Necessity, Not the Only Mother of Invention

As previously chronicled in this blog, I have three cats. Although, periodically they get up to loud, thundering mischief that makes it seem as if there are more than three of them. Because of previous, expensive antics of these characters around my toilets I'm quite fanatical about the lids being shut after each use. I have noticed recently that there's always at least one shadowing me during any venture to the land of excretion. This morning both boys cornered me for pets in the powder room. And now I know why, this morning after I deposited some coffee, levered my not inconsiderable backside off the pot and hear a small splash as I flushed. Of course, it's a game of volleymouse! With the well oiled grace of a jungle cat, I spun on my heel to see a toy mouse disappearing down the drain. Thinking quickly I thrust my hand into the cool recesses of the bowl to snag the mouse. But too late and now it's too stuck. Fortunately, I have an industrial strength plunger so I do manage to send the mouse toy further on its way to oblivion.

I understand that the cats might be bored, this is why I'm thinking boredom needs to receive more credit as the mother of invention.

Damn cats.

Warming My Heart

My friend S introduced me to the cinematic wonder of A Christmas Story this year and I just love it! One of my buds is also a fan and paraphrased the following quote recently to describe my verbal agility.

Ralphie as Adult: [narrating] Now, I had heard that word at least ten times a day from my old man. He worked in profanity the way other artists might work in oils or clay. It was his true medium; a master.

Warms me heart!

Yee Freakin' Ha!

Spoke to the vet from the cat er today, the Stripey beast's urine culture is back and he doesn't have a bacterial infection. So no Clavamox for us and my nose is once again safe from the invasion of the cat meds.

A New Fresh Hell

When one emerges from the elevators at work, there are entry doors to the left and the right - 2 sets, no waiting. I arrived yesterday at 0715 as I generally do, and there were six people gathered at the doors on the north side of the building, 2 of whom were rather insistently doing a pee pee dance. I said "is that door broken again?" and proceeded to the south side followed by the 6 lemmings who hadn't figured out to walk 15 feet to get into work.

If there's not a sitcom in development entitled DIPSHITS 'R' US, perhaps there should be.

Christmas 2006, the good, the bad and the ugly

The good, well much of it was good, thanks for asking. This is not always the case with me. For some reason or other the hollerday season has historically placed me in the princess of darkness mode and that ain't ever pretty. Specifically what was good, aiding and abetting my friend S in playing Santa Claus for her son. Mainly, I lent moral support, some manual dexterity and an occasional smart remark. Also, delightful returning home from that mission to find a surprise in my mailbox from my friends S&M.

Also, Christmas day was nice, breakfast at the parental units and dinner at the sisters. But this led to the ugly, the sister, a/k/a Zippy was slicing potatoes on a mandoline and sliced her finger, kinda bad. Well, the Zipster, being a bachelor girl seemed to be lacking a first aid kit or bandaids so we had to go with panty shields and scotch tape. Not so effective when one is trying to staunch bleeding. where it got really fun was when the mothership (who by the way has earned the right to use the initials RN, BSN after her name) asks me to discern if the child needs stitches. Incredulous me says to my self "how the fuck do I know?" I saw no tendons, no finger guts so my executive decision was no, doesn't need stitches.

So the bad, went back to work today, to find out my former co-worker and friend M passed away yesterday. She'd had CA, and was the second co-worker in 2 weeks that had died of cancer. And about 5 other co-workers had been diagnosed within the past month. Shit.

Fa La La La Effin' La

For whatever blissful reason, this time of year tends to set my teeth on edge. Is it the crowds? Is it the nuts? Is it that I'm spending money? Or is it that there's not enough daylight?

I'm thinking it's the daylight thing.

Siiiiiiigh!

Here's a story for you, I go home last night - and 50 miles of road, and an iced tea, you know the first place I'm headed after I hit the door. Stripe comes into visit and hops into my pants which is not unusual for our little circle of fun and dysfunction. But I'm starting to smell cat pee, he peed in my pants, the stripey sone of a bitch. So I wrassle him into a crate, with my half nekkid peed upon self, hose off put on some clean pants and drag his ass to the cat ER. $300 later, we probably have a bladder infection but we're running 150 bucks worth of tests on his urine and send me home with antibiotics - liquid bubblegum flavored clavamox. How the hell did he know I had money?

Cut to this morning's dosing and we're int the recliner and I've got his head trapped between my jaw and my shoulder and succeed in shooting the clavamox up my nose instead of into his mouth. Goddamned cat.

Happy Effing Christmas

One would think that with the celebration of the birth of the Christian savior that the vast hordes on the prowl for gifts might put a little of the milk of human kindness into their driving abilities. But no, not so much. I try to be mindful of the aggression with which I drive in general, but now it's all about the defensive driving. Especially in those very special hells known as mall parking lots.

Fresh Hell

So I went to new doc city yesterday to get the results of my blood work and my cholesterol remains remarkable for a fat woman (yes, a doctor has said those words to me, no, I'm no longer a patient.) but my good cholesterol is low. Rather than put my on the liver busting statins, I'm on time release niacin. Niacin causes flushing, an inside out itching combined with the kinds of hot flashes all the denizens of hell enjoy. It's a treat.

Advice From A Shark

Because I readily admit that much of the time I do not display the good sense God gave a grape, I can be slow to dispense advice, or quick to dispense it but not without caveats.

However, Sharkbutt being young, four legged and a know it all will give all the advice you can handle at

Advice from A Shark

Damn It!

While I do try as I might to keep my kitchen counters organized, it does help if I periodically test out my visual accuity and look at what I'm about to ingest. Thought I had grabbed for the chewable Vitamin C, innocuous fruity flavored delight. But no, I grabbed the f&^*ing liver flavored cat supplements. The worse part being that this is not the first time that I've snacked upon the hell that is chewable cat vitamins.

Toys

Ok, you with the mind in the gutter... out! I got a new massage tool, it's called a massage star, and hey, this is a PG rated blog so .... out! I can use it for muscle stripping, cross fiber frictioning and all of the nifty techniques that blow the thumb and finger joints out. It's a beautiful thing, and I can use it on me, to strip the world class knots out of my forearms and ass.

Interesting Week

So I either fired or was fired by one of my reiki students this week. I don't suppose that I'm surprised, being a reiki master candidate using the curriculum that the Center of Living Light uses is a huge commitment. And it's a red hot bitch. It's also the hardest commitment to keep because you essentially make the commitment to yourself for yourself. So it's easy to excuse for yourself, not making enough time, not making enough effort, succumbing to a shortcut and not doing the work. But that doesn't necessarily get you where you want to be. Bottom line, I cannot do the work for anyone other than me, and I do it every day. So good luck to her.

State of Mind

...our state of mind is crucial in determining whether or not we gain joy and happiness. So leaving aside the perspective of Dharma practice, even in worldly terms, in terms of our enjoying a happy day-to-day existence, the greater the level of calmness of our mind, the greater our peace of mind, and the greater our ability to enjoy a happy and joyful life. Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

I'm finding my equanimity challenged of late, not unusually for me I'm somewhat less than enamored by the 'holiday' season. Not loving the shorter days much either. I know I need to fire up the bright lights, make more of an effort to get outside when it's still light out and so forth. And most importantly be mindful and choose to be calm in my mind - my occasional diatribes into the stupidity I encounter at work are the exceptions, of course.

It can be kind of challenging to resist the darkness, especially because for so long I embraced darkness, not noticing that I had other choices.

Hi, my name is S

and I'm an alcoholic and a gambler. And I spent 4 days in Vegas and didn't lose my shirt. I lost 2 bucks of my money, 10 bucks of Aladdin's money. This is a beautiful thing. I do not recommend that gambling addicts reading this try this at home or any damned where else. It was challenging to stay mindful and not get sucked into the action at a blackjack or poker table. But I managed it.

Vegas, Baby!

