The Lady Is Out

I've been feeling guilty about how neglectful I've been of my blog, but between my challenging new job and the onset of unusual springlike weather here (yeah, go figure a week from the first day of spring), I've been busy enjoying the pleasures of real life.

And yes, I have been playing the Sims (and get off my back about it Steph), but quite frankly kids, Lady is tapped out of interesting blog post ideas. Fresh out. Nothing but rainbows and cotton candy between my ears, or for my long time blog friends - Monkeys & Birds.

So here's the deal. I'm taking a little breaky break from my bloggy blog. I'm going to enjoy my work and in my free time I'm going to go outside and get some fresh air. I'm going to go for long walks, maybe on the beach since I live 30 minutes from one. I'm going to go shopping and out to lunch with friends. Yes. I said lunch. I'm going to entertain friends. Frenchie and Nature Boy are coming all the way up here to see us next week and I have been gathering an enormous selection of red wines for Frenchie and I to guzzle and have stockpiled some Guinness (it comes in 8 packs) for the boys.

Rather than wracking my brain trying to figure out a way to make the mundane amusing, when I have something interesting to contribute I'll be back. How about that?

Who knows how long my bliss will last. It could start snowing again tomorrow or I could get fired - then it's blog city.

You Can Knit Yourself an RV Cozy

Today I started working on an urgent little side project that is a bit tedious. Well it goes in cycles where it's brain wrenching for about 30 minutes, followed by 2 hours of tedious data entry peppered with a few minutes here and there of puzzle solving and then more tedium.

The tedium gives my mind lots of acreage to wander around in and I thought tonight I would share with you some of the wool I gathered.

1. I would make an excellent contestant on that show The Amazing Race because I'm really good at finding my way around in strange places. I have a terrific sense of direction and hardly ever get lost for very long. Then again, people on shows like that are usually running everywhere and I really hate to run. In fact I prefer to lie down and be still as much as possible and that probably wouldn't make for very exciting television viewing. Also I think that people who tend to be on these kinds of shows get all excited and jump up and down and scream and stuff and I really don't like to do that in public, let alone on TV. I'm not really a big jumping screamer. This thought has occupied a great deal of my time considering that I have never even seen an episode of The Amazing Race.

2. Writing "Breast Milk" in Sharpie on my hazelnut coffee creamer in the fridge at work would be really funny but writing "Stool Sample" on my brown paper lunch bag would be even funnier. I imagine that I might even get to have my own shelf.

3. There's another temp who works there who started a couple of weeks before me and I love him a lot because he is about 7 feet tall and looks very much like Sideshow Bob. He's got a big floppy white boy Afro. I don't really know him and only spoke to him for the first time yesterday, but just seeing his hair bouncing around above the cubicle sight line cheers my soul. I'm old enough to be his biological teen birth mother, but I want to hug his skinny little hipster frame. I think my ear would come to about his belly button and I could probably hear the ocean in there.

4. I want to hug Hey Mr DJ too. I think he may be the fucking sweetest person who ever came around the pike, whatever that means. My granny used to say that all the time. Without the "fucking" part. Hey Mr DJ doesn't cuss either. If my aunt Jessie hadn't moved to Texas and died I might have wanted to fix her up with Hey Mr DJ. Yeah. That would have been a good match. I wonder if he's lonely enough to date a dead woman with false teeth. I'm such the romantic schemer, just like Emma.

Quickie Bookish Meme

Air kisses are going out to Tara for tagging me for the following meme:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

The closest book happens to be Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. I haven't read it yet, but it's next in the stack I keep on my bed table. It's an old copy that MDH had when he was at UMass, but it still smells brand new.

Here is the 5th sentence:
But immediately as though slipping his feet into old slippers, he dropped back into the light-hearted, pleasant world he had always lived in.

And the next 3 after...

The coffee was never really made, but spluttered over every one and boiled away, doing just what was required of it - that is, providing cause for much noise and laughter, and spoiling a costly rug and the baroness's gown.

"Well now, good-bye, or you'll never get washed, and I shall have on my conscience the worst sin a gentleman can commit. So you would advise a knife to his throat?"

I don't normally tag people but I'll make an exception this time since this is a pretty innocuous meme.

I choose:

Aunt Dahlia
Gwen (EILCC)
I'm Playing Outside
R-Cubed
and last but never least
Heidi at Viking Conquest


It would have been pretty fun if the nearest book had been something embarassing like The World of Mr. Winkle or one of MDH's scary corporate self help books about "power selling" or some such nonsense. But this would never happen because these books are hidden from sight so that people won't find out that we are tools.

Our House In the Middle of Our Street

My darling isn't quite sure what to make of it and neither am I. This evening when I came home from work I was swirling, singing, smiling... oh fuck it... I'm on top of the world since I got my new job.

