Have I mentioned that we bought a house?

what's up chicken butts? 

This shit is harder than I remember and I think that's pretty obvious based on what I resorted to for an opening sentence for my first post since March.  My apologies.  I haven't written much more than work related emails and drippy Facebook posts for several months.

I'll cut to the chase and dive right into a numbered list of things that are up my chicken butt:

1.  We bought a house. 

It's your standard Texas-style stone and brick, brown suburban house.  Some might call it cookie-cutter, and I might tell them to go fuck themselves because I've been living out of goddamn boxes for the past 3 years and that's a tiring way to live after awhile.

The house is entirely bigger than anything we'd ever need.  We feel a bit silly since it's just the two of us and a cat, but we chose this particular model with my mother in law in mind, because there are 2 master suites on the first floor, so she could come stay with us for extended visits and never have to climb any stairs.  I love my mother in law.

2.  The woman who sold us this house is a leathery piece of shit and I hope that I never have to communicate with her again after we close or as long as I live, whichever comes first.

She looks about 800 years old, smokes electric cigarettes in the model home where her office is, and seems to think nobody will notice the smell.  She has a tall, teased out Ladybird Johnson style hairdo and wears neon colored suits and turquoise jewelry.  These things are all fine.  In fact when I first met her I thought she was a hoot.  Get a load of this old broad!

You go 800 year old lady!  Go ahead and smoke your electric cigs in public.  Go ahead, be leathery and have cotton candy on your head and call it hair.  What do I care? 

Good for you for somehow figuring out how to embalm yourself while still alive by using a combination of Aquanet, nicotine and Hawaiian Tropic spf 8.  Way to go Leatherybird Johnson.

But don't lie to me through your dentures and get my hopes all up about what the builder can and can't do for us, you sack of shit.  And that is all I have to say about that.

3.  I'm still working from home and haven't lost my fucking mind completely. 

Not completely, although it is quite maddening from time to time. 

The longer I do it the more clear it has become that although the policies at my company are very open to work from home situations and remote employees like myself, the policies and technology used by the IT department (which is also my department btw) to support us... is ummm not designed to support us at all. 

My laptop died recently and it took 1 full week for them to figure out what to do about it.  I had to ship it to them.  Bullshit.  Then I had to wait another full week after I shipped it for them to ship it back to me.  Also bullshit.  They wouldn't ship it directly to my home, because the policy says it has to be shipped a corporate recognized branch office.  Bullshit.  Bullshit.  Bullshit.

So I ended up going half the month not being able to accomplish much of anything.  I could work remotely using (a remote system of logging in that rhymes with) Bitfrix from my home computer, but the connections are so slow and sketchy that the best outcome of this story is that I didn't slit my wrists when it took me an over hour and half to send out an email with an attachment. 

I didn't kill myself, but I cried a lot.  Like, a LOT.  As in, it's been several weeks and my face is still a bit blotchy.

It's also a bummer as a remote employee to constantly get sent group invitations to lunch meetings, potlucks and having to respond to meeting invitations by asking for a call-in number.

4.  Did I mention that we bought a house?  We finally bought a fucking house!!!  Motherfuckin' A, man!!  I don't have to feel terrible for hating my upstairs neighbors and their goddamn barking dogs and anvil footed children who seemingly do nothing but run back and forth across my ceiling all night and wake up screaming bloody murder every morning and carry on all day running around and screaming and tossing toys and shit off the balcony.  Oh dear Llyod in heaven how I loathe them.

5.  I'm stressed out because we bought a house.  We're moving again for the 6th time in 11 years.  We still have that horrid house in Michigan that is still under water.  We had a tenant, but had to evict him because he was regularly 4 months behind on the rent.  Now the property management company has told us that no one will lease it out because the kitchen needs remodeled.  So we're in the process of remodeling a kitchen long distance. IT'S ALL TOO MUCH TO TAKE!!!!!

6.  I'm a bit consumed with the new house.

Anyhoo... that's it.  This is all I can manage for now.

I'm out of practice wrapping up blog posts into tidy packages with bows and ribbons like I used to do.  Besides, where the fuck is my scotch tape?  I can't find anything around here so I sure as hell can't find any ribbon.  Get out out of here.  This post is over.

(I love you.)

