Effing Fay...

Oh yippie-skippie, it's hurricane season again. Fay's barreling down on the south coast of Florida, due to hit sometime Tuesday night. And of course the "cone of uncertainty" shows it hitting anywhere from the far south of our fair state up to shooting straight into Tampa Bay.

I live in the central portion of Florida, which you would think would mean that since we're inland hurricanes aren't such a worry. Well, I thought that until 2004 when Charlie, Frances, and Jeanne all criss-crossed the state and made direct freaking hits on my town. It was unbelievable.

We'll see if Tropical Storm Fay is going to organize herself better after she gets to water again. From what I can tell she's crossing over Cuba at the moment, so there's a fair stretch she'll have to gain strength and hit hurricane level.

Time to stock up on the box wine. Nothing says "get me through a hurricane" like Franzia.

Two Bite Brownies = Teh Evil

Note to Self:

When counting calories, going to Sam's Club (especially before dinner) is a Very Bad Idea.

Furthermore, complete refusal to look at the calorie listing on the two bite brownies you picked up "for the children" is just dumb.

People, just ONE of those so-called "two bite brownies" is 90 calories. That's N-I-N-E-T-Y. ARRRGH!!!!

I, of course, ate six. 540 calories, in brownies alone.

But damn they were good...

And Your Name Would Be...?

Since I'm the office manager/ secretary/ receptionist/ accounts receivable/ accounts payable/ go-fer/ light-duty janitor/ anything else they can come up with type of employee, one of the little things I get to do at work is answer the phone. This can be amusing when a sales person calls, particularly the copier supply sales folks. They call expecting to get some high school child who will just get them the model number from the front of the copier which will then enable them to be even more sneaky when they call back acting as if we have some sort of account with them for supplies, maintenance, etc.

Instead they get me.

"Good morning -- InsertRandomInitialsHere Architects!" Yes, I do sound this chipper. Without adequate caffeination it's a strain, but I manage.

"Yes, honey, could you please just get us the number from the front of your copier? That's called the model number, dear. We're just updating our files and need your current equipment listing," is the general cheerful response.

"What company are you calling from?"

"We're your toner supplier," as the tone markedly cools.

"I need the name of your company, please," as my uber-chipper voice slips into a lower register with shades of teacher-voice creeping in.

CRASH-CLICK.

Well, it's either they slam down the phone (yes, they really DO slam it, without fail... it's ridiculous really), or I tell them "We have a local contract," and THEN they slam it down.

I'm not rude. I'm not even toying with them... although I could if the urge grabbed me. I don't know what goes on at their companies that makes them behave like preschoolers or drunken monkeys. Perhaps they have a quota of model numbers they have to collect, perhaps they're just told to make us regret refusing to give them the model number, but every single "copy supply" sales call, bar NONE, does this.

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On another phone note, for those of you who call offices on a regular basis hoping to speak with someone beyond the reception desk, please identify yourself and state the nature of your business when you call. This avoids us playing the twenty-questions game as I try to determine if you're some sort of sales representative (no, you may not speak to him as he's on about twelve deadlines now), a client (he's on your deadline, of course you may speak to him), or a consultant (he needs to speak to you so he can make this deadline, we've been waiting to hear from you for ten days now).

If you speak to me daily or even weekly, this usually mitigates the need for you to state your business but for the love of Pete, folks, identify yourself. No, I don't care if I've known you for twenty years. Just. State. Your. Damn. Name.

It can even be quite casual:
"Hey Amanda, this is Mike, may I speak to [insert usual suspect's name here]?"
"Heya hon, this is Joe, is [yet another usual suspect's name] in?"
or one of my personal favorites,
"Good morning. This is Mr. Client Name. Is he awake yet?"

This just isn't that difficult. I speak to countless people in a week, and although I might know your voice on the phone from time to time, chances are the pitch and timbre of your voice are just similar enough to someone else's (father-son contractor companies, this especially means you) that the likelihood of me misidentifying you is still rather high.

My own mother identifies herself when she calls. And I'd say of all people calling, she has the voice I'm most likely to recognize.

So please use some simple phone ettiquette. It's either that or I'm going to rename all of you "Bob."

Wha... huh?

Heya folks!

I know it's been awhile. I've been tied up with new puppydom (Teddy is doing marvelously and is right at 3 lbs. at the moment), the start of the school year (year-round here for one more school year), and well, the general basic facets of life. Combine that with a very small bit of a social life -- yes, I'm dating -- and other obligations and *poof!* you have a languishing blog.

The huge downside of this is that the quality of my writing now totally sucks. Urrrgh. Oh well, in time...
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First up, at the moment my focus is my weight. Skip this part if you don't want a detailed analysis of what I've eaten over the past 48 hours or so.

