I know...

that when you get to the point where you're spending more time apologizing for not posting than you are on actually posting, you should just delete your blog.

HOWEVER!

I keep it. I keep it to remind me that I need to talk to people, if only my lovely interwebbians. I know you're there. I see the count change daily. I don't know who you are, because you fools never bother to say hello. You could, you know. Say hi, introduce yourself, that kind of thing.

Or tell me to piss off and find a real job. I'd take that, too.

At any rate, I've been busy. You know how it is.

Holidays, in-laws, cooking, cleaning, yelling at OldMan when he hits me in the face with the Christmas tree and tries to play it off like it didn't happen...

Also, I've been dealing with Charlie. You're going to hear about Charlie in the next couple of days, but I'd like to get some pictures of him, and that requires my being able to work with him without his attempting murder on my person. So far, that's not really an option. He's drawn blood twice, and it makes me antsy. And sad. I wish he understood that we're nice people, dammit!

OldMan's been here, too. And honestly, if he's around, I'm going to spend time with him and not you guys. It's not that I don't love you. It's just that he pays the bills and I love him more. Not specifically for the bills thing, but in general.

I have to clean and re-organize around the casa de unemployment, too. And finish decorating. It already looks like Christmas puked in my house, but, if I have to look at it all day, it's going to be nice, for fuck's sake!

Hang in there with me, kids. It will be worth it again, very, very soon.

Love you guys.

XOXO

Happy Thanksgiving

This will probably be the last post this week, mainly because I am too damn lazy to post AND try to get all of my other crap done.

Tonight, favorite sister and her husband are coming over for a (real) Thanksgiving dinner. This is  because our auntie decided that this year, we should try for a little more gourmet effort in our foodstuffs. She's hosting, and that means she gets to choose the menu. I have got to get this house put together before next year. Seriously.

Normally, our menu includes a turkey, sage dressing, a wonderful broccoli/cheese/rice dish, mashed potatoes with so much butter, they're yellow, a squash casserole that immediately clogs the arteries but tastes like love, sweet potatoes with pecans and brown sugar on top, and then something like nine pies of various caloric ridiculousness. This is how we roll. This is how it's done. This is what we love.

Unfortunately, that won't be the case this year. This year, we have a turkey, natch, and then a sweet potato, russet potato, squash conglomerate that involves curry powder, a salad with goat cheese and gorgonzola cheese, fig jam tartlets or some such (these actually sound okay) steamed rosemary green beans and roasted carrots and parsnips. Also bread.

Gorgonzola? Really?

My family understands orange cheese.
Velveeta.
Cheddar.
Mac and.

Gorgonzola does not compute.

Anyway, today I'm smoking a small turkey, making yellow mashed potatoes and sage dressing, the squash casserole is half done and I have the goods to put together the sweet potatoes according to my mother's-mother's-mother's recipe. (it may go further back, but that's all the provenance I have for this particular gem)

Also, LovelyGirl's boyfriend may join us. LG was nine kinds of thrilled about being able to invite him and did so without really thinking of the consequences of having him around her aunt and uncle who, I kid you not, will eat this kid alive. OldMan and I are protective, they're fierce. And hilarious. And don't give two shits.
At.
All.

She got a little antsy when she figured that out. I think she's hoping he won't be able to make it.

Also today, I have to take LG's car to the shop to get the estimate done on what it will take to get it back together again after her bump on Sunday. Then, she's going to volunteer at the homeless shelter with some of the kids from National Honor Society (that's right, bitches, my kid is SUH-MART!)

Tomorrow, I'll spend all day cleaning and fixing and laundering everything in the house because

Friday: the in-laws are coming to spend the weekend.

They'll get here on Friday, and I'll make lunch and dinner and breakfast on Saturday, on top of putting together the sides for the gourmet grossout at aunties.

Saturday, we'll all get up, eat, and then I'll cook until 2. We'll drive out to MY family's pseudo-Thanksgiving, stay as short a time as we think is okay and then escape back to our casa. Hopefully, the in-laws will leave shortly thereafter and I can sleep a little bit.

Sunday, I plan on putting up my goddamn Christmas tree.
And then watching Christmas movies.
Possibly drinking.

Monday, I have to drive a couple of hours to go pick up a parrot.

Yeah.

A new addition from an elderly couple. I should be able to put pictures up next week and show you the bloody scars from bites and scratches. We'll see.

Anyway, I'm swamped. I love you people, but I have got more to do in the next few days than I can really think about without losing what's left of my shiny marbles.

I want you to know, that if we have to do the stupid "what I'm thankful for" round at any point this weekend, I'll be thankful for all of you, but I'll say "I'm thankful I don't have to wear a bra every day."

