Communication Breakdown

Churlita's recent post about texting and how some people either love it or hate it, inspired me to muddle over some other communication problems I have, or rather, problems I have with communication.

Communication Pet Peeve #1
MDH seems to think that I have the ability to hear him when we are on opposite sides of the house. He is wrong. I cannot.

I can however vaguely make out that he is speaking in a loud tone and it sounds like a question and ends with what sounds like the words Honey Bunny. This is how I can tell the difference between his frequent random yelling at the television and when he is speaking to me from 1800 square feet away and between 5 walls. Either way, I ignore, yet quietly curse him.

Communication Pet Peeve #2
Although I am guilty of doing this one sometimes myself, I hate it when people try to talk to me while they are yawning. I cannot understand it. I don't tend to think it's funny, especially when it's done over the phone. Everything sounds like "Rawr, yarf eeee rarrrf." I credit my friend Amy for first bringing this to my attention as she used to complain about her ex-huband yawn talking all the time and she ended up passing her peeve along to me.

Communication Pet Peeve #3
When someone calls and I am on the phone with my mother and the call waiting kicks in I do not answer it as my mother thinks that it is rude to put her on hold while I answer another call.

Whatever. I do this for her, she is my mother.

If I'm on the phone with anyone else besides my mom I use it. What grinds my nerves is when I'm on the phone with my mom, purposely not answering the call waiting and the person either keeps letting it ring or keeps calling back, kicking in the call waiting over and over and over and over. It usually turns out to be one of my brother's in law who urgently needs to discuss some Boston related sports issue with my husband. They always deny doing it.

Communication Pet Peeve #4
Getting calls from people who have no idea that they have called you. You can hear them in the background ordering from the Burger King drive thru, talking to someone else (perhaps they are talking about you), or maybe you just hear the vague sounds of paper rustling, music or talk radio.

This person is completely oblivious to the fact that they have called you from inside their purse or pocket and this asshole certainly has no idea that you were in the middle of a serious BM and went running to the phone with your pants around your ankles because you were expecting a call about a job interview.

No? Did that just happen to me? Oh well.

Anyhoo... I imagine that they sat down on their cell phone and accidentally dialed my number with their ass. I am also guilty of this one, but not since I got a flip phone.

Communication Pet Peeve #5
Getting text messages from people I barely know. I used to have a coworker who could never seem to email or call me like a normal person. She was always with the texting and it was always to tell me some bullshit that could have waited. The fact that I don't really understand the texting shorthand and it makes me feel old and farty increases the annoying factor by like 1000%.

Update 05/07/2008 6:24am - realized pre-coffee that in addition to Churlita I should probably credit Catherinette Singleton's recent call waiting post as providing inspiration as well...

In Response to Your Google Search Query #10 - Quick and Dirty Lightening Round Up

Dear Person Who Found My Blog Via the Search Query "my pants" (peedpeeingpeewettingwet),

Sweetie, it's called a Kegal exercise. Look into it. Seriously. Depends. Get some.


Dear Person Who Found My Blog Via the Search Query "warped toenail normal",

That is fabulous news honey! I'm glad you were able to make a full recovery and now the ladies at the walk-ins welcome nail shop will only be able to make fun of you to your face in Vietnamese for that gargantuan mole with the hair growing out of it and your horrendous bad breath. Photo snagged from here.

Dear Person Who Found My Blog Via the Search Query "Scooby Doo Naked",

I'm pretty sure that Scooby Doo is already naked, unless you count the dog collar. What is wrong with you?


Dear Person Who Found My Blog Via the Search Query "Barbara Mandrell Naked",

What is wrong with you?? She was America's Sweetheart back in the day. Now, of course she is an old lady, although I've no doubt she's still American and sweet, at any age she's not likely to have any nudie photos floating around.

Now, if you were looking to see Irlene Mandrell naked I could totally understand because she was a big ole slutty whore.

Sometimes It Is Simply Easier Not to Ask Why

I was trying to think of a clever way to let you know that I've posted over at Burt Reynolds Mustache today and this is the best that I could come up with:

Now imagine the effort that I took to follow through with this endeavor.

1. The battery was dead in the camera so I had to charge it first.

2. I had to enlarge the mustache graphic and print it.

3. The printer was low on ink, so I had to replace the cartridge.

4. I stood in front of the shower curtain of our master bathroom where the light is best, donning a cut out paper mustache that I had scotch taped to my face.

5. Now please re-read number 4 to fully grasp the idiotic nature of my little project.

6. I had to hurry and do all of these things before my husband came inside from slaving away outside doing yard work and caught me in the act of any of the items listed above, thus discovering the true nature of my ridiculousness, causing him to leave me for someone more mature.

7. I had to destroy the evidence.

After all that trouble I had no choice but to put the damn photo up, and just in case you want to play along:

Note to self: Less PBS, More Animal Planet

My best friend Amy is having some major doggie drama. We had a long talk about it last night. Having been married to Ted for less than a year it seems her newly blended family situation is in crisis mode.

