Wednesday, July 30, 2008

See, but this time I have an actual REASON

Hey, I'm going on vacation! Woo Hoo! A vacation to Palm Springs in August, which is one of those classically bad ideas like tonguing a car battery or 2 terms of George W. Bush as president, but a vacation none the less! But since I'm all low-tech and poor and have no lap-toppy-ness I've got no guaranteed way of posting while I'm gone. I will TRY, TRY, TRY, but if I'm super quiet for the next week just remember that I'll also be super sweaty.

and not in the good way.

See you in a week!

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Hard Ass with not so much flirting

OK, so is it bad if you there’s a guy who flirts with you, and the very next day you rip him a new one? That’s bad, right? That discourages flirting, right? NOT sending the right message.

Yeah, that’s what I thought…

See, the other day I was chatting with this freelance mover guy who is working with my company. We were just chatting, chatting, super-casual chatting, and then ooh! Hey, what was that there? Was that there a little flirting? A little sneaky, subtle flirting? I think it was!

He’s all “here’s my email address and stuff so you can send me work info and stuff.” And I’m all “cool. Thanks. ‘sup.” And he’s all “wow, you know about the stock market too? Cool! We’re totally connected!” and I’m all “tee hee, the stock market is cool, I’m totally into that.” And he’s all “my ex-wife used to spend all my money which sucked and I was totally in debt and that sucked too…” and I’m all “…”

Did I mention that this guy is older? Like probably 10-15 years older? But not creepy older! More like that salt-and-pepper sexy thing! Silver foxish, see? So, ya know, there’s an ex-wife and uber-awkward flirting right then. Sigh.

Anyway, overall it was excellent flirting action. I knew that you guys would be so proud of me! I thought to myself, as I was batting eyelashes and showing leg (sock, really, but you know what I’m going for) “oh my internet friends will be ever so pleased that I’m here flirting with this guy. Yay for me!”

Until he went and RUINED it!

See, the next day this guy is supposed to give me this THING and he doesn’t, and doesn’t, and then doesn’t some more. And then he DOES and it’s missing all this information! So I did what I had to do: I bust him on it! I say to Mr. Flirty McDivorcee “you yourself said you’d get me this info, dude!” To which flirty boy says “I lied.”

I LIED??? Oh, it is ON, my friend!!! Flirting or no flirting, right now I’m mostly looking forward to seeing you CRY!!!

Yeah, I verbally provided him with a new and fabulous crap exit route, so to be speaking. Because it is SO NOT OK to tell me one thing, do another, lesser, crappy thing and then reply with “I LIED” Someone had to die, I’m sure you would agree. Hot and Cold running My Foot Up His Ass, that’s what there was!

Of course most dating “how-to” books are probably going to tell me how this is not the way to have future flirting opportunities. Sigh. Such is the difficult love life of we, the hard asses. The lonely, kick-butt hard asses.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

CLEAR!!! STAT!!!

Prologue: a couple of months ago my boy kitty acquired a hummingbird in a less-than-good-for-hummingbirds way. I freed it, put it in a box with water and waited the night. The next day I had a box of dead hummingbird. And atrocious, heart-crushing guilt. (and a boy kitty with bells hanging off his collar.)

Cut to Saturday: I’m sitting with kitties out in my yard, soaking up the sun and reading my guilty-pleasure graphic novel and just enjoying the lack of work I’m at. And no where near the big, shiny glass windows of my house, so neither I nor my kitties can be blamed for the hummingbird that cracked his head into the window and landed – thunk! – on the walk in front of the house.

At first both kitties and I just sat there watching the wee thing plop onto the ground and kind of roll around sloppy-like. We were all “blink, blink, blink… is that a bird?” And then it was ON! A MAD DASH between me and kitties racing for the hummer, with me crying out “NoNoNoNoNoNoNONONONONO KITTIES NOOOOO!!!” all the wailing was enough for girl kitty, who basically said “screw this” and detoured to the driveway. The boy kitty beat me to the bird, but as he’s still new to hunting and hasn’t had me take away that many conquests yet he didn’t know enough to grab it and run. So I got to them before he’d done much more than circle it all curious-like.

