up and figure out how to deal with the fall-out then.

22 minutes on the elliptical beast
15 minutes HARD workout on my chest muscles. God, but am I sore there today.

March 11 2004

Yesterday, I had planned on working a split day: Four hours in the morning and the remaining four in the evening, freeing up the afternoon to just myself and things I wanted to do, which consists of absolutely NOTHING but that’s not the point. But at 11:48 am, MrSmartButFakingIt popped into chat and asked if I would walk another Company employee through a document that I was familiar with. He said he was swamped. He said that employee would call me momentarily. He didn’t reply to anything I had to say about it.

So, I waited momentarily, which turned into an eternity. Finally, after an hour, I sent the employee an email, following up with MrSmartButFakingIt’s chat just to let them know, diplomatically, that I was here, waiting, to help them through the document. Nearly immediately, I got back a reply from the employee, saying they would call me in a few minutes…

…which turned into another eternity. Hours later, I was still waiting for the call. But at least I was smart enough to stay online working, meaning I will be off at 7 pm, instead of going back to work at 7 pm. Maybe tomorrow, I’ll split up my day. It’s still supposed to be nice outside tomorrow.

Finally, a little after 7 pm, I logged out of work. I never did get that call and never did walk that employee through the document. Today, I will split up my day regardless of what happens. I’ve got a Company meeting conference call this morning, which will break up the morning hours and this evening, when I log back in, both MrSmartButFakingIt and MsNoManagementSkills ought not to be around, leaving me to actually get some real work done without them watching my every keystroke.

So, this afternoon, while I’m sitting around not working, no doubt I’ll be listening to The Dimmers kids, aged 4 and 6, scream in their backyard dump like they did all day yesterday. Last year, the Dim-lettes’ backyard game of choice was hitting each other hard in the face with a plastic baseball bat. This year, it looks like the bat has been replaced with a dodge ball-sized ball. Here’s the routine: One Dim-lette climbs the slide ladder, slides down the slide and the Dim-lette at the base of the slide then throws the ball at the face of the slider. Then, they switch places. Hilarity ensues!

I suppose I could find something to do other than to sit here and listen to them.

March 12 2004

There is nothing quite like a Company conference call when it’s all about finances and that impact on my department and then the number to call into the conference is changed at the very last minute, making us remote employees scramble and miss the very beginning. Then, the main CEO of The Company, who never speaks clearly anyway, decided to mumble worse whenever talking directly about hiring and lay offs and sales being down, etc, making a listener wonder what future plans The Company may be hiding.

So, I asked MsNoManagementSkills in Company chat if she was able to hear clearly enough to what was being said, knowing that she was listening in too. Pissily, she shot back her reply:

“I CAN HEAR JUST FINE!”

Okay then. She’s still pissed off at her boyfriend for basically ignoring her birthday last week so I wasn’t too surprised at her mood. Okay, fine, whatever, chill. I’m out of there after the call anyway.

During The Company financial conference call yesterday, both the main CEO and his significant other, who cackles not to unlike a hen, literally, tried to smooth over questions peppered at them by Ego, the coworker who’s only job, that we are convinced of, is asking pointless and time-wasting questions to make themselves look “intelligent” and bring attention to themselves. Lots of laughter and inside jokes made the entire call confusing and morale lowering to anyone not in their apparent little clique’. MrSmartButFakingIt was also there, mumbling in his own way and making the whole meeting even more un-understandable.

But just as The Company conference call started, I received an urgent email from the employee that I was supposed to help Wednesday (but they never called me like they said they would. Twice.) asking if I would be available to help at 1 pm. Grrrr….I had already decided to split up my day today after not being able to do it Wednesday. Okay, fine, whatever, chill. I already had to sit through the grueling Company financial call, what’s sitting around for another hour helping a coworker out? Besides, I’ll look like a team player then, right? If only things like this were noticed. They just aren’t in this Company. Everyone is so busy hoarding territory and building empires, people like me, who hate this corporate kind of crap, get swept to the gutter.

Then, within minutes of agreeing to stick around and help out, I learned that MsNoManagementSkills decided to go out shopping and split up her day. Double grrrrrr….. Okay, fine, whatever, chill. Who wants to split up a workday, go out and maybe run around town, only to maybe run into her? I mean, I don’t live in that big of a town and it’s more likely to happen than not. Besides, if I stuck around work until 3 pm, I could just call it a day and not have to work later in the evening.

So, that’s what I planned to do. And because I stuck around all week long, waiting for this or that, all of which never happened, today, Friday, I don’t really have to do anything at all! My forty hours are nearly in, my work is as caught up as it’s ever going to be given that I still don’t have the stuff MrSmartButFakingIt was supposed to give me weeks ago and the weather is still dry outside. It could be a good day not to work, but still get paid for it.
Oh, and did I mention that The Company is taking everyone at Company headquarters on a weekend ski trip today? Yeah, nothing that we remote employees get to take part in and it means that after 12 noon, no one at Company headquarters will be there working. So, what’s it to them if I’m not working here?

Nothing planned for tonight or the weekend. Sleep, maybe. Yeah, sleep.

25 minutes on the elliptical beast
10 minutes leg workout included the dreaded squats

March 13 2004

It’s not a rut, it’s a routine! Nothing real exciting about the weekend. We’ll both be working Sunday on job stuff, which ought to make my next week work week easy, short and sweet.

Today, I tried on and actually wore (for an hour) a t-shirt I bought back in 1986. A bit snug in the chest and shoulders area, but definitely wearable when I get a bit more buff. Face it, I’m definitely not as slim as I was back in ’86, when I was a good 25 pounds lighter, but I’ll get there. Of this, I am convinced. I worked out both last night and tonight and although I had a big lunch today at Olive Garden, (two years since the last time we went there), I can feel my metabolism working better than it has in years and that’s helping to burn off those noodles and breadsticks. And no, I didn’t have dessert. Why bother? I have Atkins’ low carb ice cream bars at home!

So, we went shopping at Pier 1 because….well, just because I wanted to and we finally got over to Northwest Fitness and picked up a couple of 15 pound dumbbells that I had only wanted for the last two years. And the guy there remembered us when we came in and bought the rowing machine we have so he gave us a discount on my dumbbells. Stuff like that never happens to us. Too cool. While we were there, WS decided he wanted one of those huge, blow-up exercise balls to work out with and boy, is that fun. And odd at the same time. All I want to do is sit on it or lay on it to stretch out my back but apparently, that’s not what you’re supposed to use it for. There’s a video that goes with it but I could care less. Just let me stretch and get my back kinks out and everything will be a-okay.

On the way home, we stopped at some music place and picked up Shindler’s List on DVD because I had been wanting it and the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy CD so I could rip tunes off it for the elliptical CD I swear I’m going to get around to burning someday.

After getting home, we didn’t do much of anything. Watched “Finding Nemo” for the third time just because and then, I got in 15 minutes on the elliptical before typing this up and going to bed. To sleep on new, clean sheets. Ah…

March 15 2004

A morning without coffee is like something without something else.

It’s Monday, a blah kind of day. Hazy skies, nothing going on at work at least until MrSmartButFakingIt figures out how to do something that I need to be able to start on a new project. In the meantime, I should be doing laundry, cleaning out closets and working on my car. But, as is apparent by my post here, I’m not doing anything.

Okay, that’s not entirely true. I am watching work from online, and watching local TV news. Earlier, I fed the pets, helped make our bed and got WS off to work. Then, I took a jug of peach sun tea out of the fridge and poured myself a tall glass.

Yep, it’s a tough life around here today.

But that’s only because late yesterday afternoon, we scurried frantically around here for an hour vacuuming, dusting, straightening up the place before the nice Competition Boy and Drill Sergeant Dave’s ex-wife stopped by to drop off a car part that, frankly, I had given up on ever getting back. Since they knew we had painted our bedroom recently, they wanted to see how it turned out so that meant the house had to be cleaned at least from the front door to the back upstairs bedroom and everything in between. Luckily, WS had just vacuumed a day or so ago so we weren’t completely buried in pet fur.

Spring break is coming up soon It’s been fairly quiet around here during spring break over the last couple of years and I don’t expect this year to be any different. However, for MsNoManagementSkills, this will be the first year ever that she hasn’t taken off to Cabo or Vegas or parts unknown for a week or more of heavy drinking and wallowing in the sun. Since moving in with her poorer-than-dirt boyfriend with three overly demanding kids and an unforgiving separated wife, I’m already planning for her to be more irritable than usual in the coming weeks. She’s still pissed off that she didn’t get half the planet for her birthday (gee, her boyfriend’s wife has only posted for the past four years over on HER public Online Journal that he never remembered birthdays, anniversaries or holidays, what makes MsNoManagementSkills think she can change that overnight?) and things didn’t get any better when her boyfriend posted some odor-ific issues she had after eating his cooking over the weekend in HIS

Online Journal for all the world to read. But you’d understand if you knew that having gas and conjuring up farts in public places is all the rage with this guy, who gets off by leaving his scent everywhere he goes. It’s like this 30-something guy is still 14 years old or something.

March 16 2004

Isn’t Disney World a people trap operated by a mouse?

We got our very first all yellow goldfinch this morning. I figure we’re about a month behind Mary Lou over at Life After NEXCOM. Hopefully, she’ll send some hummingbirds our way. We’ve got a pet that’s been parked in front of the glass door waiting, waiting, waiting for his first “Buzz” sighting of the year. It looks like we’ve got a couple more swifts finally. A month from now, they’ll be buzzing WS out in the back yard. Swifts seem to really like WS for some reason.

A horribly painful department call run completely by MsNoManagementSkills this morning made me really want to scream “STOP ENDING ALL YOUR SENTENCES WITH AN UPLIFT!!!!!!” So annoying. So pre-PMS I might be.
I ordered the rest of the car parts I wanted for this year and may be done with all that. Sure, there were other things I wanted to make my car stand out from the rest, but I just can’t justify the cost right now, so I won’t. I did give my car it’s first detailed wash of the year yesterday evening and took note of some areas I’ll need to spend some time cleaning and polishing before the first car show of the season on May 1st. Nothing major though. I have gobs of time.

Dinner last night was a cedar plank grilled king salmon fillet. A whole one. We drove the neighbors insane, no doubt, with the smell of cedar and salmon grilling and then, we promptly ate nearly the entire thing ourselves along with a bottle of Chardonnay. It’s no wonder I only had the energy to get ten minutes in on the elliptical before collapsing into bed. That’ll change today. Here it is Tuesday already and that means I’ve got four straight days of elliptical workouts to get through at 25 minutes or more per session. Good thing I’ve started compiling some tunes to work out to:

KC & the Sunshine Band’s “Get Down Tonight” followed by Motley Crue’s “Wild Side”, Robbie Williams’ “Rock DJ” followed by some other dance-y kind of upbeat stuff that is equally as odd but speaks to me somehow.

Last night, when WS was setting up the grill for our salmon, he mentioned he saw Cheese, the field mouse I saw last week. I didn’t really believe him too much though. I mean, big guys generally don’t notice small things like a single teeny mouse running around a boulder-strewn fountain in the dark. But apparently he did see Cheese. Tonight, I watched Cheese for nearly a half an hour, scurrying around gathering twigs and dead leaves. You know what that means. Nest building. I don’t think this is a good idea but technically and at this point, it’s no different than the voles and moles that live throughout our development, and we did build our fountain in order to attract wildlife that had been wiped from the area when construction was going on. Should we limit exactly what kind of wildlife we want? A mouse outside across the yard from our house filled with sharp-clawed pets isn’t exactly like having bears living out there, although there is that whole rodent Hanta-virus thing to potentially worry about. I just don’t know.

March 18 2004

An optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it’s true.

Okay, so I lost a day yesterday. I was so incredibly tired all day and no amount of caffeine helped. I was yawning all day long, including the first five minutes I spent on the elliptical machine. But of course, when I ended my work day an hour early to go take a short nap, the caffeine prevented me from being able to sleep.

I know what’s going on. This is my period week but it won’t happen because I’m exercising so hard. My body has always done this, regardless of what size or weight I am and until my body gets used to the routine and the level of exercising I’m doing, it rebels by shutting down Aunt Flo’s visit for a few weeks or a month.

Usually, I give in and stop working out and instantly, and I do mean instantly, gain back all the fat and pounds I previously lost. Well, this time, I’m not stopping. Things will get back on track. Right now, it’s just a battle of wills and a battle I can win.
I haven’t seen Cheese, the field mouse living just outside, since early yesterday morning. I’m such a structured routine slut: Get up, brush teeth, stumble downstairs, stand in front of the window, take note of birds visiting and bird seed levels and see Cheese scurrying around. Can you tell I’m already becoming obsessed with Cheese? Yeah, I’ve always been obsessed with Cheese one way or the other.

More car parts arrived yesterday and today, our tree roses were delivered. As for the tree roses, this means it’s time to go get numerous bags of potting soil and get things potted up, which will vastly improve the looks of our backyard.
As for the car parts, I’ve gotten half of them installed already as well as polish coat number 4 under my belt. Early this morning, I put coat number 4, the Z2 stuff, on and will take it off this evening. Tomorrow will just be more of the same as will every day through the weekend. My goal is to have all the polish coats on by the end of the month. That’ll mean a solid dozen coats of Z5 and Z2 polish will be on the car and it will be so shiny in the sun, it’ll be hard to look at, and that’s the look at grabs the car show judges by the……EYE balls.

Looks like we’ll be having dinner Saturday night with Drill Sergeant Dave and that’s when I need to determine if he still wants to put my new, fancy car brakes on or not. Otherwise, we’ll just have a nice dinner together and get caught up on the soap opera that used to be the car club I used to belong to, and I’ll call one of the competition car shops I know of and set up an appointment through them to get the brakes installed, just to get it done with.

A week ago, I finally found a local woman to paint up a car show sign for myself and for the upcoming show season. Really nice lady known far and wide for painting up signs. It seems everyone uses her and she came recommended. I talked to her on the phone and then followed up with an email containing all the information I wanted on the sign. Monday morning, I called her back because I hadn’t heard anything and wanted to make sure she got my email. No problem, she said and said that she was just then working on the layout and that she’d send me an email either later that day or Tuesday.

That was this past Tuesday and I still haven’t heard a peep. I’ll give her until next Tuesday to get back to me. I hate it when people do this. Of course, I should have found and called her back in October, instead of waiting until March.
And finally, Survivor note: I am so, so very tired of hearing “Bawstin” Rob. Every time that guy opens his maw, I cringe.

Tuesday workout:
28 minutes on the elliptical, 30 minutes chest and legs workout

Wednesday workout:
22 minutes on the elliptical

March 19 2004

There used to be one branch of the military that had a TV commercial that stated “We do more by 9 a.m. than most people do all day.” Well, not around our house today. Those military people would have been scrambling to keep up with me this morning.

I don’t know what got into me. Maybe it’s because I didn’t work out last night. Maybe it was that I got a bit more sleep than the nights before, even though I didn’t feel like it. Maybe it was because I had previously decided to start work late today. Whatever it was, my usual grumbling while getting out of bed stopped as soon as I got downstairs. First, I put polish coat #6 on my car. Then I pulled my new brakes out of the boxes and painted the drilled holes and slots to prevent future rust after I get them installed next week. Then, I went to work Dremelling down the brake rotor edges which looked chewed up a bit and then repainted those edges. After all that, it was probably the paint fumes that kept me going for the rest of the day.

Next up was to tackle the tree roses I got in the mail yesterday and get their roots soaking in a bucket of water. But first, I had to clean out the bucket which was still holding the leftover cedar plank from our grilled salmon last week. Then, because I had made a complete mess of the kitchen where I was doing all this brake stuff (yeah, I know. What was I thinking?) I absolutely had to vacuum. But the problem was, our central vacuum needed the bag changed. Not anyone’s favorite job because of all the stuff we pile on and around the vacuum canister. So, I pulled all the plastic containers, plastic garbage bags and Rubbermaid containers away from the vacuum and changed the bag.

Then, because I had promised to clean out our pet room’s closet and haul one of our packed away fake christmas trees down to the garage, I had to tackle that job before finishing the garage because the Rubbermaid container the tree was in needed to go on the very bottom of the pile.

So, I got that closet cleaned out, drug the container downstairs and out into the garage and reassembled our pile of stuff, even so all seven of our bottled water containers actually fit now without having to step over them just to get out the door.

Then, and only then, was I finally able to vacuum the kitchen where I had made all that brake mess…and tracked it all over the rest of the house. And let’s not forget the mess I made getting those tree roses out of their box and out to the bucket in the garage.

To top it all off, I put a new bottle of water in the dispenser and started laundry and then, only then, did I finally log into work. Just before coming up the office, I looked outside to see if Cheese, the mouse, was out and there he was, sitting there looking so small and cute and just a few feet away, sat our first hummingbird of the season at our feeder. Thank you, Mary Lou, for sending one our way!

March 23 2004

It’s amazing where a few days go when you aren’t looking. After a very productive work day on Friday, by Saturday I had decided that I really hated my job and so when Sunday evening came around, I decided to take Monday off. No reason. Just because. To be honest with you, I can not remember the last time I ever did that and it was heavenly.

Of course, having a major case of the poops helped that decision and kept me in bed most of the day, but still, it was heavenly. I finally felt like I was taking care of myself for myself. I only wish I had the balls to do it again today. But I didn’t so here I am, at 8 p.m. still working and I will be until midnight I’m sure. In fact, I’m already trying to figure out if I should try to make up the time I took off yesterday.

Why can’t I just relax and take a day off occasionally without trying to make it up later? Why do I care so much about a job that doesn’t love me back? A job that has ruined my eyesight, my posture, given me a flabby body and carpel tunnel?

Here’s a tip: It’s not my job. It’s me.

In other not-quite-so-confusing news: Cheese, the field mouse outside, has a friend. A mouse-mate, possibly. This mouse-mate is a bit smaller, darker in color and will sit out on their favorite rock and eat bird seed in plain view. In fact, it almost looks like this mouse actually wants to be noticed. And it’s not just being noticed. It’s being noticed while eating, eating, eating a lot of bird seed, making quite the little pig of itself. So I have named this field mouse as well. This one’s name is now Ham.

Ham and Cheese. Our field mice that will probably give birth to thousands of mice who will all eventually take over our yard.

Unless, the hawk comes back. Maybe having the hawk around wasn’t so bad?

March 24 2004

Had pizza last night for dinner for the first time in well over a month. BAD idea. We both felt like crap afterward. We’re close to eliminating pizza from our diet. Yesterday, for lunch, we had Thai food. WS ate a huge pile of white rice with his red curry chicken and shortly afterward, he nearly fell into a coma. White rice is on the chopping block too.

We working on trying to figure out what we eat that makes us feel good and bad. Last Friday, we both had so much energy, it was downright scary. Yet by Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, I felt exhausted the very minute I got up in the morning. I’m sleeping like the dead so it’s not insomnia. I just think it’s what I’m eating. We’re starting up our food intake log again to see what might be affecting our energy levels.

I haven’t touched the elliptical beast since Thursday, but I will today. Already, I’ve rowed four whole minutes on the rower and plan on getting in between two and five minutes every two hours today just to boost my metabulism again. Apparently, my habit of waiting until just before bedtime to workout isn’t working out well. Since last Friday, I’ve not paid too much attention to the time and find myself debating at 9 p.m. if I want to work out or not. Since I’ve been waking up so tired every morning, I think you can guess my decision on working out after 9 p.m. I just don’t. My big problem is that working out makes me want to sleep, so I’m going to workout for short periods of time, five minutes at a time, multiple times during the day, and hope that doesn’t exhaust me too much. I think I’ll be fine. But I just need to make sure I do it. I’m not giving up.

After a ten-day spell of nice, dry, sunny weather, it rained briefly last night here. Looking out the office window and across the valley to the hills, there is another storm coming in and I can hear thunder in the distance. We really, really needed the rain. Things were really drying out around here and I was nearly at the point of having WS turn on the sprinkler system. It’s supposed to rain for the rest of the week, but our local weather people are already saying the rain will be spotty at best. Looks like the field mice, Ham and Cheese, won’t be washed out of their homes this week, but it might keep The Dimmer’s screaming children next door a bit quieter and give my ears a rest.

