Alternate title: Reason #315 why I should not have children
So apparently when I am depressed/angry/frustrated/sleepy I should not be left alone among the general population. I made two different people cry on two totally separate occasions in the past two days. Perhaps it would be best if I just stayed in bed? You tell me.
Occasion the first:
I was driving home from work on Tuesday, in the Bronco, with the top off, after I had what probably was one of the most patience trying days of my life. I had left work late and it had taken me about 45 minutes to drive a distance of maybe 5 miles. I was not amused. Because traffic had been literally CRAWLING I found myself about 2 feet into the pedestrian cross walk when the light turned red. Keep in mind I had been sitting in that exact same spot for about 10 minutes. Enter fat man holding Jack in the Box bag and jumbo cup of soda.
Fat Man: You are totally in the cross walk b*$@#!
Me: (to myself) Maybe he doesn’t realize that with out any top (or windows!) that I can hear him?
Me: (still to myself) Wow lard ass you should be thanking me for making you walk 3 extra steps!
Me: (out loud) Wow lard ass you should be thanking me for making you walk 3 extra steps!
At this point the Fat Man turns around and glares at me. Do I leave well enough alone? Do I sheepishly look away? NOT ON YOUR LIFE BUDDY!
Me: (not knowing how to shut my pie hole) Seriously! Jack in the Box? (at which point I motioned to his bag) Maybe you should try jogging fatso!
Thankfully the light turned green and the cars in front of me had moved about 3 feet so I could somewhat triumphantly drive off. I looked over and caught a glimpse of Fat Man (now safely on the other side of the street from the Crazy Truck Driving B*$@#) and y’all he looked like he was about to cry.
I did feel mildly guilty. But then I thought “he started it!” a la 4th grade and decided that perhaps I should go lock myself in the house for the remainder of the evening.
Occasion the second:
Yesterday as I was walking to my car after work, which as I’ve mentioned before is parked way out in the back 40 about a mile from my office, I was indulging in a very well deserved pity cigarette when I noticed these two twelve year old girls approaching me on the sidewalk from the opposite direction.
Please no lectures about the cigarettes – any lectures will most likely result in a) hysterical crying, b) me regaling you with all the numerous reasons my life sucks right now or c) a combination of the two.
12 YO #1: (to her friend) Ew! Why would anyone smoke a cigarette?
12 YO #2: (clearly appalled at the presence of a cigarette (!) in public, on the street) I don’t know that is SO gross.
Me: (not having learned my lesson from the day before apparently) Listen little girl. You should think twice before judging people. For your information my house was robbed, we lost pretty much everything of value, I hate my job, I am about to drive about 2 hours in traffic and I am getting married in less than a month. So maybe you shouldn’t worry about my smoking – you have no idea how stressful it is to be a grown up.
12 YO #1: (mouth wide open staring at me) Um.
12 YO #2: Come on let’s go.
I resisted the temptation to throw my cigarette butt at their retreating backs, but barely. The first little girl looked like she was about to cry but the second one just looked shocked that I dared to speak to them. I’m sure somewhere today there is a pissed off soccer mom telling her friends about the psycho smoker who accosted her beloved Buffy as she walked downtown for an ice cream. Whatever. People should teach their children to be understanding and non-judgmental. Ahem.
I am now on a goal today to not make ANYONE cry. No matter how well deserved. Because I really am a nice person. I've just had a few bad days/weeks/months.
Really!
*****
This just in! In an effort to prove that I am not a miserable excuse for a human being and not fit for companionship with anyone other than Ebinezer Scrooge... I was walking to my car to go run an errand at lunch and there was an older woman walking in front of me. When she stopped at the corner she turned around and smiled at me and said,
"Those are noisy shoes! Don't wear those when you go to rob the bank!"
And I responded in all my bah-humbugness by giving her (what I hope was) a friendly smile and said,
"Yes ma'm. I promise to bring my slippers for that."
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
One of those days
I was going to start this post by asking if any of you (all three readers) have ever had one of those days where you probably should have just stayed in bed but instead you ignored your good sense and insisted on plodding through an increasingly bad day. But then I thought that was pretty much a rhetorical question because I don’t know anyone who HASN’T had one of those days. Kind of like the day I am having today for example.