So my friend C married her fiancee K on Friday November 24th at Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas. The group known as 'the girls' could not let her go through this alone sooooo, we each made our way out to Sin City. N and her husband T, N served as C's matron of honor, C having served as N's maid of honor last month. K, L, G and I make up the rest of the Las Vegas Lunch crowd - we have described ourselves as such because what happens at lunch stays at lunch. K, L, and G did not arrive until Wednesday pm so N and I went over to keep C company as the makeup artist did the dry run of her wedding day make up. Make no mistake, C is a stunner with no make up but with the help of makeup artist Mimi, C looked astonishingly lovely. After that we lunched at Caesar's buffet and then the rest of the gals arrived and we traipsed back to the Aladdin to greet them.

C is a transcendantly thoughtful sort and so well organized that it scares a random kind of girl like myself. She provided us each with bags of serious swag, anything you might imagine needing in Vegas and then some.

So back to the wedding prep, Friday morning arrives and we whirl over to visit with C while N is getting her mani and pedi done. C is so happy that we're there with her and so happy to be marrying K that she is glowing. We must whirl off to the scene of the reception (Spago - pretty swank food, more on that later) to drop off cake cutting equipment, champagne flutes, and stuff for the tables. We chat with the event manager Brian who is, not surprisingly, also from sunny NJ. Because, everyone is either from Jersey, is related to someone from Jersey or knows someone from Jersey- it's just a fact of living. After lunch we go back to get dressed and then return to C's room to help her get ready and K will do N's eye makeup. At a point, C tells us that she was not a nice person, not looking for new friends and that we simply cared for her and let her care for us and that our presence really enhanced the whole experience and made it all it could be for her. Well, tears, snot and mascara flowed (on the mascara wearers of which I am no longer one). After the tears had cleared sufficiently that we could all speak again, we spoke as one in saying with all the love intended - "shut the fuck up, C." (this is code for I love you)

Made Up Words

Some of the folks with whom I work will make up their own words for things, some are not uncommon like skrimps. Some are seriously deranged like nutmentation, which is a new personal favorite of mine.

What I Overhear...

One of the women I work with was fussing with one of the other women I work with (this is not an ever remotely uncommon occurence.), and said to me "What am I? chopped yogurt?" I said, "Excuse me, I didn't understand what you said." (I wanted to say "What the fuck?")
She repeated, "What am I chopped yogurt?" I said, "no". Because there's no other answer to give although I wanted to say "do you mean chopped liver or chopped vomit?"

What They Don't Tell You About Cats...

When you get a cat, the powers that be in the cat bestowal business hip you up to the cat box business and concomitant smells, the canned food business and concomitant smells there. What they don't warn you about is the instinctive business of cats and how that wreaks havoc with any mice that might find their way indoors. This place is mainly carpeted but there is some linoleum about so when I've got 2 cats within eyeshot and the pitter patter of 2 sets of four feet on the linoleum I know we've got and intruder and with 3 cats, said intruder is close to toast. Also, mice scream, it sounds like keening (yeah, as in keening, wailing and gnashing teeth). That's not a happy sound. Then we got the triumphant stalking return of the cats, fortuitously for me none see fit to gift me with the carcass so I retrieve it and put it in the garbage can. (and yeah, sap that I am offer it Reiki and a chant or two to ease its Bardo (transition).

Reiki

It's hard to believe I've gone through 70 odd posts without mentioning Reiki. So here we go, Reiki is a 2,500 year old Tibetan healing modality based on the Tibetan Buddhist practice of the Medicine Buddha. Reiki consists of two Japanese kanji Rei - universal or spiritual and Ki - life force energy. It's a chakra based system of energy healing, based on the premise that the practitioner of Reiki taps into the universal matrix of energy that surrounds all existence. Energy healing in general is based on the premise that disease in the body is caused by blocked emotions, in chakras or meridians - meridians being energy channels, and chakras are large intersections of energy channels in the body. Reiki is kind of a spiritual Roto-rooter that unblocks.

I was first exposed to Reiki while in massage school, and to say that I was resistant is quite the understatement, I sat in the front row of the presentation arms folded and glaring the eye of doom at the presenter. Quite frankly, I thought the whole energy deal was crap and nonsense. Which just goes to show what I know. So I sit through a talk on the subject, then all folks in attendance are instructed on how to offer one another Reiki. I was working with my friend Ro, receiving Reiki, when one of the presenter came around and put one hand on me and one on Ro. I can be a little prone to hyperbole but it was a life altering experience for me. Not being a very kinetic sort, I was surprised that I needed to jump up and down for about 5 minutes just to get back in balance. And most notably of all, Reiki banished the insomnia that I'd been dealing with for 20 odd years. I was most surprised to start sleeping 5, 6, 7 hours a night for 6 or 7 nights a week. Used to call it a good week when I get 3 hours a night, 4 nights out of 7. So this new sleep pattern was quite deluxe.

Puppy D

Yes, Puppy's middle initial D does stand for Dog. Because what other middle name would you have for a cat named Puppy? She is most oftern photographed with Vinnie a/k/a Stripe. She has a sinister streak that I very much admire. And a gift for demanding attention by batting one upside one's head.

Stripe a/k/a Vinnie

This is the big cat Stripe, he's wearing a cat version of a beater shirt so he was nicknamed Vinnie Bociagalupe. He just needs some bling around his neck.

The Shark

This is Sharkbutt. This is his baby picture, he's two now and just as cute but bigger and doesn't sit still for photos these days, as he's got Stripe and Puppy to annoy the crap out of regularly. He likes to groom them, which all things being equal is cute to observe, at least until the object of his grooming lodges an objection, and swats. Putting Neosporin on a cat is like teaching a pig to sing. Waste of time for both of you and annoying to both of you.

Perspective

Like most folks sometimes, I lose my perspective on what is important, what is manageable and what I have to leave in the hands of the universe. When I need to regain perspective I take myself to the beach and I sit and watch the waves. They're always different, but always there. Always larger than me, my life and whatever problems I might face.

Different Shit, Different Day

At work I have a spokesmodel, will refer to her as S for short. She is my spokesmodel because she is most adept at making coworkers cry. And it's funny because she's not nasty to anyone, just really, really dry - affect is flat and well, her favorite question is" And? As in: phone staff: This person didn't get his check. S: And? PS: Do you have it? And dry... as in this example courtesy of Idiot: Are you going to the ladies room? S: Yes, why? I: can you stop and get me a water? S: want me to pick you a snack off the floor too? The S actually stands for Snarky because pound for pound she's the only one there quite as snarky as me.

Ritual

The church is still standing post my heathen ass in attendance at Unc's funeral. Oh and I didn't snot, although it was sadder than I'd anticipated. Looking around the room for people who would have been there had they not already passed on, including Unc. Listening to the priest deliver the eulogy (and wondering as I always do if he's going to screw up the name of the wife, kids or siblings - no, he didn't). The music was fitting and churchy, the usual suspects of church musicness. Several cousins in attendance, none of us getting any younger (or apparently any saner.) The aunts and uncles and father are not getting any younger, although my mother seems to be getting younger.

Accusations

Because I am a smart ass of somewhat legendary proportions I am often accused of being up to no damn good and not necessarily wrongly accused at that. However, I have also been accused of teaching certain of my nieces how to play Naked Flying Barbie. This was not my invention, nor was it anything I taught anyone to play. I also discouraged it from becoming Naked Flying Flaming Barbie, I'm just saying. It wasn't me.

More Mess I Overhear

One of my staff reported that she spent her day off Friday attempting to secure a copy of her mother's birth certificate for her mother. Her mother is known by many, if not most as Anna May and my friend went in requesting a birth certificate for Anna May. The folks in charge could not find it, mainly because on her birth certificate her name is Ann Mary. Or maybe it's Bob. It's hard to know.

