Friday. yay.

Oh, heavens.

I’ve already fought with both urchins this morning, discovered, to my horror, that by changing my settings on Facebook to “Friends of Friends” that The Mom is now able to see and comment on my posts, and now the urchins are sliding down the enormous pile of snow at the end of the driveway with the kitten.

God bless Fridays.

I’ve also made beignets and worried about the repercussions over changing my FB privacy settings Back to “Friends Only”.

I don’t know why I’m so concerned at this point about The Mom seeing me on FB, but there is still Something there about me not wanting her to see Everything, hence the reason that she’s been in my pending friend file for the past three (two?) years.  Yup.  I’m not about to actually ignore her, but I’m not going to friend her, either.

I really need to get into therapy.  Another thing that I’ve been continually talking about but can’t seem to get around to doing.

That list is pretty long.

Ahem.

*****

Went to the urchins’ conferences yesterday.

At least when it comes to Chinese, they are testing off the scales and the suggestions show “Consider need for individualized instruction”.  Which I find means that there should be some additional outside of classroom instruction, with the exception that they don’t have such an opportunity in the Chinese program.  Lovely.  Mr. Boo is still considered a terror who is a total control freak to his friends, refuses to do stuff if he doesn’t feel like it, talks to  much when stuff is easy, but gets frustrated and won’t do his work when it is challenging for him.  Bleh.  They did, however, give him some national math website for math, so I guess he really is excelling.  I wish I was more motivated to really work with the urchins and get them to excell is Everything.  I am not a great teacher and really never learned how to learn and therefore, I’m not a great teacher for them.  Maybe I need to get my act together and start researching ways to motivate both of us.  Bleh.

Between that and the general fighting-which-includes-screaming…How do you normal parents Do this??  I try and try to keep my cool and keep my voice down, knowing intrinsically that screaming only escalates things.  But when you have said something five times and it just continues down the path of chaos, it inevitably turns into them screaming and me screaming and it then becoming me being Thee Worst Mom and me wondering why I can’t keep things under control. 

I’m sure that, like 99% of everything else in my life, I make it Much harder than it actually is.  But honestly.  There are so many people that can manage to do this like riding a bike and their children are delightful.  (Yes, of course, I spend much time reminding myself how many of the urchins’ friends I would like to slap, so I’ll just assume we’re running right down the middle of the good/bad child spectrum.  But still.)  I just wish I could get it figured out as to what will actually Work in getting my point across to the urchins.  I’m going to also hope that, even though they often act like little adults, they are still children and reasoning with them generally doesn’t work. 

Yet.

Holding onto the Yet.

*****

Ok.

It’s almost 10:00 and my kitchen is now as much of a disaster as the rest of the house, given the breakfast beignet experiment, coupled with the, “I’m starving and need lunch/I need hot chocolate, but the kind made with milk on the stove” explosion.

So not only do I have to deal with urchins, but exponential cleaning, the acquiring of birthday presents and delivery of Mr. Boo to Plymouth during rush hour (5:45 party, thankyouverymuch, planning fairy) and the subsequent delivery of the Bits to soccer at 6:30 and the overlapping pickup of each.

Hooray, Friday.

ak

The one that is truly too boring to bother reading

In an ongoing effort to avoid working out (which I haven’t actually done for almost two weeks now???), I shall come up with the normal drivel that has come to be expected when speaking of the mundanities (is that a word?) of the current existence.

I have become one of Those moms,  spending a major amount of time at the urchins’ school the past couple of weeks.  Helping out the Bits’ soccer coach who also has a daughter in the Bits’ class and who was saddled with an entire event because she made the mistake of volunteering to help.  I can see myself ending up doing the same thing, which is why I tend to volunteer for the fairly harmless class parties and reading activities as opposed to the major fundraising events.

However, I have learned quite a bit about various aspects of volunteering and the parents involved as, no surprise, there tends to be quite a bit of overlap and therefore, quite a bit of gossip, that goes along with hanging around over a period of time.  I’m happy to report that, at least within this small subset, the gossip was fairly innocuous and involved more just the politics of these events and the folks who run them, as opposed to personal stuff that, while juicy, I am trying to distance myself from.

There’s a mom who signs up for a lot of stuff and tends to show up late and I have my own preconceived notions about her, but I have come to realize that she’s just kind of ditsy as opposed to evil.  So, no matter how I may feel about someone from minor interactions, I have learned (yet again) to continue to give people chances.  Because I’ve tri ed hard not to like her very much, but there just isn’t that much to Dislike.  It may have taken twenty-five years, but maybe I’m finally outgrowing that ridiculous junior high mentality.  Mostly. 