This morning I slept through my alarm because even though I went through all the trouble of setting a recurring alarm in my cell phone for 5 am every week day so I could get up and go to the gym, I somehow forgot that I left my phone plugged in to the charger in the other room. So did I wake up at 5 am and drag my ass to the gym? Sadly no. I woke up somewhere around 6:30 and, realizing it was WAY too late to salvage any pre-work gym time, promptly went back to sleep. Which means that I was running late for work this morning – super! That, added to the fact that I am a HUGE FAT ASS and will resemble something akin to the stay puff marshmallow man at my wedding that is ONE MONTH FROM TODAY and I was already wondering at the wisdom of leaving the house.
Turns out leaving the house was going to be one more item on the “could this day get any worse” list. As most of you gathered from my post below, our home was broken into a few weeks ago. Among the things stolen were all the spare keys to our cars and the pink slips. Awesome right? So we had TheBoy’s truck re-keyed and ordered the parts for the Bronco to be re-keyed. But my car? It is still in hiding. I do love American cars and will most likely ever drive anything else, however, TheBoy’s Ford was approximately ¼ of the cost to have re-keyed than my Chevy would be. And since all of our worldly good are missing AND money was tight to begin with the care remains with its old locks just waiting for someone to find her and steal her.
In the meantime I’m driving TheBoy’s Bronco. The keys to said Bronco are on TheBoy’s key chain, the key chain with the keys to the truck that he left in this morning for work while I was still scrambling to get ready (because I was still running late). Of course by the time I was finally ready for work and noticed the missing keys, TheBoy was long gone. After many calls to his cell phone which was rolling straight to voice mail, one panicked message in which I am pretty sure I sounded like I was about to cry (because I was indeed about to cry) and one-trying-to-be-funny-but-really-frustrated-as-hell text message I finally called my boss, explained the situation and sat down with some bus schedules to try and figure my way in to work via mass transit. Working backwards I had managed to find two out of three legs of a route that would get me to the office right about lunch time when TheBoy’s truck pulled in the driveway. Hallelujah!
Sadly, in my excitement that I actually had a vehicle to get to work in I forgot that 1) it was raining outside and 2) the bronco currently is operating in “topless” mode. A few weeks back when the weather was nice TheBoy took the hard top off the truck so we could drive around and enjoy the summer-like weather. Today is not so summer-like I’m afraid. After briefly contemplating whether or not I could single handedly lift the top (weighing roughly 500 pounds) back on to the truck. I think you and I both know I would be right at this minute laying under a mass of steel had I actually tried to go that route. Instead, I just went into the house, grabbed a jacket, pulled my hair into a ponytail and with a not-so silent curse started off on my 2 hour commute. I was only about an hour and a half late at this point. Sweet.
Y’all. I could go on with other this-day-is maybe-the worst-ever-and-its-only-noon stories but right now I think it is best if I sit quietly and try not to offend anyone. Actually I’m pretty much trying to avoid all contact with other humans and am silently counting the hours until I can crawl in to bed with an entire bottle of wine. I still have a two hour commute home after all and I would really like it if someone upstairs turned the rain off over in my home town. Thanks!
This morning I slept through my alarm because even though I went through all the trouble of setting a recurring alarm in my cell phone for 5 am every week day so I could get up and go to the gym, I somehow forgot that I left my phone plugged in to the charger in the other room. So did I wake up at 5 am and drag my ass to the gym? Sadly no. I woke up somewhere around 6:30 and, realizing it was WAY too late to salvage any pre-work gym time, promptly went back to sleep. Which means that I was running late for work this morning – super! That, added to the fact that I am a HUGE FAT ASS and will resemble something akin to the stay puff marshmallow man at my wedding that is ONE MONTH FROM TODAY and I was already wondering at the wisdom of leaving the house.
