Come on baby light my ...ceiling fan

Well, THAT was inconvenient. My city caught on fire.

Stupid teenagers. But other than the cost of the fireworks, it was free! Perhaps I should look into setting things on fire. I mean, other than how I have set the world on fire with my softball skills. I do have to admit that it smelled LOVELY outside last night. Just like camping! And the sunsets are always beautiful when the city is ablaze.

...I have big plans this weekend. I have an eye doctor appointment at 10.

That's it.

Last night I went to bed at 6:00.

P.M.!

I am telling you, I worked a LOT last week, plus every fiber of my being is in pain from softball. And yes, let me tell you about my sports injury, as I alluded to last time. Apparently, I held the bat up too high and the base of it kept sort of coming back around and hitting the bottom of my hand. So it is swollen and bruised down at the bottom of my palm. Which really makes it hard to high five people, as I like to do.

It's kind of exciting to have a sports injury, although I suspect the truly sporting would not even notice if they had said bruise. It would just be another part of the game or whatever, along with concussions and pulled ham hocks and what have you.

Anyway, the big news is that I have printed out four apartment descriptions from craigslist and am going apartment hunting for a place near work. Cause driving through fire is just not something I am suited for. The apartments range from $1650 to $2200. Gee, I wonder what Marvin Gardens will say about which one we should pick?

Marvin Gardens has no concern whatsoever for where he lives. He would truly live in a storage facility if it were the cheapest thing available. As for me, where I live is really really important. I would way rather have a cute dwelling and a bad car. Marvin Gardens would totally drive away from the storage facility in his [insert nice car name here, as I know nothing about cars].

This obviously creates a problem. You know how before you get married you are supposed to make sure you are in agreement about kids and finances and religion? Yeah, also make sure that you are both in agreement about whether you can live with popcorn ceilings and brown ceiling fans.

Ceiling accouterments are a big thing for me.

Anyway, I will keep you all posted. If I find a place it will pretty much rip apart our savings. Like Joe and I were ripped apart.

That line was only funny if you love Say Anything as much as I do.

My first softball practice. EVer.

Oh. My. Shattered.

ASS.

Let me ask you something. If a hard, dense little ball is hurtling at you very very fast, is your instinct to walk TOWARDS it, with your hand out to greet it?

Or is your instinct to go, "GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!", cover your head and run the other way?

Cause my instinct is the latter. My teammates? The Pantone 132s? (It's a color from this whole book of colors that designers use. Specifically, Pantone 132 is a shit brown. Nice.) My teammates HURL themselves toward that god-awful frightening ball, they RUSH toward it like a ball of million-dollar bills is coming at them. They hold their HAND, their TINY HAND, up in the AIR and they actually CATCH the ball.

If I were them, I would have beaten me with the bat.

And when did bats stop being wooden? When my Uncle Jim played baseball the bats were wooden. Of course, I was like four when I saw my Uncle Jim play baseball. All I remember is that he always won, and I did not get the concept that his TEAM won and not him (which pretty much sums up my team player attitude toward life) and that the concession stand had candy apples.

The only other woman at the practice yesterday was The Gnasher, a coworker who is my age who was on her All-Star team in high school. By the way, I have no idea what that means, but I assume it means she can really play softball. And guess what? She really can.

Now, normally, The Gnasher is the type of woman who hates my guts immediately on sight. That athletic, no-nonsense type always detests me.

When I was in college, I hostessed at a restaurant with this girl who owned a horse. She was quiet, had long silky no-nonsense brown hair, and was the epitome of quiet confidence and COMPLETE LACK OF HUMOR. There we were, day after day, her with her quiet brown hair and me with my giant New Wave hairdo and 57 rubber bracelets. One time a family came in, and they had to wait at the bar till their table was ready. I went to the bar and called them. "The Pool party? Your table is ready."

As soon as I heard myself say "The Pool party," I started snickering, and it just got funnier and funnier to me, until by the time I sat the family, I was bent over, convulsing and snorting. I went back to the hostess stand to tell Quiet Brown the story, and she quietly and gently said, "I just don't think you're very funny."

