Holy crap!

The toilet in Em's bathroom refused to flush starting late last week and persisted in this state despite all of my usual tricks (repeated flushing, pouring water into the bowl from my exalted altitude, getting The Mister to plunge, etc.)

So i had to break down and call a plumber.

Tom the Plumber (Joe was busy) looked under the bathroom sink and upon noting my choice of wiping material, told me that Charmin TP has LATEX in it.

Can that really be true? I looked it up on the interwebs and couldn't find anything about it. What about people who have latex allergies? Wouldn't this cause them to have rashes in unpleasant places?

Tom was unsuccessful in unclogging the toilet because (heh) his snake wasn't long enough. So he called a different company to come and remove the potty from the floor and use a longer snake.

Rufus the Rooter came over and when i mentioned that Tom thinks we use the wrong TP, he said, "Charmin or Cottonelle?"

I guess this is one of those little secrets that plumbers like to keep to themselves.

Having just been to Costco, i was flush (heh) with Charmin. I offered to pay them with toilet paper, but oddly, they both declined.

Senior moment

I am one of those people who leaves the shopping cart at the end of the aisle and darts around to get the things to put into it. I think it's faster and i can get around those people who feel the need to stop in the middle of the aisle and ponder the difference between Coke, Diet Coke, Coke Zero, Caffeine-Free Coke, Caffeine-Free Diet Coke, Cherry Coke, Vanilla Coke, Diet Vanilla Coke, Lime Coke, Diet Cherry Coke, Caffeine-Free Diet Cherry Coke, Diet Lime Coke and Classic Coke.

While i wish them well in figuring out which kind of complete crap to drink, i would like them to get the hell out of my way.

I do the same thing at Costco, leave my cart wherever and wend my way through the store like a cat weaving around ankles in a crowded room.

Yesterday i was all done shopping when i headed back to where my cart was waiting.

.

..

...

....

Where did i leave that cart?

Not here. Not here. Let's see, i was near the kegs o' soy sauce when i last saw it, right? Nope.

Fuck!

I spent about 10 minutes trying to find the damn thing and i never did.

I had to start all over.

Next i will be wandering the parking lot at the mall looking for my car all day,

Sometimes i am not a hypocrite

Em's boyfriend is coming to visit us from New York in a few weeks.

Even if they don't know me well enough to actually ask, the first question everyone WANTS to ask when i tell them this is, "Where will he be sleeping?"

He'll be sleeping in Em's room.

Why?

Well, because she's old enough to make her own decisions, she's been away at college for two years now and could have (and may have) been doing god knows what while she was there, and because i am in favor of pre-marital sex. (To quote sex advice columnist Dan Savage, "Sexual compatibility should be established early and often!")

In my day (YOU KIDS GET OFFA MY LAWN) when you went home for the summer or for a visit with your boyfriend, you did NOT get to sleep with him at your parent's house because that would have meant that your parents were 'condoning' your slutty behavior. Because if you were sleeping with your boyfriend, even if you were 20 years old and you and he had been together for two years, you were still a shameless hussy who should have been content with dry humping just like your parents did before they were bound in holy matrimony.

But really, i just can't imagine that it's a good idea to EVER marry someone with whom you have never had sex.

Bottom line - i trust my child to make her own decisions, and if she is comfortable with it, so am i.

Sorry mom.

I kissed a juror

I spent the last week and a half on jury duty.

I spent the first two days sitting in the Death by Boredom potential juror waiting room and thought i had successfully avoided getting empanelled.

I was two minds about this.

Mind One:

Oh, oh, pick me, PICK ME!! I am special. Whatever your criteria are, i meet and probably exceed them.

Mind Two:

Shit, get me out of here! I have things to do, squash games to play, quilting to attend. My cat is lonely.


One of me got her wish, Dammit!

At the very end of the second day, just when i thought i had made it without actually having to do anything, i got called as Number 12 for a potential jury. Sadly, i was not able to say anything offensive enough to get out of it. (Even wearing my "KILL 'EM ALL AND LET GOD SORT 'EM OUT!" t-shirt didn't work.)

Being on a jury is quite weird. This was a civil case about a man suing the local Bus Authority because of an injury sustained when he was getting off the bus.

It's just amazing that 12 people can watch the same thing and come up with such different perspectives.