A Helpful Hint from Amy - The Cool Paper Towel

School started last week and although I'm not a teacher, most of my friends are teachers. Did I ever mention that my best friend Amy teaches the 2nd grade? Yes she does. Did I ever mention that my best friend Amy is brilliant? Yes she is.

One of my favorite works of her genius is this:

She keeps a little mini fridge in her class room filled with diet cokes and a life time supply of water-soaked paper towels tidily folded up and individually sealed in snack-size zip lock baggies.

Do you know how many snot dripping, red faced, sniffling, crying jags occur in the daily lives of 2nd graders? Well, I'll tell you, it's a lot. Bumps, bruises, scrapes, headaches, loose teeth, name calling, hair pulling, pants peeing, booger eating - no matter what your problem may be it can all be taken care of by the soothing relief of a cool, wet paper towel.

Amy always says it really fast too - Go get a coolpapertowel and sit down. The smeary red-faced child person goes to the mini-fridge and gets his or her own cool paper towel. Sometimes they even tell her when they might need one.

Mrs. Amy I'm very upset. I think I need a coolpapertowel.

I would like to state for the record that the cool paper towel works on children older than the 2nd grade also. Like 41 year old ladies who have had a bad day at work only to come home and find the kitchen sink full of dirty dishes so that she has to work all goddamn day and then clean up the damn kitchen before she can fix dinner, and clean up the kitchen yet again before bed. I think I need a cool paper towel.

Yesterday there were lots of cool paper towels getting tossed around at my house after my husband, who had started off the day sticking to the original plan of renting one of those Rug Doctors from the grocery store, ended up ripping out all of the carpet in our living room, dining room and hallways.

This is something that I have wanted to do from the minute we first walked in the door of this house, but MDH has always held back because hardwood floor restoration is in our home ownership fear zone, along with pretty much any home improvement project that goes beyond spackling or painting.

Needless to say there was some drama, but as you can see, it's a bit too late to turn back.

I'm not sure we have the skills to refinish this floor properly because it has some pretty bad stains in the wood, and I'm fairly certain that we do not have the money to pay someone else to do it.

Even scarier, MDH, in a similar fit of reckless impulse to the one that caused him to go from cleaning the carpet to tearing at it like a wild animal, decided to call in his brother Miami to see if he could come up and do the floor for us.

Bad. Idea.

Yes. Miami is by trade a concrete foreman and tends to work on high rise buildings, but started off as a carpenter and general contractor, so he knows how to refinish a floor.

He is also a roaring drunk.

Several years ago he nearly ruined the office of our old house when MDH asked him to make us some built in book shelves. Miami was all disciplined and lovely the first 2 days, but after that I'm not sure what happened, but I do know that he discovered the bar down the street kept Valpolicella in stock, and after that the job was rather untidily abandoned. He claimed it was complete, but I ended up hiring someone to come in to fix nearly everything he had done.

The thought of him coming here and attempting to take on our floors makes me need a coolpapertowl. Maybe five.

Even Turtle needs a cool paper towel after this...

Adventures in Phobia Part 2

Yesterday I posted about our narrowly missed twin appointments with death and stupidity when I fainted, causing everyone on an NCL shore excursion to collectively change their minds and decide not to ride down the side of an 10,000 foot volcano on bicycles at 20 mph in the fog and rain.

Today I will tell you about the other very stupid shore excursion we booked on our 2005 NCL Hawaiian cruise.

Kona Ocean Kayak & Snorkel (from the NCL Shore Excursion Catalog):
Kayak along four miles of the scenic Kona coastline and black lava sea cliffs to Kuamoo Bay. Along the way, see great sea caves and giant lava tubes; you may even spot a playful dolphin or a green sea turtle! Then, jump into the waters of a protected cove to snorkel and see some of Hawaii's marine life up-close. Don't worry beginners, a friendly and knowledgeable guide will greet you and provide you with basic paddling and snorkeling instructions and safety information. Note: Participants must be at least 10 years of age. We recommend you wear a swimsuit and bring a towel. This tour is not recommended for those with back problems or heart conditions.

This shore excursion was a much smaller group than the Maui Downhill adventure and we rode to the beach in a normal van, rather than the extendo 15 passenger crash mobile I described yesterday. Our tour guide didn't say much, but he looked like he belonged in one of those 1960's surfer movies with Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. He even wore a floppy woven straw hat and threadbare khaki pants cut off at the knee like some kind of castaway. Like our mountain bike guide in Maui a few days before, he also called everyone "Bra" and "Cousin".

We arrived at the beach where life vests were passed out and kayaks assigned to us in pairs. MDH insisted on sitting in the back of our assigned kayak. In other aspects of our lives together he seems to prefer letting me be in front of him also. He says it's because he likes to watch my ass, but I'm pretty sure it's so he can keep a protective eye on me and catch all of the shit that I'm constantly knocking over in stores with my big giant purse without realizing it.

We got into the boat where we flailed around for about 10 minutes while our guide was giving instructions on how to move around, steer and right the boat should we tip over.

MDH and I missed this entirely.

Our guide didn't seem to notice, but we were about 20 feet away from the rest of the group paddling wildly around in circles further and further away, arguing.

By the time we pulled the oars out of our asses and paddled up to the rest of the group the guide shouted cheerfully, "OK, off we go!" and he and the rest of the groups glided out of the shallow, protected cove toward the big giant, very deep sea. I didn't know how deep it was until I heard someone shout out the question and the guide shouted back that it was somewhere between 200 and I don't remember, but it might have been 10,000 feet deep.

It was deep.

It was very deep and we were floating around in crazy circles on it in a tiny plastic piece of shit.

I didn't start to panic for real until we had paddled out of the bay into the deeper water and 3 things happened:

1. I looked back at MDH and he wasn't wearing his life vest. When I asked him where it was he said he had taken it off to use as a seat cushion.
I screeched back to him, "Are you outta your goddamn mind!?" as just then...

2. a swell about 6 feet high rocked our kayak and temporarily blocked my view of the boats in front of us. When the swell had passed...

3. The boat in front of us that had been carrying an older woman (about 50 or so) and her grown son (about 25 or so) had tipped over and both of them were flapping around, spitting and helpless while I watched their oars float away in the next 6 foot swell.

I had 3 epiphanies:

1. If our boat tipped over MDH were too out of shape to ever be able to get back into it and we would drown or a shark would come and eat my legs off, which would only draw the attention of more sharks and we would both die in a horrible blood bath feeding frenzy while the rest of the group kept paddling off without noticing.



2. I was having a gargantuan panic attack that included hyperventilation and if our boat tipped over I was too frightened and freaked out to make safe decisions and would probably drown and/or be eaten by sharks as described in epiphany #1.

3. Fuck it. I realized that we weren't that far out of the bay and that we didn't have to do this. We could turn around and go back. Just fuck it. (How's that for an athletic shoe slogan?)

I screamed back to MDH without taking my eyes off the next oncoming wave, "We don't have to do this!!!", to which he replied, "Good, 'cause I don't want to do this anymore either!" Great minds think alike. Great cowardly, scared shitless minds.

We hailed Moondoggie over and explained our decision and he paddled along side us until we were safely back to the shore where we thanked him and apologized profusely for any inconvenience we had caused. He was really nice about it and reassured us that lots of other people did the same thing. He also explained that we were going to be stranded there until the tour ended 4 hours later, because in addition to being our guide, he was also our driver. We told him we'd find our own way back, thanked him and apologized again.

After Moondoggie paddled out of site I cried like a big giant baby into the crook of MDH's arm. It was that bad kind of crying too with dripping snot and uncontrollable moaning. He held me tight until I was all done and let me blow my nose into the extra t-shirt he had brought along.

Then we began the long walk back into Kona town.

We must have looked pretty bedraggled because we didn't get further than a mile up the road before we got picked up by 2 golfer guys in a shiny red Mustang convertable who gave us a lift back into town. It's the only time in my life I have ever accepted a ride from a stanger. It shocked me to my core when they asked and MDH immediately said "Yes!"

It was an eye opening experience, way more so than the volcano mountain bike thing. I have nothing more to say about it except that we spent the rest of the day in Kona town, drinking coffee and eating pizza by the slice. We had a waterproof camera with us that day, but we didn't take any pictures. I do however, have this business card. It's a little dog eared because I keep it in my wallet to remind myself of what is the better way to spend my time.