So in helping set up this book fair thingy, I’ve logged in probably fifteen or so hours and am now sitting back and letting others sign up to work the actual book fair.  I feel somewhat guilty, as I certainly have the time to spare, but there is something in me that thinks that as many different parents as possible should offer up a bit of time.  (However, shame on you, person who signed up for the 2-5 shift and in the comments wrote that they would work from 1:30-2:30.  What good is That???)  I understand it’s difficult for working folks because most of these shifts end up being four hours long and there aren’t many folks that can take that much time off of work.  And I also notice that many of the same parents end up being the ones to volunteer for things across the board.

However, I figure I’ll keep watching the sign-up board and will fill in those remaining spots that no one signs up for.  I think that still  allows me to do my duty while allowing others to step up, too.

/shrug.

*****

I do love the snowstorms.

I was a bit taken aback by this one, as I spent so much time at school and not surfing the web job hunting, that I had no clue that there was going to even Be a snowstorm.  And there didn’t seem to be the apocalyptic warning that came with the December snowstorm.  Which ended up dumping the same amount of snow (15+” for you to ooh and ah over) but this time it seemed such an unevent.

I made the mistake of bringing up to the Bits that maybe we could go on President’s Day and get her ears pierced (as something to do).  And then, upon hearing of the impending apocalypse, I thought maybe we should go on Sunday so we could hunker down on Monday.  And then it started snowing and I thought maybe that wasn’t such a good idea, as the mall didn’t open until noon.   And so maybe we should go ahead and go with the original plan, which was to wait until her birthday.

Do not change plans on a Bits.

I think she had finally worked up her courage, and there was not a chance in hell that she was going to change her mind.

So, believing that the mall didn’t open until noon (I’m pretty sure that it opened at 11:00, as Macy’s did and I grumbled that we didn’t go earlier), we sat around and watched the snow pile up and then climbed into the car castle and proceeded over the river and through the woods on the backroads to the mall.  The roads were actually fine and the mall was fairly empty, so we walked right in to begin the arduous task of trying to pick earrings.  And, because I’m a sucker, I went ahead and plopped down the extra money for the 14K posts, even though I muttered the whole time about how stupid it was, seeing as how I used to be in jewelry, muttermuttermutter.

The Bits is Not a good one for needles or pain, so we tried to go as quickly as possible.  She yelled after the first one and luckily, the woman powered through the second one (I’m shocked it isn’t kitty-wampus, given the flinching by the Bits) which then caused free-flowing tears.  Poor Bitsy.  They have a little stuffed bear for the recipient to hold and even that wasn’t enough to quell those tears.  So we laughed at the story about the big boys who cry and scream like babies when they get their ears pierced and I pushed Mr. Boo out of the store when he continued to tell her not to be such a baby.  (Damn Mr. Boo.)  But with a quick diversion to go pick out earrings, things were suddenly fine and with soccer balls, panda bears and a three pack of ice cream cones, doughnuts and cupcakes (good Lord, do they KNOW the Bits??!??!?), mom’s checking account depleted, and the ear care kit in hand, we went happily on our way.

To Sears to get a replacement filter for the refrigerator (which was supposed to be replaced, oh, a year and a half ago) and then to Macy’s to take part in the spending of more money that I really don’t have, under the guise of them basically giving merchandise away.  Since we didn’t head down to see The Mom, which is where we tend to do the most damage at Macy’s, I ended up finally opening a Macy’s account in order to let them give me even more opportunity to add to the trade deficit.  Seriously.  50%-65% off, plus 15%, Plus an additional 20% off with this credit card.  (Don’t worry.  I hate, hate, HATE credit and pay them off immediately.  Unless there’s free financing (hello, new laptop), if I can’t afford to buy it right then, it doesn’t get purchased.

Anyway. 

Ends up that in the process of leaving the Ba in charge of Mr. Boo whilst I handled the Bits, he ended up leaving the refrigerator filter in the boys department, which I didn’t realize until (of course) after we got home.

Which allowed me to decide that we would go Back to the mall yesterday (under the guise of retrieving the filter and having to return it for the Right filter, which I luckily(?) found out after I actually checked it once we got home) after waking up and finding that apparently apocalyptic snowstorms that happen on Sundays actually get attention by the plows, unlike apocalyptic snowstorms that happen on Saturdays.  I have no idea how that works, but we awoke to the alley and streets being perfectly plowed at 7am on Monday and the roads to the mall were basically no different than most days that it snows.  Weird.

