My Secret Shame

I noticed that this morning as I arrived at the office that my freakish personality disorder was extremely pronounced and difficult to hide from my coworkers. It was raining and dreary and amidst the grumbling, grunts and general surly nature of the office on a rainy Monday morning - I am (dun, dun dun) - perky.

Now you know.

Can I help it if I am a (gasp!) morning person who is all hopped up on the joy of finally having an opportunity to be able to wear my new green rain coat out in public?? Not to mention the fact that I've been up since 5:30 or 6 and have already had about 4 or 5 cups of coffee.

Normally I'm able to keep this annoying trait to myself so that no one will know and when they ask me "How are you?" I respond in the appropriate morose tone with answers like:

"Jeezus Christ - don't even ask"
"Fair to middlin'" or

"Piss off postie"

when what I really want to say is
"I am Fan Fucking Tastic!" all excited like.

I'm a total freak and don't I know it. I do the world a huge favor every single morning by not speaking to anyone, singing or doing soft shoe numbers until around 9:30 or so.

You are welcome.

I realize that some of you may find the photo at the top misleading, as this post has nothing whatsoever to do with meat. The photo merely represents a woman who appears to be beside herself with glee about a chuck roast, which is kinda like I was this morning over a damn rain coat.

I should also like to let you know that I more than make up for my morning perkiness by being a complete bitch package all the rest of the day.

The Horror, The Horror ... or whatever.

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

So I was perusing Skyler's Dad's blog and clicked on a link to do this quiz and clicked on What Classic Movie Are You? instead.

Oh yeah, and here's my leader thing:

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Crab Dream Update... and proof that I'm a bad listener

MDH just woke up and came into the office to give me a gentle kiss on the back of my neck. My hair is kind of short so when I'm leaning over typing/reading intently, my neck is exposed for kissing.

Anyhoo... I told him that I had blogged about my dream and he informed me that I had been screaming in my sleep and woke him up in the night. Apparently the crabs were more frightening than I had realized.

When I told him a little bit about my dream he said that it was probably a direct result of a conversation we had last night about our upcoming Hanalai vacation rental. You see, normally we live a life of vacation luxury. 4 and 5 star hotels that I try not to fuss about much because, well, I just don't. But for February next year we have shunned luxury and booked a beach cottage in Hanalei (that's on the magical island of Kauai in Hawaii). And yes for those of you who have read this and this - we are still planning to go back to Hawaii anyway.

It's really more of a rustic shack on a dirt road, but it's steps from the pacific and we'll have our own stretch of beach. MDH is sceptical of this plan, probably because it was my idea and he's usually the one plotting and scheming all of our travel.

Anyhoo... he thinks it's going to be too rustic and that we will be eaten alive by bugs. What's left of our bodies will no doubt melt in the February heat because the cottage has no air conditioning.

He has already mapped out a Tsunami escape plan on Google Earth, and informed me that we will need 2 kinds of insect repellent, in spray and lotion form, both containing deet.

So last night we had a long discussion about bug repellent which is probably what caused my crab dream.

He is skeptical of any accommodations that have molded plastic seating. Snob. Here is what the view will be like from our little cottage porch - I might be willing to have my coffee sitting on a bed of thumbtacks for this view.

The proof that I'm a bad listener, I nearly forgot...
He said that he was going to finish watching his DVD rental about the war of 1812. To which I replied "Oh, is that the one that's in color?"

The Crab People

I'm not a big dreamer. Not in a skies the limit, wild horses couldn't stop me goal accomplishing way and also in that I don't dream when I'm sleeping, at least not much that I can remember.

Sometimes I really feel like I'm missing out when I hear other people discussing (or blogging about) their dreams. Like, "cool you flew around wearing a magic bath towel and drank lemonade with Liberace?"

I'm merely well rested.

Dreamers are well rested and also got to go on some nifty adventure while they were sleeping. I call that excellent time management.

Well today for the first time I'm going to blog about my dream. Mainly because I had one. A vivid one and I haven't been awake long enough for it to fade and forget about. So here's my dream:

I was with MDH in what looked like a movie set of some old western town. The sidewalks were wooden planks and the street was dirt. We were walking and with some people we had met who told us that the town was infested with some kind of giant chigger bug the size of your fist that looked like a soft shell crab and attached itself to the back of your neck and took over your body.