Last week, Mr. Dimmer was talking to a neighbor close by while I was out working in the side front yard and although I was purposely not trying to listen to what was being said, I did distinctly hear the word “bankruptcy” a couple of times come from Mr. Dimmer’s mouth. As far as we can tell, he still hasn’t gotten a job since quitting his last one back last September or October, then decided to sue his ex-employer. I notice that he’s finally fixed part of his fence that had fallen down last year but has left all those thousands of kid toys and dog-chewed up garbage lying all over his backyard in direct view of his neighbors. Personally, I’m waiting for the “House For Sale” sign to go up in his overgrown front yard and it couldn’t happen a minute too soon for me. I’m still waiting for rats to show up in our yard because of all that garbage.

March 25 2004

Another rainy day and I couldn’t be happier. The rain seems to have brought a small flock of white crowned sparrows to visit along with a couple more hummingbirds, who are helping to pollinate our new huckleberry plants. This means we’ll have berries this summer. Another reason to be happy.

If you’ve noticed, there are a lot of low-carb breads starting to hit the market, trying to capture some of those low-carb craze dollars. And so we tried one and here is all you ever need to know about low-carb bread: The good thing about low-carb bread is that with enough mayo/mustard slathered on it, you’ll hardly notice that what you’re eating tastes like socks.

I finally got my new fancy brakes installed on my car and they look pretty with all the drilled holes and slots for “additional cooling” just like race cars have. It’s these kinds of things that make car show judges drool. Unfortunately, I’m about the last person in this area to get this kind of brakes so I don’t expect any actual drooling on my car, but I’m happy. Last night, I washed my car and today, I’ve already put polish coat #7 on the paint, polish coat #1 on my wheels, vacuumed out the interior and installed new floor mats with new plastic floor mat protectors this time. No more crusty crap from shoes ruining the mats and making them nearly impossible to clean and look nice.

This afternoon, I’m nearly caught up with all the projects I’m involved with at work so I can pretty much take it easy for the rest of the day. It didn’t hurt that MsNoManagementSkills took off for parts unknown this morning instead of working, probably because she “forgot” to log out of work at the end of the other day and racked up a “24-hour” workday. Yeah, right. I smell another one of her “I’m taking off and going shopping!” kinds of days when she really should be working instead of dumping her work load on the rest of us. But it’s the exact same kind of thing she learned from FatHead and BikerDude, back when they used to work for The Company and pulled this kind of crap all.the.time.

12 minutes on the elliptical machine, 6 minutes on the rower yesterday. Yeah, I know. It’s pathetic.

March 26 2004

Yeah, I know it’s Friday but I’ve got something to say. It’s better to burn out than fade away.

No, wait. That wasn’t what I really wanted to say. I have a gripe (just one?) and it’s been bugging my all week. I’m finally ready to get it out and let it go because, well, that’s just what I do around here.

Last Saturday night, we went out to dinner with Drill Sergeant Dave, who looks fabulous with his 30+ pound weight loss. So far, he’s really taken his whole Diabetes type 2 diagnosis quite seriously and bravo to him for that.

What really got to me was his second version of how his recent divorce went. In fact, it got to me so much, I found myself just wanting to get through the long evening and get away from him. I know how much of an ego hound he is and hearing about how he was certain just because of a feeling he had, that his now ex-wife started an affair with the nice Competition Boy back last March just pissed me off. I know that he thinks this because he is hurt and doesn’t want to hear that the divorce was mostly his own fault. It was. Everyone could see that just as much as everyone could see that the ex-Mrs. Drill Sergeant Dave did not start any affair back in March or anytime I believe, until after she left him.

I so hate it when people slam others just to make themselves look like the victim. That night, I lost some respect for Drill Sergeant Dave and my feelings on this weighed heavily on my mind. So much so that I stopped working out last week, not so much because I was feeling bloated, poopy and blamed my lack of energy. I really did have a lack of energy but I think it was brought on by feeling that I didn’t want to do anything Drill Sergeant Dave was doing and that was working out hard just like him. He was my inspiration and I had figured up until last Saturday night, if that fat man could take that much control of his life, well, I could too.

Then, he made up another version of his divorce, obviously forgetting that he already told us a completely different variation just a month ago, when he told us a version that was reasonably close to the one that ex-Mrs. Drill Sergeant Dave and the nice Competition Boy told us two weeks later.

But, I can’t let his need to make himself feel better at the expense of anyone else affect my goal of improving my health. So, when I came to this conclusion today of the REAL reason why I didn’t work out this week, I was ashamed of myself for counting on anyone else to motivate me. I can motivate myself and vow to work harder on this in the future.

Poop on you, Drill Sergeant Dave.

March 28 2004

We were down-right workin’ fools over the weekend and darn proud of it, as exhausted as we both feel.

Saturday, we finally, FINALLY ordered our patio furniture from Lowe’s and it’ll be delivered in a couple of days. Unfortunately, we’ll have to assemble it all and because of our jobs, it’ll take a few days to get it all together and set up. But that’s okay. It’s supposed to rain anyway and then, be nice the rest of the week, just in time to enjoy the furniture.

When we got home from Lowe’s, WS’s wine steward called from the place we get most of our wine and said she had found six bottles of one of the most highest rated Rieslings ever created, the EXACT vintage WS has dreamed of for years, and that she wanted to know if WS wanted any of them, at a mere $170 a bottle, before she put them out for sale to someone else at a slighter higher price. One guess at what WS said, after a quick check of our financial order and Wine Spectator online to verify that these bottles were indeed, the correct vintage and the high rating, of course. So, now, we’re the proud owners of five 375 mil bottles of Single Berry Select Columbia Valley Eroica Riesling from Dr. Loosen and Chateau Str. Michelle, rated at 98 points out of a possible 100, and with only 100 cases made. Our wine steward bought the sixth bottle. We’ve stashed all but one of them in our wine closet for the next five years, when we’ll decide to either drink another or see what the going rate then will be. These kinds of wine often go way, way, way up in value the longer they are held, and sometimes go for upwards of $500 a bottle when rated this high. Since these bring our wine collection to somewhere in the neighborhood of 125 bottles of assorted kinds, it won’t be any problem forgetting about these.

What was fun was to hear WS practically tittering in excitement like a young school girl after we bought them. He was pretty cute over the whole thing.

Sunday, we got up early and I started working on my car and WS started working on scrubbing down the outside back of our house. We have white vinyl siding and over the past four years, it has become very much less-than-white with algae, mildew and dirt accumulations especially on the back north and east facing sides. Don’t ask me why we chose white colored siding. Oh, wait. Yes, I do remember. It was because we wanted light brown but we couldn’t have it because our next door neighbors picked it first when their house was being built and the home developers wouldn’t allow two houses next to each other with the same color siding. So, the other choices were white, blue (and not a pretty blue either) mauve or yellow. I don’t think they had a gray at that time which would have been best probably. So, being as we are always suckers for punishment, we chose white and apparently, every four years, we’re going to have to clean it to keep it that way.

But what a difference! Like day and night. Or more accurately, gray and white. Amazing! It looks like it is brand new. Who knew that Simple Green, a 22-foot pole with a scrub brush end and a big guy still reeling from his wine purchase high could works such wonders!

During all this, I polished my car’s exhaust, installed my new chrome engine pieces and mirror acrylic piece that the nice Competition Boy finally remembered to give back to me and wiped the car down. Tonight, I’ll put polish coat #9 on the body and engine parts and polish coat #2 on the wheels. Only three more polish coats to go and I’ll be ready for this coming Saturday’s spring show down in Oregon. Then, it’s nearly a month before the first official show of the season. In that time, I’ll easily be able to get a few more polish coats on and be ready to go for the rest of the summer. I’m so glad I stuck it out in getting my car ready early on and not waiting until the last minute. Then, I had to take a serious whacking at a few trees in back that thought they would take over part of our patio, part that some of our patio furniture is slated for. Can’t have that. And finally, after all that, we finally ate something for the first time today. Toasted sock-tasting low carb bread sandwiches (with liverwurst, havarti cheese, mesquite-roasted chicken breast and lots of mayo).

Well, it’s almost 8 p.m. here. I just watched the space station fly overhead and counted all the planets we can see tonight (five total) and now, it’s elliptical machine time, then a shower and a well deserved collapse into bed. It’s trash day tomorrow and naturally, it’s really, really windy outside right now and probably will be windy again tomorrow. We have to put our trash cans out, but the recycle bins can wait until morning, when they will probably just blow down the street with everyone else’s, whose all are probably down there already by now.

March 29 2004

I am not at all happy today.

First, it was extremely windy all last night and still is even now. We were idiots by hanging out wind chimes a few weeks ago and they drove us completely batty all night long. Of course, we were both too exhausted from working all weekend long to get up, get dressed and go outside to take them down, so we sleep very poorly. The neighbors probably hate our guts as well for all the noise. I hate looking like an idiot and by not getting up to take those things down, that’s what I feel like. I guess I kept thinking the wind would stop any minute. Ha! Again, I’m an idiot.

As you’ve heard me mention before, The Dimmers next door have stopped putting any garbage out. This means no recycle bins are going out either. Where is all their trash going then? Who knows? But this morning, I witnessed firsthand, Ms. Dimmer, in her pajamas, looking through our trash for our recycle bins which weren’t out there (we didn’t have anything to recycle this week) and then walk over to SportsOrNothing’s recycle bins and dump a bunch of milk jugs in them. WTF?? So, they aren’t paying for trash or recycle pick up, so they are dumping their shit in someone else’s trash for pickup? Again, WTF?? I’ve wondered why there was a milk jug or two in our recycle bins occasionally when WE DON’T EVEN DRINK MILK. I just figured a jug was flying down the street in the usual trash day wind and someone grabbed it and put it in the nearest bin. There has GOT to be a law against someone doing this.

Next up, the Monday morning Company conference call that was completely and totally non-understandable with the exception of the part where the financial manager admitted that the figures he released last month were wrong and The Company wasn’t doing as well as they had hoped. And still, no sign of our bonuses that were supposed to come out back in February, then in early March, now in late March. What a crock! Look, just give me my paycheck and don’t make me attend these pointless meetings anymore. Just let me know when we’ll no longer have a job. Don’t make me sit here, straining to hear what you are mumbling about in a microphone you claim to be “malfunctioning again” for the hundredth time and feeling out of sorts because I’ve not been privy to all your inside managerial jokes and quips.

Next, MsNoManagementSkills has been sick constantly with one cold after another since December. But she won’t do anything about it. So, every time I have to attend and listen in on a Company conference call, I have to listen to her hack and cough, LOUDLY, over the phone. She knows darn well how loud she is, but in her constant vie for attention, she continues to cough directly into the phone. That is, when she isn’t talking to one of her boyfriend’s kids, who should be at school but has come down with the same cold and has chosen to stay home from school that day, (which always seems to turn into a case of faking it just to stay home, but no one seems to remember that the next time around according to MsNoManagementSkills’ Online Journal).

So, yes. Things are very much bothering me today. I’m sore from working so hard over the weekend, I slept poorly of my own fault and I’m pissed off that our neighbor is shoving their own trash into other people’s trashcans just so they don’t have to pay for trash pickup. What is it with people today?

Okay, this is my second attempt to explain my Monday. Nothing, and I do mean, nothing went right. You don’t what to know all the ranting I did in my first attempt at explaining it all.
1. I discovered Ms. Dimmer uses other neighbor’s trash and recycling bins to dump her family’s own trash since they don’t pay for it anymore.
2. It’s STILL windy and unseasonably hot for this time of year.
3. I stupidly left the wind chimes out last night and they drove us and probably all our neighbors insane in the wind last night, making no one get a decent night’s sleep.
4. MrSmartButFakingIt has conveniently “forgotten” too many times to give me access to certain areas so I can do my job.
5. The Company conference call was even more non-understandable and cryptic. Still no word on our bonuses from February.
6. If I have to listen to MsNoManagementSkills hack and cough LOUDLY into the phone receiver during a conference call One.More.Time, I cannot be held responsible for what might befall her. News at eleven. She’s been “sick” since Christmas. Enough already. Find some fucking manners.
7. The glass place called who is etching my car mirrors and it is painfully apparent the guy completely and totally has forgotten everything we talked to him about. Dude, take notes next time. And why did you wait this long to start them? You said it would be a day or two, not two fricken’ weeks already!

In the good column, WS is home from work and brought home those car mirrors. They look wonderful, making me wonder what the glass guy was sniffing when he was talking to me. My car is nearly ready for the car show this Saturday. Ham and Cheese, the field mice living outside, survived our house vinyl cleaning yesterday, when we accidentally cleaned the fountain too where they live. And we have five doves living it up in our backyard.

I am hungry. Very hungry. For spicy stuff. Or ice cream. Yeah, either will do. Hand it over and no one will get hurt.

March 31 2004

Today is going to be a busy day. I’m getting my hair professionally colored later today, just because I’ve haven’t done this since the infamous porous-hair-turned-black incident of 1991 when I decided to stop bleaching my normally brown hair white-blonde with the help of Loreal’ (because I felt I was worth it). In that incident, even after I told the hairdresser that I had been told my hair was very dry and porous, she blew me off and the result wasn’t back to my normal brown hair, but to coal black. 83 washings later, it had a tinge of brown to it and I never had anything good to say about that beauty salon ever again.

Today and many years older and wiser, I’m okay with whatever happens and whatever color my hair ends up, just as long as I have a few strands left on my head, unlike the perm incident of 1978, when another beauty salon melted my hair to their perming rollers permanently and then told me I must be one of “those” kinds of women who go bald early in life.

My workday will be split up because of my hair appointment but no worries. I’ve put in long hours both Monday and Tuesday and looked like a superstar yesterday and sat through two completely miserable meetings (as well as didn’t strangle MsNoManagementSkills for her constant coughing into the phone AND ending every sentence with an uplifted word.)

We got our patio furniture yesterday and WS assembled all of it – Nine chairs, two ottomans and two tables. Unfortunately, Lowe’s forgot one of our chairs and promised to deliver it this morning. They didn’t. Didn’t even call. We’ll have to track that chair down because I’m sure it was forgotten again.

I want to seriously hurt the woman I’m commissioning to paint up a car show sign for my car. Three weeks ago, I called her, talked to her about what I wanted, then sent her an email with the information I wanted painted in a Word document. Three phone calls later, she promised to send me a mock up of what she was working on, but she never did. In fact, at the end of my last phone call to her, she called me by a different name, leading me to believe she had no idea who I was for the entire conversation. So, yesterday, I sent her another email and she replied saying she would sent the mock up this morning.

While, yes, she did send something, it wasn’t a mock up. By her email, it is glaringly obvious that she has neither listened to me during any of my phone calls OR read a single one of my emails INCLUDING looking at the Word document I originally sent her. It’s like, she’s never heard of me before. WTF? And why do I seem to attract these kinds of incompetent people? I knew I should have had WS do this for me, but he’s already stretched for time. And it isn’t his car anyway. I’ll go on record right here, right now. I’ll be willing to bet that this woman will screw up this sign, either by some misspelling in the information (that I’ve sent twice now), or in the sign size and type, or something. I just know, something will be screwed up and I’ll be expected to pay the agreed $100 for it.

Next door, Mr. SportsOrNothing is screaming on his cell phone out in his back yard (because no one can get a signal inside their homes in this development) and apparently, the glass screen door they had installed last week is falling apart. Badly enough that they can’t get into their own house and have to go in through their garage and “That is a major inconvenience after we paid so much so get over here and fix it! NOW!” he yells. What a rough life.

But in good news, the store that I usually find my favorite summer shorts and tank tops at was putting them out this morning, when I stopped by after taking WS to work and I bought up enough to last me the entire summer. Three pairs of black, elastic-waist shorts, one pair both of sage green, navy blue and tan, three black tank tops, one sage green and navy blue and two new Hawaiian shirts. Looks like it time to pull out my old Hawaiian shirts out of storage. This week end looks like it’s going to be in the mid-seventies and I’ll be spending Saturday at a car show, sitting on asphalt and baking in the sun.

And hey! We got my car’s CB back from the manufacturer today. Hopefully, this means it works this time.

April 1 2004

I hate April Fools day. I was made the fool way too many times in my life so let’s just move on, okay?
I’m still glowing from my professional hair coloring experience yesterday. My chosen hair dresser is amazing and gave me everything I could have every wanted and then some. I made sure I tipped her generously and will be back in a few months for a re-do.

Today, weather-wise, was a typical Pacific Northwest day. Hazy in the morning, puffy, cotton-y clouds in the afternoon. The temperature was nice…as long as the sun was out. As soon as the sun was blocked by a cloud, it felt freezing and I seriously wondered again why I was out there in shorts. Silly me. Tomorrow is going to be gorgeous and thankfully, I don’t have many hours to put in for work. I plan on taking full advantage of our new patio furniture, maybe with some cheese and crackers and bottle of Italian Pelligrino water.

Speaking of Italian, I’ve started reading “Under the Tuscan Sun” by Frances Mayes while my brain is digesting the much more involved ”The Crimson and the White” which I’m in the middle of but need a slight break from. I am so in trouble reading Ms. Mayes book. It makes me want to dip bread in green unfiltered olive oil, buy and plant dozens of lavender plants and attempt to speak Italian words like Parmesan, Mozzarella, Ferarri and Gucci. In my mind, I can actually pronounce Italian words but in reality, I can only remember Mozzarella, Pizza and Fabio. When we built this house, we took a cue from the arched entryway into our kitchen and decorated the kitchen in a definite European flavor, and heavily Italian. Funny thing is, we never really planned it that way and had never had an Italian inkling before. Neither one of us has a drop of Italian blood in our veins but something feels so right about most things Italian to us (as is also the case with French things while we’re aren’t French either).
Anyway, the book is so absorbing and if I had the time, I could easily read it in one day. Unfortunately, I don’t have one day to do nothing but read so I pick it up every time I’m in that bathroom.

Survivor time!

April 2 2004

Ever see a hummingbird bathe in water? I never had until this year. Sure, last year I had seen a hummer or two buzzing our fountain but never actually land on one of the tall pillars from which water spills forth and bathe for several minutes. I’ll bet people go their entire lifetimes without seeing such a sight…and could care less. Well, I thought it was cool.

Nearly done with my car. It needs one last wipe down just to make sure all of the last coat of polish is off. No matter how much I wipe and wipe, I always leave something. Heh! Sounds like a personal problem, doesn’t it?

All that’s left really is to pack up all my cleaning supplies and towels, and the folding chair, load my CD case and sun tan lotion and I’m off at the wee hour of 7-ish in the A.M. tomorrow. I’ve heard that some of the people I knew at the car club we used to belong to (before that crappy coup occurred last fall at election time) will be there. I’m ready with my answer on why I am no longer affiliated with them (Because you suck! Actual answer is more diplomatic.). I just hope I get a parking spot well away from them. Maybe I should take a book so I look particularly anti-social. Oh wait! I don’t have to have a book to look that way anyway! Ha! Awards are at 3-4 pm. I’m not expecting to win anything. I didn’t win anything at my first show last year either. It may become tradition.

In the ‘hood, Ms. CaLEEfornia from across the street has discovered Ms. Dimmer and so they get together in the afternoon in The Dimmer’s backyard, amid all the garbage and toys and push their kids on The Dimmer’s swing set that had been left behind by DrunkTank Willie and Leona when they moved out. The Dimmer boy wildly swings his plastic bat close to The CaLEEfornian young kids, approximate ages 4 and 3, no doubt too used to purposely hitting his sister, the screaming Dimmer, in that insane whacking game they play all the time. Ms. CaLEEfornia pays little to no attention, until her youngest gets hit with the bat. The Dimmer boy offers no apology and neither does his mother, Ms. Dimmer, who instead rips a toy out of screamer Dimmer and sets those loud set of lungs off. I have to close the door, it’s so loud, and I take great pains to slam the door loudly to show my displeasure of the constant screaming, day after day, rain or shine. It doesn’t do anything though. Nothing can penetrate the screaming Dimmer’s unholy howl and of course, no one does anything to stop or quiet her. It’s what the screamer has learned to do to get attention, except, no one told her that it no longer works.