So, I returned to Best Buy to have them actually put the information on my hard drive onto my external hard drive (um, actually I’d better check to make Sure that this happened this time!) that they didn’t manage to do last time.  (And, do I need to be concerned that he checked and it somehow wasn’t transferred, but it seems like it’s on their system somewhere and they didn’t need to have my hard drive to transfer it?  Or is it possible that they were able to move it over and then transfer it without the hard drive?  I’m just suddenly concerned that they somehow have all of my information sitting Somewhere there, available Somehow.  Hmm.)  And then back to the mall, where I tried to quickly go through the whole store and find some things for Me, while dealing with urchins.  Difficult, given the overall size and ridiculous layout of sale merchandise, but I did manage to bump into my very first out-of-college boss from my Dayton’s days who is now working at this Macy’s part-time when she’s not traveling the world.  Funny.  She looks ridiculously wonderful, especially seeing as how she told us that she’s pushing 80!  (Mr. Boo got total bonus points when he told her she only looks 60.  heh.  There’s my Boo. )  So I managed to grab just a couple of things before grabbing a couple more things for the Bits (which would have been more, could I figure out what prices Really were on things) and suddenly it’s 3:00 and I haven’t fed the urchins and everyone is insanely cranky and I spend the rest of the day/night anticipating the return of an empty house.

Which leads us back to Now, and I’m now having a slice of cold pizza (because everyone needs energy before they get on a treadmill) and will then tackle the treadmill before tackling the disaster of a house from insane cats who have emptied a bag full of shredded paper throughout the entire house and possibly two urchins’ rooms, if I end up feeling that motivated.

I wish I didn’t feel that I have to find a job, because if I could truly embrace this unemployment thing, I think I could do some serious damage.

ak

How’s it this week already?

For as much time as I spend on the internet each day, it’s amazing to me how very little I actually travel around.

It’s basically email, Facebook, and TWoP.  I totally miss out on friends who impart important tidbits like them being a full year cancer-free and the fact that they are Not moving to New York City. (/eyeroll. Some on-line friend I am. Sheesh.) Time gets all freaky weird as you get older. And if you happen to be unemployed, (and working hard on nothing), you Really lose sight of time.

Like the fact that Valentine’s Day is Monday and I thought that the subsequent school party that I volunteered for was on Monday, but Mr. Boo has informed me that it’s actually Friday.  And I’ve offered to help with the last second arrival of Chinese books for the book fair and Chinese New Year’s celebration on Thursday.  Actually, the helping is Thursday.  The CNY celebration is Friday.  This is why I don’t volunteer for more stuff.  I get all freaked out that I’m going to forget about stuff or double-book or possibly get a conflicting interview?  (Yeah.  Not that last one.)

I’m also trying to get the urchins on board to go visit the Mom the weekend of the 18th.  Even promised to take them out of school (I’m trying to come to terms with what they’re actually learning, but more on that in a second.) on Friday so that we’ll have two full days there to combat the two full days of driving.  Mr. Boo is not having any of it.  It’s just too darned long for three days (luckily, he hasn’t actually looked to realize it’s only two days we’ll actually have there and I’m not about to bring that up.)  The Mom gets back from the latest travel adventure today and I haven’t brought it up to her, either.  It’s hard enough having one whiny child.  I can’t handle two effectively.  So we’ll see where this progresses.

*****

Back to the school thing.

Is it just me, or is there just very little learning going on anymore?  I seem to remember the filmstrip days, class party days, et. being few and far between.  (But remember…I’m OLD.)  It seems like there are so many ‘parents come in to read’, holiday partys, “We watched “Polar Express” in Chinese today!” days, not to mention holidays, early releases and late starts, that I’m trying to figure out where the actual Learning is.

We found out late Sunday night that the Bits’ teacher was going to be gone because her father was coming here for the Chinese New Year for the first time in ten years.  For two weeks.

And then I remembered that she grew up in California.  And she did say there were some additional ‘family matters to attend to’.

But two weeks?

One of the dad’s cornered me at pick-up yesterday and asked me if I was concerned about the absence.  I personally feel this teacher is flighty to begin with, so, really, I’m not.  (And because I’m not a great parent and the Bits seems pretty adaptable, I don’t believe it’s an issue in the middle of the second semester.)  But he brought up that she has also been gone a lot so far this year, eight days I think he said, which I didn’t realize.  (That darned Bits tells me Nothing!)

So now I have to rethink whether this is a big deal or not.  I still think that for first graders, it’s just not that much of an issue.

Of course, what do I know?

*****

What else do I know?

I have to trek back to Best Buy, as the $89.99 I spent (Which is minus the 10% Geek Squad discount I get, Plus the fact that I brought in my own external back up??) was apparently not enough to ensure that the data from the ruined laptop actually got tranferred.  When I went online, I noticed that they state that back ups started at $59.99.  I think when I go back, they get to transfer all the data onto something of their own rather than on my external.  And I’ll probably bring up the fact that the website says $59.99.  (Trust me.  I totally get the fact that “Starting At” is their way out of such silly things, but it’s always worth a try.)