I've mentioned previously that I lost a fairly significant amount of weight over the past couple of years (over 40 lbs.), and I've kept it off for the past year. I had a brief dip into the 140's toward the end of last year due life stress issues, but other than that it's pretty much stabilized right in the low 150's. Not bad, all things considered. According to just about everything I read I'm at a healthy weight for my height and bone structure (5'-7", small-medium frame), so that's all well and good.

However, I can also reasonably chop a few more pounds off my body and am attempting to do so at this time because a) my younger sister is getting married at the beginning of November up in New York City. I'm the Matron of Honor (or whatever the name is for the twice-divorced elder sister of the bride *eyeroll*), the most elderly of all the attendants, and the hell if I'm going to be waltzing down that aisle in my periwinkle bridesmaid's dress with a caboose the size of a small island nation; and b) the holiday season is fast approaching, and I will eat what I want to at the holiday gatherings, dammit.

Regarding the caboose comment: even though I'm a so-called "healthy weight", I am a classic pear shape. "Baby Got Back" is my theme song. I swear to you, I had pneumonia back when I was 16 years old which caused my weight to drop to 108 lbs. I was hollow-cheeked, flat-chested, and STILL I had this backside. So, erm... yeah, it's pretty non-negotiable.

However, the less I weigh the smaller it gets -- all things are proportional -- so I'll be working to slim down a bit more before that momentous occasion. By my calculations, I can lose from twelve to eighteen pounds by the wedding (and another 4-8 lbs by the holidays, depending on which specific holiday you're tracking) if I keep my average daily calorie intake around 1200.

Brutal? Yep. I'm a fan of food, quite frankly, and keeping my calories right around 1200 for me tends to look something like this:

Yes, I am this Type-A about it. This is my spreadsheet.

I know it's heavy on the cheese, processed foods, and you'll also notice there's some ice cream I sneaked in at the end of the day that pushed me over my total allowable calories by 65. But all in all, it isn't terrible. I have vegetables in there, protein... eh, it could be much worse.

Kind of like today's is much worse (and bear in mind, I haven't even had dinner yet):

So... erm... yeah. Doable, but brutal, especially when I decide on the deep-fried lunch option. At this point I have precisely 263 calories left to consume today, whereas yesterday prior to my departure from the office I still had 335 calories remaining.

The last column on the spreadsheet is my water consumption. Yesterday I had 3 32oz. cups of water. Today I'm at 4. I'm not sure if it's an increase in sodium from what I ate at lunch or what. I somehow doubt the sodium has caused my increased thirst, as the foods I'm eating even on a good day are processed to hell and back and already contain PLENTY of sodium. I'm also discounting the caffeine from the coffee today, since the one thing I don't tabulate on this spreadsheet is my Diet Coke intake.

Don't ask on that. You so do not want to know.

But anyway, the point to this is that today I'm sucking down water like a sponge whereas I didn't yesterday. I'm thirstier today. It could be due to the change in the food I've consumed, or it could just be my body deciding it liked yesterday's water, so it figures even more water today would be a fine idea.

Something else I'm tracking is that I skipped my snack this morning, then caved and went all crazy at lunch. I've only been charting this for two days so far, but experience has taught me that when I skip the mid-morning food, I tend to eat more at lunch. I need to watch that.
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In other news, Sunday night my elder son ran up to me yelling, "Mommy! He broke a legal contract!" while pointing at his younger brother.

A legal contract? Let's see this...

Now bear in mind that all afternoon the boys had been very peacefully playing together with their stuffed dog toys. It was a bit strange as usually the elder isn't so interested in playing with the younger, but it wasn't totally out of the realm of normal behaviour, so I didn't think much about it beyond "oh, how sweet."

Fond, foolish mother that I am.

I was handed a piece of paper, the afore-referenced "contract", painstakingly hand-written by my elder son which said, in essence, that the younger child agreed if his older brother would play "puppies" with him during the afternoon, the younger would wrestle with the elder in the evening.

The five-year-old's refusal to wrestle his elder brother is what constituted the breach of contract.

It's also what kept the five-year-old out of trouble, because one thing the boys aren't allowed to do is wrestle. They've done it before, and it gets out of hand instantly... and they know this.

The nine-year-old, on the other hand, was so incredibly busted.

Lesson for the day, my dear son: never put proof of your planned misdeeds in writing.

(But dang, it was funny... heh)

Enter Teddy :)

Y'all might remember that late last April my beloved beastly boy Little Guy passed away at a good and ancient old age. Well....


Say hello to Teddy, everyone :) Teddy is (now) a 10-week-old Chihuahua/ Yorkie mix, sadly presented to me as a "Chorkie", which is a so-called exotic breed.

Read: mutt.

Hee.

