Less Is Bore

I've been very busy wallowing lately for the following 2 reasons:

1. My back has been out and I've been writhing in pain and braying like a donkey every time I make too sudden a move. It scares the hell out of our cat and it's no fun for me either. MDH has been very sweet to me, fetching and carrying and tolerant of my disturbing uncontrollable pain noises.

2. I got a call from HR on Monday that I will not be considered for the position I have been campaigning for like a madwoman. Not even an interview - which, until late Wednesday afternoon caused the words "no chance, no chance, no chance" to spin thru my head like the worlds most depressing mantra.

I'm humiliated. The fact that many big-wig people with fancy titles and upper management type of clout were helping me (which is why I was referring to it as "the campaign", and came by to tell me I was robbed, is about the only thing that held me together all week. I would have been excellent at that job and their policy of always hiring internal candidates is their sucky loss. The person they hired is a jack ass.

At least a real live human being was nice enough to call me with the bad news, rather than the dreaded robo-email that I despise so much. Anyhoo... I'm done with these assholes. I can't take it anymore. They don't deserve me so I'm not going to apply for any more positions there, unless the one that I'm already in becomes available as a permanent post. It's just too heartbreaking.

So it's Saturday and I've recovered a bit from my pain and humiliation and decided to celebrate with a little retail therapy. Here are some photos from today's haul:

When recovering from this kind of slump one pair of cheap shoes just won't do. Back pain and job related humiliation definitely call for 2 pair.

Beauty and personal care products must be purchased in abundance to get oneself fully onto the road to recovery.

Opening the windows to fresh spring air is one of the better ways I can think of to dry my tears.

Here are some pictures of our cat Turtle enjoying the weather:

In the breakfast nook:

Waiting at the front door for his pal the mailman.

Floats Like a Butterfly, Stings When I Pee

I was going to use that title several months ago for a riveting post I wrote while recovering from a raging bladder infection. Aren't you glad I never published that post? (The answer is yes. Yes you are.) I deleted the unpublished post because it was crappy and not just a little bit personal and disgusting, but thinking perhaps I might later be able to craft another more amusing post around the catchy title.

I'm not that clever and have decided to use the title today for this very special post in which I inform you that I have returned from a fabulous vacation, after realizing I have been sitting here for a very long time, staring at my monitor, unable to come up with any more clever title than "I'm Back!" How dull. Stinging pee is far more engaging.

So there you go. I'm back. We had a fabulous 12 days in Kauai during which time I only had 2 or 3 small snits and one full blown irrational tantrum. Otherwise all was grand. What kind of dumbass vacation condo time-share thingy doesn't allow you to use an open flame barbecue?

Anyhoo... some serious and relevant things occurred while we were away:

1. MDH's grandma Nanny died last Friday. She was 101 and ready to leave us, so there's nothing to be sad about other than that we will all miss her very much. MDH felt a little funny about not going home to Cambridge, but realized that Nanny would have hit him with her shoe if he shortened his vacation. She did that. She would literally remove the shoe from her tiny (wicked small) Azorean foot and beat misbehaving grandsons with it. Oh Nanny.

As an interesting side note, my brother in law Knucklehead was allowed to attend the funeral in shackles, accompanied by a prison guard. I wish I was joking. Perhaps if Nanny had beaten him with her shoe more aggressively...

2. MDH has a job interview tomorrow in Cincinnati. So that's kind of difficult. Come home jet lagged after travelling for 16 hours only to leave again 36 hours later. Also should mention that he had been in Dallas for several days before we left, came home at 2pm and we left for Kauai at 5am the next morning. So basically the poor man has been home a little more than 1 day for the whole month of February. Weird.

Anyhoo... because of weird event number two I've got to close up shop on my blogging tonight. MDH needs the office to get ready for his big interview tomorrow. I have been trying to write this while he's away running errands.

Because I haven't had a chance to do anything with our vacation pictures except for the one at the top of the post, which is a view of the taro fields in Hanalei (and I'm quite pleased with myself about how it came out), and the one below sent in an email to my best friend Amy last week and like the title of this post has nothing whatsoever to do with the subject of this post. Perhaps some of you have seen it already or maybe Skyler's Dad has already included it as part of his bizarre tats series. Anyway... here you go: