Ugh.

I am totally freaking out about the economy and the 'bailout'. I am a worst case scenario preparer (you will never be disappointed!), so I am imagining the worst and praying for the best.

And I am totally stressed about the election. It's what I do.

To counter the effects, I am going to do laundry and mop my kitchen floor.

The counter the effects on the blog, I will post random pictures from my iPhone. Enjoy the mindless/pointless entertainment. I hope you are all well.



T in his work clothes. Aaaah.



My buddy E's mom is growing some of our wedding flowers for us....and here's a sample.



T and E sitting in front of the 'bonfire' we had a few weeks ago.



View from the condo balcony a few weeks ago.









At the park.

And....that's enough for now, I suppose. Bored yet?

Apples to Apples

When we bought the house, we noticed (to T's glee) that there is a mature apple tree in the back yard. It has beautiful flowers on it for about a month (which rain down on the lawn and make mowing a celebratory affair) and every fall.....

Apples.

Tons of them. It's borderline insane.

Last year, we ignored the apples and the deer went nuts. And the bees. And the lawn was pitted with soft, decaying fruit for most of the winter.

This is not something we want to repeat, so while T is at work today....I'm picking apples. Then I am making apple sauce. Then apple butter. Then apple pie. Then.....chutney? I don't know. I can't can anything, as I don't have the appropriate stuff for it, so T's family is about to inherit a giant box of apples and apple accessories.

Maybe I'll freeze some. Apple bread, that might work. Get some dried cherries or something....

Anyway, I'm blathering.

I'm off to the harvest.

Edited to add:

The applesauce ROCKS. Rocks....I'm patting myself on the back.

Random...what do you expect at this hour?

A white tom cat (I'm talking pure white, not a dark hair or patch of skin on the boy--not albino, however, he has yellow eyes) has been frequenting our house as of late.

He is insanely friendly, and obviously someones pet as he is well fed and has a nice coat.

He is, however, not fixed. (At least by my untrained eye--there appear to be testicles. There's a sentence not oft uttered.)

He only comes over at night, appearing as if out of no where and disappearing just the same. I don't know who he belongs to, or even in what direction they live from us.

The internet tells me several things:

1)White cats at night are bad omens, and black cats during the day are as well.

2)White male cats are reincarnated spirits, and are to be considered holy as well as blessings.

3)White male cats are said to be the most revered of all felines, and some call them 'angels'.

I'm not sure how we went from bad omens to angels, but whatever. (The bad omens came around during the dark ages, actually. But whatever.)

As pleased as I am to have blessings in my home, I am a tad unnerved by the 'angel', or reincarnated spirit option.

Because if this is true, I just spent ten minutes snuggling and coddling an angel, who I then terrified and sent streaking out into the night by closing my garage door.

And now I have to wash all my clothes and shower so I don't make T's face melt when he comes home from work, the poor allergic thing.

Does anyone else know what this could mean? (Aside from my neighbors putting their cat out at night?)

Oook. Prepare for Math hystaria

Ok. I am stealing questions off the sample exam.....

√ 2 × √ 15 = ?
A. 17
B. 30
C. √ 30
D. √ 17

That would be C, right? If not, why? (I just found the test key, and it is C....But I'm not sure why. At least my stab in the dark was right.)

The quadratic formula makes me want to drink heavily and spend the evening weeping under my dining room table.

What is the value of the expression 2x2 + 3xy – 4y2 when x = 2 and y = - 4?
A. -80
B. 80
C. -32
D. 32

What the hell....The "figure" is a circle with a smaller circle in the middle, the shaded area being a donut of sorts.

In the figure below, both circles have the same center, and the radius of the larger circle is R. If the radius of the smaller circle is 3 units less than R, which of the following represents the area of the shaded region?
A. πR2
B. π(R – 3)2
C. πR2 – π × 32
D. πR2 – π(R - 3)2

Because pi R squared is how you find the radius of a circle, right? So, it's D. No? Wait.

(3x – 2y)2 =
A. 9x2 – 4y2
B. 9x2 + 4y2
C. 9x2 + 4y2 – 6xy
D. 9x2 + 4y2 – 12xy

This is A, right? The 'squared' bits aren't coming through....that's supposed to be squared, not multiplied by two.

Which of the following expressions is equivalent
to 20 – 45 x > 16?
A. x ≤ 5
B. x ≥ 5
C. x ≥ 32½
D. x ≤ 32½

this one doesn't make a lick of sense to me.

If f(x) = 2x + 1 and g(x) = x – 12 , then f(g(x)) =
A. x
B. x – 14x + 2
C. 4x + 2x – 1
D. 5x + 12
E. (2x + 1)(x – 1)2

If θ is an acute angle and sin θ = 12, then cos θ =
A. -1
B. 0
C. 12
D. √32
E. 2

If log10x = 3, then x =
A. 310
B. 1,000
C. 30
D. 103
E. 310

If 3x2 – 2x + 7 = 0, then (x – 13)2=
A. 209
B. 79
C. -79
D. -89
E. -209

There are only 17 questions on the placement exam. To my knowledge, I cannot take it again. (I think I can take it again in 6 months, but never more than twice a year.) I don't believe that they can keep me out of college if I fail this--because they have to have a math class for morons, right? I mean, they make money from my being there, smart or not.....I'm just so terrified of failing. I failed college before (I did it to myself, mind. Drugs are bad, kids! So is crazy!) and I am so terrified of doing it again.

I am so embarrassed to have to show them my transcripts from my old university. I am so scared that they are going to look at my depressing and really really bad GPA and judge me. Think I am stupid.

I found my blog from when I was 20-21. I was reading over it, and it threw me into a huge depression....How flippant I was! How dumb! How I took everything for total granted, how all I cared about was sex and parties and drugs and music and some more sex (and more drugs, if you'd be so kind). I cringed, reading it. Literally.

What the fuck was I thinking? T says everyone has to 'find themselves' when they are that age....but unless I was hiding in the bottom of a bottle, in a bag of dope or in a strip club, I wasn't looking too damn hard.

But I guess if that stuff hadn't happened, I wouldn't be here now, and here ain't too bad.

But if it hadn't happened, I wouldn't be freaking out about how you multiply fucking fractions either.

Uhm, can you help me?

I have to take my entrance exam for college here shortly. I only have to take the math portion of this test, so that I can be placed accordingly.