He's one of those small-but-mighty type doggies, and considering that his father was 2 lbs and mother was 4 lbs, he's not going to get too terribly big.

His bark is earshattering, though. So he sounds a bit like an outraged parrot...

It was time :)

Teeth-Grindingly Furious

Okay, y'all know I usually don't do the politics thing here as it totally skeeves me out. However, I just read this article and I am LIVID.

How Dumb Are We? (subtitled: How Long Will Women Shoulder the Blame for the Pay Gap)

Read it, and then you can holler at your computer monitor just like me.

Dangit, I knew this whole "politically active beyond voting" thing was coming...

Intraoffice Communications

This just in:

Anonymous Architect: Can you or P. trace this package – see if we have a receipt. Should have been sent about 3/24/08. Thanks.

Me: Here you go.

AA: Thanks.

Me: You forgot to say “you rock”.

AA: How about: YOUr head is as hard as a ROCK.

Me: Been looking in the mirror again, eh? Or did you just knock yours on something?

I must not care too much about maintaining my employment today... heh.

Huh? What?

*waving to Kimala* Hey there, girl! Great to see you in this part of teh intarweebs :)

You know, I really should change that age thingie over on my sidebar. I'm now 38, not 37. Thirty-seven is arguably still mid-thirties, but thirty-eight is undeniably late-thirties.

I don't tend to have a problem with the big "O" birthdays. It's those other, littler, weirder milestones I take issue with, like moving from mid- to late-decade agewise. Maybe it's because the earlies, mids, and lates are longer in duration than a mere 30 or 40? I'll have to think on this.

In other aging news, due to my unfortunate failure to schedule my next root touch-up the last time I had my hair done, I've become unwillingly reacquainted with my real hair color. We are NOT friends. It would seem my hair in its natural state is a not-so-charming iron grey at this point, with a nearly white streak over my right ear and just behind my left. Think Marilla in Anne of Green Gables. Feh. Must remember to call and make a new appointment STAT. It would be one thing if it went with my face, but at this point in my life all it does is make me look tired.

I can do tired without my hair's help, thanks.

The guys at my office owe two of my friends a great debt of gratitude. It seems some wonderful, wacky people I know sent me some flowers today, which resulted in the removal of the Santa figurine from my desk. For some strange reason the boys think April is a bit odd time of year for Santa.

I've told them that once I get a dish garden of suitable height to attempt not to kill, I'll take Santa down. And once they get the freaking signage on the wall (it's only been FIVE YEARS in the planning for that), I'll take down the Christmas wreath that's hanging on the lone nail in the wall directly facing our entrance. I'm sorry, but that nail looks stupid just sticking out of the wall.

They have further been warned that if they take down the wreath and hide it from me, I'll be bringing in my diploma and hanging it in the wreath's stead. The diploma is from FSU. The majority of the architects graduated from UF. I think my wreath is safe.

Hee.

Just Keep Moving...

Whew. It's been an exhausting month. Thank you everyone for your sympathies on my grandmother's passing. It's not as if it was unexpected, but even when these things are in the works there's still a shock to the system when it finally happens.

In other news, those of you who know of Angel's and my RL friendship, her mother-in-law passed away a bit over a week after my grandmother died. I attended the funeral this past Tuesday. I'd known Angel's mother-in-law since my junior high days, as she and my mother both chaperoned nearly Every. Orchestra. Trip. Ever. Angel's husband and I were among those lucky kids who never ever got away with anything, because our mothers were always there -- and even if they weren't personally present, the Mothers' Mafia was out in full force ready to hand a full report in triplicate over to our parents if we so much stepped one toe out of line.

Looking back? GREAT job, Moms.

Grandma's funeral is this weekend. It's been a long time in coming due to the world travels of her sons and the lunacy of Easter weekend and everything, but many people loved her and wanted to be here to honor her. Funerals are for the living, after all... so we've waited. Now all the relative insanity is descending upon us, and I still have a freaking speech to write before the service starts at 11:00 Saturday morning.

Not enough caffeine in Colombia. Just saying.

For those of you who use this blog as a means of Stalking Ajay, my SL persona, my work schedule is as follows:

All times below SLT (that's Second Life Time or California time, for you non-SLers out there)

Monday, 4-6 SLT, Case's Rock & Roll Listening Party, The Glamshack, Joiner
Wednesday, 7-9 SLT, Carraig with DJ Gwen Carillon, Fibber Magees, Dublin 3
Thursday, 4-6 SLT, DJ Bill Mondegreen, The Glamshack, Joiner

Note: This week I'm off, due to Grandma's funeral and the afore-mentioned familial descent upon my hometown.

I also have shifts that I work in and around those as the need arises for both Friendly Fire and the Dublin crew. Additionally, I'm now the DJ Manager for Dublin Services, which means... well, I don't really get a raise, I just get more work. But I really enjoy working with the DJs (I'm a bit of a music freak, in case this has escaped anyone's attention), so it all pans out.