*****

It’s interesting having three cats again.

Back in the day, the basement was such a disaster, what with the evil rat-mutt defecating everywhere, that I never really paid attention to the fact that I can fill a Target bag half-full with poo in two days time.  Either these cats have extremely active bowels, I give them much more food and water than the other cats, it’s winter so they’re not using the world as their litter box, or I’ve actually grown to the point that I’ve realized there Is something I can do to keep my entire house from smelling like I have three cats.  Amazing how you can find time to take care of things like that when you aren’t trying to take care of two small urchins.  Crazy, dat.

However, again I must say that when I decide on my own particular brand of ‘old crazy’, I’m pretty much set on the crazy cat lady thing.  Watching Mr. Boo’s cat walk around the house with his red shoelace in an effort to engage the kitten in tug of war?

Totally melts my crabby old heart.

*****

And in other animal tales…Mr. Boo had a sleepover at one of the Soccer Mom’s children’s house on Saturday.

When I picked him up Sunday morning, I find out that one of their four dogs has bitten Mr. Boo in the leg.  The same damn dog that bit the Bits last summer.

*sigh*

Good friend who has gone through (and is going through) a hell that I can only partially understand at this point.

I try not to freak out about such things and I know that she’s in a pretty precarious situation and was so apologetic.

But geez, girlfriend.

Maybe it’s time to keep that dog locked up when people outside your family are in the house.

*****

I suppose it’s time to contemplate getting on the treadmill. 

I avoided it yesterday under the guise of cleaning the house.  Or at least going insane by sweeping, then vacuuming, then Swiffering, then mopping the living room/dining room.  (I HATE Swiffers.  I appreciate them, but why is mopping my floors with a pad that sucks up water and dirt and then continues to spread it all over the floor any better than using a mop that you can at least rinse out all of the dirt water from??)  I keep looking at those steam cleaners and that new Mint(?) Roomba-like thingy.  But we have hundred year old floors and I’m worried about all the comments on ‘unsealed wood floors’.  (Although the fact that I’m spraying solution on the floors doesn’t exactly seem like it’s that much different than putting steam on them.) 

And I dusted.  And I managed to clean the stove top.  And brush my teeth.  (Albeit at 4:30.)

I think all of that gives me a pass on the workout.  (Um.  It does take five hours to do all of that, right?  In between Skyping with the Mom from Buenos Aries and the occasional Cubis break.)

Oh, and a shower, too.

Motivation is an interesting thing.

ak

Protected: Still ruminating

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Those darned cats

Came home from gymnastics last night and proceeded to do the mandatory reading with the Bits whilst trying to get Oreo (this is the selected name, although in retrospect, it really should have been Little Tramp, given the crazy-assed black spots on his nose/snout which look like Charlie Chaplin’s moustache) to settle in as he had done the night before.

We finished (or rather, I got tired) and I proceeded to try to find aformentioned pusser-beast to put them both to bed.

In order to make a long story short, I will recap it as follows:  two hours of insane, frantic searching turning up…nothing.

Bless the Bits for not being nearly as heartbroken as we were the hour after bringing Shadow (which, thank goodness, Mr. Boo is not Quite as literal, seeing as how he immediately shot down the Bits’ suggestion of ‘Blackie’.) home, he disappeared and I was sure that he had snuck outside and we would never see him again.  Luckily, I was downstairs in the midst of a hormonal breakdown and suddenly heard the vocal stirings and found the cat stuck behind the washer.  Damn cat.

I had assumed, since we had checked what I thought was every square inch of the house (especially as the kitten never seems to disappear), that he had managed to get into the storage room and my non-drug-induced wild imagination then proceeded to having him claw his way Up through dryer venting and then somehow managing to escape into the night.  I even followed tracks from the vent outside around the side of the house where they were then lost in a maze of squirrel/bunny/critter tracks from the rest of the winter.  By my fifth trip outside, I did manage to ascertain that there was no getting into (or out of) the house via this trail, as there was a wire netting covering the hole, therby fueling the version in my head of the kitten Stuck in the venting which lead to a smaller tube before hitting that vent cover.  After poking on the venting for ages, I moved onto the fact that Shadow had become like Lassie and was trying to show me where the kitten may have faltered and was helplessly trapped.  There was a hole here and a spot where the drywall didn’t go all the way up to the ceiling there and I finally went to bed with the Ba and Mr. Boo assuring me he would show up and be just fine in the morning.

I only got up two more times after hallucinating that I heard cat cries (Seriously.  I need to start writing thrillers or stop watching movies, as my thought processes are So cliche’.)  And then fell into a restless sleep.