I hope a horse stepped on her.

Anyway, The Gnasher, who is not a humorless dolt like the hostess, but does have that I-am-scared-of-nothing-and-I-actually-enjoy-athletics thing, was extremely kind to me. In fact they were ALL extremely kind to me. The way you are kind when a really slow old person gets in front of you at the airport, and walks one step an hour. You know how sometimes they will smile and apologize and you get really really condescending and use your old person voice? "Well, that's okay! Don't you worry!" But in your mind you are thinking "COME ON YOU OLD CODGE. YOU MAY BE RETIRED, BUT I ACTUALLY HAVE SOMEWHERE TO BE."

They were like that.

And may I add the disclaimer that I actually really like old people a lot? I did not want you to think I am a completely awful person. I really do like the elderly. In fact, my love of living things kind of goes like this:

1. Cats
2. Old people
3. Barry Gibb

I am just saying that sometimes I get impatient. Which I am grateful to my coworkers for not being with me.

I have to go to work now, so I will have to tell you later about the GIANT BRUISE on my palm from holding the bat wrong.

Sure wish I had a tiara and a baby leopard...

Sorry I haven't blobbed in a few days -- my life is a vortex of work/eat/sleep/work/eat/sleep.

Why do people say "whirling vortex" all the time? Do you know what a vortex is? It's water that's WHIRLING.

Irritating.

Did you know that when you say "The La Brea Tar Pits" you are saying "the the tar tar pits"?

I am full of the info today.

I have had lunch bought for me by work again, cause we've had to work through lunch (my beleaguered officemate hates it that I write "cause" and not "because." As you can see, beleaguered officemate needs a life even more than I do).

So anyway, the free lunch has been money-saving. And believe it or not, I am attending some beginning-of-the-season softball party tonight, so I guess hors d'oeuvres will be my free dinner! Yay, me! Yay, mooching.

Oh, and speaking of such. I was talking to a pal of mine this weekend and she seemed almost...resentful that people are buying me things.

Now listen. The whole POINT of this year of no spending is to see how we do WITHOUT stuff. When I crave a thing on this blog, it is really not me asking my very kind friends to buy them for me. Seriously. I am just thinking out loud. In fact, I turned down people who asked ahead of time if I wanted the perfume or the softball glove. The people who gave me that stuff just showed up with it.

So really, if I write about how I wish I had something, do not feel like you have to buy it for me. I will live. Unless I say "boy I really need that oxygen tank" or something.

Back to work/eat/sleep...

Time doesn't wait for me, it keeps on rollin'...

I don't know if you've noticed, but lately I have been a bit on edge. A trifle snarky. A little sand in my pants, as it were.

I do not know if it has anything to do with not spending. It doesn't FEEL like that's what it is. I think I am just stressy in general.

But I can tell you one thing. Last night I was bored.

It was a Saturday night, for goodness sake. The night of partayying. Date night. The night the Bay City Rollers wrote a whole song about. The night Elton John wrote a whole song about. The night the Bee Gees wrote songs for a whole movie about.

And there we were, ready for an evening of nothingness. We watched a movie -- one of those Marvin Gardens movies, where things are cerebral and not a lot happens. By 7:00, we were done with said cerebral movie.

It was at that point that I started whining. Oh, I must be a pleasure to be married to. I said I was bored and that this was our 12th weekend of not going anywhere cause we can't spend and if we didn't go do SOMETHING, ANYTHING, I would die right there of boredom. I said just find us something to do, I did not care what it was, I was going to take off my sweatshirt and get ready.

An hour later, we were in Reseda seeing a Boston tribute band.

No, seriously.

It has been a long time (It's been such a looong time/I really should be gooooiiin', yeah) since I have been to a bar to see a band. It has been a REALLY long time since I've had my hand stamped. It has been years, DECADES, since I have been the thinnest woman in the room.

I experienced all of that and more last night. Oh, but that Boston tribute band was fun. The lead singer was cutey cute cute, and EVERYONE in the room was at least our age.