Oh, and everyone please wave hi to Jenda, another SL friend of mine :) She also hosts at the Glamshack, and occasionally we can be found inworld at ridiculous hours of the night tormenting the DJs... heh.

And So it Goes...

High drama living sucks. Just thought I'd share. The excitement of a roller coaster or a great party with friends or an excellent book? That I'll take in a heartbeat. But that whole trauma-drama in real life?

Feh.

So... I've been cursed lately or something, because all the shit has hit the fan in this past year.

Hormonal issues? Check. Yes, the lunacy is back in full force on that front. Marital discord? Check. To the extreme. I don't go into it here, but... yeah. The divorce is final, by the way. Has been for over a month now.

And then, a few weeks ago... all hell broke loose.

It started off small enough. My friends Mack and Case of Friendly Fire from Second Life lost their DSL connection. As in the phone company somehow deleted their entire account. At one point they even lost their regular telephone. It took two weeks for them to regain their connection, and as one of their officers I helped to notify the venues and club owners of their scheduled gigs about their absence and the reason for it.

Now granted, this was NOT small in Mack and Case's life... I mean, they had to relearn how to talk to each other without IMs and everything (kidding, guys -- lobe you! Hee...). But seriously, I know I'd go nuts if I were disconnected from the internet. I read my paper online, I keep up with friends and family through e-mail, I blog (yeah, yeah, well I'm working on it)... it's just how I run my communications. But considering all that followed? Yes, a blip-ish bit of missing-my-friends and concern for them angsty-stuff.

At any rate, during this timeframe my parents left on a trip to Australia with my uncle (father's brother) and aunt. Grandma (Dad's mom) had been bedridden for quite awhile and lived at Mom's and Dad's with 24-hour-caregivers. Now, you have to know Grandma to understand just how much this situation pissed the woman off. She figured about eight years ago that she was done with this whole "life" thing. She'd lost a leg to Type II diabetes, was nearly blind from glaucoma, and had lost her brother and husband within one year's time. She kept going for about a year after that, but finally she'd just had enough.

Grandma was a very stubborn woman. If she said something, that was just how it was. She didn't believe people should fly, and you can bet your bottom dollar her feet never so much as touched the inside of an airport. So when she decided to die? Odds were in her favor that she'd accomplish it.

Except, uhm... nope. My family has been blessed/ cursed with an amazingly good constitution, and despite Grandma's best efforts to the contrary, including more TIAs than I can count, she remained in pretty much the same physical state with a slow decline over the years in how much she was out of bed, how much she'd talk, and so forth. She had excellent care, so the only variable was how long her body was going to hold out against her mind's wishes.

Her condition was stable when the folks left on their trip, but my brother and I had our orders. We were to make sure the DNR she had requested was honored, and we were not to permit hospitalization. Comfort measures only. We'd been through this several trips before.

About a week into the parentals' journey, I had a dream Grandma had died. I woke up and realized that was all it was, shook myself the rest of the way awake, and got the boys on the road to school and daycare.

During my commute, my cell phone rang. It was one of Grandma's caregivers, wanting to take her to the hospital because she wasn't eating. Now bear in mind, this very same caregiver had removed the DNR papers from Grandma's wall the last time my folks went on vacation and had hidden them. So I finished dropping the kids off, and headed over. My brother and the head caregiver were already onsite when I arrived, as well as the on-duty caregiver.

It was reiterated to the on-duty caregiver that there was to be no hospitalization (because a ninety-five-year-old does NOT need to be in the hospital with tubes running through her... goodness), and over the on-duty lady's objections, Grandma stayed home. The visiting nurse came by that afternoon, and my brother and I returned for the report from her.

During this I learned that the on-duty caregiver had been feeding Grandma Diet Coke, because, and I quote, "This will break up the congestion in her chest."

People, the woman was in congestive heart failure. I'm sorry, but even Diet Coke isn't going to cure that. And you know how I feel about my Diet Coke.

Sigh.

Anyway... I talked with the head caregiver some more, and the big concern we all had was that this same on-duty caregiver was going to be on duty again on Friday night (this was on a Wednesday). We were very worried that she'd try to get Grandma in the hospital again, using the overnight and the excuse of there being no family in the house and difficulty or reluctance in disturbing my brother or me. So it was decided that I'd take my sons over there Friday night and spend the night to avoid that problem.

By Friday, Grandma was also showing signs of kidney failure.

We went over that evening and had an uneventful time. The boys and I visited with Grandma (who opened her eyes and smiled at them) and her caregiver, who is a very good woman, just a bit confused about the curative properties of Diet Coke... okay, and hospital-happy too, but she did care very much about Grandma. We all have our ways of coping.