I sat down by the hummingbird, who was quite clearly stunned but otherwise look unscathed. EXCEPT that her wings were… wrong. They didn’t look broken per se, but they weren’t sleeked up along her body. They looked like they’d stuck in the “flap on” position when she smacked the window, only they weren’t flapping. They were more at the flap ready? Anyway, she was blinky and woosy and for a while she kept kind of lolling over to the side in a SUPER-DISCONCERTING way! Like she was swooning or maybe even about to plop over all a-faint! She never plopped, but it still freaked me out.

My whole job was basically to keep kitty boy on the other side of my graphic novel, which was now playing the part of “movable wall” between he and birdy. Birdy just sat there, looking so unlike a hummingbird. Kind of squat. And STILL. I sincerely hope to never see a hummingbird look that still again – creepy. But she neither flopped over succumby nor did she recover. She just coasted. For the LONGEST time.

And I’m sitting here thinking “last time this was a sad story. Plus also why do these things always do this as the sun is setting? They can’t hang out in my house overnight and I can’t let them go at night! Note to the rest of the hummers in the neighborhood: please do any future injuries or maladies in the morning or afternoon! No more evening traumas please!”

Finally hummer started to look like things were righting themselves. Less blinking and faster breathing (which for any other species would seem bad, but not for hummers) and I just really wanted her to put her wings away. Because they still looked SO WRONG. So here is me, gently coaxing her wings with the tippy-tip of my pinky finger (because I had apparently decided that was the safest way to move around things built of bones the size of dental floss), just sweet-talking them into laying more flat and wing-like.

And after about 10 minutes of sitting and 20 seconds of wing coaxing (which had resulted in a net wing movement of pretty much hardly nothing) Ms. Hummingbird looked me right in the eye and evaporated! POOF! Reappearing on the branch of my front tree. MIRACLE CURE! And HAPPY ENDING!* YAY!

*Note: Boy Kitty would like to dispute the “happy ending” ruling on this story, and is petitioning to have the final paragraph changed to read “tragic, heartbreaking and so completely unfair ending. Dammit.” Ruling is pending.

Friday, July 18, 2008

where Wii Fit pulls down my pants and makes me cry.

I’m still a big fan of the Wii. In fact, of all the games things I’ve ever messed with, that’s the only one I’m sort of giddy and dreamy over. And people all around me have them, which means I hate people all around me. (sigh) The newest cool Wii thing is the Wii Fit. It’s a game! No, it’s an exercise device! WAIT, you’re both right! And it’s also the first sign of the apocolypse. (up next: Carrot Top for Senate.)

Right, so someone I know (and this time we’re protecting their innocence by using NO NAMES) just got a Wii fit, inviting me to check it out. If someone gives you this opportunity it will SEEM like a good idea. But it is really a trap and you should run away. And your friends who invited you are really just wanting to spread the abuse! And they don’t actually love you! (or they’re very skinny and don’t realize what they’re offering.)

Wii Fit is two things: extremely cool, and MEAN!! And you have to claw through the MEAN to get to the extremely cool. You set up one of those “mii” things, right? You’ll notice that those things aren’t particularly detailed; they’re innocent and simple. They don’t expect you to include your droopy eye or your slight limp or your secret incontenence – just hair color and eye color and maybe height or a kicky little hairdo! But when you take your innocent, helpless mii and run it through the registration of the Wii Fit bad things could happen. I’m just sayin’.

Here’s one thing I do like about the Wii Fit: though I’m sure the fancy pad thing that you stand on has the ability to determine your weight, it doesn’t tell you what it is. It does not bill itself as “most expensive scale ever” But it does ask you for your height and your age. And then the first bit of evil: it takes that precious little mii, all innocent and simple and not hurting anyone, and it throws it up next to a range of, oh lets call them body types. Ranging from something like “skinny” to “normal” to “overweight” to “obese” (yes, it uses the “O” word.) The arrow zooms up and down this range and then it lands somewhere. For instance, if you are ME, it lands on OBESE. According to that rat bastard the Wii Fit, I’m OBESE! And then, just to show you who’s boss the damn thing takes your mii and MAKES IT FAT! Like “First I call you names, fatty-fatty-fat-fat, and then I make your Mii my bitch! Next I’m going to have your Mii eat a bunch of Twinkies and drink an entire Big Gulp! You are FAAAAAAT!”