No sooner had the people said this than I noticed one on the back of MDH's neck. It had just landed there and hadn't gotten it's claws into him yet, so I knocked it off and we were very relieved but immediately started to high tail it out of town. This was the frightening part of the dream.

We made it home to a house which of course was not our house and everyone there was having a party. In my waking life there is normally nobody else at the house but me and MDH, but in my dream there were tons of people. The one who stands out foremost in my mind is my friend Rachel because she was having an engagement party at our house while we were gone and for some reason I didn't seem to mind. As far as I know in real life Rachel not only doesn't have a key to my house, she is also steadfastly single although she has been dating and getting a lot of attention from the fellas lately.

Rachel was sporting the latest fashion which seemed to be brightly colored home made crocheted shawls like the kind people wore in the 70's, with little puffy yarn balls at the ends of the draw stings. I looked down and I was wearing one too.

Anyhoo... the party was rocking and I was having a great time until I noticed several people come into the kitchen for snacks and they all had crabs on the backs of their necks and the crabs looked like they had been there for awhile. They mostly went for the crab cakes, which had suddenly appeared, and took paper platefuls of Rosemary & Olive Oil Triscuits. They ate the whole box and I was very upset.

The crab people had blank looks on their faces, but otherwise seemed pretty normal, other than the fact that they had a nasty soft shell crab attached to the backs of their necks and a crazed hankering for crab cakes and Triscuits. I said "what's the big deal, having the crabs doesn't seem so bad" and then I cracked myself up.

I felt the back of my neck to make sure I didn't have a crab on it and checked the necks of MDH and all my friends and we were all fine. I called an exterminator to make sure that there weren't any loose crabs crawling around that might jump on my other guests and went back to the business of partying.

I'll take merely well rested if this is what my dreams are like. Crocheted ponchos and crab people? Where's my magic towel? Where's my Liberace?

This dream was a total waste of time and I'm not well rested at all.

Are you still reading this? I hope you'll come back and read my blog again another day anyway. Meanwhile I'm going to go get some coffee.

JBF Thursdays

Tomorrow is Friday. AKA "Jeans Day" at work. I actually overheard one of my coworkers saying in an excited, upbeat tone, "Thank goodness tomorrow is Jeans Day!" and another person agreed with them wholeheartedly. "Yes! Thank Goodness!"

Well, whoopidee doo.

I'm sorry. I'm afraid I forgot to drink the Kool-Aid on this one.

Am I supposed to get excited about this? When did wearing jeans become a humongous privilege? Or, conversely, when did wearing pants made from fabrics besides denim turn into some new kind of torture?

Many of my co-workers get all whipped up about wearing jeans. Although my boss explained on my first day of work that jeans were allowed on Fridays, on my first Friday I wore my normal dress trousers. People nearly fell out and every goddamn person I saw said "Didn't they tell you? You can wear JEANS on Friday."

I don't really have that many pairs of jeans, and frankly they aren't as comfortable as some of my other pants so I don't understand what all the fuss is about. I've tried to rationalize it and have come up with nil.

It's cool to wear jeans because:

- It's far more relaxing than the tuxedo/ball gown and tiara that are required in the corporate dress code.

- I don't already dress sloppy enough in my cargo pants and faded fleece mock turtlenecks.

- It's so confusing to have to decide which pair of wrinkled khaki's and hideously patterned polo shirt to wear on Monday thru Thursday.

- They are far more comfortable than the chain mail and burlap sacks that are part of my regular business casual wardrobe.

- Working my boring job has made me desperate to cling to any lame reason why I should keep coming back here every day instead of going completely kooky - so yes, yes, Jeans Day. Oh and Hurray! - left over sheet cake in the break room from Eileen's Retirement "party".

Management even give out "Free Jeans Day!" passes as rewards for work well done and people are excited to get them.

If I have done a good job I would rather not be rewarded with permission to wear my own pants.

Cash money does me just fine baby. A gift card works good too.

I'll save my excitement for when they come up with "Bathrobe Day", "Pajama Pants Day", or "JBF Hair Day".