I'm not used to being this happy.

The only drawback to my new job so far is that I have less time for blogging and today I noticed that someone other than me has been using up my sugar free hazelnut flavored coffee creamer that I put in the fridge at work. I wrote my name on it in big bold letters with a purple Sharpie and put it in the fridge last Thursday and I swear that half of it is gone already. Next time I'm going to pull off the wrapper so that it's not readily apparent what it actually is and write "breast milk" on it. Or maybe "goats milk" -

Hmmm, I wonder, what's more repulsive to an office grocery thief?

It would be pretty funny for someone to come into the break room and see me pour liquid from a container that says "breast milk" into my coffee now wouldn't it?

Yes.

Breast milk it is.

If the pinched faced mousy lady who always wears a beret and has admonished me for forgetting to wear my ID badge happens to walk in to witness this I may just have to ham it up for her and start chugging it from the bottle until it's running down my chin and I have a fake breast milk mustache.

Anyhoo... my husband and I were talking about my sudden, and well deserved, mood upswing tonight and I officially decreed that this is the happiest that I have been in 4 years. Basically until a month ago I've been a miserable wretch since we moved to Michigan.

Less so since I quit my job and made some friends here locally and now suddenly since I've found a normal, non-traveling, work with people job I'm so happy that I come home in the evening singing and doing soft shoe numbers? How weird is that?

Oh, don't get me wrong, I still loathe it here and want nothing more than to go back in time and somehow change things around so that my husband wasn't transferred and that we never had to leave our beautiful home, in our fantastic neighborhood that was so close to all of our old friends.

The longer were are here the less I mind being here, but there are some things that I still miss so much that it is painful.

Now that I have found some happiness in this place I have for the first time begun to think that possibly we could be happy if we stayed here awhile longer. Possibly.

Also, although it needs some work and I bitch about that stupid, useless, broken hot tub, I really do like our house. It's big and pretty and has a lot charming features like built in bookcases, crown molding and pocket doors.

On the other hand this house needs some serious work:

The foundation is fucked up

The windows need re-glazed

We need a new furnace before next winter

The roof has some kind of bizarre algae growing all over it

Thinking about being happy here made think about what made me happy there and I thought that maybe you would like to see some pictures of what I miss - so I've interspersed this post with pictures from our old house and some people I love who were in it with us for my 36th birthday party.

Missing the last 4 years of watching my best friend Amy's daughter grow up is a big part of why I miss home. My girl just turned 12. I can hardly believe it! She gets taller and more grown up every time I see her. The kid has got legs for days.

I miss my blindingly bright yellow kitchen that always seemed to be filled with friends happily eating my food.

I miss the tall ceilings and general quirkiness of our old crazy house. We called it "charm", but it really amounted to several generations of bad remodeling jobs.

So the old house that I was so nostalgic about needed a lot of work too. We were planning to gut the kitchen (which was why I painted it such a whacky fun color), and blow out the entire back of the house and build an addition and build a garage with a one bedroom apartment on top.

I also miss The Drexel movie theater. It's where I saw well... everything -

If I were going to start a business in this community (I am not) it would be a great independent movie theater, modeled after the Drexel from back home.

It's That Time of the Month

Hey! It's March 4th and you know what that means... no? Well, the 4th is my day to post over at Burt Reynold's Mustache. You can read all about one of my many pet peeves and yet one more reason why I like to stay at home as much as possible.

Random Find

Fun with photo shop...

Fences Good

Several weeks ago as I was driving home, and for no particular reason at all, other than the fact that I hadn't done so in awhile, I turned on the street before ours and drove around the block before pulling into my driveway.

I took the long way 'round so to speak, and discovered that the neighbors who live behind us, the ones that I'm always bitching about being able to see me in my underpants all winter have put their house up for sale.

I bitch about them because between November and May when the foliage falls away we have no privacy from these people, nor they from us.

In the spring and summer, I practically forget that they exist and it's marvelous. We have very large bushy green shrubs that go all the way across our back fence, with Honeysuckle, Forsythia and my favorite, Lilacs. It's private and it smells great too.

Anyhoo... these neighbors are terrific because we have never met them. It's almost like an unspoken pact we have made with them. I see and hear you and I know that you see and hear me, but let's pretend like we don't. It's a system that really works for us and they have been excellent neighbors because we are the best of strangers.

The idea that they may be moving is a little scary for me. I have enjoyed not knowing them.

Worst Possible Outcome:

The new owners are super friendly and won't give me a moments peace when I'm in my own backyard. OR They own a dog that barks all the time.

Best Possible Outcome:

The new owners build a 6 foot privacy fence.