Snarkiness Rewarded

Picture it - an irate man phones because he's managed to run his check through his shredder and is demanding an immediate replacement - my next check date is 11/30. He says, "You mean to tell me that I cannot get a new check until next month, this is ridiculous. He, of course, wants to speak to a supervisor so the spokesmodel passes him off to S, he wants to escalate it futher so they pass it on to me. He tells me his story and becomes increasingly irate because we are not issuing any more checks until 11/30. He loudly exclaims this is ridiculous. Me - "And you running your check through your shredder was somehow not ridiculous?" I get two of those a year.

A Confession of Sorts

My sister and mother were joking last night that the straw drawing has already commenced for who has to sit next to me at my uncle's funeral. There's no other way to put this but that I become emotional to the point were we can characterize it as 'carrying on' at funerals. I'm not certain why, I think it has something to do with some renegade DNA from some Irish mourner type in the family tree. It coulda been schizophrenia or borderline personality disorder so I can't bitch too much. But I can be a real treat at a funeral. The following conversation took place between the sister and the mothership last night. ::imitating me crying:: then in unison further imitating me - 'who's in the box again?' Nice. Real nice. If I were the two of them, I'd hope like hell I'm still around so someone cries over their mean asses. Of course, what makes this an even more interesting situation is I've attended more funerals than you unless you're an undertaker, also, more weddings unless you are professional celebrant of some ilk. While I was living in the hotbed of cosmopolitan living Scranton, PA, one or more of the nuns was kind enough to scrounge me up a gig turning pages for a church organist. Since I mostly attended classes at night, this was a pretty sweet gig for me, as was the fact that I had a mad crush on the organist. I got paid about $5 per service which kept me in beer money without me having to steal, but I managed to get through those services without snotting, but of course, I was drunk, oh and mesmerized by S, the organist's cleavage. Church and breasts, is there anything better?

And What a Long Strange Trip It Continues to Be

My father's eldest brother passed on yesterday afternoon, or in the phrasing of some Buddhist folk of my acquaintance delocalized. He had been suffering from cancer for over a year and while a suboptimal outcome for those who will miss him, not unexpected. When my sister reported this news to me, she asked if I was ok and I demurred (ok, I said why? I don't give a shit.) My concern is with my father and further, his end is certainly closer than his beginning at this point. My father and his two brothers had a most disturbing competition in which they seemed to escalate 'who could be the sickest' for a time the fathership seemed to be in the lead, as he had fallen off of the roof and broke the living shit out of his elbow and arm and upon admission to the hospital, his EKG revealed he suffered a mild heart attack sometime earlier. But then his middle brother who we will refer to as M, had his hip replaced, then O (oldest) got his diagnosis and short term prognosis, which wasn't good. This competition is too bizarre to me, outside of my experience but unfortunately not outside my observation. The mothership by comparison is a paragon of good health, has always been an exercise fiend, absolutely always. I recall her mopping the floor at tennis, racquetball, basketball with comers of any age or gender. I'm glad we've followed in her footsteps, my siblings and I. And I realize that no one gets out of here alive, I do. But why die before your time? And why would you not enjoy the time you've got?

New Doc City

Got a new doc today, and she's a keeper. Most of them aren't. The maintenance of the skeleton and skeletal muscles is in the hands of PW, DC, she of the sharpest elbows on the planet. And of course, I have had my share of gatekeepers over the years. Some good, some bad, many indifferent. Mostly I have a couple of bouts with bronchitis a year, have to have my daily Clarinex because of the cats I live with that I'm allergic to, and have to have an inhaler for the periodic dances with asthma. Oh and of course, one does need someone to send you to the ER if need be when no bones are sticking out. So anyway, the new doc gets points for listening, for coughing up a lung because I was being blisteringly funny and for agreeing with my assessment re: one of the drugs that the fired doc had had me on for something that I ain't got. Oy.

Race for the Cure

Eight friends, the one, the only, the mothership and of course, me walked the Race for the Cure today along with 9 kabillion other people. Ok, it seemed like 9 kabillion other people, it was actually closer to 20,000 people. Still an amazing number of people to gather together to fight breast cancer. The energy was captivating to me. Saw some kids wearing race bibs marked In Memory of My Mom, my heart caught in my throat every time, even seeing 2 was too many and I saw way more than 2. The breast cancer survivors were easy to spot in their pink shirts and pink hats and their energy was infectious. And the friends, took time out of their busy weekend to be a part of this race, to navigate the logistical frolic - the buses to Bristol Myers, 20,000 people 50 portajohns, do the math. Ok, so there were likely more than 50 portajohns, but there were not 20,000 (but as usual, I digress.) Most importantly we were there to walk for the cure, we did and I'm happy we all did it and grateful for their time, effort and attention, for the time, effort and attention of the people who so generously sponsored us. Why I walked - my paternal grandmother died of breast cancer when she was younger than I am now and when treatment options were surgery and pray. And now we have so much more options and I'm grateful. My friend Mindy died last year and how her four daughters must miss her. My friend Ann underwent treatment last year and is still surviving and thriving.

Marriage?

It fascinates me that the prospect of gay marriage stirs up such a ruckus among the allegedly Christian. First of all, with the divorce rate hovering around 58%, it seems to me that the people that already have the right to marry should work harder at staying married and worry less about who is marrying whom. The old responsibility of a priveleged class deal. Also, if the prospect of gay marriage stirs up this much of a ruckus, and no one has the stones to grant this basic right to gay folks, I propose that marriage for all be banned, grandfather the people who are currently married but that's it. After a certain date it's illegal. And peel away all the tax benefits gradually. That way people can focus on their relationships with one another and their kids and not worry so much about denying rights to other people since that right and privelege will be denied to all. And while we're at it, how about licensing people to reproduce. Since it's the actions of the straights that are producing overcrowding, and the social ills created by un or ill parented offspring license, how about licensing people to breed?

Confession Time

I know the cure for cancer. It's money. Could it be found in the human genome? Maybe? Could in be found in mitochondrial structures? Perhaps. But the only way to find that out is through research and the only way to fund research is with money. For many, many years one of my dearest friends has been A, who is also known as the matriarch of cancer research in NJ. She is crazed with passion about cancer research. I have learned at her knee the value of basic scientific research in the fight against cancer. She is also affiliated with this crowd: http://www.komencsnj.org/. They will have 15,000 plus people walking at the Race for the Cure in Princeton this weekend to raise money to fight breast cancer. For a number of reasons, not the least of which being that I've got two of them not far from my chin, breast cancer is very near and dear to my heart. So if you can, walk, donate but be sure to examine your breasts, when it's time for the squish get it. And get a check up every year.

Are You Kidding Me With This?

As a self observation exercise, I spent yesterday and today observing how many times I posed the question 'are YOU fucking kidding me with this?' Whether out loud or in my mind. So yesterday, I was driving to Freehold and someone pulled in front of me going 35 mph in a 50 mph zone, and I let one rip. Today, I had posed the question 11 times before 9:30am. Not for the faint hearted!

Why I Need Patience...

Because some of the clients find it to be too much of an inconvenience to communicate their new addresses to us, we have boxes of checks that have been returned by the postal service. I was fishing through them because it's one of the things I do, in my spare time, and it's done generally because once we've got 3 or 4 checks back there's a good chance that the forwarding address is not on this plane of existence.

For the others, people will call in their new addresses and then we will mail the check back out to them. Sooooooooooo, one of the prizes asks me do I have a check for Weems. I say what's the first name. John is the response I get. I don't have a check for John Weems. I don't have a check for anybody Weems. Client Services says it's on the list. I say ok, spell the last name. W-i-l-l-i-a-m-s. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Who knew I had to be bilingual for this damned job?

Nemesis

Despite this well-worn air of serenity I tend to give off, from time to time I do get fired up. Especially at work. There’s a lot there to get a girl fired up. My current nemesis is the scheduler, a/k/a that seat sniffing moron. For us to work the magic that we work, it requires a strict schedule that is well planned, oh and makes some sense. We cannot schedule processing activities for weekends, or holidays, because we don’t work weekends or holidays. So someone has got to be fairly conversant in how to read the list of holidays provided on the calendar and of course, one must be able to read and comprehend a calendar. One might think that these would be a desirable skill set for someone whose only productive activity would be writing a schedule for the year.