Here's a little tip for the over-40 crowd. It is better to look a tad nerdy than to dress too young. Really. I promise you.

It turns out, there are a lot more songs by Boston that I know than I actually thought! Of course there's the classic More Than a Feeling, then there's that one that goes "All I want is to have my piece of miiiiiiiiNNNNNDDD! Do do do do do, do do do do do..."

And what about Don't Look Back ("been so long since I felt this way...")

And who can forget the it's-1987-and-I-have-a-perm-and-I'm-dating-a-cook-named-Larry-flashback, "Amanda"? (I'm gonna take you by surprise and make you realize AMANDA. I'm gonna tell you right away I can't wait another day AMANDA.)

I sound like one of those informercials.

Turns out the Boston tribute band was just opening for... The Pink Floyd tribute band! Even though I like Pink Floyd a lot, cause you can take the girl out of Michigan and all that, it turns out that watching a bunch of Pink Floyd songs in a row just kind of makes you wanna overdose and call it a day.

So, yes, we spent $12 apiece on a cover charge, and I had two nonalcoholic drinks for a total of $8 and Marvin Gardens had a $5 screwdriver. Cause he drinks girly drinks like screwdrivers.

But $37 for a lifetime of Boston tribute band memories? So worth it.

Work! WORK! WOOOORRRRRKKKKK!!

I am wearing the pink robe with the duckies on it again. When WILL the cutting edge of fashion ever stop, over here?

So, I have two no-spending-related things to tell you about, which I'm sure will take me an hour and 15 minutes to tell you. It's genetic. You should hear my cousin Katie tell a story.

"Well, I was on my way to The Gap, because Jason and I got invited to this other couple's house for dinner and I had nothing to wear. Have I told you about them? She is ADORABLE, she works with me at the co-op, and her husband is a doctor. She sort of has this hair color that would look good on you. No, really, I was thinking about it. It has a kind of red tint that might look nice with your complexion..."

Six hours and one dangling noose later, she will tell you the POINT of the story, which had nothing to do with The Gap or the couple.

I just noticed the button that allows me to do a sort of drop quote, like I did above. There are so many buttons I have yet to try!

So, in non-cousin-Katie fashion, I will tell you the first thing, which is that we have now saved more than $9,000 since January 1, which is ridiculous. Now, I am terrible at math. And sometimes I have to do a little light math at work.

For example, we will be advertising that something is 20% off and we will list the new price. I have to check to make sure that the new price is correct. Usually what turned out to be a $49.95 item has become $8,967,943.72 with that 20% discount, after I have finished calculating it.

So you can imagine that this figure of us saving more than $9,000 since January 1 has made me tense. But I have checked and rechecked, and really, that is what we have saved.

We paid the dang taxes, and now we are thinking of paying off the credit card. Suze Orman always says that there is no point in having savings if you have credit card debt, cause the debt is creating interest. I am not interested in it; I do not know where it is creating interest. On a credit card porn site?

In any event, we owe $2,000 in credit card debt, so that may be paid. If so, I will add it to the column under "What we've saved so far" on the right.

Also, I thought I might have to buy lunch yesterday, but it turned out okay.

On Friday, I was invited to attend a lunch meeting where we were going to have a brainstorming session. Why anyone thinks my brain could storm in any way is an enigma to me. In the invitation, it said "a light lunch will be served." This is how professional I am. I wrote back and said, "Define light." I mean, the person inviting me is very thin. Did she mean we would get a SweetTart and a breath strip? Cause girlfriend needs her calories, over here. "Needs" might be a strong word, but still. So when she told me it would be sandwiches, I said okay and therefore did not pack a lunch.

So, remember Thursday, when it was so busy at work? Friday turned out to be an even bigger gem.

Do you know what I hate? Other than call waiting and people who say "for all intensive purposes" and traffic and all the other things I have said that I hate? I HATE it when work is put on my chair. I also hate it when work is put on my keyboard. It's like, "DON'T SIT DOWN! THERE IS NO TIME FOR YOU TO BEND YOUR KNEES AND SQUAT! WORK NEEDS TO BE DONE! DON'T YOU GET HOW IMPORTANT IT IS? STOP DRAWING BREATH AND WORK! WORK! WOOOOORRRRK!"