And does it stop there? Oh no! The festival of abuse is only half-through! (I’m telling you this so that you can weigh your options before you step on the magical pad. Sure, virtual hoola hoops SOUNDS fun, but is it worth the mind games and manipulation? IS IT???) Next the Wii Fit makes you do this balance test where you sway and lean and bend over and I KNOW that there are scores of robot cameras flying around the country filming people doing this in their living rooms for some robo-gag reel that our robot overlords will watch at the Christmas party after they take over the world! Once the balance thing is done if you didn’t balance just right it MOCKS YOU! “Do you find you trip when you walk?” DO YOU FIND MY FOOT UP YOUR WII ASS???

After all of this there’s still one more super-awesome part: your Wii Fit Age. In other words, “now that I’ve told you that you’re both fat and also clumsy, I’m gonna top it off by calling you old before your time. Also I’ll ask if you wore that shirt in public and make you spell endocrine.”

Get this: my friends are both in better shape than I am in real life, and neither of them were honored with the “obese” title, and yet their Wii Fit ages were OLDER than they were, while mine was YOUNGER. And the only thing with which I had more success was the balance test. The message I took from this was “young people have good balance.” Which I KNOW is not true, because the youngest person I know is Princess Long Toes and she is SUPER easy to knock over! Heck, just give her a tiny nudge and she’ll fall right on her ass! She can’t even WALK! So I fear I must call shenanigans on the Wii Fit for that.

Where was I? Oh yeah, fat but with fabulous balance. (by the way, a quality I’m sure most men are really looking for. I’ve already added it to my profile on the free man-attracting website: “not slim, but exceptional balance. Will consider yoga positions during sex!”)

After ALL of this you get to do the Wii Fit stuff, and this is the worst part of all: it’s super-cool! Seriously! There are BUNCHES of things and they’re challenging and fun and yet they really do seem like they’re fit-inducing! Not just aerobic stuff (which we all knew was coming once we worked up a major sweat boxing virtual-dude with the Wii Sports) but also balance stuff (let us all bow our head for a moment of silence for my friend who plummeted to her death off of the tight rope. Like 6 times…) and yoga stuff and strength stuff… Like I think this could make sit-ups actually fun. And I HATE sit-ups!

In the end, even though I felt like I was being hazed for the first 20 minutes, the Wii Fit is still something that I covet and envy and super-want. Now if you will excuse me, I’m going to go walk around the house with a book on my head to give me a feeling of superiority. Obese, well-balanced superiority.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Anxiously awaiting my super powers

OK, so on Saturday I was overwhelmed by gardner guilt (the strong feeling that by simply putting seeds to dirt you sentenced some perfectly innocent flowers to a slow and terrible death) and went out in the God Awful Heat! (or GAH! As it shall be known henceforth) to dead-head my nasturtiums. This is my first act of tender gardening love to my flower bed since the flowers bloomed forth, and as such there were something like 11 flowers left and the rest of the greenery gave the impression that Nasturtiums are fruit-bearing plants, so plentiful (plantiful?) were the seeds on every single stalk. I drooped my head as I set to work, to best show my chagrin.

I’d grabbed my super-awesome gardening gloves (they’re so cool, and they’re probably the only reason that I keep trying to garden is to give me excuses to wear them) from the shelf in the shed and shoved my hands into the leafy but sadly flowerless expanse. And after a few seconds something poked me! Poked me at the base of my pinky and friend-to-pinky fingers, kind of between them. I assumed I had something pokey in my glove and lifted my hand out of the greens to check inside. Then I got pretty distracted by the spider that was hanging off of my glove. Distracted in that classic “Woah! Spider! On the hand! gittoffgittoffgittoffgittoffGITT OFF! (shake, shake, shake)” way which takes all of about .2 seconds.

I turned the glove inside and there was just nothing in there that could have poked me. Also, the spot where I was poked was already looking red and maybe a teeny bit puffy. And my Mom says “bee sting”, which would be very plausible except for the complete and total lack of bees in the area. (remember, the whole area was pretty much all seeds and no flowers, so nothing much to attract the buzzy ones.) And I just keep thinking about that spider. It was on my hand at some point, and maybe even inside the glove? Except how would I possibly have not felt it wiggling out around my fingers… But I still really think I was munched on by that spider.

Since Charlotte ran off the hand has done many fascinating things. I put the gloves back on (because the way of me is to go “Oh heck, I’m sure it will be fine…” and then ignore it for 2 hours) and when they came off hours later I couldn’t touch the two fingers together from all the puffiness. Also there was much stinging. And you’d think “hey, put some ice on it!” but you’d be wrong, unless you were thinking that the amazing pain from the application of ice might be somehow theraputic. Which it wasn’t. So you were still wrong.