*JBF = Just Been F&cked.

Mr. Boo

Anywhere from 4 to 6 times throughout the day at my office you can hear the sound of a man screaming.

It's not a long, terrified type of scream, but more of a short burst of surprise. It almost sounds like Homer Simpson when he says "Doh!", except it's more like "Ahck!". It's alarming the first few times you hear it, but on my first day of work when I heard the scream and nobody else seemed to notice it, I assumed that someone in the office had Tourettes or something.


After I had been there about a week or so I finally asked one of my co-workers just what in the hell that noise was all about and it turns out there is a man who works several cubicles down from us that enjoys scaring people, and is also quite easily startled himself.

We'll call him Mr. Boo.

The screaming that I hear several times a day is a grown man with a wife and several children going around startling innocent people who are hard at work. Occasionally his screaming is the result of someone coming up and scaring him back.

Do I have to tell you how disgusted I was to hear this news?

How inappropriate.


I don't know this man very well so I think it is unlikely that I will ever be his victim. Besides having catlike reflexes my computer faces the opening of my cubicle so it's kind of difficult to sneak up on me. Although mentally I've begun to prepare. I will scream bloody murder and fake a heart attack. I might even "accidentally" punch him in the throat as I'm falling down on the ground. Maybe I will pee my pants to make it look really authentic.


Obviously I've been thinking about this, but it didn't really upset me or make me totally angry until a couple of days ago when out of the blue he came up and startled my dearest cube mate Hey Mr. DJ. Hey Mr. DJ is a lovely old man with some health problems, not the least of which his "bad ticker".


It startled me too as I'm not used to hearing the "Ahck!" so close to my own work area and then I heard Hey Mr. DJ react with a sharp intake of breath. I started to run over to see if he was OK, but before I got there heard him say to Mr. Boo, in a flat fake chuckle, "You got me". What I heard in that flat fake chuckle, "You suck".


Mr. Boo has worked there FOREVER and has apparently been going around startling people the whole time. Why has nobody stopped him? Why does everybody go around acting like it's funny?


I very nearly confronted him after he frightened Hey Mr DJ, but remembered that I am a Temp and that I have been fired for speaking out about less maddening practices at other jobs and that I really like and need this one.

Pick A Little, Talk A Little, Pick-Pick-Pick, Talk A Lot, Pick A Little More

So I talked to my friend Steph tonight who gave me permission to post this lovely photo of her sporting my napkin rings as eye glasses from Thanksgiving 2004.

Since we moved up here I'm usually a dork all by myself, so it was nice to have someone to back me up in my dorkness. I need that support sometimes.

I say this after having spent part of my evening acting out some of the musical numbers from Fame and Oklahoma in my living room while wearing florescent green pajama pants and a mixing bowl as a hat. What can I say? MDH is having dinner out with his boss and there is just simply nothing on TV tonight. The show must go on.

It's such a relief that the neighbors behind us have moved out. I could have performed my musical numbers in the nude and no one would have been any the wiser. I love not having neighbors!

The other night we noticed that the lights were on in the empty house and a realtor appeared to be showing some people around which caused MDH to immediately strip down to his underpants and stand with his backside to the picture window in our dining room. We hope they saw him and were frightened enough to back out on any offer they may have already made to buy the house.

He and I agreed to try to appear as unsavory as possible from here on out, starting with the empy kitty litter container that we have filled with water, that has since frozen, and put on top of the hot tub to keep the high winds we have been experiencing this week from blowing the cover all over the back yard. The concrete bird bath (that MDH refers to as the Malaria Factory) blew over and we haven't bothered to pick that up either. Take that.

It Couldn't Be More Random

I don't have a lot of time this morning, but I feel like posting a little something something, so this will be pretty random.

1. While driving thru lovely Rockford, Michigan with Frenchie and Nature Boy the other day I pondered aloud, as we drove by a nail and tanning place in a strip mall with a big sign that said "California Nails", what mental image the name "Michigan Nails" would conjure. We had a good laugh over it because it wasn't a good mental image. But it's not like the women in California have cornered the market on having pretty fingernails, or like the women in places like Michigan, Wyoming or Arkansas have skanky fish guts under their nails or something.