Turns out leaving the house was going to be one more item on the “could this day get any worse” list. As most of you gathered from my post below, our home was broken into a few weeks ago. Among the things stolen were all the spare keys to our cars and the pink slips. Awesome right? So we had TheBoy’s truck re-keyed and ordered the parts for the Bronco to be re-keyed. But my car? It is still in hiding. I do love American cars and will most likely ever drive anything else, however, TheBoy’s Ford was approximately ¼ of the cost to have re-keyed than my Chevy would be. And since all of our worldly good are missing AND money was tight to begin with the care remains with its old locks just waiting for someone to find her and steal her.
In the meantime I’m driving TheBoy’s Bronco. The keys to said Bronco are on TheBoy’s key chain, the key chain with the keys to the truck that he left in this morning for work while I was still scrambling to get ready (because I was still running late). Of course by the time I was finally ready for work and noticed the missing keys, TheBoy was long gone. After many calls to his cell phone which was rolling straight to voice mail, one panicked message in which I am pretty sure I sounded like I was about to cry (because I was indeed about to cry) and one-trying-to-be-funny-but-really-frustrated-as-hell text message I finally called my boss, explained the situation and sat down with some bus schedules to try and figure my way in to work via mass transit. Working backwards I had managed to find two out of three legs of a route that would get me to the office right about lunch time when TheBoy’s truck pulled in the driveway. Hallelujah!
Sadly, in my excitement that I actually had a vehicle to get to work in I forgot that 1) it was raining outside and 2) the bronco currently is operating in “topless” mode. A few weeks back when the weather was nice TheBoy took the hard top off the truck so we could drive around and enjoy the summer-like weather. Today is not so summer-like I’m afraid. After briefly contemplating whether or not I could single handedly lift the top (weighing roughly 500 pounds) back on to the truck. I think you and I both know I would be right at this minute laying under a mass of steel had I actually tried to go that route. Instead, I just went into the house, grabbed a jacket, pulled my hair into a ponytail and with a not-so silent curse started off on my 2 hour commute. I was only about an hour and a half late at this point. Sweet.
Y’all. I could go on with other this-day-is maybe-the worst-ever-and-its-only-noon stories but right now I think it is best if I sit quietly and try not to offend anyone. Actually I’m pretty much trying to avoid all contact with other humans and am silently counting the hours until I can crawl in to bed with an entire bottle of wine. I still have a two hour commute home after all and I would really like it if someone upstairs turned the rain off over in my home town. Thanks!
Saturday, May 24, 2008
The worst
People keep telling me that the first year of homeownership is hard. I'm trying to take that wisdom and run with it but let me tell you I'm not sure I would have done it if I had known in advance just HOW hard it was going to be. We have officially owned this home for nine months. In that nine months I have seen a more than 2/3 decrease in my income, I've spent roughly 4 hours a day 5 days a week sitting on my ass in traffic, I've felt more lonely than I have in my entire life and now on top of it all our home was broken into last week and they made off with pretty much everything valuable we owned. At this rate I am not sure we will survive the remaining 3 months in our first year.
We're still reeling from the shock and total feeling of violation that accompanies having someone riffling through your things. We've had the house re-keyed, the alarm installed and upgraded, we've had to put credit fraud alerts out with any and everyone and we're (hopefully) getting a dog soon. I've lost all of my jewelry, except for a few cheap-y things the thief apparently didn't want AND I've lost my wedding rings - 5 weeks before the big day. TheBoy lost both groomsmen gifts he's received from being the best man in two of his friend's weddings, things like that that you can't replace. And of course the insurance company is raking us over the coals and refusing to pay for most of the things. WHY do we pay these people money every month or year? They certainly don't seem inclined to help us AT ALL. In fact they seem determined to make an already miserable experience even worse.
But on the bright side, no one was injured. We still have our health, though that sounds hallow even to my ears. The wedding will go on, without wedding bands, but luckily it doesn't take rings to make a marriage. Here's to hoping the next 3 months go by more smoothly than the preceding 9. In the meantime please send good thoughts our way. And wine - I'm not sure there is enough wine in the world to make the next 5 weeks / 3 months go by fast enough but Lordy you better believe I am trying! I'll either make it through this relatively sane or I'll be checking into rehab in the fall. One of the two.