I have not taken a math class, nor used any math harder than the basics (addition, subtraction, division and multiplication) in at least 10 years.

I am not good at math, I have always struggled with math. So I am plowing through the test prep, trying to study (another thing I haven't done in at least 4-5 years....)so that I don't just walk in there, write my name on the paper and leave.

The test prep? Terrifying. The sample test questions? Even more terrifying.

T's baby brother is a math genius. He has agreed to tutor me when he has the time. He doesn't have the time for a little while.

So here I sit, in my bathrobe, staring horrified at a web page, doing my best to refresh my cob-webbed math memory.

Wish me luck.

When Yarn Attacks!!

Prepare for boredom and a peek into my messy-ish house. And to see the evidence of my carpet....oh, the carpet. How I loathe it so.

After the completion of my first pair of socks (and their subsequent trip through the dryer and into the loving arms of F, who has incredibly small feet) and the baby knitting, I felt confident enough to try for a pair of socks for T.

I let him pick his own yarn, in his own colors and so on. (Otherwise I would have used the neon-rainbow-vomit sock yarn I already have. Barbie goes tanning pink, anyone?)

This yarn was left sitting in a hank in my yarn stash, languishing its days away while I finished fretting over the baby sweaters and asking everyone I saw if they would dress their child in such an item (Moni says she loves it! Hooray!).

Last night, I decided that the time was nigh. It was time to organize the yarn pile, to wind the hanks into balls and then separate everything by color, brand and fiber.

I asked T's brother J if he would hold the hank for me while I wound. (J has hands that we {well, I} refer to as 'Man-Bear-Paws {catch the South Park reference?} as they are huge beyond belief) All this chore entails is holding your hands about three feet apart while the yarn, which is suspended cat's-cradle style, around them, is slowly rolled into a ball.

This proved a job too difficult for the dear J.

He dropped a part of the hank, which immediately turned itself into a huge tangle. So T had to help. And my buddy A, who was over for dinner and some Wii bowling.

Please enjoy my blurry photo montage:



This is J, attempting to untangle the mess. Also, A's feet. Also, the random storage container in my dining room. T is currently holding the hank, I am winding the ball and taking the pics.



Here you are getting a larger scope of the problem. J is standing about three feet behind me, still taking part in the activities shown in the previous picture. (Aren't T's feet adorable?)



Here's T, modeling the proper way to hold a hank of yarn for winding. Also, my messy living room. And the infamous 'Navajo' couch. (You would think that if someone were going to make a couch that ugly, they would make it comfortable. That thing needs to go live with a nice family on a farm.) Oh, and anyone who can tell me who is on T's t-shirt wins a prize. For real.



And here is the full picture, from T's view. There's my pajama-ed legs, J frantically trying to un-tangle the knots, and my horrible horrible carpet.

And that is how I spent my Thursday night.

(Seriously, how embarrassing is it that it took 4 adults over the age of 25 half an hour to wind a ball of string?)

Suspension!

I have sciatica.

This sucks, to those of you who are lucky enough to not know that this is.

It's horrible, weird back pain that radiates down from your pelvis to your feet (and if you're really lucky, your arm and fingers) as you have done something to piss off your sciatic nerve.

Basically, what happens is I do something stupid, like, trip over my own feet or collapse when trying to get out of the car (My parents seriously thought about naming me Grace. Hilarity.) and wrench my back. I wake up the next morning, and walking/bending is not an option.

This time the flare is due to the fact that I didn't wear my super-sexy mouth guard while sleeping the last week or so, and ground the hell out of my teeth, giving myself a huge tension headache with morphed into a migraine which morphed into my laying on any flat surface with a pillow over my head with my back at a weird angle because it stretched my neck out......

One thing leads to another.

I would much rather have this than a migraine/tension headache, though.

You know how you make sciatica better? You exercise. I can't open the refrigerator without swearing from pain, and I'm supposed to go walk 1-3 miles.

Hates it. That's me. Anyway, I have taken to suspending myself over the chair I sit in--holding my body out of it with my arms and letting my ass hover over the seat. My back cracks and pops and moans, and I feel better for about 25 seconds.

Anyway, enough bitching.

Nothing is really going on.....I've been out of commission the past few days from back pain, migraine or the flu-ish thing that A gave me. (thanks again, buddy!) So there's nothing really new to report. I mailed all the baby knitting! That's something. Uhm....Yeah. Well, at least I never promised to entertain you kids.

(Where did my commenters go? I mean, seriously?)

Koalas and Rainbows

This entry is not light hearted. Consider yourselves warned.

I have been watching full episodes of the show Intervention on You*Tube.

I am obsessed with this show. I am obsessed with biographies of people who have had, or still have, drug and alcohol problems.

I am obsessed with them not because I like to see self-destructive behavior, but because of the families and friends that are effected.

It makes me feel less....alone. It sounds so fucking selfish, so horrible to say this, but seeing people with lives that have been destroyed in ways equal to or greater than mine-it makes me feel better. I don't want anyone to suffer the way I did, the way I still do, but to know that I am not alone, well, it makes me not blame myself.

Because that's what we do, you know. We adult children of alcoholics. There's a whole association devoted to us. And I have, or have had, every single symptom on the list. Shall we look at it?

"...We had come to feel isolated, and uneasy with other people, especially authority figures. To protect ourselves, we became people pleasers, even though we lost our own identities in the process. All the same we would mistake any personal criticism as a threat.

We either became alcoholics ourselves, married them, or both. Failing that, we found other compulsive personalities, such as a workaholic, to fulfill our sick need for abandonment.

We lived life from the standpoint of victims. Having an over developed sense of responsibility, we preferred to be concerned with others rather than ourselves. We got guilt feelings when we trusted ourselves, giving in to others. We became reactors rather than actors, letting others take the initiative.

We were dependent personalities, terrified of abandonment, willing to do almost anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to be abandoned emotionally. We keep choosing insecure relationships because they matched our childhood relationship with alcoholic or dysfunctional parents.

These symptoms of the family disease of alcoholism or other dysfunction made us 'co-victims', those who take on the characteristics of the disease without necessarily ever taking a drink. We learned to keep our feelings down as children and keep them buried as adults. As a result of this conditioning, we often confused love with pity, tending to love those we could rescue.