I decided to lay low so as to not get elected as the "presiding juror." In the end this might have been a mistake as the woman who did get elected got all officious and emotional and kept saying things like, "HOW CAN YOU EVEN THINK LIKE THAT?"

Well excuse me all to hell for trying to apply logic to the situation.

Anyway, jury duty is over and i'm back to living my unimportant life doing unimportant things.

Out of nowhere

Sometimes it creeps up on me, despite my best efforts to distract myself with shiny objects and food.

We are NOT IN CONTROL. Any one who thinks we are is a fool.

Something horrible could, and often does, happen at any moment, without any warning.

Earthquake, Nose piercings, Car accident, Cancer, Heart attack, Meteorites, Plane crash, Car bomb, Locusts, Oil spill, McDonalds.

And so on. The list is literally infinite.

There is no amount of money or planning that can insulate us from these events. As the bumper sticker says, "THINGS OCCUR." (Or something like that.)

But there is really know way to live knowing that at any SECOND, things could deteriorate into utter shit. So i blunder on. What else can we do?

Nothing in particular triggered this in me, things are a bit uncertain right now in regards to selling our house, it might happen, it might not, either way we'll be fine. But it's the suspense that's driving me anxious.

Must practice denial skills.

My Big Mouth

picture purloined per Wikipedia.

I was half-assedly listening to the radio and i heard a promo for this upcoming segment "How to repair a sarcastic friendship."

My eyebrows went up as i thought, What an interesting topic! I could use that information.

What my brain failed to process is that i was listening to a cooking show and the upcoming topic was "How to prepare a sarcastic fringehead." (A real fish, see above.)

Big difference.

But i am still interested in how to repair a sarcastic friendship. Sometimes i meet someone who is a real smart ass (like me) and we get going, moving from sarcasm to amusing insults and never recover. I then find that the other person has a higher tolerance for sarcasm and amusing insults than i, and i wonder how to tone it down so we can actually get to know one another, because i'm bored with the sarcasm and insults.

I find myself in this very situation with someone The Mister and i are becoming friends with, one half of a couple. I've come to be very wary to be around this person.

See? Mom was right, It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt!

It's difficult for me to play the earnest dim wit, but i think that's the course of action i've settled on. Perhaps when things settle down a bit i can bring the sharp tongue back out.

Of course the best thing would have been to not get started in the first place, but given my medium level of social anxiety, i'm not sure what to do without that coping behavior.

I really could have used that advice show.

The Human Disaster Report

I organized a function, a "Tea Party" (and thank you to those fuckers for ruining THAT phrase) to thank the former volunteers of the organization i volunteer for.

One of the women i invited is someone i don't really care for, but i figured she would get lost in the crowd and i wouldn't really have to interact with her.

Which was mostly true, but she managed to deepen my dislike of her in 5 seconds. Pretty impressive!

This woman, i'll call her Cynthia, LOVES bad news with almost a sexual excitement. She'll rush up. panting slightly, and say, without even a" hello" first, "Did you hear about **fill in disaster here**?" There's this little gleam of excitement in her eyes.

I find it really unappealing.

Someday, with all the work scientists are doing on brain chemistry and genetics and all that, i wonder if there will be some genetic marker for people who are REALLY FUCKING CLUELESS socially inappropriate.

Something really horrible did happen to someone close to Cynthia, but she made it really hard to respond sympathetically because she seemed so aroused by being able to deliver the news.

Wrong venue, wrong delivery, wrong audience.

Yuck!

Can you read this? It cracked me up. I don't think they appreciated me taking a picture of it but the customer is always right, right?

It's been a good week.

1.) Someone made an offer on our house. Which we accepted. And now the waiting begins.....

2.) Something good happened to Em, which is her news to tell, but it made her happy and that makes me happy.

3.) The Mister "found" some extra money that he forgot we had. Silly, silly man! (This is why i balance the checkbook.)

and,

4.) I have a BRAND NEW laptop that is better than yours in EVERY WAY! (At least for a week until the next version comes out, but WHATEVER!)

5.) I am in San Diego visiting with a friend and so far the weather is lovely.

(Yes, number 3 and number 4 are connected.)

Some bad and sad stuff happened too, but i am choosing to live in denial, just for a little while.

What's up with you?

A brief thought

A conversation from The House of Meno last evening:

Me: (after the cat had just yawned in my face) Brown Cat has Kitty Breath!

a moment of silence...

