Where America shops for mats

Not that anything about the hurricane blasting the Southeast U.S. is funny, but I did find some small amusement in one of the live-on-the-scene TV reports from Alabama this morning. When the reporter's sound feed cut out, the anchor pointed out damage to some stores in the background...including a Wal-Mart, which had lost the 'R' on its sign.

And a Wal-Mart without an 'R' is just a Wal-Mat.

Can I have some cheese with my whine?

I worked from home today (technically I'm "off" in 12 minutes...), so I escaped the constant reminders of my bitchy, blonde, nitwitty Southern co-workers. But I still fumed and steamed intermittantly.

Unfortunately, that fuming and steaming didn't seem to give me the adrenaline boost that righteous indignation often does. So now I'm dragging big time, and I'm about to head out for five hours of baking class. Cripes!

A full night's sleep didn't help (nice thing about working from home...no need to get up early to make yourself presentable and transport yourself anywhere). Neither did a few good-sized coffee infusions. And I have to rally my internal forces enough to make three complicated cakes for my two-day practical exam.

To say I'm feeling grumpy right about now would be a tad of an understatment!

To add insult to injury, it's hot out (relatively speaking). I hate hot. I'm so ready for fall.

But tomorrow is another day, and that day is Friday (hooray), and I've got bellydance stuff (of both the butt-kicking and fun varieties) planned for the weekend.

And at least I don't have to spend this weekend moving, unlike someone I know (who had better get done in time for the fun bellydance stuff Sunday night!).

Dishes served cold

In light of my unfair treatment by my stupid coworkers in another state (and apparently in another dimension where being it's better to be "yes" person than to simply do the right thing), I was itching for revenge of some sort.

I thought about sending a mail bomb (OK, not really). I thought about putting a hex on them. Neither turned out to be viable.

In a seemingly unrelated matter, during the brief hour on Monday that He Who Puts Up With Me took our vehicle out of our building's parking garage (to take a jaunt to Costco, where we found out we can get Doofus' expensive prescription medication for a fraction...yes, a fraction!...of what we were paying elsewhere), a strange vehicle parked in our spot. The spot that we pay monthly rent for. Why our spot, I do not know, since there are many spots that are currently unoccupied, and even more that are unoccupied during the day.

Anyhoo...HWPUWM wrote down the license plate and took it to the manager's office. They had no idea who's car it was, but they offered to put a "move your ass within 24 hours or get towed" notice on it. "Hell, yeah" we said.

Yesterday, car was still there.

This morning, car was still there. Manager said they would have it towed.

After work, car was still there. I told manager.

Manager said "it's really still there?"

I said "We'd like it towed, please."

Manager said "I'll call right now."

About 15 minutes ago, I heard (and saw) a tow truck in the alley.

About 5 minutes ago the manager called to say the car had been towed.

Yee haw!

Off the wagon already

On Monday I vowed to blog daily. On Tuesday I failed to blog.

I blame this on the fact that I was so shell-shocked by the verbal backstabbing from coworkers in our Southern corporate office that I accidentally overheard yesterday.

(Let's just say that the stupid blonde perpetrators need to learn how to properly hang up a phone after leaving a voice mail message.)

I was not in the mood to head to my two hours of bellydance class after work, but my teacher was in such a high-energy place (how does she do it), that I was too busy sweating to think about the pit vipers in my workplace midst.

And now I am in the odd and somewhat uncomfortable position of being on the same side as my Napoleonic boss (who was blasted in the same attack). Amazing what having a common enemy will do.

What would Jesus do?

So He Who Puts Up with Me and I are walking with Doofus to Pike Place Market yesterday when we stop at a grassy area next to a church so Doofus can attend to his dog business.

Doofus is about to take care of the nastier portion of his business when I young couple (mid-to-late 20s?) walks past. I catch snippets of their conversation, which includes "in front of a church" and "people should carry bags with them."

They pass just as Doofus is finishing, and the guy turns and looks at us. "I hope you're going to pick that up."

Now...that was just the wrong thing to say. There are many things that push my buttons, and that one has got to be near the top of the list. We always pick up after Doofus. I know some people are horrible, or at best spotty, about picking up after their dogs, and I really resent someone assuming that I am one of those people.

Because, children, when you assume, you make an ass out of u and me.

So HWPUWM and I respond at the same moment: he by pulling a plastic bag out of his pocket and holding it up with an any-more-questions-you-moron look on his face, me by giving them a one-fingered salute.

But the guy won't stop. He says "You really shouldn't let you dog do that in front of a church."

We were actually along the side of the church, but I digress. I point at the grass and say "grass," wave my arms around and say "urban environment," then point at Doofus and say "dog." I mean, honestly, unless you are going to go radical and say that pet dogs should be completely barred from high-density urban neighborhoods, then you are going to have people taking their dogs to do business on just about any available patch of grass.

Mr. One-Track-Mind repeats his statement that we "really shouldn't do that" in front of a church.

Then I get really mad. And I decide to go for broke.

I shrug. "Well, we're not Christian, so it doesn't matter to us."