I'll have you know I have a large rack. No, not like that. Grow up. I have a large rack at WORK, on a TABLE in my OFFICE, and it has many many many slots. How it is supposed to go is that the traffic department is to put jobs in said rack, in the order they need doing. If it is key, it gets put right at the front of the rack, which means "get to it now."

I will have you know I have NEVER diverged from this system. If a job is at the front of my rack, that is what I grab next. I never say, "Oh, I think I will throw caution to the wind, and take a job from the very back of this rack." No! Never!

So WHY the drama of putting jobs on my chair or my keyboard?

So Friday, I walk into work, my office door is closed, and someone had LEANED JOBS UP AGAINST MY DOOR! Okay, this takes the cake. "Do not even open your door! That is how crucial this is! Just STAND here, in the hall, and start working now! Do not take off your coat! Do not grab a pen! WORK! WORK! WOOOOOORRRRRRK!

"For the love of God, WORRRRRRKKK!"

So since it was a tad busy, I knew I would not have time to attend said meeting of the storming brains. It was then, standing in the hall working with my coat on, that I realized I did not HAVE a lunch to eat. Oh, I was worried. As worried as you can be while your workplace is surgically attaching more eyeballs onto your head so you can work faster. How they wish they could find an Indian goddess, with eight pairs of hands. Wouldn't SHE be efficient.

Luckily for me, the thin woman conducting the meeting invited me to come take a sandwich even though I couldn't go to the meeting, which, shamelessly, I did. It was a delicious turkey spinach leaf and basil-y thing. On some sort of pretentious bread. Mmmm.

Then, not five minutes later, someone came around with a menu to buy everyone else in the office lunch. So I am afraid to tell you that I actually had TWO free lunches yesterday (the second was a delish chicken Parmesan on a bed of buttery noodles. I don't know why I can't lose the weight.)

Okay, so finally.

You know I think I am funny. I always have. My grandmother used to say,

"Look at her, over there. She don't need no one. She just sits by herself and laughs."

Love me the drop quote feature.

Just the other day, my poor beleaguered officemate, who just wants to do his job and go home, was watching some of my shenanigans (specifically, someone had given me note cards with a different picture of a cat on each one. I was holding up each one and giving it its own voice. "Hello! I am a Persian. I am lovely and smushy in my face." "Hi. I. am. weird-looking. Sphinx. I. am. not. so. cute." My officemate said, "You are just your own ball of yarn, aren't you?"

So yes, I get a kick out of myself. Which is why I find it disturbing when I find someone who is funnier than me. Please give up on my blog and just read Miss Doxie. If you find the part where she has birds in her yard, you will have a convulsion. Or the part where she comes up with Halloween costumes for her dogs. Or the part where she hates the symphony. Oh, she buries me in the funny department.

And yes, Dave Newman, you are and have always been funnier than me. But you do not keep a blog, thank God, so I do not have to feel threatened by you. Plus you have that gut...

Crankerbritches checks in

This was the worst day EVER. Sort of.

On March 22nd, 2006, my magnificent cat Mr. Horkheimer died. He was my good cat for more than 12 years; I had gotten him back while I was still single. So for several years it was just Horkie and me. He was a fine roommate; he rarely ate my food and never borrowed my clothes.

Last year he got really sick and he died. Marvin Gardens and I had been planning a bar mitzvah for him -- he would have been 13 in May. We thought we were hilARious with this idea. We were going to have a bird and mouse theme, we were gonna put up a photo collage of Horkie -- oh, we couldn't get enough of ourselves.

Anyway. I am just saying that LAST March 22nd was a bad day, and this one RANKED RIGHT UP THERE...

EVERY job at work was an emergency that had to get done RIGHT AWAY OR EVERYONE WOULD DIE!