Me: I suppose his breath is pretty good considering he never brushes his teeth.

The Mister: Maybe if i only ate cat food i could skip brushing my teeth!

another moment of silence...

Me: Yeah, and then you could skip sex too.

Kitty Litter Saga

We recently moved to an upper floor condominium, where my previously indoor/outdoor cat would have to use a litter box for all his potty needs.

He's a good boy, so he hasn't had any problems with this, but honestly, all the litters out there SUCK!

Attempt the first: The usual standby, clumping clay litter. Oh My God! The dust! I felt like i needed a face mask just to scoop it every morning.

Attempt the second: Compressed pellets of sawdust. Says on the package that it's an ecologically sound use of recycled material. What they DON'T tell you is that upon contact with moisture, it disintegrates into a soggy pile of smelly stink that sticks to the sides and bottom of the box.

Attempt the third: This cool looking blue and white crystal stuff. Oh My God! The noise. It sounded like he was mining gravel when he scratched around in the middle of the night. Who would have thought that kitty litter could be so noisy? PLUS, it didn't clump and some of the crystals would turn yellow with pee and that's just gross. PLUS, he tracked it all over the house and those little crystals HURT when you step on them.

Attempt the fourth: Corn-based kitty litter with "Fresh Pine Scent." Oh My God! The smell! I don't want to smell a whole fucking pine forest when i walk within 20 feet of his potty room. At least it clumped.

Attempt the fifth: Wheat-based kitty litter. It clumps. It's renewable. It has very little smell. But again, he tracks it all over the house. Sigh. Looks like i get to vacuum every day.

You'd think with all the chemical engineers we have in this country whose job it is to turn cat pee into cement there could be a perfect kitty litter out there by now.

Grumble grumble.

I amuse myself

My dad got a k!ndle for my mom for Christmas, and since i already had one i was appointed to help her figure out how to use it. This was a smart move on my dad's part, as she tends to resent his interference and him telling her what to do, and since she wants me to like her, she will listen to what i say.

Right after Christmas i got her device all set up and registered to their Amaz0n account, and we bought a few books for her. It was painful, but we muddled through.

So far so good.

At the last family cluster fuck, she showed me her k!ndle and asked me to fix it as she couldn't seem to buy any new books. Turns out she had somehow managed to deregister it.

(As an aside, why is it that older people, at least the ones i know, all have ONE e-mail account, and ONE Amaz0n account between them?)

I got that all figured out and fixed it up and presented it back to her.

What i didn't tell her was that i purchased her an extra (free) book called "Male Call - Hot Zones Book 1" that will appear on her device the next time she turns it on. My niece and nephew (who were looking over my shoulder) and i all thought this was hilarious.

Today i signed back into their Amaz0n account and gave the book a 5 star rating.

Oh the LOLs!

They will NEVER figure out why they are suddenly inundated with recommendations from Amaz0n for trashy light porn novels.

What a waste of a day.

Oh My God, you guys, it was awful. Em and The Mister and i all came home feeling creeped-out and pissed-off. Not such a great way to end the day.

Today was the day i have been in denial about for a month or so. It was the day that we, we being my entire family, got together to do the "Family Video" that i have been dreading. It was something that my middle brother, Tim, bought at some auction or other and thought would be a cool thing to do for my parents. Something that we would all be interviewed for and would come up with happy beautiful memories of my parents to preserve forever on video.

Something we could all have a copy of and watch when we felt like it. (Which would be fucking NEVER for me, thank you very much!)

So we all gathered, dutifully, because one thing we all are is dutiful. We were told to be there at 10:30. As i suspected, there was no planning and no one had organized the event. So we waited around, all 14 of us crammed into my parent's apartment pretty much the whole damned day. I finally got "interviewed" at 3:30 pm. A whole beautiful Saturday, wasted!

Oh the pressure to some up with some happy memories, the pressure to preserve the illusion that nothing was ever wrong growing up, that we all love my mom and dad.

Yuck!

There was lots of sarcasm. You are shocked, i know. I kept saying, to anyone who would listen (who wasn't my brother or my mom or dad,) "I just can't tell you how much i've been looking forward to this. No, really, i can't!"

And the end result? Who knows, i mumbled some crappy answers when it was my turn. I mean, really, three words that describe my mother? (I said prolix, stubborn and outdoorsy. How lame is that?)