We issue what we call standard checks the first of each month, then each month we have floating pay dates that we call nonstandard. Nonstandard dates have few requirements, the 1st being that the checks are not dated the first and the second being that no processing events are scheduled for Saturday, Sunday or holidays. So it’s not bad enough that he has nonstandard checks dated 1 May and 1 August but we are running a calculation on the 4th of July. So I had to tell the scheduler, I think fucking not. He doesn’t seem to realize that it’s not up for discussion, nor is it ever prudent to argue with me about this. Which invariably leads to a battle royale, a) because I’m a bitch and b) because I ought not have to babysit this douchebag or listen to his excuses. Just fix the fucking thing, man. And do not let me find any other fuckups in this schedule. Fortuitously for me, my boss’s modus operandi is, if Skull is happy then I’m happy. If Skull is not happy, then we must fix that. Or she's going to hurt someone.

Bureacracy

The point of bureacracy is to be self-sustaining, I'm convinced of it. I know I was taught that it was to provide due process at all levels of governmental interaction, but really it's to be self-sustaining. Picture it, the data processing queen whirls up here to present me a check for $850.57 that is made out to, wait for it, nobody. After Pay to the Order of:, we have a plethora of blank space. As you might imagine this pleases me not at all. So I have to go around barking because this kind of idiocy is why computer programmers have to be clever enough to think of ways to make things idiot resistant. System generated checks with blank payees should simply not be. (yup, more should all over my footwear.) In order to issue a check made payable to someone (and in a perverse turn of events this poor soul is deceased so he'd not have been able to cash the check even were it made out properly.) I have to stop payment on the check, the online system to stop payment on the check requires a payee, soooooooo, I've gotta call the brain trust in Charlotte where for 20 minutes I get ma'amed within an inch of my wit's end about 'our system limitations'. Until patience leaves me and I say "dude, have you got a manual system? Yes, ma'am. Good, try that. Yes, ma'am." It alarms me that only I seemed to have the animal cunning to suggest that solution and we are paying them.

Excuse Me

Ordinarily, I work pretty hard at being civil and polite. It's the compassionate thing to do and it allows people to remain under the impression that I'm a nice person, whether that happens to be true or not. Occassionally, usually when I'm exhausted (okay, or just plain ornery) I will slip. In my travels today I had to whirl into Wawa (the local quickie mart) and utilize the sanitary facilities, there was a certain urgency to my visit so when a woman excused herself to me, I quickly snapped without thinking - "Why? Did ya fart?

Bachelorette Parties

I lunch daily with an extraordinary group of women, they were mentioned in the posting entitled the language of love. (shut the fuck up means I love you in the language we all speak) One of them, N is getting married at the end of the month. This wedding has been a year in the planning and as we come down to the wire the preparatory rituals have commenced. So we celebrated the bachelorette party Friday evening. This involved a visit to a nightclub in PA, this place is apparently known as the biggest wrinkle bar/meat market in the South Jersey/Philadelphia/Delaware suburbs or as my acquaintance D calls it the 4th circle of Dante's Inferno. I will confess to not spending much time in the strange twilight world of the heterosexual, as I am not. And if one is not headless, one can discern this without too much effort. Well, two gentlemen asked me to dance and as this would interfere with my view of my friends cleavage, I demurred. And do think to myself, what are ya blind, buddy? could I look any dykier?

The Depilatory Power of Duct Tape - Who Knew?

Duct tape is widely touted as a product no household should be without. It works wonders in many aspects of home repair and as I overheard in a conversation this afternoon even works as a health and beauty aid. Apparently, one of the women folk with whom I work runs to hirsute. In order to combat overgrowth of her underbrush she utilized the services of a salon’s wax technician. But the salon has changed hands and she is not trusting of the new wax technician, nor the new ownership. She doesn’t want to catch funk from their wax. So she switched her hair removal method to home waxing, which apparently worked just fine for the more readily visible anatomical landmarks, she ran into some trouble in her nether regions and enlisted the handy duct tape. Having wrestled with duct tape during more than one home improvement project I can readily attest to the efficacy with which it can deprive one of hair. So my coworker who we will call Glinda, cut the duct tape into anatomically appropriate slips and went to work. Not surprisingly the duct tape proved an effective depilatory, however, she discovered that she had quite the sensitivity to the adhesive and now has a rash. So much for avoiding funk.

Aikido Metaphor

During a recent Aikido class, I looked around the room and noticed that I’m wearing clothing that’s older than most of the people on the mat. It was a mixed teens/adult class, beginner level and so when the instructor demonstrated the first technique as a Katetori Koshinage, I was quite amused amid the wide-eyed stares of most of my fellow students. By way of explanation, the attacker (uke – the person who ends up receiving the technique) grabs the attackee (nage- the person who ends up executing the technique) by the wrist, pushes her hip/butt into the uke’s midsection so as to drape him over her back and tosses him onto the ground (not gently either). One does not as a rule do a whole lot of koshinage in a beginners class – (koshinage essentially meaning your ass is dangling from a perch atop nages hips and then you as uke get pulled into a roll off of nage’s back which is pretty high up from an ‘oh shit, I’ve got to fall from here’ perspective) because most beginners don’t know how to fall from that kind of a height. In Aikido, it’s essential to learn surrender because if you struggle against gravity you can get pretty badly hurt, where as if you work with the known outcome of gravity (i.e. ass meet mat, mat meet ass) you can generally stay safe. It’s not natural for human beings to surrender to the sensation of falling or having their balance taken from them, you are fighting many atavistic tendencies to do it and to do it safely surrender is key, as is tenacity. Aikido provides many opportunities to practice surrender, being completely in the moment, and taking what life dishes out. The technique we ultimately ended up practicing for the night is called nikkyo, (second technique) with nikkyo nage’s wrist ends up bent in upon itself and the way to maintain balance and connection as well as endure less pain is to turn into the source of the pain and support your center from there. Again, like so many other of life’s lessons this was an Ah-ha moment for me. Avoiding pain doesn’t rid us of it, it just allows it to crop up in more places in life. To face pain head-on and be with it in the moment allows us to maintain some control in the midst of surrender.

Office Adventures

I work in an office (although many days it could be more accurately characterized as an orifice of the crimson anal ilk, but I digress). I whirl in today to the dulcet tones of whining (this is not an uncommon experience). Today’s whine involved the copier and how some people (that work under another straw boss) slam the copier lid down, and break it and leave it broken without telling anyone or calling the service folk. This whine occurs approximately weekly. Apparently, it is assumed that only I have the animal cunning to tell someone to stop slamming the fucking copier or I’ll rip your head off and slam it in it and that only I have the animal cunning to call the repair folk. Today’s solution was to place a sign on the machine that says: OUT OF ORDER, SLAMMING THE LID BROKE THE MACHINE, PARTS ARE ON ORDER.
There’s nothing wrong with this machine but it keeps the whiners and the slammers away from it.

Today’s other adventure involved my friend H. I encountered him as we were waiting to accost our mutual boss, me to sign something that requires top secret approval and H. to recount his adventure of the day lest the boss (F) hear it from the news media. People congregate to smoke by a short wall out near the street. H. smokes, he was outside smoking about ten and saw a small open box with a label bearing the name Connecticut Chief Medical Examiner and it contained what appeared to be specimen slides (for a microscope). Rather than leave them on the wall for some one to break or worse, he brought them into the euphemistically titled security guard in the lobby of our building. He gave them the box, the slides and his phone number. He gets upstairs, his phone is ringing and they want him back down in the lobby. In the lobby, he’s greeted by State Troopers, folks in Haz Mat gear, and firefighters who grill him about the slides. These parties were apparently sufficiently concerned that they were ordering up the portable decontamination trucks when through some official channel they learned that the slides were training slides and innocuous. I surely hope so, but I’ve been feeling right itchy since H told me his story.