Even more self-defeating, we became addicted to excitement in all our affairs, preferring constant upset to workable solutions." (www.adultchildren.org)

Again, this is not something I delve into terribly often, nor is it something I share with very many people. Good lord, look at me--Oversharing on the blog, twice in one week!

Everyone in my family is an addict, or was at one time. Every single person. As far back as anyone can remember. Alcohol, predominantly, was and is the drug of choice. (Not for me. I'm special.) My mom, my dad, my step dad, sisters, step sister, my cousins, aunts, uncles, step grandparents, grandparents....everyone.

I was surrounded by addicts my entire life.

I didn't realize that this wasn't normal until I was in upper elementary school, when sleep overs became the thing to do. When my friends parents weren't mean to them, weren't drunk, didn't fight all the time. They tucked us in and made snacks and let us watch movies and play games and make noise. I didn't understand--that's not what my parents did.

My friends didn't want to stay at my house. They didn't want to come to my birthday parties, didn't want to come over at all. My mom was drunk all the time, and mean, and made an ass out of herself on a regular basis. She fell, shitfaced drunk, and broke her ankle while I had friends over to stay the night. She then called my father, from whom she was divorced at the time, to get pain pills from him. My stepfather was listening in on the phone, my mom knew it--so she screamed and screamed and screamed for me to come help her. I did--she wanted me to go tell my stepdad to hang up the phone. I was 11. I did it. My stepdad was also drunk--He threw the phone out the second story window, raining broken glass all over the yard. They spent the rest of the night screaming at eachother and breaking things and yelling, all the while I was trying to laugh it off to my friends. Who called their moms in the middle of the night to come get them.....And I was grounded for a month because I let the "family secrets" out.

My sister, who put herself through rehab a couple of years ago (she is to be commended for that choice and her hard work to stay sober. She may be a fucking bitch but she really deserves a pat on the back for that one.) tells me over and over and over that I should join Al Anon, that I should go into therapy, that I should write my mom out of my life forever, and so on and so forth.

Part of me knows she is right. Another, more prevalant part of me, feels that she doesn't know a goddamn thing about me, my childhood or my feelings. So there is no possible way that she could know what was right for me. I understand that her intentions are good ones, that she means well and wants the best for me.....But if this is something I decide to do, I am going to do it on my own terms, and she will definatly not have a goddamn thing to do with it.

I also don't love the 12 steps. I have a hard time with the "God" stuff. But that's just me.

I need to learn to be ok with the way I was raised. I need to learn to not hate and resent my mother for exsisting. For being weak.

Because that's how I think of her. Weak. And that is the last thing I want to be.

My mom, she looks for reasons to get wasted. Because if she can justify it to herself, then no one else can give her a hard time.

My grandmother's birthday would be this week. My grandmother has been dead for 16 years. Yet my mom gets drunk for about 2 weeks straight for that reason. Right after that is her wedding anniversary with my stepfather, which is also the anniversary of her mom's death. More drinking. Then comes Thanksgiving, which she has to be wasted for, and then Christmas. Drunk. Then the anniversary of my stepdad's death, then his birthday, then my birthday, then the date of her divorce being final from my dad....So basically mom has at least 6 months of hard drinking scheduled in, starting last week.

It makes me crazy. She does this partly because she is embarrassed and needs to justify it. She also does it because she has gotten away with it for so long. (The woman got out of a HUGE DUI by using the "my mom died of alzheimers last week" excuse in court. This is when it started. I think.)

This entry was pointless. And spell check won't work.

Thwarted by Weather, Round One

I am lucky to live in a part of the country that has reasonably mild weather. Maybe I just think that because I lived somewhere for eight years that had a climactic reign of terror over me. 110 in the summer? -40 in the winter? Hooray!! Not.

No, where I live, we really only get the huge horrible windstorms in the winter that knock out power for days on end. That's the worst we have, and I'm ok with that. Nothing like camping in your own home...

When I first moved back here, it was the very beginning of February, and therefore, the height of shitty weather season. (Anyone here watch 'Deadliest Catch'? You know those arctic hurricanes they're always talking about? We get the tail ends of those. And now everyone with an atlas knows where I live. Hooray!) Anyway. I moved back, my friends left, and I began to settle into my "I'm horribly depressed/relieved that I am out of the hellhole" routine, which involved lots of sleep, no showering, and tons of internet and cable television abuse. (This was also the year that our notoriously shitty football team made it to the Superbowl. This is important.) Have I blogged about this before? Meh. You'll get over it.

Anyway, my dad was driving himself around then, and was a large fan of the "I have four daughters and sometimes they all go crazy" mode of parenting, so dad left me alone a lot. He (true to form) went to the store before I arrived and purchased everything he knew I liked to eat and drink, gave me a hug when I got there and then let me do my own thing.

So my friends leave, and dad goes to dialysis. I have whole days to myself, to do nothing but watch TV or cruise the internet, to read. It's awesome. I'm warm, I'm entertained, and I'm not dealing with my mom.

And then the storm hits.

The wind is screaming, the bridges are closed, trees are falling like drunks, and the power goes out. No power=no tv, no cable, no heat, no hot water. We have a wood stove (thankfully) and I had spent the last 2 years while living with my mom cutting firewood (From forest to furnace, baby! Never again.) so I was pretty good at getting a fire going so we didn't freeze. Even though all the wood was soaking wet.

Aside: Is there anything more sad and hilarious to look at than a horribly depressed, dishevelled woman in her early 20's splitting firewood in her pajamas while a storm rages around her? I think not.

Anyway, so my existence went from one of willingly going without showers and being a slug in front of the tv to one of not having a choice.

So I would build a fire and sleep on the floor in front of it, while the storm raged, the windows rattled and the sliding glass doors bowed inward. I had faith that the power would come back on in a day, two at the most.

10 days we were without power. 10 freaking days. I'm charging the coleman lantern in the cigarette lighter in the car, charging the cell phone the same way. Trees have fallen over most of the major roads, no one can get in or out. Dad stayed with his girlfriend so he could get to dialysis. I ate crackers and drank warm coke. Did crossword puzzles. No phone, no TV, no internet....no choice. The restaurants were closed...It was kinda cool for the first 48 hours or so.

On the 11th day, the power came back on. It was also super bowl Sunday. My dad came home for the occasion. I cranked up the heat, took a shower, went to the grocery. Dad was sitting in front of the television, thrilled to death to watch the super bowl. Rubbing his hands together.