Here is a list of all the critters currently living under her roof:

1. Her husband Ted

2. Her tween age daughter LBL

3. Ted's younger teen age son Sporto

4. Ted's older teen age son Emo

5. Ted's jumping, yapping 2 year old dog Chloe

6. Amy's jumping, yapping and curmudgeonly dog Rita, who is older than dirt

7. LBL's noisy, stinky guinea pig Sprinkles

8. Amy & LBL's cat Macy

9. Amy & LBL's cat Sebastian

10. Ted's 8 year old asshole Schnauzer named Max.

11. Let's not forget Amy, who is also noisy, stinky and yappy.

Max is causing monstrous amounts of trouble. He bites. He pees everywhere. Mainly the problem is He Bites.

I won't get into the details, but I'm sure you can imagine that their house is like an upside down zoo.

Anyhoo... after talking to Amy about her animal troubles and teen angst I talked to my friend Steph on the phone and set about recounting my entire conversation with Amy to her.

Gossip is such an ugly word. I prefer to think of it as a graphic and meaningful exchange of personal information about people other than myself.

Whatever you call it, when I was finished telling Steph all about the demon menace in Amy's household taking the earthy shape of a grouchy Schnauzer, Steph made the following insight:

"Sounds like they need to give Max the Caesar treatment."

I thought to myself, Well that seems kind of harsh.

Not understanding why Steph would immediately choose to resort to such violence and imagining poor old Max being stabbed repeatedly in the back by the entire family with a set of Chicago Cutlery steak knives.

Steph is a dog lover so I shook off my murderous canine mini drama and asked for some clarification.

Turns out Caesar is a reference to the canine behavior specialist who calls himself The Dog Whisperer. I've actually heard of this program, but had no idea that the guy's name is Caesar.

What a relief.

BTW - MDH and I have finalized plans to go on a long weekend, double date with Amy and Ted in June to Philadelphia.

I'm brimming over with excitement over this scheme.

Amy and I would never have attempted anything like this when she was married to Assface. I LOVE her husband Ted for many reasons, but not the least of which is that he gets along so great with MDH. It's like the perfect best friends scenerio when your choice of mate gets along with her choice of mate. Presto Pefecto.

Things Are Not Always As They Seem

Case in point, tonight's dinner.

Contrary to what you may believe from looking into the pot, I did not pull the rags off the end of a dirty mop and marinade them in dirty dishwater.

This morning I got up at the crack of my ass and tossed a pork tenderloin into the crock pot and poured some vinegar and sauteed onions and herbs on it and let it cook all day on low while I was at work.

It looks like a dirty mop, but tastes so good you'll want to smack your mama. Twice. Not really, leave your mama alone. She's totally innocent in this endeavor and if your mama is anything like my mama she never cooked anything that didn't come out of a cardboard box with directions that said "Just add water".

Anyhoo, my slow cooked pulled pork tenderloin is a thing of beauty. Made even more delectable due to the fact that in light of recent memory problems I forgot that I had cooked it until I walked in the back door after work tonight and got a snortful of the amazing aroma.

I'm getting to like this other me, the one who remembers to do all of this cool stuff. She's amazing.

Other things that aren't as they seem:


My kitchen chairs are lovely, but really uncomfortable. We didn't sit on them before we bought them. This was a big mistake. We should have brought a bucket of chicken and sat down on them for awhile before we made this purchase.

Gotta get some seat cushions.

Also the notepad is not what it seems. You'd think I'd be all organized and shit because I write stuff down all the time. I'm not.

This cool subway poster that MDH pulled down from the wall of the London Underground, glue and multiple layers of other posters and all is also a deadly weapon.



He mounted it on this piece of corrugated sheet metal, but did not do anything to the edges. They are like razors and every time I move this thing I cut the palms of my hands.

Dammit.




My face is not as it seems. Because I am a master make up artist with concealer you can hardly tell that I have a rash around my mouth and chin in the shape of a goatee. I hope it is not because of all the strawberries I've been eating.

Unfortunately I can do nothing to conceal my crazy eyes.


In other news:

1. I got a raise last week. Not enough of a raise that I can actually tell a difference in my paycheck, but a raise none the less. Still my paycheck seems the same.

2. I have added Jerry Fondue to my list. Welcome Jerry. You are in good company. Jerry Fondue seems kinda cheesy, but he's actually a nice guy.

3. How could I forget? It seems that my father accidentally backed over my mother in their driveway with his SUV. That is not how she describes it but that is pretty much what happened. She said he bumped her while she was putting some things in the hatchback. He "bumped" her hard enough that she fell down and hit her head.

She also says that she is "just fine", but then went on to describe a laceration that extends the entire length of her left arm and "a goose egg" on her "noggin". Whatever injuries she suffered were apparently not serious enough to keep them from meeting friends at their country club for happy hour where she described soaking up the blood on her arm with cocktail napkins. It seems the bartender at the club is also an EMT and helped clean her wounds with antiseptic (the kind you can't drink).

In Response to Your Comment

Dear Sparsely Kate,

In response to your comment on last night's blog post, "when you can remember, please explain why you and the copier are no longer friends", I have decided to oblige you with a full length blog post answer.