Until two hours later, when the Ba informed me that the damn kitten was right there and, sure enough, he proceeded to snuggle up next to me and by my pillow for the rest of the night.

Apparently, I am going to need to install those nursery/nanny cams all over the house so I can figure out the soopr-sekret hiding spots of damn cats.

ak

ps–Glad I’m getting the majority of neuroses out on animals, as opposed to say, worrying endlessly and insanely about the urchins.  Ahem.

Putting the fun back into dysfunction

I think that were I able to post as I Think about posting my posts might be more interesting and Definitely about 800% longer.  These may or may not be good things.

So.

I was given the head’s up by my BIL that we were going to be going on our Spring Break vacation with their family.  Which is interesting, given the fact that a.)  I don’t have a job to help pay for this vacation, b.)  Given the current state of the state, I really have no desire to go on a vacation, c.)  There had been no discussion whatsoever about going on vacation.  (Granted, this is exactly Why the BIL informed me of this before he called to find out birthdates in order to secure tickets.)

Without going into all of that (that may or may not be the reason for all of the passworded entries.  All I’m sayin’.), I give to you my FB update from Sunday that, thankfully, everyone managed to ignore due to its normal-for-me cryptic nature:  I’ll see your undiscussed Spring Break trip and raise you not one, but TWO…Cats.

Two New Year’s Eves ago, I succumbed to Elise’s pushing and found myself in need of getting one cat that was featured on the Humane Society website.  So I packed up the urchins and headed down to find this specific cat.  Which, I thought I had, but upon grabbing the paperwork, realized that what I thought I had been bonding with was actually a Male lookalike cat and not the female one which I had my sights set upon.  (I truly believe this made a difference, in hindsight.)

I went back and forth and back and forth as to whether to go with the lovely male cat that we had spent time with or the seemingly fine female cat that seemed ok with the shorter period of time we spent with her.  She had a cool name, which was part of the initial attraction, so we ended up with the female cat.

Which was then taken by the crazy cat lady who lives…kitty-corner (heh.) from us.

It started out innocently enough once spring arrived, with her stopping me on my way to church one morning with the comment that we really needed to get a bell for the cat’s collar, as she was spending time in CCL’s yard and scaring/eating the birds that hung out there.  (Unfortunately, our other cat must have also spent time there, which must have prompted the other cat to follow.)  It was a little awkward, as we are outdoor cat people and it’s pretty hard to keep a cat confined without a leash or a fence–neither of which we have.

We then began to miss this cat and found that CCL was falling hopelessly in love with our cat, but not going to take responsibility for her actions.  She started by letting her inside.  Because she just sat looking in her house, for heaven’s sake!  But I’m Certainly not feeding her!  Which then, of course turned into days at a time being gone, which led into the next winter, which led to many, many phone calls back and forth…us asking for her to put the cat out, her telling us it was So Cold and she couldn’t Possibly, but we could come over and get Our Cat, to the cat being insane wanting outside, to the whole thing happening over again.  We still don’t understand how this cat could want out of our house so badly, but not want to be let out of CCL’s house.  There was definitely animosity between our older female cat and this one, but given the fact that they never really had a chance to bond, I guess maybe it makes sense.

I had a knock-down-drag-out passive-aggressive fest with CCL last winter, basically having to hear for the millionth time what a Wonderful cat she was and how much she had helped her through the winter and I told her that, yes, that’s pretty much why we bought her and if she was ok with taking my children’s cat (so obnoxious and pretty much untrue) then there really wasn’t anything I could do about it.

We saw the cat on and off throughout the summer, when she would show up on the railing at our front door to come in, eat three bites of food and then demand to be let back out.  Haven’t seen her now since probably Thanksgiving, if not before, and figure we won’t see her until the temperatures are consistently above 50.

However.

That need to get a new cat (and work on my own crazy cat lady license)  became fast and furious (due to the undiscussed Spring Break trip?  I don’t know.) and after the Bits was returned after a playdate with her BFF on Saturday, I plied the urchins with tales of cats and kittens and loaded them into the car castle to go procure cats.  Yep.  I pretty much knew that we would come home with two cats.  Under the guise of ‘one for each child’.

I was apprehensive, as there weren’t many cats on the AHS website, which I thought was kind of odd, but apparently, those cats are going like hotcakes.

There were Very few cats to choose from (compounded by our ‘males only to not create havoc with the Grande Dame of the house’ rule) and no ‘true’ kittens at all.  We narrowed it down to three…One four-month old that the Bits loved, one black 2-yr-old (which fit the bill in the ‘buy one, get one over the age of one free’ category) and one fluffy gray one that I tried to talk everyone into.