The pregame show ends. The cameras are now zooming in on the stadium, the announcers are welcoming us to the biggest football game of the year.

And then the cable went out. 'CLICK'! and then nothing but snow.

I thought my father was going to explode. I had never in my life heard that sort of language out of my father. Up, out of the chair, he's accusing the television of ungodly acts and crimes against humanity. He is punching the remote control, creating new swear words out of thin air. He is calling the cable company and accusing them of being Nazis.

When he finished, I told him that I was sure we could go down to the hotel (my later place of employment) and watch the game there. That they were on a different power and cable grid than we were.

He stood there, his chest heaving with breath, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, glaring at me.

"FUCK THAT SHIT, GODDAMNIT! I just won't watch the GODDAMN SUPERBOWL, YOU FASCIST SONS OF WHORES!" And he went in his room and slammed the door.

You know, I think an 80 year old man addressing the cable company (in effigy, mind) in such a way may be more funny than me cutting firewood in my pajamas.

The cable came back on in time for the post-game highlights, but my dad was too pissed to come watch it. He just pretended that the Superbowl didn't happen that year.

We lost, by the way.

Politics and Random Naps

*Disclaimer: Please don't write me comments, messages, or emails about what a horrible person I am for writing this entry. At no point do I do anything besides state my own opinion--And I went out of my way to leave all names out of it. If you are offended or disagree, that's your right. But please keep it to yourself, and, like all things blog, respect my right to an opinion as I respect yours. Thanks.*


Much like every other right-minded person in this country, I am totally obsessed/horrified/terrified/aghast of/with the current political situation.

Actually, I have been for a while, but things are coming to a head lately, what with all the election stuffs going on.

I really try to leave stuff like this out of the blog. I really try to keep my political views to myself, along with my religion (or lack thereof). I really try to be open minded at all costs, to accept all people and their failings and achievements together. People are people, no matter how small/black/white/catholic/muslim/republican/democrat and so on. Your identity is not defined by WHAT you are, but who.

Common sense, really. At least in my mind.

However.

T and I have discussed the current election at length, probably far more times than he wants to. (Bless the man. I get incensed about something and can't shut up about it, and he just wants to sleep, or drive, or eat dinner, or do laundry. So tolerant. I am the luckiest woman.) He seems to have more faith in the American people than I do.

Now, let me discuss that statement.

I love this country. I am proud to live here. But I am not in love with, or proud of the way a lot of people refuse to make educated decisions about the future of this great country. The look at the shiny bits that are dangled before them by candidates, take the ones they like and vote accordingly. They don't look into the track records, the history, the REAL thing they are voting for. It seems borderline retarded to me to make a decision that will effect every part of your life--even if it is in the slightest way--without knowing the facts.

My father was a party voter. The candidate running under his party still calls here on a regular basis (well, his voice recording, anyway) thanking my father for his support. The state I live in requires you to pick a party--which I hate. What if I like a democratic senator or governor, but a republican president? But that's another post for another time.

In wanting to make an informed decision for myself and my future, as well as for what I thought was best for this country (being a democracy and all) I began to research the candidates. When the vice presidential candidates were announced, the research intensified.

When E was here, he and I would get into hours long talks about politics. We are identically minded when it comes to the majority of the current political issues, and would talk for hours about them. (I think T was just happy to have a break so he could watch the History channel in peace.)

And then E told me a beautiful and terrifying thing.

If one of the candidates wins the election, E and his girlfriend G will be making noises about moving out of the country.

T and I will follow.

How sad and depressing is it when citizens are driven to the point where they have no faith left in their government? When they feel that the best option for them and their future children would be to live somewhere else? That the four of us would sell everything we own and leap off this continent, leaving behind everything and everyone we know rather than be governed by a group we have no faith in. It scares and disgusts me.

I really am trying to rally. Trying to have more faith in my fellow Americans to see the big picture.

Simultaneously, however, I am forced to believe in democracy. Perhaps my idea of 'the big picture' is the minority view. Perhaps my thoughts on gay marriage, abortion rights and laws, birth control, education, health care, the war, the economy, they aren't the same as the bigger part of America. Majority rules--that's the basic foundation of our government. Those who disagree with me have the same rights as I do, that's the beauty of democracy.

So I am torn.

But that can't stop me from doing what I think is right. (So long as I am not hurting anyone.)

***************************************************

With the previous novella in mind, I was watching CNN today. I was becoming more and more aggressive with the television, more worried, more stressed.

And then I suddenly, and without any preamble, fell asleep. Just passed the fuck out on my couch while watching Anderson Cooper. I woke up two hours later, having dreamed some of the most random and weird shit ever, confused.

I know I haven't been sleeping well due to my raging horrible back pain. But jesus--I was like a darted animal.

I'm going to bed soon. And I know I will sleep without any problem. (aside from pain.)

Oh, and weather? Yeah, if you could work your shit out and decide what season it is, that would be great. The fog horns keep T and I awake. So does the bitter cold, especially if it was sweltering when we went to bed and opened all the windows without getting the 'it will be fucking freezing here shortly' memo. Thanks.

Whump, Part 2, or, "Lies Make the Baby Jesus Cry"

Alright. Since you all seemed so interested after the first installment of this post, how could I NOT post the second half? I mean, really.

*Editors Note: The author has recently discovered the hilarity that is MS Paint, and the photos that follow may contain any of the following: Poorly drawn arrows, hard to read script, and a demonic piglet-bat interpretation.*

First off, some photos to clarify some points in the previous post. (Click to enlarge all.)



This is the condo. If you walk up the weird and pointless steps from the street, this is exactly what you would see. So thrilling.




If for some reason you were standing just before my welcome mat, and looked at my kitchen, this is the view. I know, it's offensive. You can also see the eyesore of a closet door in the photo.




And this, dear readers, is reason why MS Paint should not be used by people that can't read their own handwriting. Which, in my mind, makes it more hilarious, but whatever. If you were to peer into my kitchen window with your hands cupped around your eyes, this is what would await you. (The world's smallest kitchen. Home of such great stories as when my dad caught the mouse and mouse trap in his oxygen cord. Ham Hawaiian took place here as well.)

Anyway, hopefully now you understand my wrath and rage and several other sins towards this woman.

Moving on.