Windows

As I mentioned in the previous post, I'm having windows replaced in my house. I had to lock up the cats so they do not make a break for it. And Stripe, of course, was rather recalcitrant so I had to toss him in the room, again, and again and again. There's nothing like tossing a 17lb cat that doesn't want to be tossed.

From Time to Time

I think I'd have been better off being born smart rather than just smart assed.
The window folks are coming to replace my windows and need the window treatments removed, not a problem, unsnap the blinds and take them off easy stuff. Well, I do that and then hop in the shower and of course, hop out and go about the business of getting dressed. I notice that I'm putting the twins in the bra while framed in the blindless window for all the neighborhood to see because I forgot that I took the blinds down. Of course, there's a guy in the front yard, mouth agape edging the lawn and I do what any girl does, wave - my hand, not twins. Well, at least not deliberately the twins.

Beautification Rituals

Most days I think I look on the unkempt side of random. But since I'm evading the grey hair fairies pretty strenuously I go in for cut and color religiously every 8 weeks. Last night was the big night and I went for broke and got the eyebrows waxed. Somehow I look a little more expressive while at the same time looking a little more nuts. It's an amusing look for me and it's all about my own amusement.

Is It Work If?

I'm listening to a conversation knowing it will go into this blog or a book or both?

I'm trying to visualize someone as a small child, mostly so I stop visualizing slapping their adult self senseless (and yeah, mainly it is too late as they've already achieved senseless)?

I answer a question with a question - like what the hell are you prattling on about now?

I answer the inevitable phone question, "Who is this?" with "I don't know I can't see you?"

When Will I Learn

Most of the chaos in my work life comes from overhearing one end of a phone call or a question that I just need not overhear. The comment I overheard yesterday was made by my spokesmodel T and she said to a retiree, "you're 87 years old, why are you payin' child support?" I said to myself - "oh shit, here we go!" In my shiny new performance evaluation criteria it specifies that I am not to make the newspapers. Damn, my shrink used to tell me that too.

Biran

Biran is a Buddhist term meaning a cosmic storm that occurs in the moment before cosmic order shifts. It is a force of recovery, spontaneously manifesting itself to restore order. The storm can be powerful and violent. Yet, at the same time it is one that heals through cleansing and purification.

I recently celebrated 21 years of sobriety and each year at this time, I reflect on where I've been and how far I've come and Biran covers it nicely. Although, it's also tempting to refer to Pinky and the Biran and I know I should refrain but I won't.

Nobody Knows the Crazy She's Seen

I have a very close friend who has a set of siblings that should have their very own section of the DSM-IV. They are JFN (just fucking nuts, which another friend of mine says is the only DSM-IV code). One is crazier than the next, and they manage to put the fun in dysfunction and then there's this whole matter of never having returned from the class trip down denial. So the latest episode is that my friends oldest sister is looking a bit cyan of late (that'd be blue, and not the depressed kind) and BTW my friend is a nurse, old school, very experienced, knows her shit, 'nuff said. So crazy, blue, and behaving in a confused fashion, and my friend is, not without good reason, concerned about this potentially being a cardiac issue. My friend, we'll call her Helen, and her sister, we'll call her Blue, have lunch yesterday and Helen diplomatically says to Blue, "you need to see a doctor, your kids are worried and you look like hammered shit." Helen, unlike the rest of the siblings, is a direct sort. Soooo, enter Helen's other sister, who we'll call Bat because she's batshit whacko. And Blue's daughter, Mini Blue. Mini Blue calls Helen in a dither, (mini Blue is usually in a dither) that she doesn't know if she's going to be able to get her mom to go to the doctor. Haven't these people ever heard of guilt? Barring that, 911? So, Mini Blue calls her mom's doc and was told to bring her mother to the ER right quick. So MB is parked outside her mothers house and calls H to ask her where her mother might be (yes, the right answer is, in fact, I don't know, it's not my turn to watch her.) H calls Bat, Bat had just been dropped off from lunch by Blue so Blue was en route and Bat had a snootful. When Blue doesn't show up for about 20 minutes, the parties all exchange worried phone calls and Bat wants to go out looking for her. The Bat mobile has tires that have seen better days, no one is sure that she's got brakes and there's just no reason for Bat with a snootful to go trolling for her sister. Blue shows up fairly shortly after H talked Bat out of going out on the prowl. Mini Blue attempts to spirit her off to the ER and she is having none of it. By none, I mean none but MB would not leave until she elicited a promise that Blue would take her blue ass to the doctor. The doctor in this case being the orthopedic surgeon with whom she has discussed the replacement of her knees. I have it on good authority that orthopedic surgeons will no perform knee replacements on people who are sufficiently cyanotic that they are referred to as blue.

The Language of Friendship

I have a group of close friends at work and our language of friendship is unique within my experience. What sounds like 'shut the fuck up' to anyone with ears is actually 'I love you.' And what sounds like a sincere compliment: 'you're so pretty.' Is actually 'grab a clue, you fucking idiot.'

Planning Is Key

I took an Aikido class this evening, but I did squats, lots of them this afternoon. To be precise, about 135 squats, and 60 lunges per leg. And the main activity involved in Aikido is dragging one's ass back up to vertical from horizontal. It's best if one has done no squats that day. Otherwise, it was a fun class, a lot of pretzelization of the wrist. Pretzelizaion is a term that refers to the hyperflexion of the wrist that makes it feel like all eight wrist bones are trying to mate.

A Reminder of Impermanence

I typically wear a bodhi seed mala on my left wrist. The mala I’d been wearing for about 3 years broke this morning as I went to wrap it around my wrist. When I went for refuge and took vows (this is how one becomes a Buddhist) I was advised to bring or wear something that would remind me of what it is I’d vowed to do (among other things the essence of the vows are – ‘as long as space endures, as long as sentient beings remain, may I too remain to dispel the misery of the world, there are about 18 others that pertain to behaviors intended to decrease the amount of suffering I cause in the world, but I did sign on for the trans-incarnation package deal) and the mala was a reminder of that, plus I’d been wearing it daily for a long time and have uttered thousands of mantras and prayers on it. I also wore it when I was attuned as a Reiki Master/Teacher.

Much of meditation practice and study of Buddhism revolves around impermanence. The Buddha taught 3 things, in life there is suffering, suffering is caused by attachment, and the end of suffering comes with the cessation of attachment. When we come to realize that attachment to something or someone that is by nature impermanent causes our suffering, we learn to loosen our attachments in a way that is ultimately pretty liberating because in becoming more aware we can continually recognize that we are choosing our reality, rather than being swept along in circumstance.

I will miss it, I have another one, but it’s not the same, doesn’t fit the same, doesn’t feel the same, the beads are still very dark and haven’t aged. And I wrapped this one around my wrist knowing that in time, it too, will break and in time, so will my attachment to this life and this time. But in the meantime, I can take care with my new mala and my relationships which are new everyday and be mindful of the choices I make and the effects they have.

One of my wise nieces...

One of my nieces sent me one of those little questionnaire deals not unlike the one I posted a few days back. I asked her if she found out a lot of stuff about the people she sent it to that she didn’t already know. She said not really, that this had come up in conversation with her friends, her cousins and her other aunts and me. And we talked about what questions do you really need answers to, from someone before you know them.

Do you love yourself?
Yes.

How old were you when you started loving yourself?
About 24, when I got sober.

What makes you happy?
Being in the moment, without listening to the voices in my head that used to comment on everything that I did without mercy, and worrying about every damn thing all the time.

What makes you angry?
Mean people, people who hurt people who are smaller or weaker or too kind to fight back. Deliberate cruelty as well as inadvertent cruelty.

What are you most proud of?
20 years, 11 months, 21 days of sobriety.
Changing my life again at 40.