MsNoManagementSkills finally went to the doctor to see why she’s been sick since before Christmas and he prescribed an inhaler for her. This would be good…if she wasn’t all proud and bragging about how now, she has an inhaler “just like all my friends!” What kind of fucked up kind of thinking is this? She WANTED an inhaler? Great. Maybe when she’s old, she’ll be real proud of having to need an oxygen bottle to breathe, getting green Jell-O for lunch and to get to wear Depends ™ “just like all my friends!” Please. For the love of god. Someone shoot her.

April 5 2004

Well, that was a fun weekend. We both got lots of sun, too much sun. WS is in pain today because of it. But he did get the rest of our house vinyl scrubbed down and it positively gleams!

While WS was scrubbing the house (because he wanted to), I drove the hour or so to the tulip car show and won my class over cars that were parked inside in perfect lighting while I had to park outside in the dust and pollen. Go figure! It’s got to be the polish shine and the engine, which is nearly all chrome and custom paint. I’m very happy! This is a great way to start the season. I just hope I can continue to pull this off.

I got to voice my displeasure, in a diplomatic way, over the way the car club I used to belong to has changed. I was asked, point-blank, twice why I didn’t renew. It’s apparent no one still in the club really knows what’s going on in their own club. There is so much secrecy and flat-out lying there now. I am so glad to be away from most of them. Who needs that kind of childish crap? You’d think that people with enough money to buy fancy sports cars would be a bit more mature. And you’d be dead wrong. If anything, they’re worse because they are spoiled.

Sunday, we just sat around here, enjoying our new patio furniture and watching SportsOrNothing get their house vinyl pressure washed. Apparently, they don’t know about all the reasons NOT to pressure wash vinyl siding. My guess is that about the time the mold and mildew under the siding gets into their house, they’ll be ready to sell it anyway.
The Quiet neighbors on our block, living across the street from The Dimmers confirmed that Mr. Dimmer has mental problems, because Mr. Dimmer told him so recently. Last Friday afternoon, Ms. Dimmer took off with the kids for parts unknown, leaving Mr. Dimmer home alone. She still hasn’t returned, which is probably good because she’d just try to put her trash into our bins again. For the eleventh week in a row, The Dimmers have not put any trash or recycling bins out for pick up. (WHERE ARE THEY STORING THEIR TRASH? I keep wondering.) The Quiet neighbors told us Mr. Dimmer knew he has problems, that he can no longer hold a job and he wasn’t planning on doing anything about it. Another reason to keep my doors and windows locked here all the time. And that he was thinking of moving back to his hometown several hundred miles away. Their house might go up for sale. He’ll be taking a big loss on it, not to mention the repairs that will need to be made on all the stuff that’s been ruined and/or not maintained. And that’s just the stuff that can be seen from the outside. Who knows what the inside looks like by now? And they’ve lived there less than a year. Scary how much damage a family can do in that short a period of time.

Unfortunately, Mr. Dimmer isn’t the only one having mental problems recently. MsNoManagementSkills’ live-in boyfriend is less than a hop, skip and jump away from a mental breakdown. He hates his job, doesn’t want to raise his three kids and just wants to play video games day and night. So much so, that he claims insomnia most nights and plays games, but don’t take the responsibility for doing so. He wants more medication, even though the medication he currently takes is causing hallucinations. And MsNoManagementSkills just wants to quit work(oh please!), got shopping and have babies with her boyfriend despite his vasectomy. Sounds like another welfare family might in the works.

April 6 2004

Lots of bird visits today. They know the weather is going to be beautiful this week. We’ve finally got gold finches, swifts and a pair of evening grosbeaks (even though they visit in the morning). Unfortunately, the swifts couldn’t care less for the specific swift nesting box we put up back in February and are back to using SportsOrNothing’s bird house where just about the time they lay eggs or hatch their eggs, the SportsOrNothings will go out there and use the inhabited bird house for paint ball practice. If the swifts would just hop right over to the other side of the fence, they could live in paradise, where nothing would bother them. Or, since swifts seems to prefer east-facing bird houses, they could check out one of the three swift-friendly, east-facing houses on the other side of our yard. But no. They will be denied from raising offspring yet again. No amount of talking to SportsOrNothing will help. They could care less. It’s so frustrating.

Another horrible Company conference call today. Neither WS or I feel like working now. MrSmartButFakingIt has dropped so many balls lately, it’s hard to keep up on what ever he happens to be babbling about at any given moment. Another Company name change is in the works meaning I’ll have to redo all the work I finished for the first of this year. I swear, the only reason the people in charge of renaming things do this, is to laugh at all the chaos it creates. Oh, and we got informed that instead of The Company CEO coming to meet us, we have to fly to Company headquarters instead. Scratch any plans we had. Too bad. If you want your job, you have to do this. Looks like The Company is back to trying to piss off employees bad enough to quit. God, I hate this crap.

At least, I’ll try to make sure we enjoy this coming weekend.

April 7 2004

Early this morning, around 3 a.m., during the hour or so that I was awake instead of sleeping, I started stressing over our probable trip to Company headquarters and the shape that I had hoped I would be in the next time I had to see The Company CEO, MrSmartButFakingIt and more importantly (although she’s not worth the stress) MsNoManagementSkills. While I know that I’m smaller in size and roundness than she is right this very second, I’m still huge. My elliptical workout was nonexistent last week. I did row 1500 meters yesterday and will do the same, if not more, today. Rowing is easy as long as I don’t get competitive about it and end up feeling like my lungs are on the verge of collapsing, but it causes me to yawn constantly. I think there is something about the rowing position that makes my brain think I’m not getting enough oxygen or something and that’s why I yawn all the time in there. If that’s the case, my brains must be in my ass. Must.Get.Back.To.Ellipticalling! I mean, eventually, I’ll lose this gut, right? Every time I work out for a goodly length of time, I lose weight in my neck, arms and legs, while my torso stays large and barrel-shaped, the last place to lose anything. To date, I have always given up at that point, never seeing if my torso would EVER lose any of it’s girth. I hate that “apple with toothpicks for limbs” look that I have, but obviously not badly enough to do anything about it. This WILL change.

What I really should be stressing about is flying on the same plane as MsNoManagementSkills and her cold that she’s had since last November. It’s apparent from her Online Journal though, that she’s not doing anything to help get rid of it, including allowing her sick boyfriend’s kids to sleep in bed with her and not changing the sheets since they all moved in together in January. Ewwwww… Given the other things she’s posted to the world about what goes on over there in the bedroom, perhaps the Health Department should be notified. I’m considering paying for an upgraded seat and a personal oxygen supply just to assure I don’t have to sit anywhere near her. Wait, that won’t work. We have to drive her to Company headquarters because she refuses to drive herself when in that state. Crap.

Today should be a low key work day. It’s gray outside now, but the clouds ought to burn off by late afternoon and we’ll be close to 80 degrees F by the weekend. I keep forgetting I have a three-day weekend this week though I probably won’t be doing anything special (the usual laundry, vacuuming, etc, yawn). Neither one of us are Easter fans so we don’t celebrate that (too many bad childhood experiences and too much forcefully applied religion guilt), so it’ll probably be business as usual around here: WS working, me puttering around with my car and/or in the yard. I’ll be fighting my spring urge to visit local plant shops for no real reason what so ever (even though I do have a small list of plants I’d like to finish the back yard). You can bet that maximum enjoyment of our new patio furniture will be in there somewhere. We’re really digging being able to sit out there. Yesterday evening, when it was somewhat warm and the Canada geese were flying south overhead, it was heavenly.

Have you noticed that most of the “reality” shows have become nothing more than “Am I Hot or Not?” shows? Particularly the upcoming ones? Or is just me? Having never been “Hot” in my entire life, yeah, you could say I’m bitter.

April 8 2004

I keep thinking today is Friday, because in a way, it is. I’m off work tomorrow and though, right now, I can think of a bunch of stuff to do with myself, by myself because WS has to work, when tomorrow gets here, I know I’ll just fritter away the day and do nothing.

It’s sunny here today at last, without a cloud in the sky. The sun is streaming in through our front house windows and making our apricot-colored walls glow in a golden light sort of way. Here in the office, I have the back window open and I can hear birds chirping in the distance and the mourning doves coo-ing under our small pine tree. Occasionally, a small frog cheeps and a plane drones softly overhead. And over it all, our fountain bubbles cool, clear water over the rocks, down the shorts falls and into the shallow pool at the end. Perfect sleeping sounds. It’s hard to not want to take a siesta. But I must get my hours in for the week or else, I’ll be working tonight or tomorrow to make them up. Besides, tomorrow will be just the same, except warmer. I’ll sleep all day tomorrow and if I felt comfortable enough to take a light blanket outside, and didn’t worry about the paper wasps landing on me or any birds pooping on me, I could easily take a nap out there. No one should be this relaxed. Everyone should be this relaxed.

I’m waiting for MsNoManagementSkills to take off work early, because she always does at the end of any given week, although it would be nice if she spent the extra time off to do something to get well. She’s still raging sick with nose and throat problems that only sound like they are getting worse, but yet, she won’t do anything except go on and on about how much she wants to cry because of the pain. Her loyal Online Journal fans live for this and eat this shit up. A entire group of drama queens and kings, vying for attention with who can be in more pain than the next. Whether it be a sore buttock, tennis elbow, insomnia or allergies, their constant, whiny complaints can surely only be matched by the elderly.

April 12 2004

I had fully planned on updating last Friday and Saturday, but at the end of each day, I found myself completely exhausted. An excuse, but a true one. Friday was wonderful with gorgeous weather so I went for a drive around town and spent about a hundred bucks at a French shop we both love. Friday night, for the first time in two and a half months, since I began exercising again, Aunt Flo decided to show up. Saturday, in between urgent bathroom trips, we visited our favorite plant nursery, just to look at the beautiful things in bloom and picked up a few things to replace what we lost over our past icy winter. Sunday, I spent the day alternating between lounging in the yard, running to the bathroom and working my fingers to the bone giving our back yard a true resort-style feel. Again I say, I love our patio furniture. Probably the best thing we’ve spent money on in a long, long time.

Today, however, things are no so wonderful. MsNoManagementSkills decided to take an additional day off, hoping that today would be the day her divorce went through. No so fast there, woman. She’ll be waiting another month or two while FatHead scrambles to come up with money owed to her per her lawyers, whom, I feel are better than his lawyers but only because I think her parents are paying for hers while I’d be willing to bet that he simply picked a random name out of the yellow pages and is paying for his out of his own pocket. All through her divorce, she has proclaimed her innocence in the whole matter but those of us who have to work with her, and worked with FatHead when he used to work with us at The Company, know she is far from innocent.

Work was looking not so out of control until about 3 p.m. when it turned outright ugly. It doesn’t look like anyone is working at Company headquarters, probably because they are pissed off at MsNoManagementSkills getting yet another day off, when technically, she ought to not have any vacation days left, not to mention that rule about not being allowed to take time off around holidays or holiday weekends. You bet we coworkers are disgruntled.

Today, I feel grumpy, bloated, toad-like, sore, crampy, moody and just plain fat. And I don’t want to do anything. The day is dragging, making me believe that it should already be Thursday, yet here it is, only Monday afternoon. And the last thing I care to do is to look at any healthy, low-carb and low calorie food in this house, which is crammed full of it. I want ice cream. REAL ice cream. And potato chips. I haven’t had potato chips since last summer. And so, I called WS and pre-warned him, just to be fair and just in case he had the notion to call home and ask what was for dinner. Had that happened, and in my current frame of mind, which happens rarely, I very likely would have just hung up on him and he wouldn’t have a clue as to what was going on. And if he were then to just come home, empty handed and without French fries, potato chips, ice cream or any combination of the above, I could quite possibly not be able to contain myself and probably incite an argument. And it would be Aunt Flo’s fault, but I would look like a bitch and I would end up hating myself for being pissed off at Aunt Flo but taking it out on WS.

Or maybe I need a vacation.

April 13 2004

I was having so much fun today, I nearly forgot to post. Yeah, right.

It was around 7 p.m. last Sunday night before I remembered it was Easter, and that was only because one of the Howler Monkey children was screaming that his brother ate his bunny. I was thinking, “Ate his bunny? Ate his bunny? WTF?….Oh yeah.” And then I got over it. Easter. Whatever. One of the three times a year that all people, particularly neighbors and coworkers, are grouchy because they are all suffering from sugar highs and lows. I want to email some of my coworkers another bag or two of Easter M&M’s just so they will get over themselves. You’d think some of these people had had their ears clipped off with tin snips or something. MrSmartButFakingIt isn’t much better. So many balls dropped over the past months. I have little respect for him anymore. Everyone is too willing to look the other way just because he is an upcoming expectant father, yet both WS and my own jobs are suffering because he isn’t doing his part by not getting us the information that we’ve been promised for months on end now, well before any pregnancy thing occurred. Who’s job performance rating do you think will be affected? We’ve been all but assured it won’t be his. Damn it! We need a REAL manager around here!!

Serious thought was given to not attending this morning’s horribly painful Company conference call, yet another one that MrSmartButFakingIt failed to attend, leaving the still hacking and coughing MsNoManagementSkills to “run” before smacking yet again, everyone’s morale by telling us all to get back to work. I’m beginning to believe MrSmartButFakingIt is purposely avoiding these meetings simply to avoid listening to her coughing directly into the phone. But I called in and sat uncomfortably through it, trying to be a team player. It won’t do me any good in the long run.

The rains were supposed to start today, but it was sunny outside for most of the day. No dark clouds on the horizon. Any clouds from the coast wouldn’t be anywhere near us for another four to six hours. The temperatures are a good twenty to thirty degrees F. lower than they were just a couple of days ago though, but you’d never know from here in our office. Looking down from the office window early this afternoon, I saw a squirrel lying on his belly in our top open sided bird feeder, munching on peanuts pieces. Cheese, one of our two field mice, was doing the same in his little burrow at the base of a dwarf conifer that sits within the fountain’s upper level. We’ve had a small group of golden crowned sparrows stake out our back yard over the past few days and along with a few more hummingbirds, are enjoying being able to bathe themselves whenever they want. Lots of red-winged blackbirds and their mates visiting this spring; more than ever before, but while the squirrel is lying in their feeder, they won’t feed and sit in the tall tree squawking. The frogs, having found the most acoustically perfect spots in the fountain in order to make the most sound, have been croaking nonstop since February. Last night, I actually closed all the bedroom windows and ran the fan, just to get a little quiet time. You know that when you have to turn up the TV loud enough for the neighbors to be able to clearly hear every word, your frog visitors may have overstayed their welcome.

I’m feeling particularly spoiled this evening. WS took me to dinner for Mexican food and last night, brought me ice cream and potato chips to shut Aunt Flo up. It worked wonders and I haven’t had a cramp or bloated feeling all day. I even rowed and ellipticalled this evening to help sweat off that ice cream. And on top of it all, today, I still fit just fine into my pants. No snugness at all. That elliptical machine just might be working after all.

April 14 2004

So over the weekend, I finally bought a new watch. My trusty old watch was eight or more years old with most of the gold color worn off, some sizeable dings to the metal face and a broken clamp on the chain-style watchband. I’ve looked everywhere and have yet to find a new watchband that is anything like the old, broken one I loved so much, but I have to realize that sometimes, it’s best to just let things go and move on.

I’ve moved on with a Pulsar battery-powered, black-faced, gold and silver watch that it surprisingly heavy for how small it is. So heavy, the first thing I thought of was that I now officially have some “bling-bling”. While it’s not as heavy as, say, a Rolex, it’s ridiculous compared to my old, heavy-looking, but actually feather-weight old watch. Of course, the truly sad part of all this isn’t that my old watch is going to end up in the back of some junk drawer now, but that someone my age is using the term “bling-bling” and is all proud of it.

Over the weekend, I also bought myself some men’s Docker-brand cargo shorts. Why they don’t make this particular style in women’s sizes is beyond me because these feel wonderful! Plus the added bonus of being non-wrinkly, non-staining and cheaper in price than any comparable women’s shorts. The price difference thing between men’s clothing and women’s clothing has always pissed me off and I’ve never quite understood why women put up with paying more. I’m not talking about dresses or frilly blouses and skirts here. I’m talking about jeans (which usually fit better if you buy men’s levis and wranglers anyway), shorts, socks and some shirts. For example, I like Hawaiian shirts in the summer months; I live in them basically, but women’s Hawaiian shirts are a joke! The collars lie badly, the sleeves are too short and the arm holes are too tight. The bottoms are too short and the buttons usually fall off immediately. They usually are cut like a maternity blouse and look exactly like that when women wear them. Men’s Hawaiian shirts, on the other hand, are often cut and sewn like the original Hawaiian, or Aloha, style with side slits at the bottom, double sewn seams down the front, large arm holes and sizable, comfortable sleeves and the buttons are tightly attached. Good ones have a label firmly attached by all four corners, not some flap of annoying clothe, and will not say that it is made in Taiwan, Singapore or India.

So, there you have it. My upcoming summer wardrobe: Men’s Docker shorts, Hawaiian shirts, bling-bling and flip-flops. Oh, did I mention men’s flip-flops are cheaper too? Especially if you are looking for something simple, like classic black, and nothing gawdy like, something with huge, fake-y plastic flowers on them. No one really thinks flip-flops with huge plastic flowers on them for grown women over a size 0 are cute, do they?

April 15 2004

It’s tax day here in the U.S. We do our taxes in February in this household. No waiting until the last minute for us.

I was scanning through a few TV channels today and ran across a talk show that had Dave Pelzer on it. The It kid who went through massive child abuse and continues to write about it. I hate listening to anything about him and his ordeal because, and this is the first time I’ve ever admitted it here, I was the female equivilent of him. I, along with 3 of my other 4 siblings were beaten brutally every day of the year except Christmas day, when for whatever reason my parents felt, was off limits to abuse. It didn’t stop my father from raping me with various items but at least I wasn’t beaten so it was okay, right? Yeah, sure.

My parents were never “found” out by any real authorities, there wasn’t any department for this back then in that now-thriving city, though every family on our block and most of our teachers throughout school knew about it. Back then, it was a parent’s god-given right to treat their children anyway they saw fit and basically, no one else cared. Because the abuse was so bad, and lasted up until I was seventeen years old, I will never be able to forget about it, no matter how hard I try and no matter how hard others want me to. I’ve found over the years that it is a rare person who wants to know about it and an even rarer person who believes me at all. In fact, some of my own siblings have chosen to “forget” that it ever happened, even though there were many a night when we lay together in a bloody pile on a bare floor, staring into each other’s eyes and whispering, pleading, that we all keep breathing, to make it another day, to not give up. Our hatred kept us alive.

This is why I write. I don’t write often about my childhood because I don’t like the mood it puts me in and that’s why I hate hearing about Dave Pelzer. I tried to read part of his first book once, in Barnes&Noble before buying it, and I found I just couldn’t buy it. Within two paragraphs, I was transported back to age nine and I wanted to puke right there in the bookstore. I don’t want that kind of book in my house. It’s enough that I’m here and I have to live with my memories every day that I choose to allow them to creep back. Writing has gone a long way toward healing and usually, once I write down all the details about some event that continues to haunt me, the memory leaves me alone. It’s cleansing and refreshing. I can only hope that it works for others. Writing has saved my life. May your reason for writing be just as helpful.

April 16 2004

I’ve always been told to remember two things in life: Look out for Number One, and remember your number.