And it will be truth.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

You. And you. And that one over there.

And no bra.

Racism and new friends

This morning, I made what I hope is my last trip to the grocery store for the onslaught of holiday cooking I have to undertake this week. I had a crap ton of groceries and I always feel vaguely bad about making a checker go through all of that stuff, so I try to be as nice and fast as possible.

About my cashier: she was an absolutely lovely black woman. She had the hair, the nails that require her to use her knuckles to push buttons on the register, the jewelry and three, count 'em, three(!!) neck tattoos. We're going along and she's ringing me up and making small talk. At one point, she asks me about the cheese I bought and if it was any good. I told her it was and that I liked it a great deal. She went into a little speech about how her boyfriend always tells her she's going to be constipated if she eats cheese.

I said "boys are the worst."

She replied with "GIRL! Yes. They. Are."

and without thinking I said

And.... crunch

So.
LovelyGirl has a weekend job in a very, very cool resale shop here in town. She usually only works on Sundays, and, as of yesterday, had decided that she should leave her job to make sure that her academics are flawless (we've had some disruption in her hitherto perfect grade reporting) and so that she could hang out with us when we're not doing things like yard work.

She was actually pretty sad about leaving her job. She loves her work and loves what she gets to do. (Sound familiar? Yeah.) So, she talked to her manager and turned in her notice yesterday.

A very emotional day.

At 5, when she got off, she texted to let me know she was on her way home. This is a requirement of her driving for awhile longer. It allows me to know that a. LovelyGirl has arrived safely and b. when I can expect her to arrive safely at the house.

Unfortunately, after that, I went out in the garage to help OldMan with a couple of things. It didn't even occur to me to bring my phone. It was about ten minutes later that I just HAPPENED to come back in to grab something and my phone was ringing.

I'll give my wonderful readers two guesses who was on the phone and what had happened...

Cleaning house...

I didn't create a special schedule for keeping my house clean.

Or organized.

Or in any real livable condition.

I do stuff as it needs doing.

Today, the bedroom carpets need cleaning, so that's what's on the agenda.

Also, my office / animal room needs to be re-situated. We've adopted out more than half of the residents, so I can condense to make room for newcomers.

At any rate, it's Friday, and that means dance party!

For those of you wondering, Anna, Jim and I used to have a music-free 30-second dance party when the day(s) got too serious/overwhelming/terrible.

We had a lot of them. :)

Sometimes, we'd randomly select a radio station and whatever was playing we danced to.

It was a lot of fun when it was a talk station.

So, in the spirit of randomness, I opened my Pandora to the channel that is (appropriately) named "The Most Random Shit You Can Imagine" and the first song up is today's dance party music:

Enjoy and have a great weekend!

I may do a Black Friday giveaway next week. Anyone interested?

Quitting the evil

I quit smoking about six years ago...

Aside from raising a teenaged daughter, it is, no question, the hardest thing I have ever done. I quit drinking and some other, more serious, addictions with less issue than I have had quitting.

And I'm still doing it - every.single.goddamn.day.

Family tree...er...forest?

I have a fairly large immediate family.

I have a mom and dad - natch, but I also have a step-mom and step-dad.

I have six siblings. Three sisters, three brothers. Actually, now that I think about it, I have more than that, because

The Last Straw - Part Two

For Part One, Click Here.

When last we were here, the boss had yelled and screamed and called me everything but nice.

I got home that Monday night, and the usual "how was your day" from OldMan set me off. I cried and cried and told him what had happened. We talked about what in the world might have happened that the boss had gone from telling me how irreplaceable I was and how she depended on me and how grateful she was to have me to now calling me names and accusing me of all kinds of nonsense.

OldMan told me to quit. Just go in and turn in my notice then request vacation time for two weeks. Heaven knew I had enough PTO to do it. Actually, I think as of my last day, I had something like thirty days of accrued leave available.

However, I don't quit. I figure out what's wrong and fix it. And I certainly don't quit a job I love. No. I was going to go in on Tuesday and hash it out with Bosslady. We were going to come to terms on whatever it was that was bothering her and I was going to keep doing what I do. There HAD to be some kind of explanation for this. She was angry and thought I'd been ignoring her. After a night to cool off, surely she'd be open for discussion and adult conversation and reconciliation.

Wrong.

Half day!

I have a half day today.

Rather, OldMan has a half day at his real, grown-up job that pays the bills, and I'm claiming a half-day from my pretend stay-at-home housewife job.

Usually, on half-days, we run the errands we'd rather not do on the weekends. This includes trips to the local Buy-N-Large or, if I've been particularly productive that week, (read: whined enough about it) I'll get a nice lunch.

We'll pick LovelyGirl up from school.
*Yes, she has a license and a car, no she's not allowed to avail herself of either, currently.