Do you believe in God?
After many years of being a fairly hard core Catholic with all the baggage that entails (17 funfilled action packed years of Catholic school), I’m now a practicing Buddhist and the notion of a creationist God is not germane to the compassion with which I conduct myself. So the questions to me, are do you believe that there is divine in every one you encounter, even the fools driving in the fast lane at 45 mph? Can you allow everyone you encounter to be your teacher? If only to learn yet another lesson about compassion.


And yeah, my favorite curse words are still variations on fuck. But now, I have to throw blessings after them.

Watercooler Chat

The ladies here are discussing anti-aging creams and Oil of Olay apparently makes one called Regenerist. Quite seriously one of these folks is calling it Oil of Lay Degenerate and talking about putting it on her ass. I'm crying with laughter here.

How to make yourself look taller

The party of the upside down part, that'd be me. I'd just been gently tossed over the gentleman's head. This is my favorite picture of me ever, as I am a big fan of action shots. The other thing I really like about this shot is what it represents to me. Taking high falls like this scared the crap out of me when I first started Aikido, but I did it anyway and it wasn't always this picturesque. Fear didn't win when it could have and has not won a round with me in years. When good sense might suggest that avoidance would have been the wiser choice. Wiser yes, more empowering choice no.

Water Cooler Talk

While at the water cooler, I overheard a woman being berated by a co-worker for using a nylon scrubbing pouf on her whup (whup would be generic for genitalia). I mean this co-worker was going off. "Girrrrl, you gonna scratch your junk off, mmm and if you catch that piercing, you gonna rip that shit off. Use a wash cloth, don't rip nothin' out your junk." What do you say to that? I skulked away, far, far away.

Aikido

I've been a student of Aikido for about 10-12 years with some injury time outs here and there. I've been cleared to return from a cracked clavicle. This is wonderful to me. Just being in the energy of the dojo, laughing with the dojo kids and us old mat rats, is delightful. The sensation of hitting the mat that first after awhile away, being thrown well, the mid-air adjustments required when I'm thrown less well or have to throw myself. Flying into a breakfall, with the happy news being the landing was safe and nothing broke. For me, Aikido is totally engaging from the minute I step on the mat, whether I'm nage (the thrower) or uke (the thrown) it's mesmerizing. And randori, free practice with multiple attackers is terrific - the flow - be, react, throw, nothing extra, nothing missing, it's all about being in the moment, keeping the ukes safe and off the walls. Damn, aside from the instructor, I was the only woman out of her teens on the mat. And only one of 3 people over 20. The technique is still strong though, despite my advanced age. Just goes to show age and treachery will overcome youth and skill. And my muscles have very good memories.

a slightly used shark

This here is Sharkbutt, he is 2. He hates fish, loves blueberry muffins, yogurt and honey, oh and me.

It is good to have goals

My goal in life is to perfect the nap. Yesterday I came damned close, football game quietly on in the background, light blanket pulled around my head, neck and chest, reclining in the recliner, slight breeze from the open door. And I was out, out cold. It was beautiful, especially two hours later when I woke up. There is nothing quite like a two hour nap in the afternoon. And it's not that I'm in any way averse to shorter naps.

Charm and Taxidermy

My home voicemail has a message that says, "Hi, you have reached Miss S's School of Charm and Taxidermy, no one can come to the phone right now because we're busy being either charming or taxidermic. Your message is very important to us, so please leave it along with the day and time of your call after the tone. This months charm tip is don't pee on the electric fence." I can tell that some telemarketers are charmed by it because they will call back several times to see if they heard it right. Several friends call to see if I've updated the charm tip - to don't pee on an electric blanket. And of course, the irony for people who know me really quite well is that I'm nearly completely devoid of charm.

Damn Cats

I have 3 cats, they're not always damn cats but most times merely cats. Although, Sharkbutt is working on an advice column, but that will be the subject of another entry. There is a sliding screen door backing up my sliding glass door in the back of Chez Randori. It is somewhat precariously perched as I realized when Sharkbutt crashed into it at a headlong gallop, a tasty snack gamboling on the lawn having caught his eye. (A tasty snack being any of a variety of wildlife that might traipse across the lawn.) The ensuing crash of the screen startled him sufficiently that he ran away from the snacks, thankfully. And startled me sufficiently that I bellowed "you sharky sumbitch don't scare me like that." This is obnoxious enough any time of the day. At 5:10am on a Sunday, it's just wrong.

Gym Rat

I work out at a gym several times a week, I have done so since I was a teenager. (I'm not giving any info other than this - it's been one long assed time) It amuses me no end to be back in the land of free weights. As I'm keeping an eyeball peeled for an unoccupied Smith machine, I notice drama on the hoof. For the uninitiated, a Smith machine is a barbell on a frame, the frame keeps the barbell on a certain vertical plane and makes it challenging to drop the weight on yourself. I use it to do squats. This afternoon, it was occupied by a drama king. The DK had 4 -45lb plates on it, I'll be sporty and do the math -180 lbs - he was doing squats. Respectable, if you're going about your business and not making a lot of huff and puff about it. Finally, he finished his performance and swaggered to the next machine, about 4 feet away. I perfunctorily growled 'you done here?' He indicated he was and I proceeded to heave another 4 -45 lb plates on the machine. And without any discernable grunting or carrying on proceeded to rip off 3 sets of ten. The dramatization on the machine next to me ceased after that as he slunk away from the leg section of things. It makes me happy to be strong like bull.

Whisperers

There is some current blather in the news about a dog whisperer. And have you noticed the proliferation of horse whisperers, dog whisperers about? My friend N is a girl whisperer, a very gifted girl whisperer. So inspiring, in fact, that it makes me realize I want to be a baby whisperer when I grow up. Babies are born knowing everything and begin to forget almost instantly. They need whisperers to help them and it's good for the karma. Oh who the hell am I kidding? I'm just a fool for babies.

Guilt or Why I Got a Passport

A few years ago when the parental units were travelling to Italy, my mother became obsessed with the idea that should anything go awry (i.e. her or my father's remains should for some reason need to be shipped back to the US) that I being the oldest would need to fly to the rescue. I demurred by saying - cremation, Fed Ex envelope, poof - you're back. Her response, 'but what if one of us gets sick?' Mine, 'you went to nursing school, sporty, not me, I don't speak Italian and your people consider me a heathen, pagan sinner (and a bold brazen harlot). I'd be an asset to you in Vatican City, why?' Well, to make a long and pointless argument short, I got the passport and post 9-11, it's been handy for travelling. Haven't been out of the country but that's mostly due to this Arizona obsession I've developed in my old age.

Getting to Know Me

1. What time is it? 1058 hours
2. Name: It means to embrace chaos.
3. Nickname: headhunter, silent bob, obi wan, chien po, mutha
4. Piercing: My ears
5. What is the most recent movie you've seen in the theatre: CARS
6. Last vacation destination: Sedona, AZ
7. Place of birth: New Brunswick NJ
8. Favorite foods: Mexican, Italian, pretty much anything that's not moving
9. Ever been to Africa: No
10. Ever been toilet papering {rolling): Yes
11. Love someone so much it made you cry? Yes
12. Been in a car accident: yup, with inanimate objects
13. Croutons or bacon bits: pass - whole bacon not mangled into bits
14. Favorite day of the week: any day above ground is a good one
15. Favorite restaurant: casa comida
16. Favorite flower. irises
17. Favorite sport to watch: rodeo
18. Favorite drink. cinnamon iced tea
19. Favorite ice cream. godiva chocolate anything
20. Disney or warner brothers: Warner Brothers
21. Favorite fast food restaurant: chik fil a
22. How many times did you fail your driver's test: 2
23. Before this one, from whom did you get your last E-mail: Wach-freakin-ovia
24. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card: REI, jersey paddler
25. What do you do when you are bored: meditate, eat, ride the bike to no where
26. Bedtime: 2230-2300
30. Favorite TV shows : rodeo
31. Ford or Chevy: Oh who gives a rats ass? I drive a pick up truck.
32. Listening to right now: the fucking gnat, yet another example of someone who needed to be a hand job.
33. How many tattoos: 6
34. Number of Siblings: 3
35. Like to dance: yes, Terpsichore is my muse of choice
36. Religious: no, not in the sense of being constrained by dogmatic thought.