The next morning I was getting the boys together to run to Target, and I was just about to get in the shower when they raced by me, the elder chasing the younger.

"Stop chasing your brother!"

"Okay Mama!"

Five seconds pass.

More chasing.

Crash.

Scream.

Blood. Lots of blood.

He'd slipped in my parents' bedroom and banged his head on the wood bedstand, right on the corner. I took one look at him and knew we were headed to the ER, because it looked like he had a huge bloody hole in his forehead above his left eyebrow.

Eewww.

So we grabbed tissues and applied pressure. He didn't lose consciousness and remained coherent, oriented to time and place, everything. I took him downstairs and let the caregiver know what had happened. She kicked into crisis-management mode, which was truly a blessing in this instance. She got Michael some gauze for his forehead, which he continued to hold to the wound very well, got his shoes onto him while I got dressed, and then offered to keep Nicky while Michael and I went to the ER.

Nicky wanted to come with us at first, but the caregiver offered to keep him and I figured we didn't need the whole family circus there, so she bribed him with promises of scrambled eggs and sausage. That sold him -- the boy is a human garbage disposal, I swear.

Michael and I got into my car and went to the local ER. On the way there I called his father and let him know what was up. We arrived at the door to the ER, and you know what? It's amazing how quickly you're moved to the pediatric side of the ER and into a room when your child's sporting a huge HOLE in his forehead.

I have to give kudos to our hospital's pediatric ER, by the way. I bitch and moan about their childbirth policies, but those folks in the kiddie ER area totally rocked. They packed the wound with an anesthetic gel, sealed a transparent bandage over it, and off he went to x-ray to be sure there weren't any fractures.

Final word, no fractures and thirteen stitches total (three subcutaneous) with no lidocaine injections needed. And he held still for everything like a champ.

We returned to my parents' house, gathered our belongings and Nicky, and told Grandma goodbye. The caregiver coming on duty later that evening was good with the DNR orders, so there wouldn't be a problem there and I really didn't want Michael anywhere near stairs. Or wood floors. Or anything that wasn't a padded cell, really.

While we were out at dinner I got a call from Grandma's head caregiver. The visiting nurse was there again, and I spoke to her. Definitely congestive heart failure, turn Grandma every hour instead of the two-hour protocol, kidneys were definitely failing, and it was a matter of time.

I took the boys home, and Sunday passed with no change in Grandma's status.

Monday morning I called in to work as I was going to be taking Michael in to the pediatrician to have his head looked at, per the ER doctor's orders. About five minutes before his doctor's office opened, I got the call from my brother. Grandma had passed away at 8:05 that morning with my brother and her caregivers in attendance. It was, according to him, very peaceful.

He's been hit by it very hard.

I missed three days of work last week... I basically just collapsed, shut down... and even so, it hasn't quite hit me yet. I keep waiting for it. Dreading it.

The cremation has taken place, and my parents and uncle and aunt are on their way back from Australia as they couldn't get a flight out any sooner. They wanted to stay together, and I can't say I blame them one bit. They called from L.A. this afternoon, so they're at least back in this hemisphere, and they'll arrive home Tuesday evening.

I don't know how the hell I'm holding it together at this point, but I'm eerily calm. It's freakish. Even I can see it.

God help me when it hits.

Just a quickie...

I'm alive... it's been a rough couple of weeks (parents on vacation in Australia, grandmother died during their absence, elder son to ER for 13 stitches in his forehead because "Don't chase your brother!" apparently makes no impact on the child...), but I'm here.

More later on all that.

In more fun news I took a personality test I found on my friend Riko Kamachi's blog. This is my Harry Potter personality quiz result:

Harry Potter Personality Quiz by Pirate Monkeys Inc.

Edited: I fixed the posting issue. Stupid HTML... (nothing to do with the blog author, I'm sure...)

"Confidential" ???

The mail just arrived here at the office and with it was a large envelope from the company that administers our corporation's 401(K), with a big blue "confidential" sticker on the front of it.

But whoever affixed the brightly colored "confidential" sticker to the envelope? Then failed to seal it.

Whoops.

Updates? Huh?

You know it's been awhile since your last post when you're in Second Life at a Friendly Fire concert and even the performers (okay, 1/2 of them, Case) are heckling you from the stage about updating your blog.

I tried to blame my lack of posting on some serious typoing issues I've been having lately, but since Case hollered from the stage, "Oh yeah, it's not like it doesn't have spellcheck!" ...

Dammitall, he's right.