Then traffic was terrible all the way home. It took me an hour and 15 minutes to get home. And as I crawled down the 405, I was trying to talk to my Aunt Mary on my cell phone, and like 86 people called me. BEEP! My phone would go. BEEP! Then it would go BOOPBOOPBOOP! to let me know the person had hung up. I don't CARE that they hung up! Then three seconds later my phone would go, boodledy boodely boo! to let me know whoever was calling had left a MESSAGE! LIKE I CARED! JUST LET ME TALK TO AUNT MARY, WILL YA?

I personally think call waiting is the rudest thing possible. I did not choose to have it on my phone. On our REAL phone, if someone else calls in, it goes straight to voicemail, which means I can CONCENTRATE on THAT person when I am DONE with my original caller! Which is what talking on the phone is all about! You are supposed to give the person your UNDIVIDED ATTENTION! You are not supposed to interrupt them to see if a bigger name is on the other line. And really, how often is the other call an emergency? Once every five years or so? Please.

Oh, I am cranky today.

Anyway, the reason I am blogging is to say that to make myself feel better, and this is such a healthy way to deal with stress, I used my McDonald's gift certificate that my pal Lisa sent me! I have a hot fudge sundae in the freezer to eat later. I am happy now. Happy and cranky.

This might cheer me up. One of my favorite bloggers, musings of a housewife, had a sort of questionnaire on her site today. It is a list of things one may or may not have done, and you bold the stuff you have done. So I will do so. Then you can cut and paste the list and send it to me, with your own changes! Okay, here we go (please note that I have done most of the drunken, slutty stuff. Hi, mom!):

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink

02. Swam with wild dolphins

03. Climbed a mountain

04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive

05. Been inside the Great Pyramid

06. Held a tarantula (eww! never!)

07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone

08. Said “I love you” and meant it

09. Hugged a tree (my friend Jeff Gilman told me to, so I did)

10. Bungee jumped

11. Visited Paris

12. Watched a lightning storm at sea (define "sea." Does that mean the ocean? Cause I MIGHT have done so at the ocean, but I for sure have at the Great Lakes)

13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise (Marvin Gardens and I talked all night once when we were dating. We're so over each other now; we'd fall asleep trying)

14. Seen the Northern Lights (the coolest thing. ever.)

15. Gone to a huge sports game

16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa

17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables

18. Touched an iceberg

19. Slept under the stars

20. Changed a baby’s diaper

21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon

22. Watched a meteor shower

23. Gotten drunk on champagne

24. Given more than you can afford to charity

25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope

26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment

27. Had a food fight

28. Bet on a winning horse

29. Asked out a stranger

30. Had a snowball fight

31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can

32. Held a lamb (oooh! I wish!)

33. Seen a total eclipse

34. Ridden a roller coaster

35. Hit a home run (hah!)

36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking

37. Adopted an accent for an entire day

38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment

39. Had two hard drives for your computer

40. Visited all 50 states

41. Taken care of someone who was drunk

42. Had amazing friends

43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country

44. Watched wild whales

45. Stolen a sign

46. Backpacked in Europe

47. Taken a road trip

48. Gone rock climbing

49. Midnight walk on the beach

50. Gone sky diving

51. Visited Ireland

52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love

53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them (Lisa G., remember that cute old lady we sat with at Hunan?)

54. Visited Japan

55. Milked a cow

56. Alphabetized your CDs

57. Pretended to be a superhero

58. Sang karaoke

59. Lounged around in bed all day (pretty much all of 1996)

60. Played touch football

61. Gone scuba diving

62. Kissed in the rain ( lived in Seattle, there was no choice)

63. Played in the mud

64. Played in the rain

65. Gone to a drive-in theater

66. Visited the Great Wall of China

67. Started a business

68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken

69. Toured ancient sites

70. Taken a martial arts class

71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight

72. Gotten married

73. Been in a movie (Someone is making a documentary on Marvin Gardens and me. Does it count if it's not out yet?)

74. Crashed a party (Marvin G. and I crashed two weddings at a hotel we were staying at. We even signed the guest book. "Don't be strangers!" we wrote.)

