This is the game Lucy and I have going on right now:
She knocks it off the tree. I put it back on the tree. She knocks it off the tree. I put it on the tree. Sometimes the game is played in minutes and other times it takes hours for one of us to notice the other’s move.
Don’t you hate it when you get on Facebook to ask a question that’s really mundane about nice, inexpensive gifts (we have to shop for the MIL and buy things for all the nurses that keep things moving at the nursing home and the MIL had no ideas) and you find that one of your friends has checked in that she’s sitting with her mother while her mom gets the first of six rounds of chemo? Yeah, I can’t ask that question today because damn.
We’re in the process of switching our landline to the voice service offered by our cable company. This is because the phone company (can you hear me now) can’t be bothered to maintain their phone lines out here. True story: the better-half was having problems with his business line and they sent a guy with a truck to check it out. Dude said, “yeah, the company doesn’t care about the old lines anymore” and then I’m pretty sure he hinted that the best bet was to switch to the cable provider. So the better-half did and hasn’t had problems. Me. Problems. Either the line is so crackly that I can’t hear or the person on the other end can’t hear OR we have no phone service OR the line providing service takes every other word and turns it into Farsi and that’s really freaking great when I’m getting messages from potential employers.
Anyway, the better-half was either on a chat or on hold for TWO hours on Friday night with the cable company. Then he tried again last night. We now have a trouble ticket with the cable company which I think is a nice way for the weekend people to push the problem into someone else’s in-box and who knows when in the Hell we’ll have moved over to the new service. Thank goodness the raggedy landline is still functioning today because I have a phone interview later. And, I will cut someone if that line drops out.
We went out and purchased our Christmas tree yesterday afternoon. It is sitting in a bucket of water in the shed. Normally we put the tree in the garage overnight so it can relax, but with Lucy running out to the garage every time we open the door, we decided there was no reason to tempt fate. She was OK with the tree last year so I hope she behaves again this season. At least our tree stand is heavy-duty and we can crank it down around the trunk so the tree won’t end up laying on the floor.
So, this is now on my geeky toy shelf. Wind it up and it walks:
It is also a pencil sharpener:
Now that it is December we are slowly making our way to holiday decorations and celebrating. We refuse to do anything in November other than prepare (order things from Amazon, stock up on cards, etc.) and this year with Thanksgiving being a bit earlier we were outraged-OUTRAGED, I TELL YOU!-at how many people started decorating at the beginning of November. Hold your freakin’ horses, man.
Anyway, we have lights in the windows facing the street, the blinking Rudolph light is up in the kitchen and we have a string of colored lights roaming around our breakfast area (basically the bumped out window). We’ve made our version of Chex Mix twice already–we only make that at the end of the year holidays. I also addressed all the cards yesterday and will be dumping them at the mail box later today. I can’t bring myself to burden our postal carrier. He’s a nice guy and so I’m giving him a break this year.
I started writing this post this morning but I got sidetracked by looking at old MadTV clips on YouTube. After about four of them, I totally forgot what I was going to post. The power of the funny.
This afternoon I talked to my mother on the phone and was reminded about this post. Yeah, I still don’t have a job. I know she means well but when she asks me about what I do with my time all day and what my prospects are it just kind of gets on my nerves. Even though I tell her that I’ve just been on an hour-long webinar about adult learning and social media, I know it comes out to her as, “blah, blah, blah”. And, so I change the subject. I also remind her that I will alert the media when the news changes.
Yes, some days it’s all about reading and doing all the small, stupid things that normally you’d take care of on the weekend. It is just not worth talking about. I went to the grocery store. I vacuumed the heck out of the house. I made granola bars from scratch. Whoopteedoo.
But, today, I’ve had two people reach out about job possibilities and then I sat in on the webinar and tweeted with people on the webinar. So? Interesting day in my book. Also, while I was out this morning picking up some seafood at the fish monger I saw a woman take her toddler into an “Adult Specialty Boutique” (just looked up their description online to get those exact words). That has got to be chalked up to interesting, yes? Yes.
So, you all know I like to cook. You all may also know that I really like Thanksgiving (food, family, no gifts). I am not a fan of turkey, but I do love a good side dish and will probably have a little bit of turkey (I don’t know, it’s always bland). What I am sick of, you knew this post was going to be about being sick of something, is all the damn yammering about how to cook Thanksgiving dinner. Really? Let’s see a show of hands, it is always this: Turkey, green beans of some sort, potatoes, gravy and stuffing. Rolls and maybe some fruit. Then there’s pie. That’s it. EVERY SINGLE YEAR. Let’s all move on to something else, shall we?
Yesterday we went to a funeral. The man who died was the father of a friend of ours. I didn’t know him very well, but the better-half did and certainly by all accounts he was a great guy. I was afraid we were going to have to stand during the service because there were that many people filling the chapel.
During the service, the priest told some funny stories that had the group laughing. All in all it was a very nice service and I noticed there wasn’t a lot of sniffling or tears. Are Episcopalians just more stoic? Or, did everyone acknowledge that he lived a long, good life and went very quickly (everyone’s wish)?
The deceased man’s first name is the same as my father’s so there were some parts of the service that struck me in the “holy crap how is that going to work” way. As in, when my father dies how on earth are we going to have a ceremony? Because he’s not religious and he’s not exactly the kind of man that has lots of friends who would like to say something nice about him. I joked with the better-half that perhaps we should have an open-mic and just let people say, “well, he certainly was an asshole, bless his heart”.
I don’t know. I think about my own funeral sometimes and this is what would make me the happiest…a cocktail party. Cremate me and then throw a cocktail party. Play some music, drink your favorite beverage and eat some heavy hors d’oeuvres. People can say, “well, she certainly was an asshole” if the want or they can just enjoy the party.
We got this album the other day…yeah, we still buy CDs.
Love this song:
If after you get this:
The calls and mailings disappear to the point if Anne Romney is dialing my number her call just gets cut off automagically?
Over the past week, I’ve seen some things on the internet, Facebook and Twitter about how selfish the rest of the population of the US is if they say anything remotely nice about the weather or their lives. Because how can anyone say something nice when there’s so much suffering in the NY/NJ area? Someone I know retracted her statement about the amazing weather they are having in FL because, apparently, someone in the Northeast said it wasn’t kind to talk about 80 degrees and sunny when it is cold and dark there.
I have absolute sympathy and empathy for everyone who is without power for more than a few hours. I also feel horrible for and can’t even imagine what it’s like for the town of Breezy Point. They lost so much. It’s really hard to understand the magnitude of practically the whole town being gone. The pictures are startling. It’s like looking at some of the towns in Tornado Alley–everything is gone.
With that said, how can anyone assume that the entire country stops whatever it is we’re doing or ENJOYING because some folks in a couple of states are without power? Dude, move to a hurricane area. We lose power a lot. We have a serious problem with ice in the winter. Oh and if the weather isn’t enough of a problem, we lose power for no freaking reason–because some dipshit drove around a corner too fast and hit a tree/pole, or a snake went into a relay station or whateverthefuck.
Yes, we can start up a generator but when you are without power, and in our case no power equals no water, it freaking sucks. I suppose for people with whole house generators that run off propane/natural gas then it really is like nothing bad happened. But for those of us who have to feed the gas generator and plan which thing can draw current, it sucks. I get it. It’s awful but that doesn’t mean that I hate on other people because they aren’t worrying about basic necessities.