So my father was a collector of cars. Classic Mercedes, mostly. He had spent nearly all of his life loving these freaking cars, and had owned quite a few throughout his life.

When he died, he had three cars. 2 classic Mercedes, and one classic Porsche. (Classic, my ass. That car is and was such a pain in the fucking ass you didn't want to drive it without some lube and a few cocktails.) My sisters, being the highly decisive beings that they are, didn't know if they wanted to keep them or sell them or do nothing, which is eventually what they did.

Beneath the condo, on the other side, are six parking stalls. (The front of the condo is on ground, the back end is on 'stilts' of sorts, allowing you to park under your living room and scare the hell out of everyone inside.) Dad's cars took up three of these stalls, and when I bought my car, 4. Now, I understand TOTALLY that four covered parking spots for one person is a lot. That other people in the building could get irritated.




But there aren't any other people in the building. June and Floyd, part time. (They're from Texas. This should explain something.) The other two units are rentals, and empty like, 90% of the time. And there is an entire parking lot surrounding these six parking stalls--several of which are also covered.

Anyway, no one complained.

(I'm reading over this, and good God, is it petty. How is it that life has come to this?)

So no one complained, and the classics started to do what classics do--leak. A few drops of oil here and there, no one said anything.

Then one of the cars (the green one in the photo) decided it didn't like the taste of transmission fluid anymore, and had out with it.

This was a stain that took a while to spot. This is a large car we're talking about here.

Anyway, June took offense to this stain. I can understand that as well, seriously.

But does she come to me and ask me if we could move the cars, repair the stain, or both? No. She goes to the condo association, again, and this time PETITIONS them to make us move the cars and repair any and all damage or the cars will be towed at our expense and we will be fined.

The first I heard of this was via a phone call from the only woman on the condo board I can stand, last Friday. It would seem that they wanted the cars moved by Monday, as in, yesterday. (They were moved today.)

So I called my sister. All this shit is her deal, I mean, as the executrix. She has all the authority, and I just live here, so this was filed quickly in the "not my problem" file.

14 phone calls later, we have a plan. T and I will purchase concrete cleaner, pull the cars out of their spots, apply it, return the cars, repeat. At least until my sister can get in touch with the ass hat who used to work on dad's cars to see if we can store them there. (This is the man who called the day dad died to see if dad wanted to bring the cars over for something. When I told him dad had died, he chuckled and said, "Well, I guess I can kiss that business good-bye, huh?")

And so it begins. The jump starting, the application of concrete cleaner. June staring out her window at the water run off.

Finally, I heard from ass hat mechanic, who said that we could bring the cars over.

My car is not strong enough to jump the green car. (Four cylinders of sorority girl power, baby!) so my buddy A had to drive 30 minutes from his house to help us.

The cars are now located behind a barn near some farm equipment, in front of a derelict RV. Good enough spot for them, I guess. Sigh.

Anyway, T and I were applying the last coat of concrete cleaner when June came downstairs.

"OH!! They came and moved your cars!!", she said.

"We moved them. Today." I told her, without looking up.

"Oh, well, I know how it can be. They jumped all over me when I left my car here for six months. I had to give it to my son!"

T and I didn't look at her, didn't acknowledge her further. She stood there a few minutes and then drove off.

T looked at me and said, "Who is this 'they' she was referring to?".

And now everyone is happy. Well, most everyone. T and I have to submit the receipts to my sister for the concrete cleaner for reimbursement, then I will start leaning more towards happy.

This post was lame, I think.

Whump

And thus begins my tale of the super bitchy neighbor.

Lets take it back a ways, shall we? To the days where I was waiting tables at the resort, nursing my father, and hating nearly every part of my life. At least, every part that required me to be nice to people, i.e. my job.

My neighbors are a retired couple. They are loaded with money--I mean, Big time bucks. They own multiple homes, and only spend their summers here. We live in a 4-plex--I am on the bottom left, they are on the top right. A huge staircase divides the front of our building--if someone is coming to see the neighbors, they will only look at my front door if they are lost.

This is pertinent. I'm getting to that.

Anyway, I'm waiting tables and hating every freaking moment of it, and the neighbors come in. Lets call them.....June and Floyd. June is one of those retired women you hate. Flashy jewelry, uber tailored clothes in every shade of pastel, the neck scarf. The attitude. The only thing missing is a small dog in a matching outfit. Floyd is the typical down-trodden husband--the sweetest man on the planet who obviously hates his wife but long ago learned to just shut his mouth and roll with it.

Anyway, they would come in and June would pitch a fit about getting a table on the deck, because, you know, she's LOCAL (for three months a year), and it's too NOISY inside (it's a fucking bar, bitch). I would always manage to wind up waiting on them because my coworkers were (and mostly still are) horrible people who didn't like to share. (Unless it was money. Then they wanted some of that.) Anyway, Floyd would be nice, and polite, and smile and make pleasant conversation, while June would bitch and complain (in the most saccharine of voices) about everything from the amount of ice in her cocktail to the formation of the birds on the beach.

One day, during 'happy hour' (which is the least happy hour for anyone in Food and Beverage) June and Floyd came in, and after their meal and drinks (which, at happy hour prices, came to under $25) June asked me if I would give them my employee discount.

I thought she was kidding.

When I laughed, she remained anus-lipped and gave a hearty sniff in my direction.

"No, dear, I mean it. Come on now, we're NEIGH-bors!!" When I explained that during happy hour we couldn't discount the already discounted food, and that I couldn't give my discount to anyone but myself, she asked me to pay for their meal. When I then explained that no, I wouldn't be doing that, and even if I wanted to couldn't purchase alcohol while on the clock, she grudgingly paid. To the penny and nothing more.

Floyd came back an hour later and pressed $5 in my palm. Told me I more than deserved it and thanked me for my kindness while dealing with his wife.

Cut to my father's death. June does nothing but stare out her windows and into the business of others, so she knew before anyone else did that something was amiss in our house. She had seen the ambulance at 3am, she said, after knocking on our front door at 8:30, and wanted to know 'if everything was alright'. Luckily, my sister answered the door as I would have punched her in the face repeatedly while sobbing. (Dad had been gone for under two hours at that point. We had all been up all night, and had just started the wonderful task of 'Making the Phone Call'. Not so much in the mood for company.)

When my sister told her that our dad had died just a few hours before, that we appreciated the concern, that wasn't enough for June. "What happened? He was sick, right? Did he die here? Was he alone?"