We spent time juggling between the three in the private rooms where I finally listened to the cats rather than what I Thought I wanted…The gray one was ok, but the black one, upon the second visit, cemented its selection by plopping itself into my lap.  I knew that telling the Bits no on her selection was futile and it seemed like a spunky little thing, as most kittens are.

So I am now dealing with one lovely, but Highly Vocal (all fricken-fracken night long) two-year-old and one Highly Energetic kitten that are trying to fit in with the cranky old broad who has been delighted to be the only cat here for the past couple of years.  I keep trying to tell her that the other two seem perfectly content to not stalk and attack her like the previous cat, but so far she’s making sure that the new boys understand their place in the household.

I’m sure that I’m certifiably insane for suddenly having three cats (and am doing my best to consistently clean out the cat box so that unlike the last time we had three cats, people won’t Know that we have three cats), but I guess that by having three cats, it gives me additional time to fully embrace the crazy that will be necessary once the urchins are gone and I end up living alone with forty cats in my 800 square foot apartment.

Hey.  At least it won’t be a tiger.

ak

Protected: Which leads me to

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The Bane of Reality TV.

I suppose that there’s always one show that I go into hyper-overdrive about each season…perusing TWoP for every annonymous comment that will sway or confirm an opinion, or at best, make me giggle.   Usually it’s AI, but I’m doing my best not to get so involved in that this season, mostly because of the time commitment, but also because I just have no interest in furthering the nonsense that seems to be the judging.  Of course, with the favorable reviews so far, I’m afraid that I might just get sucked in around Hollywood.  (Which, truthfully, is when I ‘ve been getting sucked in the past few years anyway.)

However.  The current interest-that’s-turned-into-obsession is RHoBH.  An enormously guilty pleasure for reasons that I have yet to figure out.  Especially because of the special kind of crazy insanity that is being shown.  The train wreck started interestingly enough in the drama brought by Camille, but since the Dinner Party from Hell, it’s gotten uncomfortably insane.

I know that between that and Jersey Shore, it’s mainly a morbid fascination that there are people in the world that will actually behave that way and be filmed for posterity doing it.  I understand that we all have our own special brand of crazy, but that doesn’t mean that I’m willing to put it out there for the scrutiny of the internet folks who have too much time on their hands to analyze and stop frame and judge over and over again.  Which leads me to also believe that we have created such a fame-whoring society that there is the slightest possibility that this is vaguely scripted and presented for just these reasons.  On the other hand, it is producer manipulation at its finest, which makes the sideline quarterbacking even more ridiculous.  Out of the thousands of hours of video, a handful of people are able to splice together a story that supposes to show reality.  And we, the viewers, are left making judgement calls about peoples’ lives because of the six hours worth of programming we’ve been allowed to see.  In whatever context it’s been presented in purporting ‘fact’.

I’m not sure who, then, is the bigger fool?

Definitely those that allow themselves to be portrayed in any way a producer sees fit (even if it is manufactured specifically to make someone look bad) and throughout perpetuity.  (There have been leaks of various contracts of various shows throughout the years and it truly is frightening upon reading the verbage and why, oh, WHY, anyone would allow this to happen to them.  Are they so disillusioned as to think that they are the most wonderful person on the planet and there is No Possible Way that anyone else would think anything differently about them?

Apparently.

However.  (Again.)

On that same note, how ridiculous is it that I scour pages upon pages of what ends up being mostly the same people offering the same arguments/discussions of these people we don’t know and trying to analyze the truth from these little tiny segments that are thrown to us like bones?  Doesn’t the fact that I perpetuate the madness make me just as culpable as the idiots who present this for my ‘entertainment’ in the first place?

There are plenty of folks who see it for what it is.  Strictly the entertainment of ‘reality’.  Which, I would hope, many of those same people realize after this period of time is nothing Close to reality.  And I realize that, too.  But just as I believe that AI is a case study in psychology/sociology than it is any form of singing contest, I hope that I can avoid getting sucked into the actual drama of all of it and the black hole of ‘what does this say about society as a whole?’

Unavoidable, methinks, unless one is able to see it only as the aforementioned brand of entertainment and not delve too much more deeply into ‘character development’ and not get too sucked into ‘how does this parallel my life/I am So much better than That!’, which is what I do think a large majority of people watch these train wrecks for.

I can always try to put myself above those that watch what I consider the truly trash ‘reality’ shows, such as The Bachelor, but then I do get sucked into some fringe phenomenon and realize that there will always be some form of drug for each of us.

Or Hollywood, as a whole, would cease to exist.

ak

Dentist day

I will chalk my lack of updating to the ridiculous need to spend money like a maniac while I perceive having it.  I swear I’m spending more money than I ever did while working, just due to the fact that I have the time to go out under the guise of ‘grocery shopping’.  I’d like to think that I’mspending less money on take-out/pre-made crap, but there certainly are a lot of potato chips in the house.