I do however see the wisdom in not naming your tanning salon "Wisconsin Tan".

2. I have a love/hate relationship with the show/train wreck "House Hunters". I watch this show in the same way that MDH watches "Face the Nation". I yell at the TV, and boo and jeer at the dumb people in their bad outfits making bad real estate decisions. Where do they find these people? What is wrong with them? Why do they always seem to choose the most boring home and complain about the stupidest things like paint color and construction noise? Buy some paint MORON! Construction will eventually end DIPSHIT! I also get annoyed by the people's apparent love affair with granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances.

These people have ecru pile carpet on their hearts. I can't take it, and yet I can't stop watching.

3. Why do my neighbors, seemingly all of them, never use their garages? All of the houses on this street have 2 car garages and everyone parks their cars in the street. What's up? Are my neighbors all hoarders who have filled their garages to the brim with shopping bags from the dollar store, leaving no room for their automobiles? Curious.

When we moved to Michigan, my single demand was that our home have covered parking for my car. Preferably a garage. The idea of scraping 10 inches of snow off of my car every other day was unbearable to me, and yet I see my neighbors scraping snow off of their cars which are parked not 20 feet from their garage. Why people? Why?

In keeping with the "random" theme of my post, I closed my eyes and the picture at the top is where my cursor landed in my "My Pictures" folder. That's me from Thanksgiving a few years ago using napkin rings as eyeglasses. I'm a dork. Nothing new about that.

Artsy Fartsy Wet Burrito

Hey. I mean good morning. I mean, you will get a good feel for what kind of day I'm having by looking at the time this post was created. Yeah. Fuckin' early.

I adore my husband in so many ways, but the snoring, oh god, the snoring.

It's lovely to wake up being spooned, but not when his mouth is centimeters from my ear and he's assaulting my senses with morning breath and loud blubbery jackhammer snorts. Right in my goddamn ear. Actually a jackhammer might be soothing compared to this noise. Anyhoo... I opted to get up and shower rather than jam my pillow up his nostrils. I'm up and showered at 4am. Almost perky too. Kinda scary.

My intention this morning is not to tell you about my marital problems, but to give you a recap of the two lovely days we spent with Frenchie and Nature Boy who drove all the way up here to visit us. I was sceptical about their timing, as March is an iffy month weatherwise in the Tundra. One moment it's clear blue skies and 50 degrees and the next you know you could be in the midst of a winter storm advisory getting 8 inches of snow dumped on your head - and that is exactly what happened.

When they arrived late Thursday afternoon it was clear and beautiful. I put out a spread, we drank some wine and it was still light out and we were still sober enough to go for a drive and show our friends some of what the Tundra has to offer. I complain about it a lot, but there are some cool things here.

The nature of Nature Boy being nature, we took them downtown to see our fishladder. There weren't any fish, but there were lots of fishermen. I would say fisherpeople so as not to be sexist, but there were no women fishing as we are way too smart to wear rubber pants and stand around for hours in freezing water. Besides, I can get all the salmon I want at the supermarket.

Anyway, between the glorious weather, the wine, the food and the wonderful company of Frenchie and Nature Boy, I would call the evening a great success.

The next day however started off with a whimper as Frenchie and Nature Boy contemplated leaving early due to reports of impending doom in the form of lots and lots of snow headed our way and affecting their exact route home. They decided to stay, much to my delight without any coaxing or begging on my part, and tough it out.

In addition to being a lover of nature, Nature Boy is also a lover of art so when he happened to notice the nickname of our town "Calder City" and we explained the city's connection* to the sculptor Alexander Calder and he mentioned that Calder happens to be one of his favorite artists the die was cast and we took them to a pretty amazing sculpture garden near our house that I declared was "lousy with Calder's". So that is where we spent most of our afternoon on Friday.

Our time at the sculpture garden was the most time that I have spent outside in the cold in the 4 years we have lived here combined. I'm being totally serious. I don't go outside when it's cold and/or snowing unless I absolutely have to. My ass was frozen but I have no regrets.

Before I start posting the photos, I should tell you the running joke of the visit was based upon an unfortunately named restaurant that we drove by during our brief jaunt thru the town of Rockford called Jodi's Wet Burrito.