75. Gotten divorced

76. Gone without food for 5 days

77. Made cookies from scratch

78. Won first prize in a costume contest (Just this Halloween.)

79. Ridden a gondola in Venice

80. Gotten a tattoo

81. Rafted the Snake River

82. Been on television news programs as an “expert”

83. Got flowers for no reason

84. Performed on stage

85. Been to Las Vegas

86. Recorded music

87. Eaten shark

88. Kissed on the first date (Marvin Gardens. He was too dreamy...)

89. Gone to Thailand

90. Bought a house

91. Been in a combat zone

92. Buried one/both of your parents

93. Been on a cruise ship (Does the Queen Mary count?)

94. Spoken more than one language fluently

95. Performed in Rocky Horror

96. Raised children/currently raising child

97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour (Hmm, do I know anyoe who does that?)

99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country

100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over

101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge

102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking

103. Had plastic surgery

104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived

105. Wrote articles for a large publication (sort of. Does the Saginaw News wedding section count?)

106. Lost 100 pounds

107. Held someone while they were having a flashback

108. Piloted an airplane

109. Touched a stingray

110. Broken someone’s heart

111. Helped an animal give birth

112. Won money on a T.V. game show

113. Broken a bone

114. Gone on an African photo safari

115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears

116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol

117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild

118. Ridden a horse

119. Had major surgery

120. Had a snake as a pet

121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon (I tried to, with Marvin G. He said it was like trying to hike with his Gramma Ethel. I minced more than I hiked.)

122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours

123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states

124. Visited all 7 continents

125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days

126. Eaten kangaroo meat

127. Eaten sushi

128. Had your picture in the newspaper

129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about (Renee likes cats AND Laura Ingalls Wilder now!)

130. Gone back to school

131. Parasailed

132. Touched a cockroach

133. Eaten fried green tomatoes (with my friend Marianne, who calls them "damaydas.")

134. Read The Iliad - and the Odyssey

135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read

136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions

138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language (when I was in Paris. We met three guys who spoke no English. Hung out with our French/English dictionary all night!)

139. Been elected to public office

140. Written your own computer language

141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream

142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care

143. Built your own PC from parts

144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you

145. Had a booth at a street fair

146. Dyed your hair

147. Been a DJ

148. Shaved your head

149. Caused a car accident

150. Saved someone’s life

McDonaldland or Dreamland?

The Guinness Book of World Records said the longest recorded time that a person ever went without sleep is 19 days, 21 hours and 40 minutes.

I am more tired than that person.

I haven't been pulling a train with my teeth or trying to sleep next to a jackhammer or anything. But I have been that kind of busy where you rush home after being gone for 14 hours, do 800 things in a huge hurry, then try to fall asleep. Which always results in me lying there with my brain going like this:

"WellIcan'tbelieveshesaidthatanddoyoureallythinkIshouldwritealettertoKJLHcausethatmorningDJisjustrudemaybeIshouldjusttrytorelaxandwhyhaven'tIworkedoutandcouldIhaveskincancershouldIgetmynosedonewherearethecats."

Like that.

Anyway, the exciting news is that my oldest friend -- and by that I do not mean that she is really old -- sent me MCDONALD'S GIFT CERTIFICATES today!!!! Thank you Lisa, not to be confused with my blog commenter named Lisa or the commenter named I'm Not Lisa. Whole other Lisa altogether. We've known each other since we were zygotes.

Oh, am I excited. I do not even know what I will order first.

Have you noticed that the longer I go without spending, the more things seem to just come to me? I know I sound like that woman who wrote The Secret. Or did a man write it? I haven't read it, but I borrowed it.

But really. Okay, yeah, maybe it's cause I have a blog clearly stating all the things I wish for so it's pretty easy to figure out. But then again, no one has to send me those things as a result. And why did someone come up to me in a parking structure the other day and just give me their permit that they'd already paid for? And why did that nice woman at work just give me that pink pomegranate soap? Okay, just realized I could change the color of my text. Can I go back and make my St. Patrick's Day blog entry all green?

Okay, seriously, now I have become delirious. Going to sleep.