And then both members of this fine young couple start to swear. They cuss, and they cuss, and they keep on cussing over their shoulders at us as they reach the end of the block and turn the corner.

So, children, what important moral lesson can we take from this little encounter? That's right: It's a sin to let your dog relieve an important and normal biological function next to a church, but it's perfectly OK to use profanity!

%^&$*)@+!

I'm baaaack!

Oy, I've been a bad blogger, again.

In my defense, I've been very busy lately getting my kid sister married off.

As her maid/matron of honor (since I'm married already, it's technically matron, but I sure as hello don't feel like a matron...and never will if I can help it!), I had to throw her a bridal shower (which I also catered myself, fyi) and a bachelorette party (did I really need to see my master's-degree holding, elementary school-teaching sister dancing around shaking male member-shaped maracas? Not so much.). And those are responsibilities that I would never take on for anyone else but her. No way, no how. Especially when I never even had my own bachelorette or shower, as I had the good sense to elope.

And then, last weekend, the big event, on the Olympic Peninsula, with huge ferry waits due to the stupid Hood Canal Bridge being closed. Family and friends carted themselves in from all over the country. It was fun, the location was gorgeous, the food was delish, the band was fab...but it was exhausting. And I am more glad than ever that I eloped. I was glad for Kid Sis, sure, but I saw exactly what it was I didn't want for myself...more stress.

So, now that I'm finally recovering, I've decided to mend my Bad Blogger ways by blogging every day this week. Let's see if I can do it, shall we?

Stark raving mad!

I've dithered for months (really, we're talking since at least January...or maybe December) about getting my hair cut.

For a while, it made sense to let it grow out, mostly for belly dancing purposes (a student performance in April, then the Solstice Parade in June). And I kind of liked being able to put it in a ponytail, or two cute braids, or up in a twist. And women, we all know how nutty men get about long hair. If I had a nickel for every time He Who Puts Up With Me said "NO! You can't get it cut!" I'd be able to pay for my next haircut.

So the state of my hair has been reaching critical mass. It's past my shoulders, one length, thick but baby fine. I never wear it down anymore, because it just goes limp (a state that is made worse by the fact that I walk everywhere. Now, if I had time to style it nicely and never had to go outside...then maybe it would work).

I was looking for digital photos of myself to post onto a newsgroup I belong to, and I came across pix from last summer, when my hair was in a cute bob. I snapped. Must get hair cut. Must get hair cut now!

Trouble is, my salon was closed until this morning. So with the patience of a saint, I waited until I could book my precious appointment...for this Saturday.

Now, I'll need not only patience (a quality that I am quite lacking in, according to HWPUWM), but tremendous willpower as well (a quality that I am quite lacking in, according to me!) to keep my paws off the scissors and the scissors away from my lanky locks. Give me strength!

You're not from here, are you?

On Sunday, He Who Puts Up With Me* and I clipped Doofus to his leash and headed off on a walk by way of the Belltown Starbucks.

As is our usual M.O., Doofus and I grabbed an outside table while HWPUWM zipped inside for our coffees, et al.

Only the zipping wasn't so zippy on Sunday. So Doofus and I sat, and waited, and wondered what the holy heck was taking so long. After a looong while, an older couple (70s, maybe) exited. The man sat down at one of the two remaining empty tables (there are five outside tables, total), and the woman walked my direction. As she approached, she extended her hand, palm down, so I figured she just came over to meet Doofus (Doofus makes friends wherever he goes). I comment that "he's very friendly."

So, as the woman is kind of petting Doofus, she looks at me and asks, "Are you eating here?"

I reply, "Uhhh...yes. I'm waiting for my husband." I accompany this statement with a jerk of the head toward the black hole/interior which has apparently swallowed him up.

"Oh," she says slowly. "Because we were waiting for this table."

What the f--k, I think. "Oh," I say.

She turns and walks back to her second-choice table. She sits. A barista emerges with some pastries on plates and sets them on the second-choice table. She disappears inside and reemerges with coffee in real cups. Gee, I didn't know Starbucks had sidewalk table service.

Finally, HWPUWM extricates himself from the bowels of the building. "Gee, you were gone so long that people were trying to steal our table," I say.

He sits. We eat our shared muffin. We replentish our dangerously low caffeine levels.

I lean toward him and tell him quietly about how the older couple was apparently "waiting" for our table. He starts laughing. Turns out he was behind them in line, and at some point the woman looked out the window, saw me, and with great dismay informed her husband that I had "stolen" their table. "Should I go say something to her?" she asked him, according to HWPUWM (who for a moment considered acknowledging his connection to me, the wanton table-stealer, but then decided it was more fun to watch them nearly give themselves strokes).

You snooze, you lose. I'm glad I don't have to wait until I'm grandma-aged to figure that one out!


*HWPUWM is still being a Big Baby about the fact that I made fun of him in this blog for not knowing that Freddie Mercury is dead. Translation: He is boycotting my blog. Which means I can say anything about him here that I want, and he'll never know. Muah-ha-ha!