My reading the restaurant's sign out loud caused Frenchie and Nature Boy to laugh for about half an hour and all the rest of the day, you only had to mention Jodi's Wet Burrito in passing with vague and sometimes not so vague references to girl parts to make us all bust out all over again.

Anyhoo... here are some pictures:

Nature Boy and a sculpture that IS a Calder.

Nature Boy and MDH contemplate another sculpture that is also not a Calder.

New unfinished installation - no artist's name attached and no title so I'm calling it "The Freaking Bunny People". I'm pretty sure it is also not a Calder.

This one either lost a contact or is about to throw up.

Nature Boy seemed pretty excited by this work. He correctly named the artist from far away, as Andy Goldsworthy.

MDH and Frenchie huddle together, slightly less impressed with the Goldsworthy than Nature Boy.

This one is by an artist whose name I don't remember. The title was something along the lines of "Lady Holding a Bird", but c'mon it's a smiley face...

Oh yes, the photo at the top is a bronze of Rodin's Eve. She looks cold doesn't she?

*I can find no evidence that the city actually has a connection to Calder, other than that it has a few of his sculptures peppered around here and there in public places. We do however have an abundance of places to purchase wet burritos**.

**Appears to be a regular burrito with enchilada sauce poured over it. I've never seen these anywhere but Michigan and as I've mentioned in previous posts - I've been everywhere man.

The Assface Chronicles - A Clarification

I would just like to clarify my statement in example #1 below about why Assface is a big clot because Amy isn't around to prevent him from doing nutty things anymore.

I would like to say that wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase are both fine things to be doing if you are gainfully employed and on your way to or from work.

It is also fine to do if you are unemployed and on your way to or from a job interview.

But if you are wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase and you are, like Assface, both unemployed and doing something non job interview related ie, proctoring a piano competetion in which other parents, even the employed ones, are wearing t-shirts and jeans, then you are a giant douchebag.

Assface has been to these competetions before and as far as I know his vision is fine and he was able to look around and see that it's a pretty casual affair and that you might come off like a big douche if you wore a suit, let alone carried a brief case.

What would an unemployed douchebag like Assface be carrying around in that briefcase anyhow?

I like to think he must be carrying around his and Amy's divorce papers in there. And maybe some Little Debbie Swiss Rolls.

The Assface Chronicles - Screen So Soft

Last night I talked to my best friend Amy on the phone for a long time. We don't get to do that very often these days as she is the mother (and new step mother) of 3 unruly and obnoxious teenagers. Talking to her for any length of time is glorious and certainly I always take whatever time she can give, but last night was an extra 2 hour after school special. I was over the moon.

First of all she started off her conversation with me as she often does by declaring her ex-husband Assface to be an even bigger dickhead than he was the last time I spoke to her and then she tells me of his crazy antics and I agree with her that yes, indeed somehow he has become a bigger dickhead than he was before. Only last night I analyzed why he keeps becoming an increasingly large clot and here is my theory and a list of examples:

1. Assface no longer has Amy to stop him from doing asinine things like wear a suit, carry a briefcase and generally behave like a self righteous stiff when proctoring their daughters piano competition at OSU so that everyone mistakes him for a judge.

2. She is no longer around to pull him away when he has overstayed his welcome when visiting friends and trust me he needs it. The man is missing the natural ability to tell when he is boring the snot out of people in addition to being too thick to take polite hints that people would like to go to bed, thus resulting (we heard stories thru the grapevine) in slamming doors and situations escalating to near violence (being brusquely escorted to his car by the elbow) and tearfully told in plain English (after many hints were dropped) that he must leave.

OK. I made up the part about the elbow escort, but all the rest is true.

When they were still married I always took the direct approach with Assface, having learned of his handicap early on and even then it didn't always work.

Me (smiling, with one eyebrow raised: ALLrighty Assface GET OUT OF HERE...

Assface: 010101010101

Me: I mean it dude - VA MINOS - Adios Muchacho... On yer way...

Assface: 00011110000101001

Me: I'm shutting the door now. I have to go take a shit so please leave.

Assface: 000011100011110001

You get the picture. By the way Assface speaks in a low, inaudible monotone that is remarkably similar to what I imagine binary sounds like.