I've been busy, but busy hasn't stopped me from blogging before. It's just that I really haven't had much to say here. I mean, well... there's lots I could say, and believe me I've thought about it, but it's not exactly appropriate for public consumption, And considering that I blog mercilessly about my periods (last one took 33 days to arrive, if anyone was wondering... let the erratic annual fun-fest begin!), that's saying something. I could vent off about it privately, and may still, but there's a fine line between getting something off one's chest and dwelling endlessly about things that cannot be changed and likely will never change.

There, that vague enough for you? Heh...

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At any rate, life continues to progress. We're implementing a new timekeeping/ billing/ etc. software program at work which is a new level of fresh hell. We were doing the same thing last year at this time, but with the world's most god-awful program. Administrative types, take note: do not ever, on pain of extreme torture, purchase a business program from the very people who coded the damned thing. We had several valid complaints about the initial program we purchased which were treated in an exceptionally unprofessional and defensive manner. I'm sorry, but if your program sucks? It sucks. And for our purposes, that thing was borked beyond all hope of redemption. Do NOT call the managing partner and whine about why we aren't using your pitiful scrap of a program anymore when we've already told you that it doesn't meet the needs of our office. Because when the ridiculous slowness of your program is blamed on us having "too many jobs"? It means that your program doesn't have the capacity to handle the workload generated by our business.

The new program we're working to get up and running appears to have more than the capacity to handle the data load required by the company, with the additional benefit of an upgrade being available should certain areas grow beyond current levels. It's just getting all that information into the program that's a bitch. I've been making various screamy noises for about a month now. They don't really help with the implementation, but I feel better about it all for about five seconds.

Oh well. This too shall pass, and fortunately once we do get this program functional it should be excellent. It's just getting there that's the issue.

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The boys are currently working on me about getting a puppy. It's been eight months since Little Guy's death, and in spite of our feline housemates, there is a dog-shaped hole in our home. It's going to have to wait a bit to be filled, though. A dog is a huge responsibility, and more time-intensive than the cats. There's the housebreaking to be done, the puppy-proofing... oh my. It's been nearly twenty years since I last did this and back then I was a college student who only had to worry about going to class and then rushing home to take out my baby dog. I was gone at most four hours at a stretch. Now, though, we leave the house by 7:15 a.m. and don't return until about 5:40 on an early day. That's far too long for a little puppy to be left alone, even if one is crate training.

Sooo... the puppy will have to wait until this fall when my younger son starts kindergarten. This will make it so I have only one stop to make on the way to work, which I'll then add another stop to as I'll be dropping the puppy off at my mother's house for Doggy Daycare. Oh well, at least it's less of a commute than I currently have as my parents' house is only about three blocks from the office rather than making the great circle of town that dropping the younger off at his daycare necessitates.

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Speaking of the younger, he's quite the little showman. I took the boys to the park to play yesterday and he wandered over to the bench I was sitting on, looked at the gentleman sitting on the other end of the bench, and out of the blue burst out, "You know, two plus two equals four."

"Yes, it does. How did you know that?"

"Because I'm smawt."

"I can see that."

"Yes."

*choke*


Next thing you know the child will be running for office. God help us all.

Wii

About ten days before Christmas, my elder son informed me that he wanted a Wii.

[insert gales of increasingly hysterical laughter here]

Ten days, y'all. Uhm... nope. Even Santa doesn't have those skills.

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Due to a variety of events in life, I didn't manage to do most of my Christmas shopping (even the Santa stuff) until December 24th. Sigh. That seems to be a bit of a pattern in my life, although usually I do a bit better and get most of it done on the 23rd.

I'm aware that's a relatively insignificant improvement.

The only time I varied from that pattern was when I was expecting my younger son whose due date was December 6th. Somewhere in my feeble gestating mind I managed to hook onto the quite rational idea that I really did NOT want to be out prancing about doing last-minute Christmas shopping with a newborn in tow, so I got the shopping done in October that year.

So of course? The child was twelve days past his due date. I'd had more shopping time than I'd thought. But considering the fact that I was the size of a small island nation by my third trimester, it was just as well that I'd managed to get the lead out a bit earlier that year.

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Oh anyway, my point? Was that this year I was insanely doing my Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve. And that my elder son had unreasonable expectations which I'd had to crush the previous night by gently explaining that Santa and I had been e-mailing each other and that although a Wii wasn't in the offing for Christmas, it looked pretty good for his birthday. There was much disappointment and I felt like the lowest lifeform on the planet, although I did reassure him that this type of thing had happened to me before and Santa always came through with some great surprises in matters like this.

My mother had very kindly offered to have me drop the children off at her house so that I could get all the Santa stuff and other desperation measures taken care of. I dropped off the boys around 10:00 a.m., and reluctantly turned my tires toward Toys R Us. I was playing Trans Siberian Orchestra's "Christmas Eve Sarajevo" at full blast on my speakers both to energize me and drown out the screaming "NO NO NO! I do NOT want to do this!!!" in my head -- I'm not a graceful last-minute shopper even though I put myself through it on a regular basis, and crowds are not my thing... yes I'm aware that I'm an idiot -- and managed to force my car into the parking lot of said megatoystore with minimal trauma.