Working with MsNoManagementSkills today is awful. If I hadn’t already been burned so often by her and if I really cared, I might start feeling a touch bit sorry for her on the topic of her live-in boyfriend. It seems she is destined to find mates who are permanently thirteen years old. FatHead was definitely boy-minded and not a man. He was obsessed with jealousy over anything that anyone else had that he didn’t and was heavily into computers and guns. Her current boyfriend is obsessed with video games, Japanese anima women and unusual sex acts. He won’t buy stuff for his three kids (who he has custody of but only because his separated wife, her ex-best friend, is worse), spending his money instead on even more video games and hand-held game machines for himself. He constantly talks about his nether regions and hers as well, much to her embarrassment, at work in public and online. We’re almost certain he is carrying on a long distance, Internet relationship with a cam girl in New York. I don’t know what she’s thinking but knowing her during her FatHead days, once again, she’s choosing to look the other way. She’s one of those who believe that she is nothing with a man. The problem is, she’s not picking men.

The problem is further complicated by her ever-increasing-in-volume whining about wanting to stop work and be a stay-home mom….even if the kids she’s currently taking care of aren’t hers, but her ex-best friend’s kids. It seems that MsNoManagementSkills’ boyfriend was looking for a mother, not just for his kids, but for himself as well and she’s all too willing to cook, clean and pay for him and his kids to keep living with her.

This often makes working with her miserable. Snap-ish is a good word to describe how she answers anything asked of her. Kind of like being around someone on the verge of having their period all the time. No one can do anything right in her eyes and she wastes no time in busting any shred of morale anyone might have brought to work any given day. Many a time have I thanked the stars that I work online from home and don’t have to spend every day facing MsNoManagementSkills. On the few occasions when I have to see her, on Company trips for example, she’s no different, ever critical, ever watching for something she can twist later, ever ready to contradict anything you have to say behind your back.

Now, run with me here for a minute. Imagine how much more difficult work life could be if, say for example, this was your boss and although, you worked from home and didn’t have to see your boss often, you had to learn over the years to avoid them at all costs online or off. To paste on a fake smile and equally fake perky-ness should you have to come face to face with them, but not too cheery for fear that they will become suspicious and start spreading lies about you again into The Company CEO’s ear. To have to walk that thin line on eggshells, day in and day out, for years, never knowing if today might be the day that you get word that at your boss’s insistence over something either real or imagined in your boss’s mind, you be “let go.”

Still with me? Good, ‘cause this is where it really gets good. Imagine, with all this, that your boss…moves down the street from you ON PURPOSE, into a house within eyesight of your own home. Imagine that you can’t go out into your own yard, into your own driveway, without your boss seeing you. You can’t open your garage door, you can’t take a drive to go get coffee or lunch without your boss watching. And god help you if you do any of this during work hours, because you can be certain that your boss is taking note of the time you spent away from work, perhaps to use against you at some future date. Imagine if you knew everything about your boss during work, but then you started learning about their life outside of work, all within eyesight and in some cases, earshot, and you began to feel as though you were living under a microscope, that you could never get away from your job and that you were being watched all the time.

As well as your boss watching you, you start to learn things about them and their affect on the people who have been your neighbors for years. You learn that they don’t care what their yard looks like, with toys, lawn furniture and dead potted plants scattered throughout the tall grass and even taller weeds. That they collect broken vehicles with no intention of fixing or registering them. That their kids are loud and mean to other kids in the neighborhood. That their ex-spouses cruise the neighborhood, watching.

Such is life. Here. Now. And now you know.

April 19 2004

Things accomplished over the weekend: Picked up bird and squirrel food, took WS to the French store to look at some plaster thing I wanted, clean the house, lovingly remove polish coat #14 from my car, order new networking hardware and a few books, enjoy a good meal together and avoid BikerDude’s visit.

Things not accomplished over the weekend: Didn’t get to Lowe’s to improve our home improvement, didn’t do any serious grocery shopping and didn’t sleep worth a crap.

Last Friday afternoon, I was pre-warned that BikerDude was coming back to town to move in with FatHead. BikerDude used to work with us at The Company and was generally, an asshole. Big time asshole. It was mostly his doing that no one trusts anyone at The Company, something that continues to this day. It seems he is STILL looking for a job and living with his parents. He’s thirty years old, wears a black leather trench coat, even when it’s 100 degrees outside (he thought the trench coat clad Columbine shooters were “cool”), and pointed, space-age looking sunglasses with multi-colored lens. He loves frightening people with his appearance. He goes to job interviews looking like this. No wonder he hasn’t gotten a job in the two years since he left The Company.

BikerDude is moving in with FatHead, who has to put his house up for sale in order to pay MsNoManagementSkills her portion of their divorce settlement. So, BikerDude’s stay there will be brief. I was told by a coworker who BikerDude got a hold of, that he would be heading our way for some reason over the weekend. So we didn’t answer the door either time he showed up and pounded on the door. We think he is looking to us to get him a job and if this is correct, he’s sadly mistaken. We don’t have anything for this guy who caused us great pain while we worked together. And you’d think he’d know that, but apparently, not.

Another odd thing about BikerDude is that once you let him into your house, he’s one of those kinds of people who doesn’t know when to leave. In the past, when we had to get together for Company work business, after several hours, we would have to tell him we needed to go to bed to get him to leave…several times. WS had really struggled to stay awake several times before he could get the point across to BikerDude, who would finally respond with a grunt before getting up and leaving. Way scary guy. If we have our way, he’ll never darken our doorway again. And if somehow, he weasels his way back into The Company, both WS and I will consider leaving our jobs. BikerDude has already promised to hack into Company security areas if he got hired back and change things around just to show he could do it and there is no way I’m going to stick around for that.

This morning, I log into work only to discover that over the weekend, MrSmartButFakingIt has upgraded The Company system and trying to work with the upgrade is akin to pulling off toenails. Nothing works correctly, everything is slow, text size is miniscule and half of my coworkers no longer have access. Most of my access has been wiped out as well. Sure, we needed to upgrade the system badly, but come on! It’s just a matter of time before MsNoManagementSkills starts flooding our mailboxes with demands to work faster, faster, ever faster! * Sigh * It’s Monday.

April 20 2004

Over at the Del Mar and La Jolla surf cams, it looks warm and inviting. I lose myself here from time to time.

To all my neighbors: While I will never apologize for secretly renaming you and all your family members names appropriate to your behaviors, I do sincerely apologize for planting Sweet William, a ground cover herb which, at it’s current rate of growth, should completely bury the immediate neighborhood by mid-September. I like ground cover plants because I have lots of ground to cover. That was not supposed to include the yards of SportsOrNothing, The Dimmers and Capt. Dan. While I will work all summer to eradicate it from my own yard, something tells me none of the other neighbors will do anything about it growing over there, thus insuring that it will find it’s way back here.
Haven’t seen Ham or Cheese, the field mice for over a week. I did see, however, a fat field mouse with big ears foraging under the bird feeders last week (no, it wasn’t a rabbit!). Perhaps, the mice have moved. In that case, since there is already bird seed falling down out there, I don’t need to purposely put a small smidge of food near their old residence. What was I thinking anyway??

Haven’t seen a Flicker in months. I kind of miss them. We do have a white crowned sparrow with large growths on it’s feet and a starling that doesn’t like to stand on his right leg much. Looking through my binoculars at the feeders, I don’t see anything wrong with the starling’s leg. Maybe he just likes to balance. The sparrow though, could use those feet for flippers. Why do we always get the weird birds here? Maybe I should just be extra happy that we switched to bottled water over the winter.

I found our first bird casualty last week. A pine sisken must have broke his neck trying to fly out of one of our feeders that has a predator protection cage around it. I found him lying in the bottom tray of the feeder when I was wondering why no birds had visited in a long while. I wouldn’t have visited either, seeing Joe lying there, courting rigor mortis.
Two squirrels have now been visiting regularly for the past week. One is very energenic, taking nuts from our squirrel box and burying them all over the yard, while the other, very obviously a male from the view of the big mambos dangling back there, sits up in the fly-through bird feeder and eats sunflower chips. His face is fairly well ripped up on one side, leading me to believe he’s been fighting (with other males?) or something else happened. I never see him getting nuts in the shell from our squirrel box so maybe his teeth are bad, yet I know that squirrels have to wear their teeth down regularly by chewing on things to prevent their teeth from growing up into their skulls (and killing them). This male squirrel also looks a bit thinner than the other so maybe he’s old? Again, I hate it when sickly-looking things migrate to our yard because they all tug a bit at my heart strings. Any day now, I ought to start dreaming about sick, injured or dying things. Mix that in with periods of dreams about my car and some upcoming car show (May 1st) and I’ll end up with some interesting sleep patterns coming up.

April 21 2004

Down at the bird feeder, it seems like the starlings and the red winged blackbirds are hanging out together an awful lot. They fly in and out of the feeders together, they seem to call to each other and who knows, maybe they are all dating. If this is the case, I’m concerned because I don’t think the world needs any offspring in the form of Super Annoying starlings that eat everything.

After announcing that I hadn’t seen either Ham or Cheese, the field mice living in the fountain area for a week, late yesterday afternoon I happened to look outside at the area they used to hang out at and what do I spy with my little eye? A mouse butt! Ham was hard at work digging a deep hole right next to the entrance to their lair. For whatever reason, I don’t know, but I stopped that crap right away…by covering up the hole and putting out a handful of birdseed on top of it. Within two minutes and while I was still standing out there within four feet, Ham came out of their hole and hungerly started in on the seeed. WS was able to get just as close. Then, I laid down the law: No more digging holes. If I catch him digging anymore holes, life will become less than joyful. Usually, I can get my point across to little creatures like this. I don’t know how that works, but usually, it does. And if that doesn’t work, a large load of fresh bark dust covering everything with a three to five inch depth will put an end to that for another year or so.

And as I was looking down at the fountain this morning, I was surprised to see that it looks like a fat golden-crowned sparrow might have made a small next out of dried moss on the backside of the upper level of the fountain, and has been sitting there for hours now, cleaning itself. It’s pretty cute, but I really hope it’s not a nest because it’s out in the open and just won’t work there. Too exposed to weather and nighttime visiting creatures.

Work yesterday wasn’t fun in the least. New system to learn. That is, when the system was working. Today, it’s working a tad bit better, but there are lots of changes that aren’t to anyone’s advantage, except to the company that suckered our Company into purchasing it. I could stand to write some crappy software, then talk a company into paying $70K for it. A few of those kinds of programs a year and I’d be retiring to Maui within five years.

It probably won’t be much better in a few weeks when we have to make a Company headquarters trip. Ugh. Spending any time with MsNoManagementSkills. Double Ugh. Spending any time with MrSmartButFakingIt and Ego. Triple Ugh. Luckily, I’ll have WS with me again. He whumps the llama’s ass on these business trips and just won’t put up with any of MsNoManagementSkills’ crap, not including having to drive her to and from the Company offices because she refuses to drive herself. Unfortunately, we still have to do that.

So, over the next few weeks before the trip, I’ll be working on doubling up my exercise routines, watching what I’m eating, getting some sun for color, checking both of our wardrobes for nice-looking clothes like our new Dockers shorts (because our legs aren’t looking too bad now) as well as using those professional Crest whitestrips every day. The regular Crest whitestrips don’t work worth crap, but the more expensive Professional ones really do! I was really impressed after just two uses. I love, love, love these things. I need a case of them. WS looks wonderful after all the rowing he’s been doing, but I think I need to force him to use those strips too.

April 22 2004

Okay, I’ll admit it. Sometimes I spend way too much time trying to figure out what makes some people tick. What makes them do the things they do. Why they find some things funny and other things not. What offends one and not another. It really is a exercise that’s pointless and just ends up frustrating me. If it wasn’t that I really wanted to know, trust me: I’d save myself from the waste of time.

For example, why do some people feel it’s okay to belittle children to their faces? Why do some people find it fun to cause injury to dogs and cats? Why do some people feel it is an american right to give boys bb-guns in order to shoot birds and squirrels? Why do some people choose to over-medicate their children in lieu of doing any actual parenting?

Why do some people like country western music while others prefer Frank Sinatra? Why do some people like chick flicks while others abhor them? Why do some people suddenly start doing nice, thoughtful things for others when they seemed to care less in previous years? Why do some people “get it” about a weight-loss program and start one, especially when faced with a potentially dire health issue, while others simply choose to roll over and die?

Why do people choose to move to an area of town when they previously claimed to hate? Why do people backstab each other? What makes some people get religious all of a sudden? Why do some people work hard while others prefer to coast or slack through life? What makes one person purposely decide to not reproduce while others feel they need to have a dozen children?

What makes one person believe a liar’s lies while another sees right through them? What makes some people loyal? What makes some people feel guilt while others do not. What makes some people fear new things, like technology, big SUVs and microwave pizza? Know I know that microwave pizza isn’t anything new, but you’d be surprised at how many people fear it.

Basically, I believe everything that everyone is exists for a reason and I like finding out what the reasons are. I helps me better understand myself. Some reasons, however, as destined to be a mystery, I guess.

April 26 2004

A weekend without the Internet can be a good thing…if you don’t stress about not being able to update one’s journal.

Okay, moving on…Last Friday was stressful at work and seemed like it was a month long. Saturday, we drove north to a classic car show, met some people and got some sun. Yesterday, I got half of our fence re-varnished and got some more sun, which is good for that upcoming trip to Company headquarters, and today, my back is killing me and my right hand wants to do nothing but cramp up. Too much standing in bark dust getting micro-splinters in my feet and hands. Didn’t drink enough water. Sun stroke builds character I’ve been told.

Today, I’m back online and blocked out of our usual Monday morning Company conference call for security reasons or something. Tacky, especially considering I need to answer customer email questions shortly about what the conference call is going over today. My guess is that it’ll be another day of not accomplishing much because The Company CEOs haven’t thought to keep us remote employees, who do most of the work, informed. Instead, I have to sit here, trying to decipher what Company headquarter employees and bosses are babbling about, listen to them all laugh over insider Company jokes that we’ve never been included in on, and hear to other remote coworkers’ babies crying over the phone and MsNoManagementSkills’ ever-constant coughing.

But hey! I’m getting paid for it, so it’s all good.

It’s going to be a scorcher here today, rare for this time of year in the Pacific NW. 86-89 degrees F. Should be 63 and raining, but no rain is in sight for a week or more. That’s okay. It gives WS and I both time to get some color before the Company trip in a couple of weeks and it gives me a dry day to attend the official first car show of the season next weekend. If I hadn’t run out of fence varnish, I’d be out there right now finishing up my job from yesterday. I still have the entire SportsOrNothing side of our fence to do; wisely choosing to do most of The Dimmers’ side yesterday when I heard more from The Dimmers than I cared to learn about. Mr. Dimmer is truly psycho but more about that later.

April 27 2004

We have to fly to Company headquarters next week and have to go with MsNoManagementSkills. Apparently, she’s told everything at Company headquarters that it’s just her that’s coming to visit so imagine our coworkers surprise when I told them yesterday that WS and I were coming too. Sounds like MsNoManagementSkills has already set up her breakfast, lunch, dinner and late dinner choices, and I’m sure as usual, she’s not taken anyone else’s tastes or food preferences into considerations into account. Now, why would someone continue to do things like this? Because they truly believe the world revolves around them alone maybe?

On to less depressing things: Yesterday’s picture was of one of our noisy fountain frogs. Today’s pictures are of what we’ve come to call, The Cheese House, where the field mice, Ham and Cheese, live. Today, I went out there and what do I see peeking up over the surrounding bushes? One of our doves. He found Ham and Cheese’s little bird food stash and was happily munching away until I scared him off. It’s been windy here today, of course because I re-hung the wind chimes. I really ought to just stop hanging them. Every time I do, the day turns very windy and the sound of the chimes, not at all sweet and gentle as in a light breeze, drives me insane.

Over the weekend, The Dimmers next door, who are still both out of work, cleaned out their garage where they were storing their garbage after all. Sunday, he asked us if we needed anything taken to the dump and if so, he’d be glad to take it. Since we regularly put out trash on garbage day, we generally don’t have any other need to go to the dump and so, we declined his offer. As it was, I knew our city dump wasn’t open on Sundays, which was the day he was allegedly going.

Sure enough, when he came back, he was ranting and raving to his wife that the dump wasn’t open and when she asked what he did with the truck load of trash, he said he just found an empty lot and dumped it all there. But all that dumped trash wasn’t just three months of stinky household garbage. Saturday, Mr. Dimmer ripped out the dog run fencing that divided part of his back yard. This included the 4×4 posts with cement footings, so the trash included about 50 feet of custom picket wood fencing and 10 cement-encased fence posts. That ought to be a nice discovery for someone else to have to clean up, not to mention that the dog run was one of the major selling points of the house when The Dimmers bought it last June. (Do they realize they just may have decreased the value of their house now?)

Then, late Sunday afternoon, Mr. Dimmer took a steel bar to the middle of the brick-paved, 10×10 foot seating area in the back corner of their back yard. This seating area was the only good looking area left in their entire trash and toy strewn yard and also was a major selling point of their house. He told his wife, who was just as confused as to why he was busting up the brickwork as she was about why he ripped out the dog run the day before, that he was getting rid of these things to “open up the yard” except neither really closed up the yard previously.

Finally, after about an hour of smashing the bricks, he was able to remove a couple and promptly quit. I guess he thought it was a bad idea after all. Too bad he ruined the best part of his yard. I really don’t think he’ll fix what he screwed up, especially since he told a neighbor a couple of weeks ago that he was putting the house up for sale; this was after he told WS that he was planning on laying a cobblestone patio soon. I know I’m probably going out on a limb here, but I don’t think they allow people to buy cobblestones with food stamps.

He then tackled picking up a few of the hundreds of toys strewn around in the grass. When he picked up a full-sized plastic rocking house, the littlest Dimmer a.k.a. The Screamer, started…well,….screaming at the top of her lungs. I, being directly on the other side of the fence, varnishing the wood as fast as I could, thought my ears were going to start bleeding from the high-pitched wailing. Mr. Dimmer told his daughter to shut up several times and told her the toy was broken anyway. When she didn’t falter in her screaming, he picked up the toy, held it over his head and smashed the rocking horse down onto the concrete. “See? Now it’s really broken!” he yelled at her which didn’t do anything to stop the screams. Five minutes later, I could still hear her screaming from inside my own house.

Nice guy, huh? And I thought DrunkTank Willie was an ass.

April 29 2004

A bit hectic here right now. Trying to get ready for a big car show followed by a trip to Company headquarters with you know who and meeting you know who else (MsNoManagementSkills, MrSmartButFakingIt and Ego not to mention The Company CEOs). WS’s got the car ordered for airport delivery and pickup, still no word on whether we’ll be able to get our sliding glass door latch fixed before we go so it’s permanently locked for now. I had a new pet/house sitter over this morning to get used to our pets and our routine. Nice lady, but she’s Moses’ grand mother if she’s a day. Got lost finding our place because she didn’t think she’d need to use the EASY directions I gave her over the phone yesterday. Thought she’d be able to find it on her own coming in the back way through miles of twisty roads, most of which don’t even have names. But once she got here, she seemed just as competent and nice as our original pet/house sitter and we really liked her. I like sitters who take notes, especially when they already have previous sitters’ notes but still take their own.

So, the morning was spent cleaning and then going over everything with the sitter. This afternoon, while working of course (can’t forget the job. Ever.), I’m finally getting through the end of the laundry mountain, do a bit of engine cleaning on my car and hopefully, spend an hour out in the sun. It’s going to be 85+ degrees F Saturday at the car show and I’m determined to already have a small tan so I don’t burn. Plus, there’s the additional bonus of looking tanned when I have to go to Company headquarters next week, where everyone is tan (they are all thin too, but we won’t talk about that part). Since we have lots of Rhododendrons going into bloom and hot weather is on the way, I going to try to get a few good pictures to post here. I just hope the camera can catch the color. Some of those flowers are just glowing!

Still no sign of the alleged patio furniture SportsOrNothing next door assured us they bought a month ago, when they were gloating how much better theirs would be over what we bought at Lowe’s. Okay. They are entitled to their opinion. At least we have ours. And have I mentioned lately how much I love it? No? Well, I do!