3. He no longer has Amy around to give a list of 25 good reasons why you don't allow your daughter to have a sleep over at the neighbor's who have the police and social services visiting 3 times a week and then act surprised when your child ends up with head lice.

There are lots of things that he still does that Amy was never able to talk him out of when they were married like wearing black socks with shorts and spraying every surface of his home with Skin So Soft in the summertime for it's supposed bug repellent properties.

Notoriously, Assface once spent over an hour obsessively spraying every inch of the screens of the screened in porch of their old house with Skin So Soft before a BBQ. For those of you unfamiliar with Avon's line of products, Skin So Soft is a spray-on oil conconction - for human skin.

I don't really know if it kept the bugs away, but it rendered every doorknob unturnable, caused every guest at the party to slip upon the oily surface of the porch floor and Dan and I to giggle incessantly (and to this day) about the supple, touchable nature of the porch screens and forever think of the substance as "Screen So Soft".

What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells

Ahh... Sunday morning. I found myself awakened this Sunday morning, as I am on most Sunday mornings, at 9:15 to the glorious tintinnabulation of the bells from the Colonial looking church around the corner, calling the flock to gather for worship, or whatever it is Presbyterians flock together to do. At least I assume it involves worshiping the lord and then eventually exchanging stock tips, talking about golf and eating Waldorf salad.

Normally I find this a pretty nice way to wake up. I'm not a church goer myself, as it would be a little deranged since I'm a devout Agnostic, but church bells are OK in my book. It's a hell of a lot better than the ten thousand decibel rhythmic bleating of my alarm clock anyway.

But today I found the bells more like a death knoll.

Fuck. Shut up already.

Slightly befuddled, I also found myself in the guest room.

Slowly it started to come back to me. Last night's outing with Rachel and E to a night club and the two very large, house special cocktails I enjoyed. The server described the drink and the ingredients list of sugary booze was too long to keep track of when I ordered them as a sober person, let alone remember the day after.

I'm hung over (is that one word or two - I'm seeing double)?

I thought that I had downed enough water and waited a reasonable period of time before driving home. I felt fine. Not drunk at all. The only physical sign of ailment from the evenings events was throbbing feet from the bronze patent peep toe slingbacks I had decided to wear. I even stayed up a little bit when I got home and called MDH who is away in Indianapolis this weekend on a corporate Boondoggle for some big deal college basketball thingy, to let him know I was home safe and to whisper lovey-dovey goodnights into the phone.

Next thing I know I'm wrapped up in a polyester comforter on the sheet less bed in the guestroom cursing the goddamn Presbyterians and their goddamn fucking bells. The floor is strewn with my now wrinkled outfit. The shiny slingback resting next to my throbbing head causes me to notice that my feet are still throbbing with tiny blisters on each pinkie toe.

As a side note, the polyester comforter was a wedding present from my mother who never checks fabric content labels. It looks like gorgeous green and gold wide striped silk with gold braided trim, but it itches like a son of a bitch. I have a mark from the braiding embedded on my temple.

Why the guest room? Well, it's not uncommon for me to sleep in there when MDH is away. It's warmer in there as it's smaller than our cavernous master bedroom and for some reason the bed doesn't seem so empty.

Anyhoo... I'm not normally a drinker of giant cocktails containing shot samplings from then entire Bacardi flavors collection served in pint sized glasses. Certainly, I wouldn't normally drink two. I'm more likely to sip one martini, or a glass of red wine with a meal. On special occasions, like when it's blazing hot outside I may, if I'm feeling nutty or on the verge of profuse schwitzing , chug an ice cold beer or two. Who am I kidding? I never finish the second beer.

So hang overs are not commonplace. I probably haven't had one for... shit I don't even remember. I do however remember a time when I could drink half of a $5 bucket of beer all night (they used to serve Milwaukee's Best tap beer, literally in gallon mop buckets at a place I frequented called Mustard's. Come to think of it, it's where I met Dan and Nature Boy) and wake up fine. In fact I could get up, go to work all day and go out drinking all night all over again. I don't remember this head pain or feeling like my ears are numb and my eyes all fuzzy and made of cotton balls.

I'm too old for this. I need a drink.

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.