I’m not sure how much money I’ve saved by purchasing multiples of the $4.50 shirts/shorts that are on special at Target right now.  Not to mention half-price boots for next year and a second pair of slippers for myself to sit on the floor with the still-tagged pair that I bought the day after Thanksgiving.  (I am a hoarder in training, in case you were wondering.)

I have the leanings to be one of those couponing creepy people, but I just don’t have the motivation to a.) subscribe to the newspaper, b.) use the printer to print out coupons to save $.50, c.) bother to buy a bunch of shit I don’t need.

I did, however, spend a good $5.00 in gas yesterday in order to get the correct size/color of slippers that were $8.00 off for Mr. Boo.  You will be happy to know that I spent the whole time muttering how stupid it was, however.

At least I’m somewhat self-aware.

*****

After chatting with Suzanne yesterday, I believe that there is still the extension that will allow me to be on unemployment for longer than the twenty-six weeks that I originally believed I had.  This is a bit of comfort, but also not necessarily a good thing for someone who is not always motivated to figure out what they want to do when they grow up.

I’m back to wanting to see if there’s something computer-related that I could do from the comfort of my own kitchen table.  Along with the rest of the world.  That, and the part-time job that will pay me $40K+ to work from 8-2:30 so that I wouldn’t have to do kid-care.  Because there are so few folks in the world looking for something like that.

Ideas?  Send ‘em here.

*****

Todays’ awesome kid comment regarding Steve Winwood’s Higher Love which was on the radio on the way to school:

Wait!  Leave this on!  Who is this?

Steve Winwood.

I really like this song!  You think you have it on tape????  Wow.  People could really sing back then.

Yes.  There was a time when singing was a pre-requisite to having a hit song.

(Courtesy of Mr. Boo.)

*****

I have a dentist appointment for the first time in a year and a half today.

How do you think That’s going to go?

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again.  I probably need to find a new dentist.

Because I truly don’t mind the dentist.  Even though my gums are a mess, I don’t floss and have to deal with the scraping and other crap that goes along with that.  I do, however, hate the hard sell.  Regarding this treatment, that electric toothbrush or this cosmetic procedure.

Scrape the plaque, give me the toothbrush and remind me how much flossing will help, then send me on my way.

If I wanted a hard-sell, I’d answer the four hundred solicitation phone calls we get a week.

*****

Next, I have to schedule the boob smooshing.

I can’t for the life of me remember when my last period was, since it was two whole days, so I plan on waiting until mid-month when it appears again and then pop in.  The fancy-schmancy boob-smooshing facility is, apparently, not as busy as they had anticipated when they built it, as they are advertising same-day appointments.  Figure with my open schedule, I can fit that in.

*****

I really, really, REALLY do Not understand how Britney Spears is popular.

Really.

*****

Ok.

I suppose I should do some laundry, contemplate (some more) about actually taking down the Christmas tree, and decide whether I’m going to get motivated to get on the treadmill before the dentist appointment.

That sounds like a lot of stuff, doesn’t it?

ak

And to think I had nothing to say

It has occured to me as I sit here playing mindless hours of Cubis in an attempt to not have to face the daunting task of finding a job, that I should at least, perhaps, make an attempt to not allow my brain to continue to jell into a soggy mess.  Although I do seem to have lost any knack for wanting to type out the mundane thoughts that are less and less frequently passing through my brain.

I think back to when I started typing online and find it hard to believe that I had So much to say back then.  When these things had yet to morph into the blogs that we know today and were still considered ‘diaries’, I was new at my job and had so little contact with real human beings that I was updating twice and sometimes even three times a day.  I’m glad that those are still hanging out there in the ether, but I find that, just like old pictures, I can’t seem to bring myself to go back and read them.

 I don’t know if I’m just remembering myself as fairly well-written and kind of funny back then and don’t feel that I am living up to my ‘potential’(?) or if those times are just so far gone and I can know make anything seem melancholy and yet so much better than now.  (Sometimes I really wish that I was a decent writer and could parlay this into some form of career.  I think I have a reasonable amount of material.)

We always joked about how I/we would write the life story of The Company, because, as is the case with most oddities in life, reality is stranger than fiction.  We could definitely pass it off as ‘all of this is fiction and any similarities to things real is strictly coincidental’, because honestly, it all seemed so very crazy.

So, let’s see.

I haven’t updated here since September 16th.  (Feign suprise that it’s been that long.)  And, interestingly enough, I was lamenting the state of the state and looking for jobs.  As of October 29th, I became unemployed for the first time in twenty years.  Well, not Really, Technically  unemployed.  It was passed along as a ‘furlough’.  Which is a fancy way of saying, “We’re trying to get you out of here without having to pay out your unused vacation time.”