Hence the punching.

Anyway, she made a huge spectacle about it, pretended that she loved my dad, that he was such a great commodity to our community, and never mentioned the fact that she had never spoken to him.

She sent a card, flowers. All nice gestures. Seriously, people don't know what to do when someone dies--they send food, or flowers, or cards, and all it does is annoy the people who receive it. We're all guilty of it, and I now have 124 vases that I don't know what to do with.

So I have seen June a few times since then. She had invited T and me to her "Kentucky Derby Party", which we declined. "Wear a fun hat, darling!", she shouted down to me. Like hell I will, lady.

Anyway, since we declined her invitation, she has begun a war with me. I have apparently offended her sensibilities by not drinking mint juleps and wearing a ridiculous hat in her company.

I ran into her a few months back and she told me I needed to keep my kitchen blinds closed. "It's unseemly, dear, how everyone can see your coffee pot. They should be looking at the beauty of the garden, not what's on your counter."

You can only see my coffee pot if you stare intently in the window, which is what she had been doing.

"June, if people are coming to your house, they can't possibly see my coffee pot without trying", I told her.

What ensued was a huff of sorts.

My fucking blinds are open. All. The. Time. I could be running a sweat shop in that damn kitchen and it would be none of her concern. It's MY kitchen. I own the damn thing.

Later, she made a stink about my outdoor closet door being open. Didn't tell me, you see, but the members of the condo association. (All terrible bitches, save one, who is great.) So there is the huge to-do about my door being open.

I closed the door.

But the latest one, oh, the latest one.....The bitch is lucky I haven't keyed her car.

But that's a story for another time.

Some highlights, for those who care:

Our vacation? Not so much a vacation anymore.

Of Beer, Football and Cell Phones

E is still in town, which rocks. I am still using his Mac*book, which also rocks. And still does not bode well for my checkbook.

We have done a lot of driving since E has been here--Homebase out of the condo, but travels none the less. E starts his new, shiny real career here shortly, and is taking full advantage of his last few precious "able to sleep till noon and do whatever the hell I want until 3am" days. T has six days off this week (Cue excited noise here) and I don't have to do anything for school for a couple of weeks, so we are all having a glorious little vacation.

Today, we are heading out to the AT*&T store, due to the fact that E and I are both experiencing cell phone woes.

E cannot find the charger for his phone (A brand new LG "shine", which he hates with a passion) and my new i*Phone has decided that it doesn't like to tell time properly. I didn't pay that much moolah to have a super-device that can't figure out what time it is. This is effecting the way I receive text messages and phone calls, which drives me totally insane.

I will be bothering my super effeminate cell phone salesman and weeping at him. (Nothing wrong with his effeminate ways. Seriously. It is, however, sort of strange to see a man who weighs at least 300 pounds wearing eyeliner and having severely plucked eyebrows. Not something you see all the time. Nice dude, however. That being what matters.)

*****************************************

Last night we went out to my buddy A's new swingin bachelor pad to admire his orange counters and carpeted kitchen, and drink beer.

None of us are big drinkers (anymore) which put a cramp on our style a little. What could have been an uproarious evening of drinking and laughter and the shenanigans therein turned into a "lets watch a movie, talk about football and scare each other when we come out of the bathroom" sort of evening, which is normal. Also proof that we are adults now. Well, aside from that bathroom thing.

*****************************************

Went to T's little bro's football game last night. Sat right behind the band.

Nothing has changed, to the naked eye, however.

The football team is still not great. The band is still not great. The HS students are still clique-ey bastards.

The band, however not great they may be....is not spunky.

When E and I were in pep-band, those many years ago, we were spunky--had attitude, got involved in the game, were rowdy and often got ejected. (More in basketball than football, but ejected just the same.) The band now just treats it like a chore, whereas we treated it like a game, which is what it was. We all knew each other and were friends, we knew all the football players (some of whom were in band too....), so why not treat it like a social situation where half of us have musical instruments and the other half are beating the shit out of people/getting the shit beaten out of them. How could you not have fun?

Anyway, T's brother is a fucking brick wall of a kid. I never really noticed before, as I am usually praising him for his manners, feeding him or smiling while he mows my lawn. I knew he was an ox, as he often picks me up with one hand/swings his brothers around his head/moves the refrigerator for fun, but it didn't register until he went running out on the field with his pads and gear on and knocked two men over two hundred pounds to the ground without so much as a strain.

I thought T's head was going to fly off. Few things get my normally mild-mannered husband-to-be riled up like football--Defiantly football played by his old team, involving his baby brother. He couldn't sit still, couldn't have a conversation, couldn't answer a question. It was cute and endearing for about 45 minutes. Then I knitted and made fun of people with E, so everyone was fine.

(They lost. By a large margin. But it's ok. I don't know that T or his brother know that, but it's true.)

Prrrrr-AH!

Which is the sound from the 'strip to the waist and fight to the death' song from that one Star Trek movie.

Currently in the fortress of solitude. Currently using my buddy E's shiny mac*book, and quietly, softly, gently being converted into a mac believer....which is potentially shattering to my financial future. (If this continues, I will finally admit to myself that I am using a laptop that coughs and wheezes and a desk top that is plagued by Vis*ta....The same program that decided that the internet was far, far too dangerous a place for me to be galavanitng and stopped allowing me access for a time. I actually have a scar to prove that one.)

Lots of wholesome family fun in the works the next few days. Hopefully there won't be any flying of kites of picnics, for my head may melt. No, the youngest of the brothers is having his very first home football game, and he is the 1)Largest person on the team, 2)The starting center (Quote from less athletically inclined brother D: "So, wait, A is the dude that has that other dude's hand on his ass?") and 3)Been said to be, by both coaches, the strongest player on the team. T is simply GLOWING with pride, being that he was a varsity football player (Not a center, however. T is not even close to being the Mack Truck that is A. I'm totally ok with this.) back in HS as well, and none have followed in his footsteps until baby A.

Needless to say, we will be going to the football game. I haven't been to a football game since my pep band days.....and that was circa a decade ago.

I'm sure nothing has changed.

Also, there will be other rounds of wholesomeness. Lots of meals cooked together and enjoyed outside, lots of walks in the park and so on.

Ribeye steaks with bleu cheese, roasted asparagus and rosemary Yukon Gold potatoes...Corned beef and cabbage....