The end result is that i love my family. All of them but one. One of the two about which this video cluster fuck was about. My mother. Yeah.

That was what we all danced around. We danced around the fact that we all love each other, but we don't love one of the seeds of this family.

Later, after thinking about it for a long time, i decided not to give her that much power. The power to ruin a family that is pretty damned cool, a family of survivors of her.

So what i say? Out loud? I love 13/14ths of my family!

But i didn't say that on video.

One cool thing i got out of the day is this picture of my brother and me at ages 15 and 13, respectively. Same hair, same glasses, same clothes, same body shape. I think we are so cute!

Umm, Thanks?

I should have been suspicious when my mother asked me for our new address. I suppose i was hopeful that she might be sending me a check!

I forgot all about it until last week an unexpected package arrived from who-the-hell-is-Meg-McMathers?

I had no clue until i opened the package and a funny old freshwater pearl necklace and a note popped out.

Turns out Meg McMathers is the name of an old friend of my mother's who has been married twice more since i last knew her, 40 years ago, hence my not recognizing her name.

Despite the fact that i was puzzled as to why the hell she would think i would want this necklace and why the hell she would send it to me, i sent her a nice thank you note, because without regard to what you may think, i was not born in a barn.

It must be that since i have forbidden my mother to give me HER old stuff, she's having other people send me theirs!

Peeved by ignorant sound bites

I swear to god, what is it with people and their stupid bumper stickers?

Yesterday's entry into the Hall of Shame and Dumbassery:

AMERICAN AND PATRIOTIC WILL NEVER VOTE DEMOCRATIC!

Great, so being patriotic and an American means that no thinking is ever required for voting? And if i ever vote for a Democrat i am not an American or patriotic? Awesome, just awesome.

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To those of you who have contacted me to ask if all is well in my world, Thank you. I truly appreciate your caring. All is well actually. The Mister and i went off to Hawai'i for two weeks and had a wonderful time and avoided the tsunami.

It's whale season there right now, and we could hear them singing when we were swimming. It was magical.

I am pretty content right now. I am just busy enough and have been getting the regular exercise that i require for my mental health.

Em is coming home this Friday for the second half of her spring break. She's off in NY city right now staying with a friend and his parents. I love it when she stays with other families and sees their dynamics. She sent me this text message yesterday:

"Watching Mark and his mother interact is one of my least favorite activities. Yikes. I am so grateful for you right now."

That warms a mother's heart right through i tell you!

Up next! A story about my mom, because it's such low-hanging fruit.

I can ask for what i want

What i am learning from people who are paid to teach us this stuff:

I didn't think i had the right to ask him to change his behavior just because it was a problem for me. I kept trying to get him to see that it was a problem for him.

And that never worked, because, i guess, it was not a problem for him, even though i thought it was. In fact, i thought it very clearly was a problem for him. I felt frustrated because he would not see that. I thought he was being stubborn. But he was perfectly happy with what he was doing.

But i do have the right to ask him to change something, because we are striving to be and stay a couple, who do things together and are each other's support system. Because people who want to have a successful and happy relationship are willing to make changes for each other.

So i asked The Mister to stop drinking because i don't like it and it made me anxious when i watched a bottle of wine come out every night and disappear.

And he did. Which makes me happy and that increases his happiness. See how that works?

Have a Seat

I was hanging out with a group of women the other day and one of us was complaining about the spotting issue.

You know, those spots of pee left behind right in front of the toilet for you to step in later.

Apparently pee is damaging to her floors so when she has parties, she patrols the bathroom for mop up detail. She ended by saying that she could tell us which men have the most caustic pee.

Ha ha! We all laughed in commiseration.

Another woman pipes up with, "My husband sits down to pee!"

After thinking, "and wouldn't he be thrilled to know you are telling us all this tidbit?" i let her statement sink in.

I didn't know a man could do that! I mean, i just never even considered it. I got an amusing mental image though.

I mentioned this (somewhat hopefully i admit) to my husband when i got home. He laughed at me and said, "in your dreams!"

Damn!

Hypersensitive

This happened a while ago, but i just started to think about it the other day in a new way.

The Mister and i went out to dinner with another couple who are good friends. Wine, food, conversation, the usual.

During the dinner The Mister did this thing he does that makes me cringe. He acted all the Big Man with the waiter, trying to be buddies with the man. Discussing wine like he knows what he's talking about, talking with a slightly louder voice than usual, leaning back in his chair and nodding knowingly.

