Frog and Goat

Here’s where I get all cryptic. I just took a blog off my RSS feed that I’ve been reading for years. She’s just not that interesting anymore and I’m over hearing about the hate, the bullying or not bullying or whatever drama. I’m a nobody in the interwebs but that doesn’t mean I have to support drama queens and frankly I’m just tired of the “Look at me, I’m so awesome” bullshit. So, for all of you that I list in the sidebar and for the dozens of others I have in my feed thanks for being classy and low-key.

I’m working from home today. We’re having some work done to the house and it’s a three day job. Today is my day to be home to “supervise”-ha!

Most of the work is concentrated on the upstairs this morning so I’m sitting at the kitchen table. This is actually working out pretty well since I have a bit more room to spread out but it is chilly in the kitchen and my desk upstairs is now awash in sunlight. It would be cozier upstairs but a lot noisier.

Working from home has become a lot easier these days as our office voice mail is now available online. I just listened to two messages without having to go get the phone. Technology rocks. And, we’ve finally switched over to Lotus Notes at work. Our remote email service is now hooked into our official-at-our-desks email. What a concept. I’m not sure why we waited so long to use the same underlying email system, but even though it’s been a bit of a challenge to adapt, I appreciate the update when I work from home.

When the workmen got here this morning, the cat was out on the porch soaking up the early morning sun. As the better-half introduced me and we talked to the “inside” guy, the cat looked on in horror. The horror became nearly unbearable for him as the “outside” guy walked by the porch and spoke to him. I haven’t seen the cat since. I think, maybe, he disappeared into thin air from the freak-out.

In completely unrelated news (except they are tied in my head because I only need to come up with 2 more work outfits this week), we’re driving to Hilton Head on Friday for a Saturday wedding. I have no idea what I’m going to wear. We’re happy for the couple but not thrilled about attending the wedding–the travel expense, the time, it’s a second wedding for one of them and yet a big, damn deal is being made. The wedding is taking place on some minor island down there and we have to take a boat to the site. Which means we’re trapped until the boat comes back to haul us off the island. Then we’ll change clothes and get back in the car to drive home. It will be a long day, but we’re just not interested in spending an entire weekend in Hilton Head. Crazy? But no more crazy then making a second wedding akin to royalty being married.

I was cruising right along this morning until I saw a traffic accident notice on one of those highway signs. The sign indicated the accident was 3 miles ahead. It’s a tricky call when I see those signs because at the three mile mark or thereabouts the road splits and goes into the city or north or south. The sign never indicates which road the accident is on and so I have to weigh getting off really early to go through the ‘hood and then through downtown to get back on the northbound road or risking staying with the original plan. I decided to stick with the original plan and ended up sitting with less than a creep for movement for the next 20 minutes. We were stacked up like sardines. Only not as tasty.

Rescue personnel swarmed the area and somehow managed to get to the accident site. The traffic person came on at a news break to talk about the accident and said the dreaded words “possible entrapment”. At that point, I adjusted my air conditioning (what’s up with it being fall and humid as all hell?) and settled in for a long wait.

As I was creeping along, a nutjob in a blue Mercury Sable wagon started yelling at traffic. All 300-400 of us. All of us were stopped because there was an accident not because we decided to break out the tea set. When I say he started yelling, I mean he went off. He hung out of his car like a dog and bellowed. This guy wasn’t just frustrated by the traffic. He was unhinged. Then he started twitching his car this way and that with a bit of laying on of the horn for good measure. Because we should know it was crazy freakazoid and he had to get through.

He kept up the behavior and I got out my phone because I was going to call the state police on him…he was hostile and scary. This is not something I’ve ever considered doing–firing laser beams from my eyes at fellow drivers, yes, but calling the cops on a freak, no. If he had gotten out of his car, I was going to start dialing. The dude was smoking a cigarette and still was out of control. I thought those things were supposed to help you calm the fuck down.

By the time I got to the other end of the bridge and past the accident (no entrapment as it turns out) I had no idea where freakazoid had gone but he was away from me. I was nearly to work when a co-worker called me to warn me about the accident. I told her I was finally less than five minutes from the office and I’d come find her when I got there. Turns out she ended up seeing the crazy freakazoid and he was just as out of control even when he was out of the accident scene. She said he was seriously scary on the road and she considered calling the police but she didn’t know the non-emergency number.

It’s events like this morning where you have to believe in Karma. That dude is going to get his at some point.

Today we went with a friend to the 43rd Street Art Festival. We somehow all managed to not buy anything. We ate lunch at O’Toole’s and I had a delicious reuben, the better-half had a sailor and our friend had eggs benedict. We all like the Forest Hill area and wouldn’t mind living over there. I think if our friend were to suddenly come into loads of cash she might actually consider making the move across the river.

Afterwards, we stopped by a groovy grocery store so we could pick up things for the MIL and then we dropped our friend back off at her place. The house a few doors down from her is for sale so we tromped around on the porch and through the yard to look at it. Our friend had been friends with the owner so she felt perfectly comfortable showing us around. The owner has alzheimer’s and has moved away. I believe he was the original owner of the house back when the fan area of Richmond was just getting populated. The renovation looks good but could be a little better considering the price of the house. It will be interesting to see how long it takes to sell.

Don’t you think everyone should have one of these? Beer, pizza and tunes. Perfect.

I got home this afternoon and immediately left the better-half a voicemail. It went something like this:

On your way home, could you please look at the strip of grass next to our neighbor’s mailbox–the people who live behind us and I can never remember their names–they have a school bus flag on the mailbox. Anyway, those people. Please look at the strip of grass near the woods because I think there are some huge piles of poop there.

Updated: Looks like a horse unloaded out there. I’ll be swerving around that area the next time I cut grass.