And Tuesday morning, someone large must have taken to eating the peanuts out of our squirrel box because the plexi-glass front is missing completely. We’ve both looked everywhere in the yard and can’t find it anywhere. Irritating. We really don’t want to buy a new feeder box just for the plastic window but they don’t make just that part. Why? I don’t know but surely someone else has lost that part alone. I’m trying to think of something else I can put in it’s place, but it has to be something that won’t hurt the squirrels paws when they lean on it while rummaging to get a peanut out of the box so wire is out of the question.

April 30 2004

Good bye to the month of April. In honor of the end of National Poetry Month and Post a poem on your Blog day, I offer two of my personal favorites written by yours truly, one in Haiku form (5-7-5) and the other in freeform style. Have a good weekend.

A late Easter Haiku:
Spongy animals,
sugar, corn syrup, gelatin,
yum, marshmallow peeps!

An Essay on Class Reunions
I can’t go back because I’m not the same.
Not the same unknown, unwanted, friendless, forgettable face in the hall.
Not the same pimply-faced girl
who tried out for student body and cheerleading every year
and failed in them all.

I’m not the pathetic one
who was always pushed in the mud just before debate class.
I’m not the same klutzy one
who always tripped over cracks in the sidewalks and fell flat
and everyone pointed to and laughed at.

Not the same one who had gum thrown in her sparse hair,
tacks left on her chair,
lockers broken into and vandalized,
all possessions burglarized.
The one who got pinched on the butt or felt up in a crowd
led by some smart ass
and beat up on afterwards.

I’m not the same sad-eyed girl
who fell in love with a football player.
Dated him for three whole weeks
and split up after discovering,
in the back of his mother’s convertible,
that we weren’t sexually compatible,
and that I hadn’t made the first cut
of the pom-pom line he helped judge,
and I was just one of numerous checks
he marked in a book of bad sex.

I couldn’t shed those high school memories
fast enough.
Couldn’t become something different
soon enough.
Couldn’t avoid old classmates
quick enough.
They always remembered. Always had something to say.
“Oh, YOU were the one we were all laughing about.”
As if I had any doubt.

A few years later, no one could remember my face at all.
It had helped that I’d moved to a different section of town.
Dyed my hair a reddish-brown.
Told acquaintances I had graduated from a different school,
in a different year.
I was very sincere.
No one saw the fear.

They called the other day.
Those women who look up old classmates.
Not that they remember everyone by name,
but by bad pictures in a yearbook.
They constantly have to look
to see who it is they are assigned to find.

They tracked me down through a brother
who still lives in the area.
A twenty year reunion!
Promises to be fun! (promises of hysteria)
“Don’t ya wanna see if all your buddies are still the same?”
“Don’t ya wanna know what happened to ol’ what’s-her-name?”
“Don’t ya wanna see an old flame?”
Just say YES!, and send sixty-five dollars
(for yourself, or if you’d rather,
one hundred and twenty for you and a significant other),
and we’ll see you on the evening of the fifth at an over-priced resort
usually reserved this time of year
for senior citizen balls and debutante brawls,
in an over-valued section of town,
far away from the real scene of the crimes.

No, I won’t be going back.

This is me now.
I don’t trip over small cracks.
I watch for tacks and won’t touch mud packs.
I never ran for any government office.
There is nothing from those days I miss.
I look over my shoulder more often than most.
I’ve grown away from what I was and healed…almost.
I’ve learned how to laugh and I’ve moved on in my life.
I don’t need to relive high school days as if they didn’t occur
because…I remember.

May 3 2004

The weekend was hot, long and fairly low-key. The first official car show of the season went very well and I took first in my class. I have no place for the 3-foot tall trophy but my registration dollars will go to a good charity and that’s what matters. Sunday, we were going to take a nice long drive in my car but we never really got around to it and spent the day relaxing in the sun and doing a bit of house and yard work. I took lots of pictures of things blooming around here, picked up the rest of the fence varnish and a new squirrel feeder box plus a replacement plexi-glass piece for the old one (which is still missing).

The monthly welfare check must of come in for The Dimmers next door, allowing Mr. Dimmer to refill his medication prescriptions because he mowed his back yard again (a record!) this weekend and picked up most of the toys back there. No more bricks have been pulled up from his corner seating area and it looks like he might have given up on that project. (The hole is still there from the bricks he smashed out last weekend though – he’s got a chair sitting over the hole to hide it now.) Today is trash day and once again, they haven’t put any out. That makes a solid three months of no trash or recycling put out. Since dumping all his stored trash last weekend in some parking lot, he ought to have lots of room to start all over again. I’m just going to say it. These people are pigs.

At work, Ego is seriously stepping on toes again and doing other people’s job. MrSmartButFakingIt has been giving WS the cold shoulder and MsNoManagementSkills has been chatting at me online, asking ridiculously stupid questions that she knows the answers to in an effort to see if I’m really sitting here working. She does this every few months, trying to catch me away from my computer for periods of time. The problem is, I am nearly ALWAYS sitting right here, for eight or more hours a day, going nowhere other than the speedy trips to the bathroom. Today, it seems like everyone at Company headquarters is assuming that I’m not here at my desk and doing my work. Since I’ll be flying to Company headquarters later this week, this ought to make for an interesting trip. I am truly sorry I took the time to teach Ego how to enter some document information last week because it seems like now, they are spending time doing that, which is MY job and not sticking to doing THEIR job. Maybe some people are trying to make themselves look more important than they really are. Maybe they’re all trying to tell me something. Maybe I’ll be telling The Company CEOs a little something myself if so. I am tired of working with territory-grabbing, empire-building immature children.

So, this week will be jam-packed with things to get done, meetings to schedule and heads to get into the right place before I leave. Laundry, vacuuming, mopping, more laundry, a car to wash and a coat of polish to put on and take off, a lawn to mow, sheets to change, a refrigerator to clean out, a weather report to check, bags to pack, an online check in to do, cash to pick up and a notebook or two worth of work stuff to take. It’s all about the preparation because there’s nothing like having to go on a business trip that no one wants to go on and coming home to a spotlessly clean, resort-feeling type of home and knowing that you survived those awful people.

May 4 2004

I got a goodly amount of stuff done yesterday: Car washed, laundry done, exercised, cleaned out fridge, checked weather reports, filled bird feeders and pre-registered for a few upcoming car shows up north of me for after I get back from The Company trip. The Kent show in early May, Anacortes in mid-May, SeaTac Village in early June and Langley, BC immediately afterward. I think I have a break then from car shows for a week or two before anything else major comes up. I know I’m forgetting one in there somewhere that I really wanted to attend that I couldn’t last year. Last year, it was all about keeping the car absolutely spotless for season end points. This year, it’s all about keeping the car reasonably spotless and having fun. Last year, little fun was had by anyone. This year, so far I’m having a blast. What a change!

Also yesterday, a pot of freesias were delivered here. WS bought me an early mother’s day gift, or as we fondly call it around here, Non-Mother’s Day, just as we sometimes celebrate Non-Father’s Day or “Look! I’ve got some Sperm Day!”. Beautiful, white freesias. One of my most favorite scents in all the world. Now, what to get WS next month? I’m at a loss.

The weather today is much cooler and full of dark clouds but no rain yet. We really need the rain. Most of the blooming things have been crisp-ified by last week’s hot weather although there are a few late flowering things that missed the heat and just starting to show color. Anything that was sheltered from the sun and hot winds still looks okay, but a bit tired. At least all the flowers weren’t knocked off by heavy rain and the hail we usually have this time of year.

Yesterday, we had a very fat squirrel visit us. I’m sure I’ve seen this squirrel before but it definitely wasn’t fat. I think it might be a pregnant squirrel which I hope means she’ll bring her babies to our back yard this year. We need to invite all the wildlife we can get around here. Some people who owned a big chunk of thick forest less than a quarter of a mile down the road from our development, sold the land and timber and yesterday, it all came down. 50-70 year old trees, vine maples, Oregon grape, ferns, trilliums and moss, all gone. Bulldozed, ground in and wiped from the face of the earth in my corner of the world. Let’s take a small moment of silence for all the wildlife that lost their homes, not to mention all the new wildlife babies that were probably killed in the process in the name of some new white trash development that will be built there shortly. If people only knew the magic of the thick, old growth forests we had around here just three years ago, there would be more outrage over this latest wound. I feel that much more justified to be mad as at least our development was built on a 100 year old barren cow pasture and our builders left all the trees standing that were still here. Unfortunately, we were all told that it would be a decade or more before all the surrounding forests would most likely be taken down. That started within two years and now, we only have two small forested plots of land left near us. I imagine in ten years, it’ll be like we live in the middle of town and then, I’ll be ready to go elsewhere, to build a new house. Out of concrete, stone and brick and not timber.

Back to work for me.

May 5 2004

There is nothing quite like finding out that the meetings I’m being scheduled for while on my business trip, most of which were made without my prior knowledge, will be reviewing stuff that MrSmartButFakingIt and Ego have not kept me in the loop on and in most cases, have changed all my work on, leaving me clueless. Basically, I’ll have less than four hours to come up to speed on what is going on, what has changed and why things have changed so radically, not to mention a serious learning curve. It sounds like the person behind all the work has washed their hands of the project, possibly sensing that it is doomed to fail, meaning I’ll be held accountable since it’s being dumped in my lap without my consent. Fun, fun. WS may be able to try to help me get up to speed but I sense impending doom. Picture crashing, burning, searing flesh, flayed skin, bamboo shoots under the nails, sexually suggestive naked posing for photos, etc. This won’t be pretty in the least. But at least I’m taking a friend along with me. Aunt Flo will also be making the trip.

And now for something completely different: An Ode to Young Clarinet Players
Stop. Please. I’m begging on my knees.
Stop. I’m pleading. Please. My ears are bleeding.
What were your parents thinking, my tolerance here is sinking.
Your squeaks and squawks aren’t playing, your fingers aren’t obeying
Anything near to what your mind hears
Two more hours of replaying, the slammed windows aren’t conveying
Our point. And that is to stop. Please. I’m begging on my knees.
Stop. I’m pleading. Please. My ears are bleeding.

Okay then. I nearly ready for the Company trip. I’ve already been told that I won’t have a computer at Company headquarters (odd for a software company, isn’t it?) but I’m planning on taking lots of notes; Company notes and observances of behavior displayed by you know who. I’ll update when I get back this weekend. Be safe!

May 10 2004

What a week and weekend that was. Let’s not do that again for a while, okay?

The Company trip went as expected with MsNoManagementSkills trying to run the world her way. The good thing was that she didn’t force us all to eat at her favorite dive-y restaurant, famous for greasy, high fat food and food poisoning. The other good thing was seeing how large she’s gotten in just the past six months. If love makes a person gain weight, she’s got to be more in love than anyone I know and hey! That’s okay, but gaining 60-70 pounds in six months can’t be good for anyone, can it? It was shocking to me, actually, and I couldn’t help but see in her the shape of my mother in her “thinner” moments. We had to sit through meetings all day Thursday and Friday and only late Friday afternoon, did people (not MsNoManagementSkills) start to loosen up and smile. Of course, that was a half an hour before we had to leave (maybe it was related?)

For some reason during the entire trip, I felt exhausted and really struggled to concentrate. I slept okay, but each morning when I got up, I felt like I hadn’t slept at all. That pattern continues even now. Maybe I caught something and am trying to fight it off? I took a couple of zinc Cold-Ease lozenges each night before bed just in case I caught something on the plane and I don’t think I have but this exhaustion is well,…exhausting.

We ran around Saturday getting errands done and Sunday, we sat around here, trying to relax before going back to work today. I’m surprised I don’t feel sad for leaving Company headquarters like I usually do. It seemed that my coworkers no longer had the fun they used to have and the work environment wasn’t the same. Other than working together in the same room, the work seemed just as dull and mountainous as it does here, thousands of miles away.

About Survivor, I’m extremely disappointed. I think Mark Burnett is being taken for a ride and he doesn’t know it yet. No, I don’t think anyone will be getting married. I think the “engagement” is fake and being done to get around one of the main rules of Survivor: No conspiring to share the million dollars.

Oh, and a little something I’ve learned over the years: Once a snake, always a snake. And anyone who likes snakes is all to willing to play the snake themselves. I’ll never say anything more about this series.

Moving forward, today I swear I’ll get through the laundry, spot check my car for any cleaning detail I might need to do before next weekend’s car show and start up exercising again after not touching either the rower or the elliptical machine since last Tuesday. This would not be a good time to return to a flabby stomach and cottage cheese legs, so I just won’t.

May 11 2004

A busy day with meetings, extra work piled onto more work and a coworker wanting everything under the sun to make her work load easier. WS usually helps me with this kind of stuff, but he’s swamped with his own busy work. I am overwhelmed with work right now and can’t help but feel that it all because MrSmartButFakingIt has decided to take time off from work for personal reasons, leaving us all scrambling in preparation.

No, I didn’t finish laundry yesterday, but today, WS got our back door lock fixed finally and the kitchen has been beautifully scrubbed and wiped down. It’s lightly raining outside and everything smells and looks fresh and green. I restarted my rowing/ellipticalling routine yesterday. Dinner tonight will be good and healthy and include a bottle of Australia’s Kunde Magnolia Lake Sauvignon Blanc. During The Company business trip, we both lost weight, mostly because we just don’t eat much when we’re away from home. Too much stress and crappy greasy-spoon food preferred by our boss sums it all up.

Our improved body image didn’t go unnoticed during the business trip and today, MsNoManagementSkills announced that she’s back to dieting, a dirty notion and word that hasn’t been muttered by her or around her since she moved in with her sex-deviant boyfriend and his fast-food demanding kids last January. He’s all too happy to have her hugely large, like his mother, and there’s nothing wrong with that, however, her health is beginning to suffer and she isn’t happy because, even though she loves shopping for clothes, she can no longer afford how often she needs ever larger and larger attire. Such a difference a year makes. Last year at this time, with FatHeads’ two-job salaries combined with her own, she was buying entire new wardrobes every other month and flaunting them in everyone faces. Now, between her and her not-at-all-job-ambitious boyfriend, they are struggling to make rent every month.

May 13 2004

Yesterday was just an awful day at work. There’s nothing quite like getting up early with a good attitude with all intentions of jumping head first into work in order to get a lot done, and within the first hour, your boss slams your work. Gee, you think I want to work now? Looks like MrSmartButFakingIt is looking for necks to wring and there I was, not expecting his wrath. At least, I still have my job. I still have my job. I still have my job. ‘deep breath’
Then, as if to signify exactly how I felt at that moment, the littlest, screaming Dimmer next door ran outside and stood in the middle of her back yard, in her nightgown, clutching a stuffed animal, and screamed at the top of her lungs for ten solid minutes. She then abruptly stopped, thankfully, and ran back inside. All this was before 9 am.

Since the day didn’t get any better and today isn’t looking much better either, I’ll just try to keep a low profile. The sun is out today. Maybe I’ll sit outside for a bit in lieu of working for a few hours and enjoy the flowers. Hope you have a good day yourself.

May 14 2004

Another crappy work day with MrSmartButFakingIt confusing the issues so badly, at one point I had to have WS straighten them all out for me before I could continue. MsNoManagementSkills didn’t help matters by being just as confused and confusing, but all-in-all…

…who cares now? The day is over! And on to the weekend.

I’ve got a couple hour drive early tomorrow morning, probably in the rain to a show a few hundred miles north of me with a group of people I’ve never met at a Chevy dealership I’ve never been to. Car shows like this are always interesting. Either, people will receive me well or well, they won’t. I’ve got the feeling that this group of people, a small new-ish club in that area, are mostly interested in bone-stock sports cars and if that’s so, they won’t be terribly impressed with me because I’m not. I’m just hoping I can show them something new and show that I care to support car shows in my own state, instead of like last year, too often supporting shows and charities in a bordering state with people I came to dislike.

So, the car is packed with our folding chairs, assuming WS is still going with me (he isn’t as enamored with car shows as I am and I perfectly understand if he doesn’t want to go to them all), extra towels for wiping and drying, two 1.5 liter bottles of water to drink, wash up with and wash down the car with as needed, my fancy polish and cleaning supplies and enough mostly 80’ and ‘90’s era CDs to gag Cindy Lauper and Vince Neil.

I’ve had a sinus headache and stuffy/runny nose all day for some reason but aspirin has finally taken care of that. It only took eight aspirin total but I’m fine now. All I need to do tonight is shower, go fill up my car with gas at $250 a gallon now and get a reasonable night’s sleep. The house is fairly clean, both WS are happy here at home together and who knows? Maybe we’ll put “Finding Nemo” in one more time.

“Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming…”

May 16 2004

Saturday went pretty much as planned. We got up early and were off without a hitch for the long drive northward. We didn’t run into any rain on the way up and things looked good until around 2 or so when the weather started spitting and then turned downright wet and nasty. We took second place in our class, a class that no one had defined until they saw the cars, and that was just fine with me. The real treat was seeing so many people I knew from last year’s car show season. People I actually like. And seeing so many cars the same color as me. Here in my small town, there are only two other sports cars of my type that are the same color as me. Obviously, the Seattle area got all of my color and I finally felt like part of a family.

Today, Sunday, we’ve just stayed here around home. I did grocery shopping earlier this afternoon, after we sat outside for well over an hour, talking and reading and watching the birds. Two red-winged black bird females have staked out Ham and Cheese’s personal stash of birdseed and were regularly flying in for a personal feast without having to fight all the other birds at the feeder. I ‘m sure Ham and Cheese, the two resident field mice, weren’t all that thrilled with the hungry visitors. Late last Friday afternoon, just as I was putting a small bit of seed out at their burrow entrance, Ham scurried out at my fingertips and startled me. Each time I’ve gone out there, I’ve called out, “Hi Cheese!” just so the mice would get used to my voice. I can’t explain why exactly I’ve always done this, I just have and it seemed that when I said that last Friday, Ham figured it meant “Food is served!” (Also, I know it was Ham, the smallest mouse, because Ham is less afraid of people and not terribly fazed by me standing nearby, whereas Cheese is scared to death of anyone and anything different, on top of being portly about the middle.)

So, tomorrow brings another work week, perhaps with MrSmartButFakingIt still cranky. Or maybe he will have finally taken his personal vacation. It’s anyone’s guess really, since he won’t tell anyone exactly when he is going. But when he does, Ego and MsNoManagementSkills will be in charge and I’m fairly certain that nothing will run any smoother. I’m just hoping that neither of them will take their new-found leadership role too seriously and try to dump someone else’s work in my lap.

Tomorrow also marks week 22 that The Dimmers next door haven’t set any trash out at curbside for trash day. This afternoon, as I was coming home from the grocery store, I saw their vehicles packed full of boxes and WS got all excited about the possibility at the thought of them moving. But, as we’ve seen after DrunkTank Willie and Leona moved out, sometimes new neighbors aren’t all that and a bag of chips. But I don’t really think they’re moving so there wasn’t any excitement here.

Next door, SportsOrNothing finally got their patio furniture. A table, umbrella and four chairs. Good, but really. Why did they set them all up and leave each large and colorful sales tags on them, flapping casually in the breeze? Perhaps for all their party guests this afternoon to marvel at how much they paid for each chair, the table and umbrella? We haven’t made sense of this yet.

And finally, back in January, I wrote of a situation that had taken place here. The “Situation of Which I Cannot Speak”. Thank you to everyone who’s asked. No, it has not changed and no, I still cannot speak of it. Someday, all will be revealed.

May 17 2004

A sleepy Monday. I just could not sleep last night and didn’t drift off until after 4 am. And then I started work at 8 am. Fun, fun, fun. Too much stuff on my mind, I guess. I’m swamped with work at my job, with laundry, with getting my car ready for this coming weekend, the long, long drive to the show this weekend, blah, blah, blah. Really, nothing to worry about each on their own. Just put them all together and I can’t sleep. It’ll be a Tylenol PM night tonight, I think.