So, my nightmares (when I bother to even think about that place) consist of Bossie-poo requesting the pleasure of my company, me being appalled and him dancing with joy, because he can then sever ties and stop me from collecting unemployment because he Offered me my old position back and I chose not to accept it.

Both Suzanne and I (and Juh-lie and an accounting person) were let go, while someone that I rarely bothered to write about, because she is an enigma, was kept.  We can go around and around about the reasons why someone who was brought in by the Mentor and then let go six months before she was brought back was kept over a fraction-owner of the company and someone who actually Worked there.  (Me and Suzanne, respectively.)  I would say it definitely hinged on influence from the Mentor (who is gone, but not really), her fraction less money than I was making salary, but mostly because she came back as a highly effective game-player, capable of being the best Yes-Girl the company has seen:  Making sure that she didn’t leave until two minutes after Bossie-poo, always claiming to take on projects (but not actually producing anything), and consistenly being the one to Never Question the stupid shit that increasingly came out of Bossie-poo’s mouth.

/shrug

Kudos to her.

As much as I would like to have a job at this point (and, quite honestly, that is questionable), I have No desire to be in that totally toxic environment any longer.

That part, I believe, (as well as the increasing notion that, truly, I Don’t Like to Work) is what is hindering my job search and making it so easy to find fault with just about everything that I find out there in the world.

I’d like to report that there really are a Ton of jobs out there.  Now that I’ve gotten someone motivated to actually look (and the new year has brought the opening of budgets), I am shocking by the Thousands of job opportunities available.  No, not all of them are for me, but there really isn’t much of an excuse for the unemployment rate to be as high as it is.

Job searching has changed dramatically from the last time I had to search, which, realistically was twenty years ago.  This, also, has impeded the intensity of my searching.  Because I am have the most ridiculous low self-esteem issues regarding what I Can do  (self-defeating prophecy?  hmm.) and the terror of actually having to Interview for something, which, again, I haven’t had to do for twenty years.

Twenty years is a Really Long Time.

Considering that the last few jobs I’ve had I didn’t really even have to interview for makes it even more difficult to figure out where to go from here.

Had lunch with Hip-Girl on Tuesday and was shocked and awed at the monstrosity that is that local Food Behemoth company.  Good friends will call you out on your bullshit, so she was quick to echo the fact that I can come up with a million excuses for not applying to one company or another.  So the next day I applied for not one, but Two jobs.  (Unfortunately, this also allowed me to get all high and mighty and do Nothing yesterday.  Bad habits…)  Rationale that you can’t come up with excuses why not to take a job if you don’t actually have any offers, let alone interviews.  I think it would also help if I could figure out what I want to do when I grow up.  It’s hard to try to get out of a perceived employment rut when all you fall back upon is that you can only do what you’ve always done.  I’m pretty good at coming up with things that I’d like to do/might be good at, but I’m not sure that there are actual careers out there that exemplify that, let alone being able ot pay what I seem to think that I need to exist.  (However, I have finally(?) gotten out of the mindset that I can’t work here or there or do this or that because I don’t want to drive so far, etc., etc.  Who’s to say that I won’t make twice what I was making and could therefore afford to put the urchins in before school care in order to make that ’9-5′ that I seem to think is what the real world expects?

I’m great at self-defeatest attitudes, but it’s kind of exciting to try to come up with reasons why I Can do things or why a new opportunity would actually be a Good thing as opposed to something that I would fail at.  Interesting case study in…myself.

I kind of keep getting off on tangents, but as long as this thing, which I couldn’t find the words to type, is getting totally out of control, I do want to address the fact of not knowing what to search for as far as jobs are concerned.  I seem to be fixated on the whole Human Resources genre which has, inexplicably, turned into “Talent Acquistion and Management”.  (Don’t believe me?  Do a job search and just see all of the job titles out there related.)  When the hell did this bullshit become prevalent? (And why are there so damned many HR positions available?)  Talent?  Really?  Are we all so superficial and in need of our own reality show that instead of ‘employees’ we must now be referred to as “talent”??  Do I get a tropy and/or ribbon just for applying now so that I don’t get my feelings hurt?

Ah…The rant.  She is not dead!

Ok.

I think that this typing thing is a good thing.  My ideas have not dried up.  I am still capable of typing and therefore keeping bottled in stupidity bottled in is…stupid?  And…nothing has changed.  Excellent. 

I have tried all day to stop myself from working out (getting frustrated that, after two months of working out religiously five times a week, there is No change to the state of the state.) and must either decide to blow it off entirely (and with vigor!) or get my ass moving.

I shall return Monday.

ak