T squealed when I told him the meal plan for this weekend. He's still a little stuffy, so we will give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that the squeal was an accident.

********************************

Oh, what else. Nothing really interesting that doesn't make my head explode.... (Have I mentioned what a horrible, meddling and evil woman my neighbor at the fortress of solitude is? UGH.)

Yeah. I got nothing.

Can You Smell the Freshness?

Nothing really interesting happening here. I burned myself with mild chilies (Have I mentioned this already? I don't normally read my own blog. Sorry.) in a freak turn of events that took NINE hours to end and I spent the duration alternately weeping and soaking my hand in cold vinegar. Totally my finest hour(s).

Yesterday, for the first time ever in the history of history, T fell sick--and I did not. Normally, a germ crosses our paths and I collapse like a bag of laundry, and cough and hack and sneeze for a week or so. T stands there, looking slightly confused, but not sick at all. He may sneeze once or twice, but that's the worst of it.

My sister (the evil bitch that she is) brought not only good cheer to my house last week, but a cold. And T got it....and I didn't. (Probably because of my homeopathic cure all stuff. That I don't mention on the blog. But whatever.)

Amazing. I am just as shocked as the rest of you aren't!

However...this means something for T. I am a varsity member of the "I Will Fix It" team. I treat his sickness like a military campaign, and he hates it.

But he feels better.

I was telling him last night that this is a lesson that he needs to learn before we wed.

We can either stand here for ten minutes and argue and then you will do what I say, or you can just do what I say.

(I'm really not the overbearing wife type. I really only get demanding and weird when T's health is in jeopardy. I think.)

Anyway, after much tea drinking, sock wearing, Zi*cam, Air**borne, sleep and Vi*cks, T is feeling better. So there!

Also, please go check out Zombie Fights Shark--Link to the left. So, so hilarious. Not totally safe for work (No porn or anything, but a healthy dose of swearing. And this is coming from me, here.) and not totally safe if you're offended by that sort of thing. (If you are, what the hell are you doing here??) Check it out.

Misanthropy....

Please tell me that's how you spell that.

So roomie, non-brother roomie, to be exact, has taken my last nerve and plucked it like an out-of-tune guitar string.

Thankfully, by the time he gets up today, I will probably calmed down enough to not want to skin his face and use it to mop my kitchen floor.

It would seem--Well, it's definitely true, being as Brother J's buddies cannot keep a damn thing to themselves (which has worked in my favor a time or 14) that Roomie M knows precisely how much T and I desire his house-work ethic to change. J has talked to him (unsuccessfully), I have (over and over and over again--But that's passive aggressive!), and T has a time or two as well. Nothing has changed. I heard (via Myspace....Lord help us all) from one of the boys' friends (Who used to essentially live here. Nice kid. Has OCD and used to get stoned and mop my floor and fold my laundry for me.) that he and M had a long, detailed talk about how M knows that everyone in his life is pissed off at him, how he knows that this would be an easy problem to solve, but that he just doesn't want to.

Really? I mean, really. How apathetic can you get? I know the kid is 20, but Christ.

Anyway, OCD buddy sends me this message telling me that he tried to make M see things from every one's point of view, that I (we) need to understand that he is young, that this is his first time living without his parents, blah blah blah. I understand all these things. I, too, was 20 once. (Granted, when I was 20 I had been out on my own for almost 3 years and had been taking care of myself for longer than that, but I am the exception to this rule.) But I understand.

What I don't understand, however, is what the fuck he is thinking.

"Everyone is irritated with me because I am a schlub who makes epic fucking messes DAILY, makes no move to even attempt to clean them up, and when I am asked to help clean/do a chore/pick up after myself I cop a huge attitude, tell everyone they are passive aggressive, or lie. Works for me!"

Last night I cooked dinner for everyone. T asked M to do the dishes, and his response was, "I have to work in like, ten minutes". He then went in the living room and started to play Rock Band.

T went in, turned off the game, stood in front of the television and said, "You have to work in an hour and a half. If you have time to play video games, you have time to load the goddamn dishwasher".

I went to take a shower.

Then I re-did the dishes. (Helpful hint: When loading the dishwasher, especially if it is a late-70's model, and small, rinse the dishes first. Also, don't just fling them in there and force it closed--It no likey. They make slots and things for plates, you know.)

I then swept the kitchen floor and J cleaned off the table, T put everything in tupperware. M sat in the living room, staring at us.

Then he went to work. J went out with 'the ladies', whoever they are, and T and I went to bed. I slept soundly, knowing my kitchen was clean, and would be when I woke up. All I would need to do is make coffee, and I could start my day.

I was wrong. As usual.

It was like a winged badger went through my kitchen this morning. Crap all over the floor, wrappers and pop cans all over the counter, plates stacked willy-nilly in front of the coffee pot. Spilled beer on the stove.

After a small aneurysm, I cleaned it up, made coffee, and came up with new and creative swear words.

***********************************

See, this house. It's not the nicest house. BUT! It has good bones, good potential. It's in a part of town expected to have huge growth in the next few years. It has a fenced yard. T bought it with the intent of flipping it--and I agreed. (Hell, I'm the one that picked the damn thing out!) It was a rental for 10 years before we bought it--This should tell you something. (The carpet. Good, sweet Lord, the carpet.) I know my hand is stacked against me here--Four people in a three bedroom house that needs work. My refusal to live in squalor means that I clean....a lot.

We're talking about putting in pergo floors and painting (And getting rid of the damn popcorn ceiling.) as a christmas gift to ourselves. (It will be a whole.new.house.) If this happens--Oh, how the boy's lives will change. If they think I'm a pain in the ass now......ah.

*********************************************

My friend (and ex-coworker/bowling ace/chef) A told me this story last night, and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did. Hilarity.

So there is a group of retired men (late fifties-ish in age) who come up annually to play golf over a weekend. They leave their wives at home and get stinking drunk the whole time.

The first night, a man was shitfaced and walking down the dock to his boat, and fell into the water. (He was fine.)

The next day, everyone went to play golf, and the man who fell in the water's brother is shitfaced. He is riding in a golf cart, and decides he needs to use the restroom.

Rather than go to the actual restroom to do his business and leave everyone to wait for him, he drops his pants and hangs his ass off the edge of the moving golf cart, and proceeds to begin to...relieve himself. Well, considering he is shitfaced drunk, he falls off the golf cart, pants around his ankles, and gets his head run over.