We'll come home.

Favorite sister (my BFF) and her husband (OldMan's BFF) will come over and we will drink, play games, watch crap television and play on our respective electronic devices.

It's going to be a good day.

And because I'm short on sleep and time, here's today's dance party video:

Timeflies ... Sleep Forever

Happy Friday, darlings!
Enjoy your weekend.

Today, I'm thankful for tinydog and her cuddlyness.

Parenting Perils

So...

Yesterday, in the wake of all the election tragedies...

no. not really.

While I was dicking around on the interwebs - my phone rang.
I didn't know the number so I didn't answer. Sent it to voicemail and went about my merry way until the message notification came up.

Unfortunately, the call?

The one I chose to ignore and send to voicemail?

THAT one?

Elections

Normally, I have my posts put together a few days before I want to publish them. It saves me from scrambling around at my desk every morning trying to come up with something to talk about.

However, after seeing some of the shit being flung around this morning regarding yesterday's elections, I decided I had some things to say...

Kitchen Shenanigans

I'm sure you're ALL wondering where I'm at with the kitchen re-do.

Um..

I'm completely over it.

Here's what happened:

The Last Straw - Part One

So, I don't know if I've given you a real idea of the following:

a. how much I LOVED my job. LOVEDLOVEDLOVED

b. how crazy my boss was (is)

c. how easy/hard the decision to leave became

Yeah, that last one is confusing to me, too.

But, regardless of what I've gotten across so far, we have come to the last straw.

The one that broke me.

To this point, I have worked hard, made very, very little money, and been abused in ways that astound even I.

Before we get to the good stuff, I just want to be on record as having said the following:

* I understand that I accepted the salary for my job and knew what it was when I took the position,
so I shouldn't complain about it. If you knew what I'd made, you'd complain on my behalf, though.

* I also understand that under no circumstances was I the perfect employee. No one is. Unless they work for themselves. Then they can be both the perfect employee AND the perfect boss. It's Nirvana, that.

* I further agree that I did not handle my final leave-taking in a professional manner and didst knowingly screw my staff right in the bumhole.

That said, let's get on with it.

Foul on Friday?

I've been working on the "final straw" posts for about a week now.

I sat down yesterday and re-read what I've written, and honestly, it made me sad.

I've gotten more comfortable in my role as 'housewife', but it is still a little disturbing not to be going out into the world every day and doing my own thing.

Having my own life, separate and distant from the one I live at home.
Having something to talk to OldMan about other than the laundry I did or what happened on my trip to the grocery store.

I'm still trying to come to grips with this new reality, and it's difficult. This is not the life I had planned. I had action and adventure and accomplishment on the agenda. Not to mention alliteration! I mean, come on!

I get that it's an important job. I get that I am fortunate to be able to do this. I get that women all over the world would love to be a stay-at-home mom with a sizable allowance and permission to do whatever they wanted, as long as the house was taken care of and the progeny not murdered.

I don't enjoy being solely responsible for our home. We've always shared the duties here, and while I don't begrudge OldMan the ability to completely shirk his side of things now, it's still bothersome. Especially since I do this all week long and now on the weekends as well.

GAH!~

I need to quit complaining.

It's Friday, people! FRIDAY!

I think we should have a dance party to get ourselves out of the funk.

What say you?!

Yeah, old JPop.

What about it? Just enjoy. And dance around a little bit.

So you know, that's the band Gyaruru with "Boom Boom Meccha Macho".

It's just fun and silly and these girls exhaust me with that energy.
Also, I think they're all my age...

whores.

Blogger's Note: Evidently, November is supposed to be 30 days of being thankful. I can do that, right?
So, for yesterday and today, I'm thankful I didn't kill anyone on my way out the door at the old job. I'd be in prison and not at my desk in sweats and a ratty tshirt. I'd be someone's bitch. All for a pack of reds and an extra tampon allotment.

Hallo-weenies!

People, my doorbell rang twice last night.

Read that again.

Yep.

TWICE!!

I had the awesome pumpkins. I had decorations! I had signs and

I

HAD

CANDY!!

Two rings for a total of five trick-or-treaters.

Two Transformers, one Princess, one Rocker Chick and one Iron Man.

I have a big sad and a big bowl of candy that I now have to deal with.

I don't understand it. The weather was good, everyone else was reporting record numbers of beggars, I live in a very, very child-centric neighborhood and every other year we've been flooded!

At any rate, maybe next year, LovelyGirl, OldMan and I will just close up the house and go out to eat.

This is what was left over. 

A note here:
I know I promised pics of the office this week, but I've been caught up in some other projects around the casa, so look for them next week.

Unless I get productive today.

Don't count on that.