We're still reeling from the shock and total feeling of violation that accompanies having someone riffling through your things. We've had the house re-keyed, the alarm installed and upgraded, we've had to put credit fraud alerts out with any and everyone and we're (hopefully) getting a dog soon. I've lost all of my jewelry, except for a few cheap-y things the thief apparently didn't want AND I've lost my wedding rings - 5 weeks before the big day. TheBoy lost both groomsmen gifts he's received from being the best man in two of his friend's weddings, things like that that you can't replace. And of course the insurance company is raking us over the coals and refusing to pay for most of the things. WHY do we pay these people money every month or year? They certainly don't seem inclined to help us AT ALL. In fact they seem determined to make an already miserable experience even worse.
But on the bright side, no one was injured. We still have our health, though that sounds hallow even to my ears. The wedding will go on, without wedding bands, but luckily it doesn't take rings to make a marriage. Here's to hoping the next 3 months go by more smoothly than the preceding 9. In the meantime please send good thoughts our way. And wine - I'm not sure there is enough wine in the world to make the next 5 weeks / 3 months go by fast enough but Lordy you better believe I am trying! I'll either make it through this relatively sane or I'll be checking into rehab in the fall. One of the two.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Now with 25% more creativity!
**Update: I know I didn't actually post a PHOTO down there of the invite. I was going to but thought it might not be smart to have ALL my personal info out there for the world to see. You know? Anywho, Michele is stellar once again and sent me a picture of it with the personal stuff blurred out. Go check it out! She's amazing!
Occasionally I will get these crazy ideas at work in which I will try to convince myself that I actually have a FUN and EXCITING marketing job and not a completely dull and boring one. (One that I won’t detail here because, hello, Dooce?) When one of these ideas strikes I am full of excitement and plan making and research. However, at some point during this process I will be reminded that while it is fun to come up with these ideas, sometimes the implementation of them is tedious. This is how I found myself this afternoon literally skipping across the street in my joy to finally be ridding myself of the smell of mint forever. Y’all, I may NEVER eat anything mint flavored again! And don’t even get me started on microwave popcorn. I’m just saying is all.
On the note of creativity, do you know who IS totally creative and artsy and stuff? Michele! She so very kindly offered to help me with the design of my wedding invitations. And by “help” I mean take a completely vague notion I had of using a sailor’s knot (since we’re “tying the knot” aboard a boat ~ get it? Ha!) and just ran with the whole thing including colors and covers and used really small words to help my dumb ass figure out wording and everything! I am in eager anticipation to receive the completed invites tomorrow. AND because Michele is not only creative and fun and a very, very good friend, she ALSO takes photos with her camera and actually sends them to people with her convenient download cable unlike other people (*cough *cough) who just hordes all the pictures on her camera forever and ever amen.
So when I said “wouldn’t it be neat if we had a knot of some kind on our invitation cause of the whole boat thing?” She said sure! And came up with this:
On the note of creativity, do you know who IS totally creative and artsy and stuff? Michele! She so very kindly offered to help me with the design of my wedding invitations. And by “help” I mean take a completely vague notion I had of using a sailor’s knot (since we’re “tying the knot” aboard a boat ~ get it? Ha!) and just ran with the whole thing including colors and covers and used really small words to help my dumb ass figure out wording and everything! I am in eager anticipation to receive the completed invites tomorrow. AND because Michele is not only creative and fun and a very, very good friend, she ALSO takes photos with her camera and actually sends them to people with her convenient download cable unlike other people (*cough *cough) who just hordes all the pictures on her camera forever and ever amen.
So when I said “wouldn’t it be neat if we had a knot of some kind on our invitation cause of the whole boat thing?” She said sure! And came up with this:
And this is what the folder looks like when it is closed:
And the pdf of the knot details close up. Cause I think it is amazing how it all turned out.
And y’all? I totally think she should look into doing this as a side job or for a living or something. Lord knows if I had an ounce of the creativity she has with this stuff I’d be doing that from the comfort of my own home (and in jeans!) and not doing, erhm…, what I am doing now. I’m just saying is all.
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