He was fine.

Again, who does this??

More Foe-Toes

Mostly because I can.

We went to a state park by our house today, and I took pics. So here you are.

This state park was at one time a military outpost, and there are bunkers and gun stations and things all over. The whole hill is essentially hollow, and you can walk around inside all the bunkers and stuff unless you are terrified of shit like that like me.



They're bunker-ific!




T and his younger brother D atop one of the bunkers. (You all remember that T has eight siblings, right? There will be a test later. R,C,G,A,T himself, J,J,D,A. It's like a DNA sequence.)



In case you were worried what happens when you forget things--Don't. Those lost thoughts are in a state park on the west coast.



He Rules. (groan and shake your heads, I know, I know....)



But he's still a dork.



This is just cool.



Me, with wilderness hair, dressed like a school teacher. Not that that is a bad thing.

How I Missed You

It's true. Since this is my second blog in less than two hours.

Anyway, I was catching up over at Wide Lawns (link to the right, kiddies. I'm a lazy 'ho.) and she had 'extended' a survey of sorts--A girl whose blog she reads wrote up a list of foods from her childhood, so Wide Lawns did the same....and you all know my feelings on food. So I am 'extending' the same list.

Prepare for boredom. Or not, whatever.

Food From My Childhood, by NeonGolden


Meals That Were in Heavy Rotation: My mom was a big fan of the pork spare-rib. I remember eating this all the damn time--and I still eat them now. They're cheap as hell, easy to cook, and you can slather them in whatever the hell you want. The only downside is that scrubbing the pan afterward is a pain in the ass. Cream cheese omelets with bacon and little green onions (still eat it), homemade burgers on english muffins, green salad EVERY NIGHT NO MATTER WHAT, tuna casserole with potato chips on top. (I thought this was the most amazing thing as a child. Potato chips? At dinner!? For shame!)


When My Mom was "Phoning that Shit in": This was like, all the damn time when I got to be about 9 or so. Mom stopped cooking/cleaning/eating and just kinda went to play varsity for the drinkers. My dad was a great cook, so before the divorce he would usually make the omelets mentioned above or apple fritters, which are amazing. My step dad was a terrible cook, so I did most of the cooking after the age of 9.5-10 or so. Lots of easy stuff, tuna casserole and the like.


Popular Side Dishes: My mom still loves the gross Lipton butter noodles out of the bag. Green salad, of course, lots of baked potatoes.

Foods My Mom Made When We Were Sick: Graveyard Stew. (My dad actually made this.) It's burned toast in sweet milk--the burned part of the toast makes the milk grey and the carbon apparently makes your tummy feel better. I hate this, with a passion. 7up and Ginger Ale.

Memorable Mentions: My mom makes the best. fucking. potato. salad. ever. Say what you want about the woman--her potato salad can kick your mom's potato salad's ass.


Weird Snacks: Ants on a Log. (Or celery with peanut butter and raisins.) Peanut Butter and Mayonnaise sandwiches. (I didn't know about PB&J until I went to school and was humiliated by my sandwich. My dad ate his with butter and ice burg lettuce as well--I hate lettuce and the butter is too salty for me.) Rice with milk, sugar and cinnamon.

Food We Had at Our Grandparents' House: My dad's mom lived the depression and was a terrible cook, so we ate some gross shit over there. Canned Peas and Raw Cabbage in Lime Jello (with mayonnaise on top), Peas and Cheese (Canned peas and cubed american cheese with, you guessed it, mayonnaise), Tomato Aspic Salad (This is what hell tastes like.), and pop-tarts. (My older cousins were obsessed with pop-tarts so my grandmother would buy them in bulk.)Lots of KFC. Grandma was obsessed with the Colonel. (Sander's Chicken, she called it.) On special occasions we would have leg of lamb with home-made macaroni and cheese (Put the gravy on the mac and cheese.) and the infamous seafood salad. (Both still major favorites of everyone still living in my clan.) My mom's mom used to make me HUGE pastrami sandwiches. I think I was the only 4 year old on this side of the country that could appreciate a good pastrami on rye.


What I Want My Mom To Make For Me Now: Corned Beef and Cabbage. Potato salad. That porkchop thing I love so much.

Best Thing I Ate as a Child By Far: Oooh. I do love me those apple fritters that my dad used to make. I also love me some left over mac and cheese.

Neither of my parents liked to bake, like, at all, so I think that's why I love it so much. I wanted cookies, so I had to teach myself how to make them. It just snowballed from there.

I really need to make those fritters. Jesus.

Princess for a Moment

I really shouldn't have bought the IPhone. But I did.

And I love it.

See, my old phone, a trusty (sort of. Well, at first it was trusty. Then it became a gigantic piece of shit so I replaced it. With the IPhone. It's all coming together now, isn't it?) blue Samsung, died a very un-heroic death....So, I mean, of course your only available course of action at that point is to buy the newest gadget with more technology than you need!

I am so enamoured with the damn thing, it's retarded.

Anyway, one of the newest features I have been abusing is the camera. I can take pictures and email them to anyone from the comfort of my car! It hooks itself up to the wireless internet in my house! (It also has Google Maps, Turn-By-Turn GPS and some other crap.)

For instance:

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These are the Fucking Fish, in all their Fucking Glory. They aren't fucking at the moment, as they saw me approaching and assumed that I would indulge them in their other favorite past time--Eating. (It would seem that while T and I were at the condo there was something of a fish uprising against the boys. Much tank-leaping and near-biting was had. I guess someone forgot to tell J that they will do that if they are really hungry....whoops.)



This is T doing the dishes and cleaning out the refrigerator for me (Princess!!) while I sat at the computer and applied to college. Oh, did I forget to mention that I am trying to finish school? 'Cause I am. (And please pardon the wreckage. We had just returned from 10 days away.....and I'm sure you can all do the math as to what that means.)




This photo illustrates several things.

1)My future husband sure is handsome.
2)We have gross popcorn ceilings throughout our house.
3)Except, inexplicably, in the kitchen. The kitchen must think it's better than the dining room.

Anyway.....Yeah. Love the IPhone. Expect more random weird photos from my random weird life.

awe yeah

Guess who is blogging from her new iPhone? In the car,even.tickles me to no end.