Ugh!

The next morning i went for a walk with the woman half of the couple, as we have enjoyed doing together for years. As we were walking and talking about this that and everything else, she told me that she had been SO EMBARRASSED by her husband's behavior the night before.

Huh? I hadn't noticed him doing anything heinous.

Apparently he had done this thing that he does and tune out anything that might make him have to participate in any decisions regarding the meal, choosing wine, discussing whether or not to get an appetizer or a dessert, dividing up the bill. He's a "whatever you guys decide" sort of man.

She mentioned it because The Mister ended up paying for more of the meal than he should, because her husband had not been paying attention, and she felt badly about it.

I hadn't even noticed, and in any case, it tied in nicely with the Big Man routine of The Mister.

Ha ha, we laughed and went on to something else.

This happened about 6 months ago, and for some reason i thought about it the other day. I hadn't realized how it shows how all up in our respective husband's business we both are. Looking for things to criticize and privately roll our eyes over and be anxious about.

Pretty silly when you think about it that way.

Gaslighted

I read something i shouldn't have. Something that wasn't good for me.

It was a book called "Happens Every Day" about the disintegration of a woman's marriage because her husband fell in love with someone else.

As an aside, i cannot recommend this book on a literary level, it's not all that well written. But what it did capture was that level of insanity being lied to by someone you are supposed to trust creates in you.

Where you KNOW something, you know it with every instinct that you possess, but you are told, repeatedly, that you are wrong, you are crazy, you are a jealous controlling person who needs to get some help.

You are being gaslighted.

I realize that i am more afraid of being lied to than being cheated on. It creates more damage. It's the way out for a coward. The coward who can tell him (or her) self that they are doing this to try and spare you the heartache, when in reality, they are sparing themselves from the consequences of their behavior.

See how i used this book to pick open an old scar and make it bleed again?

I should have but the book down (okay, it was on my Kind!e, i should have deleted it) and never picked it up again when i realized how wounded i was starting to feel, how angry.

So the question is, why the hell would i do that to myself? I can't come up with any good answers for that question. But it clearly holds some appeal for me. I have to admit that these sorts of stories fascinate me. And that's just creepy.

What is wrong with me that i would do this?

There are some things that you never really "get over" you just get on.

Life in a bubble

I've been existing in a sort of bubble of unreality for the past month or so.

Moving.
The "Holidays." (Used an excuse for practically anything and everything. Depressed? It's the "Holidays." Too busy? It's the "Holidays." Happy? Lazy? Eating too much or too little? Yep, must be those pesky "Holidays." Kind of like the whole nation gets its' period. (Oops, sorry, got carried away. End rant))
The Mister being on vacation.
Em home from school.
Off to the ocean for a few days.

I have been reluctant to come out of this bubble, as there is work associated with reality that i would prefer to ignore.

While in the bubble, if we get hungry, Hey! No problem, off to a restaurant. In reality, the credit card bills for eating every meal out are nasty. So, back to meal planning and shopping.

In the bubble, the computer is used for playing yet another game of Chainz. In reality, i must answer e-mails and pay bills and converse with lawyers and insurance companies.

In the bubble, moving into a new home meant that i could avoid housework because everything was so clean to start with. In reality, the dust bunnies are raising their grandchildren right out in the open. So, i must find the vacuum cleaner and USE it.

In the bubble, all the eating and drinking has no consequences. In reality, it, um, does. So, back to moderation.

Freeze Frame

It's been cold around here lately. Verry cold. Colder than a witches ......

fountain! Yeah, a witches fountain.

We went to visit our recently vacated house on Saturday. While driving down the driveway i noticed that there was water seeping out from under the garage doors.

Note to self: This is a bad sign.

There was a new water feature at our house!

And like Mrs Piggle-Wiggle's upside down house, the garage ceiling was on the garage floor!

What i enjoyed the most about this is that the big fluorescent lights that were hanging down, still worked.

What i enjoyed the least is that the water had gotten into the house and ruined some of the flooring in the dining room.

But hey, that's what insurance is for, right?

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

On a different note, i'm going to have to put word verification on here for a little while. I apologize for that, but some damned ad-bot program is leaving me little presents on all my old posts and i weary of deleting them.

There's a special place in hell for spammers, right next to John Wilkes Booth.