I’m looking forward to the adventure that will be this coming Saturday’s car show in Anacortes. Going alone this time, and since it’s over a four hour drive for me to get there, we’ve decided that I’ll leave Friday afternoon, tackle Seattle’s Friday rush hour traffic (which doesn’t worry me in the least) and find my room in Anacortes around 7 pm with enough time to clean my car, which absolutely comes first, and find something to eat. By staying overnight, I won’t have much cleaning to do Saturday morning, the car will show well, I’ll be able to enjoy myself there and won’t be so tired for the long drive home Saturday evening. I’m pretty excited about it and it’s this that will help me get through this week.

Today started out sunny with a promise of thunderstorms in the late afternoon, according to the weather people on the local news. No way, I was telling myself while watching the cloudless blue skies most of the day. But around 3 pm, you could hear rumblings in the distance. It rarely ever thunders where I live. True thunderstorms are rare. But indeed, the skies have darkened and thunder clouds are in the distance. I used to be terribly frightened of thunder, not lightning, which I know sounds odd. It’s the huge, booming noise that scares me to death. I, who am not afraid of much of anything, afraid of a loud noise. Okay, so I’m odd. I can live with that. But back to the storm, do I think we’re going to get any rain out of this? After being told we were going to be practically flooded out here since last Friday but we’ve yet to see a drop here? No. And I don’t think it’s going to rain tomorrow either. I hope I’m wrong. It looks like it’ll be nice for the coming weekend though. Yippee!

May 18 2004

Happy Mt. St. Helens day. 24 years ago, the mountain blew. I didn’t live here at the time, but I was completely riveted to my TV set down in the desert southwest when this happened, wishing I was here instead. Who would have known that someday, I would be able to see the remaining mountain from my office window anytime I want. Well, when the weather is cooperating anyway.

It’s cloudy today and looks like it wants to cut loose any minute. The problem is, it’s been that way all day and we haven’t gotten a drop. Things will clear up tomorrow though and will be clear the rest of the week, except for Saturday, when it will pour. Probably up north too, where I’ll be by then. Maybe the rain will wash away all those creepy tent worms. Ugh.

Today, I’ve put one coat of polish on my car, took it off and have a second coat on now. As soon as I can get the laundry finished, I’ll take that polish coat off as well and I should be set for Friday’s departure. With WS’s tremendous help, I was able to finish a big project today, leaving only four or five other ones to slog through, depending on how many more Ego and MsNoManagementSkills piles on me. It seems like every time I want to get out of work early at the end of the week like MsNoManagementSkills does week after week, I get piled with mountains of work that all needed to be finished yesterday. And I never even tell anyone I’m planning on quitting early. I must just send out a vibe or something.

Lots of other things going on this week to help the week go by faster. Is anyone watching the PBS series, “Colonial House”? I’m on my second night and I’m hooked. Odd Todd finally has a new cartoon! And tomorrow is Wednesday already. Yeah, I’m happy. Well, if I ever get through this laundry, I definitely will be.

May 19 2004

Nothing but work going on today. Laundry is finished, thanks to help from WS this morning. I’m about to wipe the last coat of polish off my car and start packing it for Friday’s drive north. It’s been very quiet out at the bird feeders this morning. I don’t know where all the goldfinches are but they aren’t here today. I also haven’t seen Ham or Cheese, making me wonder if a cat is hiding out under the back rock wall bushes maybe. At least the ducks haven’t moved. Ducks, you say? Yeah, we have three plastic baby ducks that I usually float out in the fountain. They didn’t look too bad in past years, but this year, they are looking a bit worse for wear. Either way, having them floating out there seems to help birds find our place in the early spring. It’s an odd bird thing I think.

Over the past few days, one or two of the ducks have been moved. Over the weekend, the one that sits up on the fountain bank (because it has sprung a leak and ends up at the bottom of the fountain) was turned completely around and sitting on it’s side. I didn’t notice any bite marks on it from a raccoon or anything so I re-positioned it back where it originally was. Monday, one of two floating ducks was wedged halfway down the fountain stream, well away from the protected pool where his plastic brother safely floats. I think a neighbor cat has discovered our fountain and thought it had found an easy meal. If it is a cat, it’s also probably discovered Ham and Cheese and whomever else those field mice might have living with them and I’m not going to put an end to that. I refuse to be overrun with field mice just because they are cute. So are baby rhinos but I don’t plan on inviting lots of them over here to live out there either (just in case you were wondering if I’d ever do that.).

I expected to hear from Drill Sergeant Dave or the nice Competition Boy this week about car stuff or upcoming shows or something. They were all over me a couple of weeks ago, calling every night until I finally called them back just before our Company business trip. Of course, I could call them back now. I COULD, but really, why would I want to? Drill Sergeant Dave only wants to talk about his divorce and ways to derail his ex-wife’s relationship with the nice Competition Boy. And the nice Competition Boy is in that love-smitten phase where he wants to do the things he likes, like car shows, but wants to please Drill Sergeant Dave’s ex-wife even more, meaning he flip-flops between wanting to go to a car show and not. While I do like them both, my brain hurts after being around either of them after a while of listening to them bitch and moan about each other. Literally, hurts. And we won’t even talk about the hurt look on the face of the nice Competition Boy at the May 1st show when he didn’t win anything, an unusual occurrence to be sure. It made me feel uncomfortable for winning my class.

I do miss driving in a group to car shows. I just don’t miss the people in that group.

May 20 2004

I have several goals in mind today: 1) To finish my Bella Tuscany book, of which has re-enforced in me that I will never live in Italy for any extended period of time. I believe rabbits, quail, pigeons and wild boar are to look at, feed and admire, not eat. I’d also have a problem with how often people are willing to destroy ancient history just because they found some on their own land and would rather have a swimming pool put in. Those people have lived with history so long, it means nothing to them to bulldoze it. Besides, who wants to take a twenty-hour plane flight anywhere? I prefer to retain my romantic notion about Italy and most of Europe where no one strips the land bare and kills everything else.

2) Clean my face every few hours in a feeble attempt to get rid of all the zits I’ve somehow developed since yesterday. I’m sure they are just stress related with a touch of an allergy to Splenda ™ tossed in. This morning, I woke up looking like an overly-hormonal, oily-faced fifteen year with breakouts happening on my cheeks, chin and under my nose. Just what I wanted to do this weekend: Go to a car show looking like a pizza-face. Why me? I’m also flushing my system today and WS will just have to have pesto for dinner alone tomorrow night. My face can’t take any more oil.

3) Get to bed at a really early hour. Tomorrow includes a really long drive, after working a full day with MsNoManagementSkills, MrSmartButFakingIt and Ego. I’m going to need my strength.

4) Clip the vine maple that has taken over the sunflower seed feeder so birds can find it again and fill all other feeders.

May 21 2004

I woke this morning to a heavy misty, foggy drizzle. With a thick, green woodsy smell in the air, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear it was the start of fall, that time of year that I love so dearly. But it’s not. It’s mid-May and in about an hour, I’ll be leaving here to drive up north for a few hours to a definite rainy day car show in beautiful Anacortes. It’s really too bad that it’s raining and the roads are soaked but I can’t be too unhappy. I’ll have lots of time to re-clean my car once I get there. I’d rather it be rainy than hot and sunny, to be honest.

The starling babies have started arriving here at the bird feeders. I liken baby starlings to human babies in that they are overly noisy and are resistant to learn how to feed themselves when an adult is around to do it for them. Within a month, I’ll be sick of hearing them whining to be fed while they’re standing ankle-deep in bird seed and I’ll be hoping I don’t find too many ‘homeless’ ones that will keep me up nights worrying about what might get them.
WS, if you are reading this, don’t forget to feed the inside pets. I filled the bird feeders yesterday. Nothing needs to be watered. Eat the rest of the cherries. I should be home tomorrow night sometime, depending on when the awards ceremony ends. Don’t work yourself to death cleaning. Enjoy things.

May 24 2004

If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that over the weekend, I was training for a driver’s position for the 24 hours of Le Mans. Friday, even after leaving early for Anacortes, it took me over six hours to get there. Rush hour traffic in Seattle was horrendous and I spent 2 full hours in stop and go traffic, never going over 30 miles per hour. But the silver cloud there was that I didn’t get any additional rock chips on my car so it all worked out fine. Hours later, after getting to my motel of choice, I called WS to check in and then, re-cleaned my car. I knew it was going to rain the next day but I wanted the six hours of road grime off it anyway.

I had dinner alone at Captain’s Restaurant on the marina, where a young, cute waiter seemed to take to me, probably in an attempt to get a bigger tip and he got it, but only because the service was well worth it. I never had to ask for anything, yet he wasn’t one of those annoying, hovering waiters either. A seven buck tip on a ten dollar meal? Yeah, he deserved it.

Saturday, it rained as expected but because I had already wiped the travel grime off my car, taking car of the car for the rest of the day was a breeze. I didn’t have to open my windows or show off my car’s interior and I only propped open my engine hood (or bonnet, if you happen to be British) partway because of the showers.

I did well at Awards time, taking first in my class and taking Best Engine. Immediately afterward, I beat cheeks home and expected that to take at least five hours. The weather was clear down to Seattle but just before Olympia, the skies opened and dumped more rain than I had ever seen before. Cars were hydro-planing everywhere. I was hydro-planing everywhere. I saw a bad crash mere minutes after it happened at the capital building exit. I limped through the storm and finally, around the town of Chehalis, the rain stopped. I was able to get home in just over four hours and had enough time to wash my car before dark, making me very, very happy.

Sunday, I knew there was a decently advertised car show about a half an hour from me, being put on by some people I knew but I wasn’t originally planning on attending. But at 5 a.m. Sunday morning, I was lying there awake, thinking that because I woke up on my own, I probably ought to try to attend this show. So I did but it was the most uncomfortable and boring car show I think I have ever attended. As much as I want to complain about the company I had to sit with there, I can’t really, because I did win Best Engine at this show too. I just won’t go to any more of these kinds of shows if I can help it. I have to face it: Hanging around with people from the club I used to belong to just isn’t fun. Especially when they now feel comfortable enough to tell me to my face that they resent me showing up anywhere that they might be showing their car, only to lose to me time after time. I’m perfectly fine with this because I remember when it wasn’t’ so long ago that I felt the same way towards some of them and lost to them time after time. I just never told them this to their faces.

Everything is cyclical. Everything comes and goes in waves. My time of winning at car shows probably won’t last much longer, much like people who won before me and people who will win after me. It’s kind of irritating though, that people don’t seem to get this.

So, today, Monday, it’s back to work. MrSmartButFakingIt still hasn’t taken his vacation time off, but at least we now know why he’s taking time and why he’s been so pissed off. His wife is having a baby next month. Great reason to take it out on his employees, don’t you think? I wonder what kind of reason I could use, AND get away with? And exactly what was his excuse last year before his wife was pregnant? What was his excuse the year before that? And who’s fault is it that she’s pregnant anyway and why do we have to get the brunt of his aggravation?

May 25 2004

For the past two days, I have felt incredibly hungry. I think it psychologically due to the weather since I generally eat like a horse during the cold, rainy months. And it’s been cold and rainy here for a couple of weeks. It’s been sunny today, but tomorrow through the weekend, the temperatures are dropping and we’re supposed to be in for three days of downpours.

In an effort to forget about being hungry, I made up the mostly official list of all car shows I hope to attend with my car for the summer and it looks like it’ll be a busy one with a show every weekend in June but only three shows in July. There’s only a couple in August and September and then, the season is over for the year. My next show is a crammed-full weekend on June 5-6 with a show in Seattle, followed by my first trip to B.C. for a show in Langley. Recently, WS found my original birth certificate so we’re set to go to Canada, and even though we’ll only be there for about eight hours, I’m excited.

I’m nearly done with work for the day. Tonight, I need to wash my car from the past, long weekend and get a few coats of polish back on it. The paint is pretty well scratched up due to the long, long rainy trip to Anacortes, followed by the rainy, muddy trip to the show last Sunday. Unfortunately, when I wipe the car down after driving somewhere when the roads are wet, the road grime tends to cause scratches in the polish coats and paint. The polish I use fills in most of the scratches and makes the paint mega-shiny, which also takes one’s eyes off most of the scratches that are left and too big to fill.

Are you bored yet? Yeah, well, let’s talk about frogs. Yesterday evening, after work, I started to pull up that Sweet William ground cover that I was an idiot to plant in the first place and is taking over both ours and SportsOrNothing’s yards. During this, I ran across two very tiny tree frogs in the process of turning brown from bright green. They were both very skinny, making me wonder what they were doing other than eating. Where the Sweet William grows (hey, that could be a song title), there are tons of bugs and even more slugs of all sizes. While I don’t think tree frogs eat slugs because of the slime factor, they could be eating spiders and beetles and god only knows what else is scurrying around back there. Of course, with all the croaking going on out there, I suppose lots of frog sex is what is going on, hence, the skinniness.

May 26 2004

Finally, MrSmartButFakingIt has taken his time off. It sounds like he isn’t as smart as we thought he was though. You see, his wife is having a baby, which turned out that she is having twins, something he’s known about for months and so he’s had lots of time to figure out names for them. But for some reason, they are naming them the equivelent of “Pete” and “Repeat”. Why? Who knows but this is typical of how he’s been doing things lately. Taking the easy way out or something. Some people just should not have children.

And speaking of that, MsNoManagementSkills has been complaining nonstop about her boyfriend’s kids for months now. She purposely divorced FatHead because he decided he didn’t want children when she did so badly. Then she looked for someone with a minimum of three kids and an ex-wife without custody so she could raise kids. Now, she can’t find anything positive to say about them, going as far as telling everyone within earshot that one of them is definitely “gay”. How do you think this child will turn out, hearing that every waking moment? And the other two are “a constant liar and stealer” and “too touchy-feel-y”. Nice talk, huh? Did she think that kids were always perfect and angelic? Especially ones that have been bounced around between parents and ignored by their father who just wants someone else to take care of them so he can visit online porn sites and assemble obsolete computer systems?

As you may have guessed, while MrSmartButFakingIt has put MsNoManagementSkills in charge while he is off. And in her frustration with trying to raise her boyfriend’s kids, she has taken out her frustration on her coworkers. I’m seriously considering keeping a very low profile at work over the next few weeks just to keep from blowing up over her belittling emails and requests. That is, when I’m not livid over Ego sticking his nose in my job where it does not belong and assigning me work as well. If I haven’t mentioned it recently, let me state it again: I HATE IMMATURE, EMPIRE-BUILDING AND TERRITORY-GRABBING BABIES. As I take a deep breath, I tell myself, “Someday. Someday…oh look! Birds!”

May 27 2004

Finally. Rain here at home and lots of it. Everything has been washed off from the dust and dirt buildup and it smells so good. I got up early this morning and made sure all the bird feeders were filled: The hummingbird feeder, both nyger seed feeders (one sock and one big tube), the tube sunflower chip feeder, the top sunflower chip tray and the mourning dove millet tray. And a smidge of food near Ham and Cheese’s burrow. The squirrel box is full and a few peanuts were thrown out for the blue jays. Everyone should be happy now. Even me, as I sit here, working (kind of), munching my oatmeal with cranberries, watching the swifts fly in and out of the birdhouse next door at the SportsOrNothing back yard.

WS is worked from home today; a treat for me, especially since I had dreams about him last night. He’s finally started to take care of himself this year and has lost 50 pounds to exercise and better eating. The other day, when he got a haircut, I recommended that he get some subtle highlights put in his hair. So he did and we both love them. Between losing weight, good-looking hair and the sun he’s gotten over the past month, he is really looking great and I’m pretty proud of him.

Today, I have to kick it into high gear with the polish/waxing on my car. Currently, there’s a coat on there that needs to come off. Then, after a few hours rest, another coat goes on. You can bet that I’ll be polishing and waxing all weekend long. That is, when I’m not out buying more bird food. I’m nearly out of everything: Sunflower chips, peanuts in the shell, millet, cracked corn.

Other than polishing and bird food buying, I don’t have anything else planned for the upcoming three-day holiday weekend. Except to enjoy it. It wasn’t that long ago that I had to work every single holiday and I’m still not used to having the days off.

May 28 2004

28 years ago this evening, also a Friday, I was married for the first time. I’m sure my ex-husband and my sister never even think of this day, or remember their significant role in what a sham that wedding and short marriage was. But it all evened out in the end. I used him to get away from my abusive parents. He used me to get to my sister, who was all too willing to oblige him. It’s all good now. I just have this ability to remember long past dates.

The power struggle has begun at work. Not that I think he will listen, but I really need to bring this up to MrSmartButFakingIt when he returns from his vacation, before he decides that since everyone else knows how to do my job, and is all too willing to do it without my prior knowledge, I’m no longer needed at The Company. I remember back when I innocently thought this kind of childish, territory-grabbing behavior only occurred in official work places, where people worked face-to-face. Certainly, not in a virtual office environment. It should never happen at all, but that’s what happens when worker morale is low and everyone is scared of losing their jobs for as long as we all have felt this. Everyone is insecure. Everyone feels they need to show they are doing more work. And if that means doing someone else’s work before that someone else can do it, the feeling is that’s all the better. Frustrating all the same.
Okay, let’s stop beating ourselves up over this and move on, shall we?

It’s going to rain here for much of the weekend and we couldn’t be happier. Sure, I know, people want it to be dry and not too hot, but we really, really do need the rain and there are already a few small forest fires going on around here. It looks like next week will be dry up until next weekend (June 5-6) when the rain comes in again, meaning I’ll be showing my car in the rain in Seattle and B.C. But I’m really not minding this at all and no one is more surprised than myself. Last year, I avoided driving my car in the rain (and snow) at nearly all costs. Not because of the driving, but because I was trying to keep my car last year in as much of a pristine state as I could because of the car show class I was required to be in at the time. It sounds silly, I know, but so are car shows themselves, if you think about it.

This year, however, I’m no longer in that show class and I vowed to myself to actually ENJOY my car. Showing it in the rain eliminates having to keep the car perfect-looking every moment during the show judging and evens the playing field. In the rain, we’re all just sports cars parked there. No one can see how clean the interiors are or aren’t. No one can see how much chrome anyone has or doesn’t have under their hood. It’s simple car versus car and who likes which.

Somewhere, I read just a short while ago that B.C. drivers don’t use their windshield wipers in the rain. I’m sure that was just a joke, right?

June 1 2004

Well, I really thought I would get back to here sometime over the 3-day weekend, but you see, we adopted another pet and have had him quarantined in our bedroom since Saturday, away from the other pets until his official vet appointment today. Whomever had this pet before us spent some money on getting him declawed (although completely healed, someone forgot to take out some of the stitches) and had his tail docked like a Doberman (how cruel!). He’s very sweet and stands up with arms outstretched to give hugs to anyone who happens to be nearby. We can’t wait to get him out with the rest of the family and start getting him used to everyone else’s routine around here, but vet testing comes first. We cannot afford another instance of exposing the other pets to a fatal disease just because we want to how everyone will get along right away.

As expected, almost everyone in the neighborhood mowed their lawns yesterday. For cheap entertainment around here, it’s fun to sit outside and watch neighbors unable to get their lawnmowers started, followed by the sound of lawnmowers running over things hidden in tall grass. This is usually followed by kids screaming because their toys were demolished by a mower powered by, what is obligatory in this neighborhood, a half-drunk dad with his up-teenth beer clutched in one hand. This is always, ALWAYS, followed by the obligatory barbequing and burning of bovine flesh, also performed by drunk men who, by this time, are tossing their empty beer cans out onto the freshly sheared grass. And so, this is how summer holidays are celebrated around here. It’ll end sometime in November, when the grass is back to being ignored and we can no longer see the summer’s-worth of beer cans and children’s toys.

I’m going to have a hard time remembering this is Tuesday already. Not that I’m complaining in the least. I’m trying to get my car ready for this coming weekend’s car shows in Seattle and B.C. and one forgotten day of polishing and packing will make all the difference in the world. My car’s outside paint surface has been lovingly polished and wiped all weekend long and is ready. The interior is as ready as it’s ever going to be. Today, I’m working on detailing my engine, which means putting rubber conditioner and gloss stuff on all my hoses and mouldings. Tomorrow, I work on my wheels and tires. Thursday is final inspection day, looking for anything I missed, and Friday, I pack the car for the trip. I really don’t know what to expect from the B.C. sports car people, so I’ll just be winging it. Either they’ll like my car (and us) or they won’t. If they don’t, it’ll be a LONG day, probably sitting in the rain, trying to look awake and interested before the even longer drive home.