Damn, Damn and Double Damn

Buddhists speak a great deal about mindfulness and the spiritual aspects of it are clear to me, but the practical aspects of being mindful keep appearing vividly in my experiences. Like many people I take some vitamin, mineral and nutrient supplements to hopefully stay healthy and such. One of my cats also takes a supplement to help relieve urinary tract issues from which he tends to suffer. Thought I reached for my chewable vitamin C this morning. WRONGO!!!! Got the cat UT formula, which unfortunately is liver flavored. Sometimes it makes me wonder if 'they' did in fact invent idiot mittens for me.

Getting to know me

I was the recipient of yet another of those getting to know you quizzes from a friend and it really caused me to wonder what kind of inside one gains from knowing one's friends favorite curse word. My curse word of choice is, not surprisingly perhaps, to anyone who has heard me utter more than 2 sentences, variations on the f bomb. My favorite expletive used for fellow drivers is typically wall eyed monkey fucker douche rocket. But then of course, I have to send them love because my karma is dreadful enough as it is. It also asks for a favorite song, one favorite song... that's tough - because my whole damned life has a soundtrack and the Ramones figure largely in that soundtrack simply because no one else sings about Cretin Hop or I Wanna Be Sedated. So the jury is still out on the favorite song thing. Although I'm loving Jeff Buckley - Everybody Here Wants You, today. Tomorrow, could be back to Peter Gabriel - In Your Eyes. Or not.

Stupid House Tricks

Went to open my bedroom window wider this morning (and of course, was topless) and broke the window, specifically the frame guts. I'm glad that I didn't break the window glass, the prospect of picking glass shards out of the twins does not ever loom as an attractive option (and especially now since I have a proper bra to tote them around in). But instead, I broke the mechanism that allows the window to open sideways for cleaning, which also allows the window to open normally for ventilation. This is not ever a good thing, so there I stood in all of my gravitationally challenged glory as a procession of neighbors out for either their morning walks, newspapers or garbage can retrieval or even simply to see what in hell that ass in 22 is up to now, fighting with the window structures. It's closed, may be that way until I get it replaced.

Hell Will be Loud

I had a preview today. Tropical Storm Ernesto was blowing in full force this morning and as happens from time to time. The power checked out. When the power checked back in my smoke alarms went off for about 5 minutes and ceased. So I thought they were just resetting after the power outage. Engaged in that perpetual feast that is laundry in my house and the alarms went off again. So I turned off the clothes dryer because it's just better. I didn't smell anything burning melting or weird so I reluctantly called 911. The fire chief and 2 police officers were dispatched with alacrity and hot on their heels came the fire truck. The fire chief and the firefighter came in and checked the joint out with a heat seeking camera, saw nothing alarming, turned the dryer back on for me and began to departed. The firefighter was packing away the heat seeking camera when the alarms went off again. So he waved down the chief, the two other chiefy looking guys and they all come back to check again. They allowed as I should turn the fan on my furnace unit on to keep the air moving and inquired as to the age of my smoke alarms. My smoke alarms are in their mid twenties, and hard wired so it would be reasonable that skronk would be affecting the detector heads. They check out my dryer again, pulling it out from the wall and discover that it's a flex hose that no longer meets the construction code and it has got a hole in it. Soooo - I have to not use the dryer until I replace the vent hose. No problem, I'm all over it. About an hour later as my ears are beginning to recover, did I mention that these smoke alarms sound at a volume not dissimilar to those surrounding the local nuke plant? And the alarms go off again. So I call 911 again and the send all my new friends back, they then test which alarm is going off upstairs or down, discern it is the upstair alarm and advise me that I will want to get an electrician in to switch out the old alarms. (Yep, could do it myself, nope, my insurance won't pay if I do it myself and there's an untoward occurrence so I will be finding an electrician to do that.)

This experience was far, far louder than the word loud even begins to suggest.

Fitting

I generally wear a size 7 Enell sports bra, it keeps the twins from getting all over the place and it covers the chest amply. So I need clothing suitable for weddings I have to attend and enlisted my friend K who provides stylish eye for the style challenged gal type advice to me. Her first inspiration was to get me a proper bra, and I must say that I really like how the twins look in this puppy but then I'm a big cleavage fan. I could get distracted checking them out. Makes me wonder if the D in 44 D stands for Dayum!

Magnetism

I harbor no doubts that legions of mental health professionals have devised all manner of clinical guidelines for dealing with those unfortunate souls suffering from schizophrenia. And someday I may break down and research same, but today is not that day. Having had more up close and personal experience with schizophrenics than most commencing from a very tender age, I offer the following suggestions:

When they yell at you, do not yell back, do not respond in anyway, just get to steppin’.

Do not ever touch them while they are yelling at you or are otherwise agitated.

Do not ever, ever fuck with their foil wrappers. This, by the way, is one way to discern them from someone who might simply suffer from road rage. You don’t see a lot of road ragers with the foil hats.

I inquired of a friend what it might be about me that would attract schizophrenics to my energy, she indicated it would be my butt. Which would be covered in foil, and worshipped. I suppose all the while, folks would be awaiting instructions to emanate from same or wait for the Jiffy Pop to be done.

Too much time on my hands or perhaps my butt

A very brief portion of my work day was spent involved in a big butt contest. My competitive inner jackass will compete in anything, even something I have no prayer of winning. I did win the width aspect of the contest,but failed in the balance the cup on the booty shelf test. There must be exercises I can do for this.

Grooming

I took a brief nap after work this evening. I get up before dawn and sometimes I need to snag some zzzz's before starting the evening. So, I'm napping away and wake up to tugging at my hair, I was being groomed by Stripe the cat and Sharkbutt the catlet. Then, they start to fight and gnaw at each others throats (the g in gnaw is not silent in this case). Stripe being 9 lbs heavier then Sharkbutt is beating the snot out of him. Upon breaking up the fight, I wound check everyone, not a mark on the Shark, Stripe was bleeding. Yikes.

Siblings

I was recently accused of having invented an entirely inappropriate game for my sister's daughters. The game - Naked Flying, Flaming Barbie. It consists of taping a sparkler to a Barbie doll that is undressed, lighting the sparkler and throwing Barbie across the lawn. The point - not sure, I'm thinking not getting burnt. I did not invent it. Didn't even encourage it, don't like flaming things, well accept maybe Baked Alaska or Cherries Jubilee.

Elevator Rides

Most days the elevator is kind of slow, the ride is uneventful. Today a coworker was adjusting her twins, nope not her offspring, and one sprung loose. Somedays, all it takes is a suprise boob sighting. And not the imbecilic kind, I'm up to my ass in those.

Rag freakin' weed

Although it has been raining for the last several days, the ragweed has been kicking my allergic ass and as much as I choose to believe that snot running down my upper lip makes me look younger, enough already. The entirety of the American Tourister brand name and logo fits on my eye bags.

Always check the caller id.

Phone rings this morning as I'm on the way out the door to work. Pick it up in case work is cancelled. Man attempting to be sultry is on the line asking, "What are you wearing?" My response, "Boxing gloves and a turban, who the hell is this?" Sultry man - gulping "sorry, wrong number." Me: "You don't know how right you are about that brother,"

What a way to start the day...

When I was young, nubile and tactful, shut up, I was young once, I had both an off switch and an internal censor. After 20 exceedingly odd years at this job, the censor has been worn away. This morning someone phoned me inadvertently and needed to speak to someone who could assist them, so I volunteered to switch their phone call to such a person, because I'm sporty like that. The party on the phone asked if I'd be switching them to a live person. My response was "Define live."