You see I share a copier/printer with about 60 other people split among 4 departments on my floor. Of course there are other printers to use, but this particular printer is not only the one closest to my cubicle it is also the only color printer worth a damn, probably in the the whole building, or at least my section of it. It also happens to be the one the IT department designated as my default printer.

Unfortunately one of the departments that I share this printer with is the Art Department. Invariably everything the Art Department needs to print is on extra thick, extra long paper and requires a great deal of time to process. Invariably everything the Art Department needs to print clogs up the normal functioning of the printer, causes horrific, suicide inducing paper jams and rude error messages that I tend to take personally.

My problems getting along with the printer usually stem from this scenerio:

Some devil spawn Art Department person has chosen to print an exact HD replica of the Sistine Chapel on 72 x 36 card stock and caused the printer to not only jam up tighter than Tom Jones jumpsuit, so that smoke is coming out of the exit tray, but also caused red lights to blink all over the thing like a fucking ambulance. Somehow this person is magically unavailable to come and clean up the mess they have made of the printer.

This always seems to happen when I have "hot" items that need attention within the next hour and I have just sent about 30 pages of meticulously chosen text to the printer, and causes me to have this conversation with the printer/copier:

Printer/copier: Remove jam area 7, 5, 10, 19, 36 and 79

Me: What is that? Your lottery numbers?

Printer/copier: Everyone's a comedian. Now, as I was saying, Remove jam area 7, 5, 10, 19, 36 and 79.

I spend the next 20 minutes opening every conceivable crevice of the printer and removing paper jams from all listed areas.

I am now sweating, but fully satisfied that I have successfully removed all traces of card stock. I slam everything shut.

Me: How ya like me now?

Printer/copier - Nice try. Remove jam area 7, 10, 36, 62.

Me: What? 62? That wasn't on the original list how can I have created a paper jam by removing paper jams you bitch?

I spend the next 20 minutes looking for paper jams, trying to figure out where this so called "area 62" is and removing burnt and crinkled card stock. I'm somewhat satisfied and slam the printer shut, yada, yada, yada.

Me: Take that.

Printer/copier: Remove paper jam area π

Me: I don't have to take this. I'm going to the big Minolta in R & D.


I understand that the printer isn't bad and I suppose my beef is really with the Art Department asshole printer hogs who could probably due with having their own color printer designed specifically to be used for giant HD exact renderings of the Sistine Chapel on enormous flats of card stock. Oh, wait - THEY HAVE ONE OF THOSE ALREADY.

Anyhoo... that's my story.

Kindest Regards & Best Wishes,
The Lady

I Forgot That Armed Robbery Is Against the Law

Here is a strainer full of freshly rinsed strawberries. Possibly the prettiest and most tasty strawberries in all the land. I went to the store tonight after work for romaine lettuce and coffee creamer and nearly burst into tears of joy at the sight of these berries on display.

Two for $5.

Then when I got home I opened the fruit bin of my fridge to put them away and realized that two nights ago I'd had the same tearful strawberry orgasm at another grocery store. Also 2 for $5.

So now I've got a buttload of strawberries.

I've been forgetting a lot of stuff lately. The other day I walked out the door for work and left my beautiful freshly poured travel mug full of coffee on the kitchen counter. I almost turned around and drove back to get it.

I forgot to buy ant traps and they were on the shopping list. I'm pretty sure I haven't forgotten how to read. Maybe I'm just in deep denial about the fact that our gorgeous and not just a little expensive leather love seat may be infested with ants. OK I'm exaggerating, we each separately had one little tiny ant crawling on us while we were watching TV the other night, but I've been wiggly ever since.

MDH seems to think that ant traps will do the trick, but I would like to take a more aggressive approach and cover the love seat in plastic sheeting and toss a grenade up under there. Grenades and plastic sheeting were not on my shopping list, but it doesn't matter I've gone senile and would have forgotten them anyway.

I forgot that last week I talked to Uncle Dan, who has been ailing all winter, and promised that we would come visit him and Aunt P this weekend. Damn. You cannot break promises to visit elderly aunts and uncles. They live for that shit. Maybe since they are in their 80's they will totally understand if we don't show up and I say that we forgot.

I was going to write about some other stuff, but I forgot. Since I'm not able to do any blogging at all during the work day I sometimes send myself emails to remind myself of post ideas and inspiration that I have throughout the day. Then I read them later and have no idea what the hell I was trying to tell myself. It's like I'm a character on Dr. Who getting mysterious messages from myself from another realm.

Today's message: "The copier and I are no longer on speaking terms"

I'm not sure how I planned to craft an entire post from this tidbit. Besides the copier and I have since made up and I'd prefer to put the incident behind us rather than dwell on it.

Meanwhile my life this week has been full of mostly pleasant surprises:

- An early Gevalia coffee shipment arrived this week. I had forgotten that I had increased the delivery frequency last month.

- I called to make an appointment for a haircut, thinking that I'd never be able to get in only to be told that I already had an appointment scheduled for next Thursday.

- I found two brand new spring shirts in my closet with the tags still on that I bought this past January on the clearance rack at Macy's.

It's like whattaya call it, that holiday that happens in the winter where you get presents. Yeah. It's like Christmas every day, or whatever.