June 2 2004

People at work today are being real crybabies and are fighting amongst themselves, leaving me to sort out what they want to have happen. When MrSmartButFakingIt comes back from his vacation, he’s not going to be happy with all this squabbling. But because work is so ugly right now, let’s go to a happier place, far, far away.

Pictured left is a cicada, also known as a locust in some parts of the country. Apparently, the seventeen year cicadas are coming out all over the country, crawling up from the earth in the wee hours of the morning and hatching from their old skins to fly among the trees and screech throughout the summer months. Having grown up in cicada country with several insect-obsessed brothers, I didn’t find the locust terribly scary. Unless they fly into your hair. Let’s not discuss that right now. Cicadas don’t only come up every seventeen years; they come up every year, just not in the numbers people see every seventeen years (who knows exactly WHEN the seventeen years starts?). One thing I noticed upon moving here from the desert was that there aren’t any cicadas here. We just don’t have this occurrence. But not to feel left out, pictured at right is our version of the seventeen year locust. Let’s not talk about this getting into your hair, either, unless you are into natural hair gel.

The Dimmers next door have been spending the weekend unloading large flat rocks from their pickup and placing them out back on their cement patio. So was it any wonder that the little screamer Dimmer would find herself a playground there? And promptly fall down and smash her bare toes between the multiple hundred-pound rocks? While Ms. Dimmer did nothing to comfort the child (she never does), I did my best to shield my ears from the screams and took these lovely pictures. Remember, we’re going to a happier place:

Meanwhile, on the other side of us, the SportsOrNothing teenage boy is loudly having sex in the hot tub with his petite Asian girlfriend. Oh, to be ditching the last days of school and to be 17 again with rich parents nowhere in sight. Shielding my ears from her squeals and his groans, I imagine sitting here next to one of our plastic baby ducks, thinking happy thoughts and perhaps wading in the pond. (This is one of the plastic ducks the raccoons seem to like and as of early this morning (3:30 a.m.) two of the raccoons are back):

June 3 2004

The raccoons didn’t visit last night. I put a huge strawberry out on the deck corner where they hang out and empty the squirrel feeder box of its peanuts and neither were touched. As for birds, no sign of flickers in over a month, no grosbeaks, no cedar waxwings and no hawks for even longer. The red house finches have taken to the nyger seed sock so loved by the gold finches, so things are pretty colorful out there. Still, try as I may, I can’t get close enough to take a good picture of all the feeding activity. Give me a flower that stands still and I can take great shots. Birds are another matter.

Lots of stuff delivered from the brown man today. Yesterday, we got a replacement carpet chair mat for here in the office. Today, we got the dual-bucket ice cream/gelato machine we’d drooled over for a while (hazelnut gelato – oooo!) and the complete Rick Steves’ Travels in Europe series on DVD and book. Not that we’re going to Europe or anything. We just have loved most of his show over the past fifteen years or so and can finally afford to show our appreciation by buying his stuff. 33 hours worth of his stuff. I’m so excited!

Today’s work day looks like it’s turning out to be low-key. MsNoManagementSkills has chosen to take half a day off out of the blue, meaning any conniption fit she chooses to have today ought to be on the small side. She is making up stuff to stress about during MrSmartButFakingIt’s vacation and I suspect she thinks it will make her “look” more important that she really is when he comes back. Ego has got full reins today and happily, things seem to be running more smoothly. It’s definitely quieter!

Tomorrow will be a busy day. I have to take the new pet to the vet for testing and lodging over the weekend (since we’ll be gone for most of it), then take WS to work. Then to the grocery store to pick up toilet paper and deodorant and cash. Then, I need to squeeze at least six hours of work in while getting laundry and packing done for the trip before picking WS up from work later in the day. Today, the weather here is beautiful with highs around 80 and a light, hazy sky. Tomorrow will be even warmer with rain clouds coming in late in the day. No time for sunning out in the back yard, though maybe just enough time to dangle my toes in the fountain for a minute or two.

June 4 2004

We’re going into the Friday home stretch and we have a ton of stuff to do still before getting to bed at a REASONABLE hour. Finishing up work stuff, changing the sheets, the last of the laundry, eating something for dinner, filling the bird feeders, general house cleanup, vacuuming, taking out the trash, setting out instructions for the pet sitter, packing clothes and personal stuff in the wee hours tomorrow morning, then stopping for gas before the drive to downtown Seattle, followed hours later by a drive to Everett and onward to Langley, B.C. early Sunday morning.

I think WS is questioning going with me. I know he really will be tomorrow morning at 4 a.m. Today, I burned a CD of Funk music: Ohio Players, James Brown, Hot Chocolate, Earth, Wind and Fire, Average White Band, Sly & The Family Stone, Johnny Lee Hooker, and I think that will go a long way to waking us up on the road.

Our new pet is off to the vet for lodging over the weekend. He was tested today for leukemia and the test came back negative so Monday, after we pick him up, he’ll finally get to safely join the rest of the pet family. A few years ago, we had fed a stray cat outside for a few years, a big tom cat who turned out to be just a big teddy bear once he started trusting us and we could get close to him. On particularly cold nights, sometimes, we would bring him inside for an hour or so. None of our pets bothered him and he always told us when he wanted to leave. On a bitterly cold and icy night, when we were out at a hockey game, he dragged himself into our garage via the partially open window we left open just for that reason and we found him seriously injured from a fight with something. Half of an ear was gone, his spine was bitten into in a few places and a hind leg was flayed open. We cared for him inside overnight and rushed him to our vet early the next morning. He flew through surgery just fine and was all sewn up, when our vet called and asked if we were going to adopt him and if we did, did we want to have him tested for feline leukemia, a deathly disease? Sure, we replied, not thinking another thought about it.

The test came back positive. He had it and was a carrier and by me bringing him into our house, we had put all of our other pets at serious risk for catching it. The end result was that we had to have the tom cat put to sleep and have all our other pets tested. Sad, very sad, and expensive. It’s a lesson I won’t forget, just like I won’t forget that sweet stray cat.

Geeze, didn’t mean to bring everyone down. Our new pet is fine and I can’t wait to bring him home! I think we also have a new young squirrel hanging around here. One that isn’t too afraid of people. I watched him climb all over the patio furniture, looking in the windows (For something? For someone?) when there was plenty of peanuts outside. WS is excited. We’ve worked hard to attract squirrels (and birds) back to this development after the trees were cut down and construction was over. He loves squirrels and I think if he could, he’d have them as pets.

Well, I need to get to that laundry. Have a good weekend. I’ll be back Monday.

June 8 2004

I swear I’m alive. It just doesn’t feel like it and all I want to do is keep sleeping. I am kicking myself for not taking vacation time like WS did, but knowing me, once next week gets here, I’ll be glad I didn’t take the time. I’m just too paranoid about keeping my job and what severance I’ve earned if I should be let go.

Last Saturday was an early day. Up at 4 a.m. On the road by 5 a.m. Parked and cleaning my car for the show by 8 a.m. But it paid off and I took first in my class, despite the rain. Immediately after that show, it was off to Everett to our hotel room, another wipe down of the car after driving in pouring rain on mucky roads, ordering delivery pizza and falling asleep watching a bad hockey game on TV.

Back up at 5 a.m. On the road by 6:30 a.m. and crossing the U.s./Canadian border by 8 a.m. By 8:30, after stopping at a surprised find – a Canadian Starbucks, we were at the show location, cleaning the car again and so very much enjoying Canadian accents all around us. I just knew the day had to go well when we were offered a Tim Horton’s donut; a place I really wanted to visit. I didn’t get the time to visit the Tim Horton’s that was just around the corner, but just having a fresh donut from there was heaven enough for me. The weather held all day long and since this car show was a “rags down” show, meaning at a specific time, everyone has to stop cleaning their cars for the rest of the day, we were able to just sit around and enjoy being in Canada for hours on end.

Just before 3 p.m., awards were given out and I took first in my class again. Regrettably, we had to leave right afterward and by 4:15 p.m., we were back across the border and heading for that long drive home…

…which didn’t take anywhere near as long as we planned. Freeway driving across long stretches of empty landscapes have always been interesting to us. Usually, there isn’t much traffic and of the traffic that is there, half are going at the speed limit or under and half are hauling ass. Being equipped with a radar locator, ever-alert eyes and a kind of sixth sense, we usually latch onto a group of “reasonable” speeders and make good time. I say “reasonable” because some speeders are just OUT.OF.CONTROL and I just stay out of their way. Most of the time, the group of reasonable speeders break up as we come across towns and cities and new speeders join the group. This time, however, we latched onto a dark green Dodge pickup that had to have thought he was being chased from hell. I kept him in my sights from just outside of Seattle all the way down into Woodland, and only passed him shortly before Ridgefield. Along the way, we picked up a white Isuzu SUV that didn’t like the Dodge to be front of him, and pushed the speed that much higher. I was all too happy to just hang back and tag along, keeping my eye out for anything amiss.

So, what we figured to be at least an eight hour trip turned into just over four and a half hours, from the Canadian border, through Seattle rush hour, to all the way home and safely into our garage. Amazing.

Monday morning, after sleeping like a rock, we picked up our new pet from the vet lodging and he’s done just great in learning the layout of our house and meeting the other pets. Our pet/house sitter didn’t have any problems while we were gone and everyone is happy. In the neighborhood, we’ve noticed someone who lives down the street is moving out and it’s possible that the asshole neighbors who live just around the corner, the people who feed cats to their dogs for fun, may have moved out as well while we were gone. The Cal-LEE-fornians across the street seem to be on vacation by the looks of the piles of newspapers out front. Next door, Mr. Dimmer has been working on piling all those flat rocks he brought home last week onto what was the beautiful red brick patio in his back yard. The SportsOrNothing boy has a new girlfriend and possibly, an upset ex-girlfriend who was seen going through the new girlfriend’s car parked out front.

Basically, everything is exactly the same and there’s really nothing new around here. Tomorrow, it’s back to work for me and tackling the mountain of work that I didn’t quite find the motivation to get to last Friday.

June 9 2004

I’m feeling much better today, thankyouverymuch. The extra sleep over the last couple of days really has gone far in helping me get back into the job swing of things and I’ve been kicking ass and taking names this morning. I’m already relatively caught up on most everything I can be caught up on. There are still a few things I’ll need WS’s help with when he comes back from his vacation time off. Sure, he’s here, at home, but who wants someone bugging them about work stuff when you’re on vacation? I sure as heck-fire wouldn’t! It can all wait.

In the meantime, WS is out in our library, enjoying the ambiance of that area with good reading lights, relaxing, piped-in music, burning candles and assorted coffee, teas and apple cider to sip on. Outside, it’s raining softly and looks misty, making us both feel like it’s early fall, instead of early summer. Very early this morning, we both sat outside, sipping coffee, listening to the neighborhood waking up and watching people take off for work. A small thing really, this is something WS never gets to see: Other people rushing around and leaving for work, since he is usually one of those himself. Oh, to have enough money to not have to work and to be able to sit and watch this parade every morning.

Later on in the day: After I got off work, we went out and about to Barnes & Noble for books we probably didn’t need but since we love books so much, and it had been so long since we’ve bought any….this was just as good a time to get some than any. There’s something about holding a new, hard cover book in your hands, flipping through the pages and just knowing that it’ll make a great addition to your book collection. WS picked up a bunch of political books for a research project he’s working on and I picked up a French decorating book, an Italian cookbook and a pirate book. Yeah, my tastes are all over the place. At least, I didn’t pick up a car book this time.

Then we had to run over to the fancy grocery store across the street , since it was the only grocery store close by and grab a bunch of fruit to hopefully make low-carb gelato with this week. Cherries, bananas, apricots and some almonds (nuts, not fruit). And someone needs to stop us from buying more wine from there. Sure, we drank six bottles over the past three weeks, but that didn’t mean we needed to immediately buy another six bottles to replace them. We’ve still got about 100 bottles in the cellar. What’s wrong with those bottles, you ask? Nothing, except none of the bottles were personally signed by the winery owner. We are such wine sluts. Stop us!

June 11 2004

I’ve got a few things planned today. Things I really don’t want to do. Stressful things. No, it’s not laundry. With WS’s help, I actually finished that yesterday. No, I had to take my car into the dealership this morning for some engine repairs and to car people, this is akin to going to a knife-welding butcher on meth to get a fingernail clipped. But the fact is, I couldn’t fix the squealing belt tensioner that has been driving us batty since I bought the car two years ago. It doesn’t squeal all the time, just when the car is cold and only for the first twenty minutes or so. Big embarrassment there, driving around town or away from winning an award at a car show and emitting ear-piercing belt squealing noises. Just what I bought a 50K+ car for. NOT! At least I knew enough to research the hell out of what the problem might be and sure enough, when they called me back just a bit ago, that’s what the problem is.

Taking my car into the shop cut into my work day, so I’ll be working late tonight. The dealership is an hour’s drive away. Closer dealerships won’t work on my car and that’s just fine with me. They all have BAD service reputations anyway. So, I’m fine with working late. I wasn’t going to do anything else anyway, except stress about this and that and think about what all is involved in eventually moving to Canada permanently. WS and I have talked about this in years past, but I, haven’t ever gone to Canada until last weekend, and then, only for about six hours (does that even count??), I’d like to know what all would be involved. Who do they not accept? Who do they not want? Do you have to be a millionaire or have a big business that will bring in Canadian revenue, like I’ve heard in the past? What if we have pre-existing medical conditions? What if we never want to come back to the U.S.? What if George Bush gets pissed off at us and makes our lives a living hell? Do I have to learn how to curtsy to the Queen?

WS and I have always felt more European than traditional U.S. citizens. We’re more reserved, in the old world European style. We believe children should be seen and not heard. We decorate homes with European furnishings and gravitate towards European styles. We don’t have a cell phone hooked to our ears (something that isn’t that big there yet). We don’t like U.S. sports, but like curling and hockey. We don’t feel it’s a god-given right to own at least one SUV. We too easily pick up on and fall into speaking with a Canadian accent. And we both have loved everything we’ve previously read about the country, good and bad. But how does someone just pick up everything and move there? Permanently. Too much confusing and mixed information about this on the Internet and it gets to the point where you start questioning what to believe and what not to.

And what about that cheese anyway? Can I still order something other than Canadian cheese from the Internet? I had the chance to have cheese during our few hours in Canada last Sunday but I passed. Loved the condiment bottles, though, with both English and French languages on them. I could get used to that. I wanted to take French in high school, but I didn’t have a high enough grade point average and back then, low grade point average students were dumped into the Spanish class and weren’t allowed to take any other language course. How demeaning to Spanish-speaking people, I always thought.

June 14 2004

Absolutely nothing happened over the weekend here. Okay, officially, we did some yard work and ate out a couple of times at a local seafood and Mexican restaurant. We watched several of our new Rick Steve’s Travels in Europe DVDs and I got a couple of calls from the dealership about my car, which had to stay in the shop so my engine noises could be fixed completely.

MrSmartButFakingIt is back at work today after taking a couple of weeks off with newborn twins. He won’t answer any Company chat calls and isn’t returning any of our emails. I’m positive he’s got an entire mountain range of work and email to slog through, but completely ignoring his direct employees does nothing but further lower our morale level. We’re just not important to him, something he’s mentioned in an offhand manner before, “ When someone’s dismissal doesn’t impact the business model, it’s time for them to go.” He says.

In the ‘hood, Mr. Dimmer next door as decided not to cover a previously built red-brick patio with the large, flat rocks he brought home a few weeks ago. He’s moved them to a spot next to his small cement patio off his back door, and created an oval shape with them. Oh dear, don’t say he’s going to built a pond!! If so, and if he cares for it like he does everything else, it’ll be a mosquito haven in no time. But, let’s not get too ahead of ourselves. He could just placed the large rocks in that shape because now that he has them, he doesn’t know what to do with them.

Next door, at SportsOrNothing or for this blub’s purpose, People Who Refuse To Care For Any Vehicle They Ever Own, both of their SUVs are hurting badly for service. The main SUV is dead in their garage after what looked like a serious overheating incident. The kid’s SUV squeals like a stuck pig whenever they drive it. They’ve got at least one wheel bearing going out, but either they don’t care or they can’t hear it over the BOOM-BOOM-BOOM bass of the stereo. The kids are definitely learning from their parents.

June 15 2004

I’m swamped with stuff I HAVE to get done today: Work meetings via conference calls up the wazoo, need to book room in Vancouver, B.C. for July 4th car show, need to call the guy who painted the custom engine parts for my car a year ago and figure out how I can get a replacement part for something I dented last week, need to re-put on all my car’s engine chrome and painted parts since getting my car back from the shop yesterday, need to apply the first of several, sorely-needed coats of car polish, need to figure out how to remount my radar locator since the shop felt it was necessary to remove the bracket (WTF?!?), need to rerun the locator wire since it pulled itself out of placement, need to go pick up my old watch and hope they haven’t lost or sold it by now since I was supposed to pick it up last month, need to finish laundry, need to fill bird feeders (again), need to figure out what might be growing in the fridge ‘cause it isn’t smelling like petunias, need to get in a bit of exercise because it’s been a month without any and finally, I need to get to bed early.

I’m in major crunch time right now. The height of the car show season, when there just isn’t enough time for anything or anyone, including myself. I have a house to maintain, pets that need attention and a significant other that has even less time than I do, however, he still needs to have a somewhat responsive person nodding and mumbling, “Uh huh” at the appropriate intervals. This is the time of year when I begin to tell myself that October isn’t that far off. That there’s only a few months left of this kind of schedule before fall, our favorite time of year and the time of year when everything, EVERYTHING slows down. Rushing around now will pay off later; it always does. Hang in there. Only a few months of this left then we can relax.

Oh, come on. Who am I kidding? I NEVER relax!

June 16 2004

Yesterday’s missions accomplished! Well, all but picking up my watch and getting to bed early. I kicked ass and took names yesterday with all the stuff I had to get done. Today, I don’t have quite as much stuff to do, but what I do have is mostly hard work. Like removing all that polish from my car, which seemed to suck it up yesterday when I was putting it on making me think it’s going to take me five days to get it all off. It was odd but at least the paint will be moisturized.

Unlike my skin. I don’t know when I stopped drinking so much water. Last year at this time, I was downing two 1.5 liter bottles of water a day. I’m lucky if I drink two glasses a day now. I’m going to make a point of starting that up again right now. Maybe even with fresh lime juice added. Yeah, I’m living large here.

I also need to call the nice Competition Boy because I haven’t in months and I’m trying to be nice. Actually, I think I could fall off the planet and he wouldn’t care less. It’s a competition thing and his feelings have been hurt.
I’ve been emailing back and forth with the custom engine painter guy and have made the decision to go ahead and have him create a second engine part for me to replace the one I dented last week. I should have it by the end of July. That works great for me since this year, most of the serious car shows are after mid-July. I haven’t decided if I’m going to attend any of them; they take themselves too seriously, but if I do decide to, I’ll be ready.

I was surprised that no one commented on my moving to Canada post last Friday, but I’ve decided now that it was because Canadians are so nice. Even too nice to comment sometimes maybe. When we were up there a couple of weeks ago, we couldn’t find a mean spirited Canadian in the bunch. I even saw someone get their toes run over by a golf cart and they just politely laughed it off. I think I want to live in a country like that, even if their politeness is caused by something in the water, or cheese maybe. Yesterday, I searched specifically for blogs and journals about the process of moving to Canada, but after a few hours, I gave up. It’s not like we’re going to do it next week or even next year.

Well, a few more hours of work to go. Earlier during a break, I was able to get half the polish off my car with little effort. Coming back to work, I noticed that MsNoManagementSkills is all pissy today and I come to find out that her boyfriend, the one with three kids that she’s basically taking care of, has decided that he hates his job and doesn’t really want to work anymore. The more I read about her newly-divorced life and her live-in boyfriend, the more clear it seems like she’s still married to FatHead. FatHead and her boyfriend could be brothers, I swear and I for one am tired to getting the brunt of her crabbiness.