4 Things

Wow formatting this is a collossal pain in the ass. And of course, I'm used to writing memos in Excel so what do I know? A friend posted this and I found it interesting so... here goes......... 1) Four jobs that I have held- domestic help- accountant – this is just funny- massage therapist- karate teacher 2) Four movies that I could watch over and over- Sleepers- Field of Dreams- What the Bleep Do We Know?- Steel Magnolias 3) Four places that I have lived- New Brunswick, NJ- Freehold, NJ - Scranton, PA- Eatontown, NJ 4) Four shows I love(d) to watch- West Wing- Pinky and the Brain- Designing Women- Sports Night 5) Four places I have been on vacation- Cape Cod- Sedona- Jacksonville, NC- Orlando 6) Four web sites I visit daily- nj.com- abmp.com- namgyal.org- google.com

Report from Planet Dumbass

Sooooo, in the vacuum created by the lack of the troll there is room
for the inane presence of the sister of the troll (2 of the trolls 3
sisters work here) and her older sister is also right around as
smart as lint. She's calling me asking me if a person is slated to
receive a monthly payment of $2,500 and the deductions total $2,800 -
how much will he receive? (Is this a trick fucking question, I ask myself?)
I know she can just about hear my eyes roll clear to the back of my skull nearly past my occiput and onto my cervical vertebrae. Says I, "well, we cannot deduct more money than he's
receiving so he's not going to get a check." Her - "oh, we don't
issue checks for negative $300?
Me - "No, that would be a bill and I do payroll
not billing." (the "you fucking idiot" is unspoken but implied)

A look back at the first week of 2006

2006 started out relatively quietly and somewhat inauspiciously for me, I was a little under the weather with an upper respiratory infection but figured - ok, I actually have time to be sick this weekend.... bring it on. So the URI progressed into a little laryngytis, a little cough... nothing unmanageable until Tuesday evening when.... I vomited 6 times per hour for 8 and 1/2 hours. Yup, do the math... at least 48 times. How's that for a killer ab workout to start the New Year? Oh and FYI - vomit is hell on the nonstick surface of pots, so don't use them to puke in. The voice was still gone and I was too bored to stay home from work on Thursday so I come into work and of course, the phones are ringing off the hook, and when I talk almost no sound comes out. But I sound sultry as hell when sound does come out. Come home Thursday night and I had anticipated a quiet night of recovery and doing some high speed nothing. Came home, ate my soup, got rid of junk mail, went up to read email, noticed Stripe (my middle child cat) splayed out spread eagle with his whup (generic term for genitalia - male or female) hanging out like a large buddha cat stuck on his back. From previous (read: expensive) experience knew that we had to go to the cat ER. Attempted to capture and crate Stripe for 25 minutes, up the stairs, down the stairs, up the stairs, down the stairs after no less than 7 rounds of that, I finally get hip and close the door to my bedroom once i trap his shiny, shifty ass in there. 10 minutes more of upending the bed and such, I successfully crate him and we toddle off to the cat ER. (which is also a dog er and I follow the dog blood into the joint but i digress). So the triage nurse whirls out, I tell him the problem as much as I can since oh, yeah, I still cannot speak audibly. He takes the Stripe in the back and returns in about 20 with Stripe in the crate and a syringe full of Stripe pee on top of the crate. Stripe's ureter is not blocked, he peed a good stream but his penis is prolapsed so I should stick around and see a doctor, it will be about an hour. (this is about 10:20PM) Meanwhile, there's this cracker trash fool who came in with bleeding dogs, warring with the girlfriend, blah, blah, blah, trying to phone anyone he can think of to bring him money to get his dogs stitched up. Unreal! So I'm sitting by this giant fish tank that I'm thinking Stripe would like to eye the snacks contained therein but I just figure it's best not to rile him up if the doc's gotta look at him and his whup. So about 1120 the doc comes out, talks to me looks at stripe, takes him to the back to xray his bladder to see rocks and catheterize him to see if he's got little rocks in his whup. To make this very long story short, no sign of any more rocks, he pees some more for them. She gives him subcutaneous fluids and I take him home and lock him in the powder room with water, food, a litter box and my shirt to sleep on... this was at 12:22. I'm stupefied. And no longer recall the point of all this.

So this morning, I spring him from lock up to see that he has peed at least 4 times and thankfully since he was isolated I don't have to play a rousing game of ID the pee by dawn's early light.

I will be infinitely grateful to the powers of the universe if this is my worse week all year...

Never, ever dull

I had dinner with the parents this evening, as the conversation took the bizarre turns that familial conversations take, my parents were moved to ask me what my funeral arrangements would be since I am Buddhist. I said, Fed Ex my dead ass to a charnel ground and let the vultures do what vultures do. Why ask me this when we're eating pork?

Would you believe I won a coffee maker with this?

I need a Keurig Brewer to keep my kitten Sharkbutt out of the throes of caffeine psychosis and to prevent stunted growth. Sharkbutt has learned how to swing the basket of coffee grounds out of my coffee maker and he snacks on them. Notwithstanding that Sharkbutt caroms around the house like he was shot out of a cannon without caffeine, he's now bouncing off the walls much harder and leaving dents. A Keurig Brewer would prevent potential caffeine injuries to my cat and would also allow me to continue to enjoy GMCR's great products throughout the day without worrying of the dangers of kittens in the coffee grounds.

I received this in an email verbatim

I AM ORDER DO YOU NEED ANYTHING - written as a declarative, meant as a question. The declaration makes me think if you are order why does my desk look like 15 reams of paper threw up on it? I need order on my damned desk. And someone to answer the phones whose IQ exceeds that of snot. And the most astounding thing to me about the sentence is that each and every word in it is spelled correctly... yup, it's a first.

Overheard Conversation

S - when she was put on payroll, she was put on with the wrong name.

L- what does that mean?

S - her name is wrong on payroll.

L - I don't understand.

me - what could there possibly be to understand? her goddamned name is wrong on payroll. which part are you not getting?

... not surprisingly both of my eyes are twitching now.

Why? Oh Why?

I don't think I ask for much, but in my monthly report I religiously ask for a squadron of flying monkeys to aid and abet me in my duties of Queen of Payroll. With flying monkeys, I could get so much more done and wouldn't have to deal with these people that need to become acquainted with the view from the roof, right before I have to cause them to jump.

I could babble all night

It's rather alarming, how thoroughly I can babble. I've been thinking a lot about karma of late, I've been working pretty hard to clean mine up, as I've not always been this freakin' ray of sunshine. What's the old saying "if you want to see God's will, stick around and see what happens and that's it." Of course, I've got to reenact that I'm a visitor from planet dumbass and do biceps curls with cats, yep, live ones. Cats are not amused by being curled. Not amused at all.

Favorite Things

In no particular order - ice packs, ice water, Pinky and the Brain, Marx Brothers movies, Tibetan chant, baseball, Sedona, stupid human trick, Randori, scalp massage,

Weight Loss Frolic

Having struggled with my weight all of my adult and much of my non-adult life, I've learned there are rules that are seldom shared about weight loss. They are, in no particular order: 1. To lose weight you must eat. If you don't eat the body goes into starvation mode and when that happens, it thinks to itself "look bitch, as long as you starve me I will hang onto every fat molecule until death do us part" 2. To lose weight you must excrete, that's what the fiber is all about, nuff said. 3. To lose weight you gotta move, muscle is metabolically active tissue the more of it you have the more calories it uses. There are more rules, but these are the big 3.

What Fresh Hell?

Well, slap my face and call me Zsa Zsa, where do they find these people that I work with? Picture it - I'm listening to a woman exclaim about the green seaking dress she wore to church on Sunday. And as I'm listening, I'm thinking hmmm, church pageant with Queen Neptune - sounds kinda pagany, in a slow boat to Hell kind of way... and listening further I realize at the same time as the woman with whom she's conversing that she's referring to a green sequinned dress. Next thing out of the other ones mouth is 'gurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrl, you know you can fuck up a word, I'm getting ready to ask you what the fuck a seaking is.'