Then the next day it was less generally puffy, but now there’s this big lump. And the pain has mostly gone away, but there is NON STOP itching. Not like a mosquito bite, but more like after bad, muscular, inside harm. The kind of itching where the second that you scratch it the spot stings and stings. (not that I’ve been scratching. I wouldn’t do that, because I know that’s bad. I’m just theorizing about the stinging that hypothetical scratching might hypothetically cause.)

OK, so I’m scratching! I can’t help it! And I figure that with each scratch one of two things are happening: either I’m pushing the special, magic, super-human, radioactive spider juices more and more into my blood stream, thereby speeding me toward my future career as a super-powered crime-fighter, righting wrongs and keeping the streets of Hippyville SAFE for my fellow geeks and youngbloods!

OR

I’m speeding the internal decay and destruction of my hand, fed by evil, vicious spider poisons that will rot my flesh and leave me deciding between “Lefty” or “The One-Armed Man” for a new nickname. It’s exciting times we live in, my people!

Friday, July 11, 2008

Amazon, eat my shipping!

OK, I’m very online-oriented. I love the web, and all things webby, and this is so very true of me as to be mentioned in business meetings! Here at work! In admiring tones! I answer questions and register for things and chat and research things all using my very, very good friend the Internets.

But I don’t so much buy things online.

This is NOT because I’m afraid someone will steal my credit card info or my identity or anything else, because I’m way too sure that nobody cares about me enough to take the time. (remember, I’m the super-genius that used the exact same username and password for practically every website I accessed for something like a decade. Security is apparently for the shiny and rich people, not me!) The main three reasons that I don’t buy things so much online are these:

1. Shipping
2. Stupid, stupid shipping
3. You want HOW MUCH for the shipping?

For this reason I’ve often been a big fan of Amazon.com, the online super-shopping-center-of-everythingness. Because you could get so many things there, and combine the shipping or sometimes not even pay shipping because you got SO MUCH STUFF! This for me was the perfect solution for buying things online.

Well not anymore! Now there are SO many other companies who ply their wares through Amazon, but send from their own wee warehouse somewhere in east Asswipe Nowhere, and so you can find the 6 things that you want to get, but because they’re all coming from different companies/places/zipcodes the shipping will be 50% of the cost! Thereby eliminating the entire benefit of the online purchase, which IS: lower cost!

Yesterday I spent over an hour trying to consolidate the various things I was purchasing so that the shipping wouldn’t exceed the total cost of the items. “Gosh, if I get all of these kinds of things from one place then it would be better, except that this place has absurd shipping costs (we charge you two bucks per shipment, and also six bucks per item, even if the item only costs three bucks and if it actually weighs 2 oz. and could be mailed to you on the head of a danged pin!, so if you buy something for $3 your total will be $11, but if you buy two things for $3 your total will be $20, and if you buy three things for $3 there will also be the “rule of threes” shipping charge, which fluctuates depending on the phases of the moon, so your total will be somewhere between $35 and two cars plus a baby monkey…) so maybe I’ll try to buy them all from this other place, except that this other place only carries two of these three things, and then this place carries all three but for super-high prices. Or maybe I’ll just give my aunt socks and be done with it!”
Dear my beloved aunt: I was going to get you excellent camera things that
will be fun and cool for you, and which you would have used a bunch. But
because nobody could sell me these cool things without making me scream from the
stupid-high shipping and also because I freaked out at Amazon and they e-asked
me to e-leave and never e-turn, instead you are getting these super-useful tube
socks, size 16. Enjoy.

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

An open letter to the house on poo corner

Dear Mr. Organic Farmer Dude full to overflowing of pious, superior mojo:

I understand that you are for all things noble and good and non-chemical and non-corporate and non-republican. And that’s awesome. I have read your freaky anti-Bush, anti-red state, anti-capitalist signs with your unique spelling choices. Many of them I would probably agree with if they didn’t have this vague Uni-Bomber-esque thing going for them. But overall I get the mojo that you’re rockin’ – you’re counter culture. You’re alternative. You’re edgy. With all of this I am very cool.

However each day I peddle by your house, and your edgy, alternative, wild-and-crazy garden patches, and I’m about knocked off of my bike seat by the hardcore smell that floats from your place. The hardcore smell of poo. Dude, your place smells like poo. And that ain’t cool.