June 17 2004

Observances

I’m in one of those “fall instantly asleep at night and wake up in the morning feeling like only five minutes have passed” phases in my sleep pattern. I really can’t complain. It beats insomnia.

There has been a squirrel nibbling on sunflower chips up in the bird feeder for over an hour. I don’t mind.

The quinces on the tree are about apricot size already. The blueberries should be ready to start picking early next month. The huckleberries are miniscule. Having never grown or seen huckleberries before, I’m not really sure when they’ll be ready. Late next month, I’ll start taste-testing them for ripeness. Nearly every variety of thyme we have: lemon thyme, creeping thyme, mother-of-thyme, cooking thyme, is blooming. And WS has got tomatoes! A couple of romas and a couple of groups of cherry patio tomatoes. His Thai hot pepper plants ought to really perk up this week.

It’s very hot here today. Thankfully, we’re one of the 5% in this state that has air conditioning. That’s right. Most people in my state don’t have air conditioning yet it gets over 90 degrees for up to two and a half months here and over 100 degrees for up to a month during the summer. Sure, nothing compared to other toasty parts of the U.S. But, been there, done that.

What is it about having children that makes parents so forgetful (not to mention deaf)? One minute, everyone I know says how much they hate having so many kids underfoot and the very next minute, they say they’re trying hard to conceive again (yet again). WTF?

Slowly but surely, I’m getting a handle on all the little things around here that have been put off for too long. Things are getting under control. Now, if I could just remember to water the potted tree roses. Geeze, I’m an idiot sometimes.

Big things left to do:
Clean the sunflower chip bird feeder (it’s growing in there), continue polishing my car (coat 3 going on today), need bark dust on top tier deck of fountain area (it’s drying out too, too fast and Ham and Cheese have gotten out of control with their tunnel digging), scrape and repaint area around garage door (why does the paint only peel there??) and figure out if web cam can be made operational. Not too bad a list.

June 18 2004

Amused while looking through the Blogeois.com stats and for anyone looking for the various items and key words:

Annal nathrak – Part of the dialog from my favorite movie of all time “Excalibur”. No, it’s not sexual.
California coolers – Yeah, whatever happened to those anyway? I absolutely LOVED those. Someone told me once that Bartle & James bought them out. Okay, so why can’t I get Bartle & James coolers in 2 liter bottles now?
Cat-proof bathrooms – Hmmm…don’t understand this one. Hint: Don’t have anything nice sitting in there, don’t have a shower curtain, window curtains or towels. Don’t have anything in there you don’t want broken, spilled or played with. Or don’t have a cat.
Cypress Hanoki – Actually, it’s Cypress Hinoki and it’s an evergreen tree that grows really well in the Pacific Northwest. We love these trees so much, we have close to a dozen, both green and golden-green, in sizes from three to eight feel tall. We can’t wait until they get up around the 25-foot height.
Farting on leather couch – Well, since our pets have completely commandeered the leather couch for the past year or two, they would be the only ones farting on it. You’ll have to ask them about that.
Feather stone pallet – I have a large feather stone fountain in the side back yard, but there’s no pallet with it. Beware: While feather stone is incredibly light, it will slice your hand open in a heartbeat. WEAR GLOVES AT ALL COSTS!
Fixing chips in Pergo – Been there, done that. A wood putty stick in the appropriate color works wonders. Just fill the chip with the putty and wipe away any excess. Clean area as needed. End of story. Anything bigger that just a chip or small crack and you might want to consult a professional.
Happy sperm soap – Uh…
Hugely pregnant diary – Not happening here.
Neighbor’s security camera looks into my yard legal – It probably is legal. Either the neighbor is watching you or look at the bright side in that your yard is under security watch too. If it’s bothersome, plant something that blocks the view, no matter how big that might need to be. Otherwise, you’ll have to live with it.

Nothing planned for the weekend. I might hit a local car show Sunday while WS is working and I’ll probably stress all weekend over news that everyone who works at the HUGE company WS works for is probably going to have to take a pay cut next week (even though the company keeps financing a formula 1 race team and the CEO isn’t giving up any of their personal company planes.) MsNoManagementSkills has been adding cryptic messages to her Online Journal about work, making my paranoia level about losing my job spike upwards. Could be a “fun” next week.

June 21 2004

The weekend was horrible, horrible, horrible and included a rigged car show, hot hot HOT weather, no food in the house, WS’s condition flaring up, thunderstorms that never developed into any rain, a last dinner with the nice Competition Boy who has turned into the stupidest idiot on the planet because he drinks and drives now alongside his now live-in girlfriend Ms.Ex-Drill Sergeant Dave’s wife whom in her own right, continues to exist and drive while in an alcoholic haze.

The weekend also included several showers, continued miserably hot weather, city-wide pollen counts off the charts, verbal clashes between each other and several misunderstandings, ears that do not listen, brains that did not engage, confrontations that should have occurred but didn’t, a house STILL without food in it, several pets with bad allergies sneezing thick globs of snot everywhere including onto our bodies, lots of money spent on projects that may never pan out, did I mention the HOT weather will continue at least another week, starvation, more laundry to be done than should be considered legal, Ham & Cheese getting cut off from the food supply and a completely stupid and moronic move by The Dimmers next door when they decided to plant Timber Bamboo three fricken’ inches from our side of the fence.

Did I mention that there is still no food in the house and it’s still hot outside (at 10 in the morning?)

Yeah, well, let’s just forget about the weekend.

June 22 2004

So, yesterday and over the weekend when I was whining about the hot weather, I had completely forgotten that we owned the most fabulous object in the world – An Ice Shaver/Snow Cone maker. Either, I’m an idiot or I’m suffering from heat stroke but I completely forgot about it. To point the finger a bit more on the idiot side, we even have an entire shelf in our pantry full of DaVinci sugar-free (no carb) flavor syrups like Watermelon, Fruit Punch, Root Beer, Cherry, Banana, Cola and Peach. We even have ice! Okay, I’m an idiot.

June 23 2004

My entry was short yesterday because I was always told if you don’t have anything nice to say…. Even I sometimes heed that rule.

Moving along swiftly, the weather here has been downright delightful! It was supposed to be 90 F degrees yesterday but ended up not even hitting 70. Massive cloud cover and today was about the same. I love it. It makes me want to go to the beach, where I’m sure it’s terribly windy, but I’d just get horribly depressed on the way back home so I won’t be going anytime soon.

I’ve had to stop feeding Ham & Cheese, the field mice living around our fountain as they were digging out tunnels and burrows everywhere. I was beginning to think areas were going to collapse at some point. After replacing fresh bark dust over the weekend in that area, I placed large stones around, but not blocking their main burrow entrance where I used to feed them, just to prevent any further excavation and to help cover up the fountain night light wiring, which they had uncovered. After surmising that the rocks might not make the statement I was hoping for, I had to go to a bit more drastic measures and add “KEEP OUT” signs. But not one to intentionally cut off anything from it’s food supply, except those pesky ants out in the front yard, I have taken to placing a very small amount of food on a large flat boulder located a good eight feet away from their main entrance. I know they hang around there from time to time and if they get hungry enough, they will find the food there. If not, there’s always under the bird feeders, which is most likely what attracted them here in the first place. Funny, last year at this time I was complaining about the neighbor cat killing so many of our bird visitors and this year, it’s mice excavating our back yard.

Pets here are still suffering from the allergies/cold thing they picked up last Friday when the weather outside and the pollen counts were ridiculous. Today, we took two of the pets to our vet across town and, tomorrow, I get to start forcing medication down their throats for 7-10 days. Ought to be a blast. My lungs haven’t been feeling so happy either but I’m as tough as a horse. No drugs for me. WS is still having his problems with seeing double and lack of balance and gets to work from home for the rest of the week. Next week, I’ll probably need to drive him to and from work every day. This household is just as much fun as a barrel of monkeys!

We’ve decided not to go to Canada early next month after all and cancelled our room reservation in Vancouver. I don’t have anything else to say about that.

And finally, yesterday, we got food in the house thanks to WS and his ever-online presence in finding Safeway.com, who delivers. No more zit-inducing Splenda-sweetend, SnoCones three times a day for me. At least, not until the 100 degree weather comes back.

June 24 2004

WS’s been working on getting one of our web cams up and running again. It’s been a few years since we’ve set one up and in the meantime, it’s testing our patience. Someday, I hope to get a camera that can get close up shots. Showing our back yard from so far away annoys me to no end.

In the back yard today, several dove pairs have walked all the cement pathways and nibbled on Ham & Cheese’s food pile. Earlier, we had a fledgling robin with what looked like a broken lower jaw. There was no way I could get close enough to try to rescue it in order to take it to the not-so-local wildlife center, but it looked like it’s jaw had been that way for some time as the robin was bathing itself and eating fairly well. Since, I don’t understand why our back yard seems to be such a magnet for mutant, sick and injured birds. I suppose it’s possible that everyone else has them too and I just don’t hear or read about them.

Another cool, cloudy day, broken only by the constant screaming of what looks like may be becoming a day care next door (Ms. Dimmer doesn’t even watch her own kids. Why would anyone else think she would watch their kids?) Thank god for tight-fitting windows and air conditioning. It almost blocks all the sound. Unfortunately, they do not block the view.

How many ways can you junk up a neighborhood? Answer: Buy every white trash lawn ornament and not only stick them in your yard, but stick them and hang them off kilter. Also, purchase screaming yellow barricades that say Slow! Kids at Play! And set them in the fricken’ middle of the street, a street may I remind you, is the main artery in and out of our busy development. Last time I paid any attention, the streets were for cars, NOT KIDS. The women who set these eyesores out, Ms Howler Monkey and Ms. Ca-LEE-fornia, both have huge patios in their backyards that run the entire length of their houses and are plenty of space for toddlers. Why do toddlers need to play in a busy street?? I am so furious over this. You’d never know that this was once a very well manicured development with tasteful homes. Now it just screams “WHITE TRASH BREEDERS WELCOME!”

The pets here are getting better after their vet visit yesterday but one still won’t eat. If this continues, she’ll have to go back to the vet for the weekend. She had a bad bout with fatty liver disease about seven years ago and we had to feed her through a permanently attached stomach tube three times a day here at home. This disease can start back up by not eating. No way are we going through that again. We both nearly had nervous breakdowns and in the end, she ended up ripping it out and causing all kinds of other problems. We affectionately call her our little “Six Million Dollar pet.” The vets look at her and probably see dollar signs.

Massive stress at work this week. Nothing I can talk about just yet but I’m wondering how much hard partying was required before one of The Company CEOs came to believe that I know anything about how to find outside support solution companies. I barely even know what that means, let alone how to do it. Can I have some of those drugs? They sure must have been good!

June 25 2004

If you hadn’t noticed, the summer Blogeois blog colors are up and yes, it’s orange-y. Tuscan peach orange-y, actually. Orange is the new pastel, which was once the new pink, which was once the new black. It’s a fashion/web designer thing.

The web cam is up and running, pointing out our office window down into our most-beloved back yard sanctuary. Yesterday, WS priced out a close up zoom camera and the next time I have $900 to spend on a web cam, I’ll get right on it. If you want to know what landmarks you’re looking at, please click on “What is the camera looking at” link under the Remote Cam Window linky. Please excuse my poor PhotoShop drawing.

Tomorrow contains a big car show in our area….but I’m not going. The show is being put on by the old car club we used to belong to and left because it was being run by the most petty people I have ever met in my entire life. And trust me, I know petty. Recently, these people also told me they didn’t want me going to any show they want to go to. Not one to care one hoot about what these people think, or alter my car show season just to please them, I had decided months ago not to go to their particular show tomorrow.

That isn’t preventing that club’s PR guy from spamming my mailbox with show invitations. Apparently, I’m still on one of his mass email lists. Oh well, delete-O, delete-O, delete-O.

However, there is a new car show a bit closer to home. Unfortunately, the weather is scheduled to drizzle tomorrow morning. I’m kind of tired of drizzle-y car shows for a while so I think I’ll pass…which means I can sleep! Sleep, glorious sleep! And the pet who was spending the nights in bed with us, hogging my side of course, won’t be in there tonight. So I can REALLY sleep if I want to. Who am I kidding? I’ll be up at the crack of dawn, checking my new web cam and checking out the weather conditions. Just in case…

Tomorrow is also neighborhood garage sale day. Unless it was cancelled for lack of interest, which I’m sure didn’t happen. Anyone needing countless baby clothes and furniture ought to have a field day around here. Gee, to think that at the very first neighborhood garage sale, there wasn’t a baby-anything to be found. Back then, us uppity and snotty new residents only had stuff like golf clubs, bottles of wine and leather-bound books. What a difference four years make!

June 27 2004

Nothing at all planned for today. I really should go to the grocery store for a few items since the county will be oiling and graveling every single road leading out of our development starting early tomorrow. You know, if the road needs paving, just pave it, Don’t spread black oil on the road and cover it in pea size gravel that only causes countless thousands of dollars in car damage around here. I just don’t understand the point of this kind of road “maintenance.” But at least they don’t lay down a thick layer of gooey tar, like in the other part of the country I once lived in.

Things I should do today, thereby ensuring many things planned for today: Washing my car and getting a polish coat applied, finishing laundry, vacuuming and grocery shopping.

Yeah, that ought to be enough to make me exhausted.

Tomorrow, I have to start taking WS to work and picking him up since his balance and vision is still off. This ought to be fun because I don’t have a pass card to get back into the company property to pick him back up every evening, making the temp worker security guards at the property gates cranky and downright Nazi-ish in letting anyone in. You know how some people can get once given a small bit of power; they take it to the extreme and live to make other people’s lives a living hell and damned be anyone who might be trying to pick up a handicapped person who’s worked there for nearly 15 years (back when most of these security guards were still sucking on mama’s teet!)

Between this and work, next week is just going to be hell. More next week on work stuff. Let’s not dwell on it now.

June 28 2004

I am so happy that it’s already the end of June. Of course, sometime in the future, say, around the time I’m at death’s door, I’ll probably wish I hadn’t been so happy that time was speeding along. But there is a reason I was really looking forward to the end of June in this particular year. You see, both of my parents died when they were relatively young. My father when he was just 43 years old, my mother 11 years later (to the day) when she was just 47. Me, as the oldest one in the family, felt that some major milestone in my life would be to outlive both of them at their ages of death. Last Wednesday was that day and so, finally, that’s over with and I can go on with my life.

I was expecting work to be very quiet today, knowing that school is officially out and MsNoManagementSkills is having to watch her boyfriend’s three kids at home while she is “working”, but late this afternoon, she started in on the morale-busting instant Company messages, questioning everyone on what they were doing…exactly. And from her tone, it sounds like she’s about HAD.IT with those kids, which is really bad since it’s only the first day of summer vacation and that’s why she divorced FatHead and hooked up with DorkMaster, her live-in boyfriend anyway: Because he had kids already. God help us a month from now when it just might sink into her head that raising kids, someone else’s half grown kids at that, wasn’t the fantasy she always professed it would be.

Tonight, I absolutely MUST wash my car and get polish on it. I took WS out for a long drive yesterday evening and it is covered with bug splat and road crud now. Next Saturday is a big car show in our area, one I won my class in last year and I’m going to try to defend that title. Of course, I don’t think I’ll win it again, but you never know. What I do know is that the weather will be hot and dry, The show will be too long. WS won’t be going and people I really, really could live without seeing ever again will be there. People from the car club we used to belong to. People who recently told me they didn’t want me to enter any car show that they’d like to enter. Hey, it’s free country here still. I’ll enter any car show I want to just like they can if they want to. Deal with it, just like I’ve learned to deal with all of you stuffing the ballot box. Besides, it has never been about “winning” at these shows for me. It’s equally about the attention and the cause and/or charity my registration dollars go directly to. So there.

June 29 2004

The 4th of July holiday is for morons. For some unknown reason, fireworks are legal here. Big fireworks are even more legal. You can buy fireworks as big as a human here and legally shoot them off in your neighborhood. But the last time I paid any attention, things burn here just as easily as they do in other portions of the world, especially during drought conditions, of which we’ve been under since April.

Okay, it’s 11 am and some asshat neighbor kid is setting off firework mortar rounds in the middle of the street. I just LOVE this time of year….NOT! Welcome to summer vacation, when kids run wild and parents are all at work, or sitting in front of the TV watching game shows and soap operas.

No wait, it’s not just kids today. Today’s mortar rounds are brought to you by the asshat neighbors themselves AND their kids. At least they are pointing them toward The Dimmers’ house next door this time and not us, though throwing lit fireworks down into the sewer drains could result in interesting events. I just hope there isn’t any gas or anything settled down there and I suppose I’ll hear and feel it if any is. Unfortunately, we’ll be listening to fireworks going off around here until around the middle of September, if past years are any indication. Again, I just don’t get it and I must be the dense one.

Got my car washed and polish on it last night. I’ll do my wheels and tires today and take off polish coat number one. My goal is three coats on the paint by Thursday afternoon. Piece of cake.

The To-Do list today includes: Finish laundry originally started by WS over the weekend, help clean up the office also originally started by WS, shred thousands of old, old, old documents no longer needed that were weeded out by WS in his current sweep of cleaning which will also probably need to be finished by me (Done), polish coat on car (blah, blah, blah) and swiffer entire library area. The list is definitely getting shorter!

June 30 2004

Good bye June. Hello July just around the corner.

After spending a good portion of yesterday evening bawling my eyes out over a work project I am being forced to do, but am no way qualified to do, I finally fell asleep around 5:30 this morning and got up just after 9 am. Too fun for me today. One of The Company CEOs put me in charge of finding a company to basically do our work (at a lower cost, of course) and I’m about as qualified to do this as I would be to perform successful brain surgery. But the up side to this is that over the next three days, I’ll be surfing the web, researching company web sites until my eyeballs fall out, meaning sometimes the research will be interesting and I’ll jot notes and other times, I can find other stuff to do. Like read blogs, vacuum the house and polish my car. (What, Mr. CEO? Would your HR staff charge too much to do this kind of work or is this kind of work beneath them? Oh, maybe you are replacing them too and you don’t want them to know it just yet??)

Whoa! Did I just type that? Well, let’s continue along another overly trodden path:

The end of June marks the 6 month existence period for “The Situation of which I cannot speak.” The situation still exists and has come to affect both of our lives every single day both at work and off the clock as well as my ease of writing here. This situation is a change in our day-to-day lives in that we are living under a microscope. For example, we rarely, if ever, go out into our front yard or sit on our porch anymore. When exiting our side garage door, we do so rapidly because we are “within view.” And exiting and entering our housing development is either done rapidly as well or we use a back exit route. We religiously check our caller ID whenever the phone rings, which is rare anyway. And we have purposely not answered our front door. We do not participate in neighborhood events, not that we did much previously. Unfortunately, because of possible bad, bad, bad consequences, i.e. job loss, vandalism and blacklisting, I cannot say specifically what The Situation is. I am hoping you can guess. Answers to questions asked can only be answered about The Situation can only be addressed with a Yes or No. My sincerest apologies for any frustration but this is THAT serious.

On to cheer-ier things: Looks like pizza for dinner tonight! Good! Aunt Flo is craving all kinds of bad stuff so pizza works for me. If either of the local Baskin-Robbins shops delivered, I guarantee they wouldn’t have any pralines-and-cream ice cream left. Probably no pistachio almond either. And let’s not mention their German chocolate cake flavor. Okay, MOVING FORWARD well away from food, time was really ripping along earlier but has now come to a screeching halt. Only a bit after 3 pm? WHY?

After helping WS clean the office and shred thousands of old documents (during which I couldn’t help but wonder if this was how Enron financial employees felt), I have a few paper cuts, a sore shoulder from constantly feeding the shredder paper and a sore back from emptying countless overstuffed loads of cross-shredded paper crinkles. Aspirin is my friend today. And caffeine. Lots of Aunt Flo-hating caffeine.