Thankfully, the store wasn't that crowded all things considered. All the other idiots must have gotten most of their shopping done on the 23rd. Heh. I had my list and blazed my way down the aisles.

"T-Rex for the younger?"

Check

"Mario Kart for the elder?"

Check.

"Tool bench for the younger?"

Check. My God, this thing is huge. I hope it fits into my trunk. And what the hell is with this some assembly required crap? Isn't that supposed to make it, say, smaller?

"T-Rex Skeleton for the elder?"

Check. Some assembly required. Again. I'm going to hate myself for this.

"Roboquad for Amanda?"

Check. Don't look at me like that. Santa said I could have one.

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Once all the above and an assortment of other items including enough batteries to power the afore-mentioned island nation were in my cart, I made it to the checkout line. The cashier was amazingly cheerful and friendly considering the insanity surrounding her, and we talked a bit as she was ringing up my purchase. In the course of that conversation I mentioned my elder son's belated Wii request and the futility thereof.

At that point, a lady came up to the checkout station and said, "I don't want you to think I was listening in on your conversation, but I'm one of the managers here and, well, it's my job to pay attention to what's going on. I heard you mentioning the Wii, and just wanted to let you know -- now I'm not making any promises -- but that if you stay around here until right before noon, there's a very good chance you could get one."

!!!!!!!

It was 11:20 at that point. Of COURSE I was going to stay until noon. My God, a chance to save my son's Christmas? Was worth every minute of hanging around that store.

I went out to the car and loaded all my purchases. Well, I tried. I shuffled things around in the trunk to make room for the gigantic yet still "some assembly required" toolbench which looked like it would fit, but then found the box was about one inch too long to make the drop down into the trunk which would enable me to shut it.

Huh.

So I did what any reasonable and sufficiently desperate woman would do. I turned slightly to the side and very classily kicked that damned box until it finally gave in. Success!

I then quite prudently put all thoughts of the eventual extraction of same out of my head -- one can only deal with so much at one time -- and went back into the store where I waited. And waited. And probably made the girl in the electronics department nervous as I randomly walked around while buying absolutely nothing...

And then right around noon, the Wiis very quietly came out of the back room to those of us in the know who had been awaiting their arrival. I got the third one out.

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As I drove toward my mother's house, a TSO variant of "Joy to the World" started playing from my CD, and I very inappropriately sang along, "Joy to the world, I got a Wii!"

Christmas morning was a success, what I can remember of it at any rate. I'd been up until 3:30 that morning trying to put together various toys, and cursing the name of whatever moron thought "Some Assembly Required" was a freaking GOOD idea, so I was a tad bit sleep deprived and the caffeination process didn't fully kick in until about 10:00 a.m.

The kids were up at 5:00 a.m. So yeah... tired. But happy.

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The elder son played with the Wii at my parents' house where my sister's boyfriend set it up for him. We brought everything home later on that day, but the Wii wasn't mentioned as he was too busy playing with his other toys and games. Until today that is.

And now I can't hook the wretched thing up. The cable box is plugged into the little thingies I'm supposed to plug the Wii doohickies into (don't you love my technical expertise??). So now I'm trying to figure out if there's something on the cable box I can plug the Wii into or what.

Yes, I've read the manual. It is Not. Helpful. Sigh.

Oh well. If anyone has a clue about this, let me know. Any offers of assistance will be greatly appreciated, and if I do get the thing hooked up? Might have more time for blogging.

Just saying. ;)

Catch it While You Can

The picture post is back, however briefly, and is the second entry below this one.

I have some readers from Second Life and for those of you who really prefer to keep your SL and RL separate, you may wish to avoid that post.

I, on the other hand, have apparently set up bleachers outside my RL window. The concessions building is coming along nicely as well.

Later, kids... work to do.

More Randomness

Just a thought:

If you've put an invoice in an envelope, mailed it to my office, and it arrives still reeking of your perfume? You might want to reconsider your entire marination process.

Thanks.

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Also, y'all missed me posting a picture of myself. Again. This one made it nearly 15 minutes before I took it down... but that only because I had about 8 phone calls coming in one right after the other.

Okay, Okay... (Back by Popular Demand)

Here's the picture of me I keep threatening to post. Ignore the hellishly over-piled bookcase behind me. Yes, this is what I normally look like when I'm at the computer, and yes, those are Tinkerbell pajamas.


And just to offset this, here's a picture of me in my house in SL, playing the piano there. I snagged it from Tycho's blog (hope you don't mind, Sir Tycho!):



Now I'm going to save this as a draft, write another post, and immediately post the next entry above this so my face won't be at the top of my blog.