I didn’t really notice it until a few weeks ago. When it’s cold and wintery there’s not much gardening, and the smells mostly keep to themselves. But it’s been up in the 80’s and 90’s around here in the last few weeks, and nothing says “dry heaves dragging you off you squishy bicycle seat” like poo wafting on the 95 degree breeze! Not cool, dude! Not cool!

I’m no gardener, but surely there must be some other way to be Farmer Brown and not be The Man? Something that would keep folks from checking the bottoms of their shoes as they walk past your corner? (I’ve seen them do it. And yes, I’ve laughed. But that’s not the point.) Something all natural and earthy and homeo, as well as pathic, but not crappic?

If not, could I ask you to at least make a new sign to warn people of the air pollution issues around your home, so that they can choose to cross the street or hold their breath or something? Maybe something in a limerick or knock-knock joke? Or in iambic pentameter? What rhymes with “smells like ass?” I’m just sayin…

Monday, July 07, 2008

Fabulosity!

Time to change the Desktop here at work! Below is the face that will be staring out (sorta) at me from my desktop for the rest of July. Few dogs can accessorize this confidently, or with this much flare, no?
(courtesy of Dooce.com)

Sunday, July 06, 2008

No Expectation of Privacy

Best cell phone conversation overheard at a Hippy-Dippy Art Festival EVER:

"What? Why?! I could totally steal it! I could steal the sh*t out of any car!!"
[listening...]
"So what do you want me to do, kill someone? Because that's what it's coming down to!"
[listening...]
"Of COURSE I'm a good person, Dad! Do you think I don't think I'm a totally good person?!?! God!!"
(and I thought there were no good men left out there.)

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Scooching towards healthiosity

OK, so don’t freak out, but this morning after my shower I moisturized. With actual moisturizer. On my actual skin-parts. Voluntarily. Oh, and not only was the moisturizer full of healthy-moist-goodness, but it also had sun tan lotion in it. Right IN it! They can apparently do that now! First a man on the moon, now tan lotion in moist stuff. AMAZING!

As shocking as this is, especially to those of you who know me, it’s just the healthy tip of a new and bizarre Healthy Iceburg. For instance, ever since The Queen showed me the ins and outs of home pedicurity I’ve been using the magical foot butter (which, by the way, is not just normal butter applied to your foot. Learn from my mistakes.) every couple of weeks. For the first time since I went from sticking the feet in my mouth to walking on them they no longer feel like alligator-skin bags full of foot bones! And I painted my very own toes myself with my own hands myself all by myself myself! (that may not be healthy, but it’s girly, and that’s just as bizarre.)

Also, I’ve been making dinners lately. And by “making dinners” I normally mean “one box Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, one package hot dogs, mix and enjoy”. Only now I’ve meant things like “one grilled sirloin steak, roasted green beans, spaghetti noodles w/ melted butter and herbs”. Notice the lack of mystery meat or processed cheese food? Not to mention that I made a meal of three different things and they were all done at very close to the same time and edible or even tasty and covered a cross section foods, should you arrange the foods in some kind of geometrical shape like a pyramid. Or a rhombus. The food rhombus.

What else? Oh yeah, I’m trying to stop sleeping on the couch all night long. And also to stop sleeping with the TV on all night long. Now the sleeping on the couch thing is tough, because I love to sleep on the couch. No idea why, exactly, but it tends to feel like more indulgent sleep. Like I’m getting away with something – ooh, aah, sleeping where you should only be lying around! Scandal!

On the other hand, the sleeping with my good friend Mr. Television has been a purposeful thing for years. I know the smartipants sleep experts (or Slexperts, as I like to call them) say “Mercy me and good googly-moogly, you should NEVER sleep with the TV on! Bad, bad sleeping! Badness!!” However those smartipants never had the insanely vivid dreams I started having. So vivid, in fact, that I would wake up more tired than when I went to sleep. I finally started sleeping with the TV on to provide my over-active brain with just enough distraction as to let the rest of the brain take the night off. And it worked! But all of that started a decade ago; these days I wake most mornings with tremendous bags under my eyes, no matter the number of hours of sleep. So it’s time to try some new things and see if it helps. Healthy, no?

Disclaimer: I reserve the right to go back to sleeping with a full bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand and a hoagie in the other, with the TV, stereo and CB Radio all on, as well as dancing naked in sunny sand storms of radioactive evil at any time. You are not the boss of me.