We'll see how long this stays up. Every other picture I've posted came down within three minutes. Heh.

Better...

Sorry for yesterday morning's rant, y'all. I do well most days... yesterday, obviously, was not a banner day. I'll be back to the general lunacy now, or what passes for it at least.

This particular post isn't of the funny variety though, so feel free to jump over it. Twice, perhaps. I'm feeling a bit introspective today, so that's what's feeding the blog at this moment.

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I'm currently sitting at work listening to a CD sent to me by some friends of mine from Second Life, MacKenzie Rasmuson and Case Munro of the glam rock group Friendly Fire. I'm an officer for Friendly Fire's group, along with Tycho Beresford and Isobela Cappalini as well as Dee Junkers, and I've got to say we have the most awesome group of fans and most incredible leaders in Mack and Case as I've ever seen (seriously, all you people ROCK!!!).

Friendly Fire streams live into Second Life, and the concerts are simply a blast. There's a lot of audience interaction and I have yet to be disappointed by one of their performances. The music style is (and correct me folks if I'm wrong) glam rock meets punk, with a decidedly political bent at times. There's a good drive to all the songs, and I always feel better after listening to them play.

--------------------------

Music has actually been a lifeline to me over the past year or so. At some of the more overwhelming times I'd need just some relief, any relief, from the thoughts that were running around in my brain, decisions that needed to be made, choices and the consequences thereof (and just who has to pay the price)... and music has been my escape. I can sit in my car with Nickelback's Rock Star blasting from the speakers, singing at the top of my lungs, and have absolutely nothing else on my mind beyond the sheer joy of the music and outrageous lunacy of the lyrics.

When I'm lost in music, whether listening or playing on my own, I'm in another world. And it's one I rather like.

I've been involved in music somehow since infancy. My grandmother was a concert pianist, and I started piano lessons at age five, followed by choir at age six, and violin lessons at age ten. I don't play the violin much anymore -- it's such a "use it or lose it" instrument, and sad to say I've pretty much lost it -- but I finally have a piano in my house again, and I haul out the sheet music every now and then, stumble through some pieces, curse my fumbling fingers, and get back to practicing. It's a slow process, retraining my fingers from typing to playing, but it's worth it. I can sit and play for hours and when I look up at the clock I'm invariably shocked at how much time has passed.

Don't ever ask me to play in public though. I have this teensy (okay, huge) bit of social anxiety and anyone standing near me when I'm practicing causes my fingers to fumble even more ferociously until the point where I'm so frustrated I want to scream. My music is for me alone... but I'm grateful to all those musicians out there who share their talents with the rest of us.

Hormone Rant

Okay boys, y'all might want to skip this entry. It deals with periods, and not the punctuation-type.
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Alrighty, any male-types who don't want to read this should have run away by now. Yes, I'm being sexist but frankly I don't give a shit about that today.

So... y'all remember back in April of last year when I was dealing with the Periods from Hell? Like the 22-day one? Yeah, that was some bliss, wasn't it?

Feh.

Well, since that time I've been back to normal. Until THIS month, that is. I'm on day 9 of the bleeding, and it's not showing any signs of stopping. AGAIN. The previous month was a 24 day cycle, which is within the realm of normal for me, and I just had to deal with the sanitary supplies for six days which is, again, normal. This month I was due on Christmas Eve, it didn't show up until the 29th, and it's Still. Here. Dammit.

*kicking random inanimate objects*

And to top it all off, I had the mother of all headaches yesterday which was stopped by nothing. I finally laid down in the late afternoon hoping maybe a little rest would help it out, fell asleep, missed a shift working in Second Life, and didn't wake up until around midnight. Urrrrghhhh!!!!!!

So today I'm tired, cranky, still bleeding, and the kitchen needs cleaning.

Okay... /bitchfest off. We now return you to your regularly scheduled insanity.

Another Note to the Women in this Office

My dearest co-workers,

I appreciate your concerns about my social life. Yes, since starting the divorce process my house has decreased its testosterone level by the count of two males, one human and one feline. However, please do not let this distress you overmuch.

News flash, girls: remember that old saying about how a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle? Well guess what... it's true! I'm not sitting in the corner sobbing, wailing, or gnashing my teeth over having a 3:2 male-to-female ratio in the house. In fact, I can live with it quite nicely.

That said, the profiles you ladies keep sending me from Match.com, like the one where the guy advertises that he has all his teeth as a freaking selling point? Pure comedy gold. Keep 'em coming.

Sincerely,
Amanda

P.S. Uhmmmm... Mom's friends? Please see above.

Kthnxbai.

(I swear to GOD people... yes, this is really happening. You can't make this shit up.)