Some jackass has stolen two of my drinks out of the work fridge. Yes, I get made fun of for my slightly passive-aggressive note. But I still have my drink at the end of the day since I started doing this.
Asshole never copped to doing it, either. I wouldn’t fuck with me either when I’m thirsty.
Let’s see. Today, for me, started at midnight when I had a very late dinner of hot chicken wings, and then decided I would sleep in the hammock. I put out two blankets, one on top and one underneath, and my pillow. I also wore a long sleeved shirt, sweatpants, and socks just in case it got cold or there were midges aprowl.
I passed out quite quickly, as I normally do. This time it was without the help of a book or my ipad, as I didn’t want any settling dew to ruin either. I woke up all the way just once during the night, and looked up to see the Big Dipper overhead. I cuddled into my blankets happily and went right back to sleep.
About 5 am the sun was coming up, and it seemed that the dew point had finally been reached as I felt distinctly damp. I was also resting most of my arse and back on the ground. I guess the cotton of the hammock stretches more when damp, or it had finally given up on holding my substantial self off the ground. I brought my covers and pillow inside, and found hubby still asleep on the couch. I chased him off by talking utter nonsense, he told me later, and I didn’t wake up until 10am. Yikes: I’m normally up at 7, 7:30.
From the couch I can’t really see if the sun is out; can’t see if it will be a good day. I got up, had some water, drank the last of my iced tea, went outside for about 10 minutes and realised it was too hot, already – so I went back inside and watched a truly terrible episode of Stargate SG1. Just when I started to fall asleep I made myself get up and go back outside.
It was actually, truly, HOT today. By 5:30 it was 31.7 out – or 89 in American money (as hubby likes to say). I spent most of my day in shorts and a bikini top, and even then I had to move out of the sun quite often. I went to the shop once, for smokes, and took a shower (dammit, I’m peeling – I really did get some sunshine). After 3 I walked to the doctor and found out I get another week off work.
Hubby is doing a BBQ tonight – he goes a bit mad and tonight we have three kinds of sausages, chicken wings, pork chops, and maybe some corn (just for me). No, we don’t have company over. He just really likes to cook. He brought me a sampling of wings and a sausage a few minutes ago, as I sat out front getting the last rays. What a lovely thing to do. I feel terrible that I’m out front and he’s out back.
Oh, I should show you my tan. It’s especially funny compared to hubby’s Irish complexion:
Is that not bloody amazing? I love how he only has freckles up to where a short-sleeved shirt ends, and then he’s alabaster white above that line. Me? Even the paler underside of my arms, or my palms, aren’t as white as he is. He truly is the whitest man I know. Who loves hip-hop. Go figure.
Well. I’ve gone quiet for a bit. I have things to post, oh yes. I can’t seem to make myself want to interact much. I’m a bit sad about missing the responses, you see. I post late at night, Irish time, and all the comments come in when I’m asleep – I love responding in ‘real time.’ Even if I set this doowhazizz to post at a later time, I’d be at work when my friends visit. All blogs are blocked at work, too. I can use the WP app to respond but I really like seeing a comment in situ when I reply – okay, that’s a bit odd perhaps. It’s a visual thing. I also enjoy sitting here, writing my heart out, and hitting ‘publish.’ I’d miss that just a bit too much.
Today, Margaret Thatcher finally died. I didn’t know much about her when I was living in the USA – I do recall the Falklands War, but I wasn’t interested in the politics of it. I never heard about the coal miners, or her support of apartheid, or how she let Irish men starve to death in prison rather than concede that the UK and Ireland were at war. Now that I’m married to an Irishman I’ve heard about these things, and I’ve heard again every time her face was on telly: will she just hurry up and die already?!? So, iDJ is happy, if you can say that. You know what? I can say that, and I just did. He’s glad she’s dead, and I’m happy he’s glad. I expect there will be a Thatcher-themed radio show this Thursday. So there. They should put her in a locked, gated mausoleum to keep away all the people who want to dance (or worse) on her grave. That said, a total stranger just called it ‘utterly pathetic’ that I said we’d opened some sparkling wine tonight for the occasion. Now I’m just a little bit pissed off.
Actually, a bit more than pissed off. If I say something stupid, I expect to be informed of it in a reasonable manner. Not called utterly pathetic. That is the type of interaction I never get here, and thank you all so very much for being reasonable people, or at least ignoring me when I’m irritating.
I couldn’t spell mausoleum to save my life, by the way. I don’t trust that it’s right even now, despite Google saying it is. That’s for you, Tom!
What else… Ah. My life feels like it is on hold. The relief I felt two weeks ago is dissipating and now I’m coming up with new things to worry about.
Ugh, now I’ve gone and made myself even crankier than usual. I’ve lost interest in my own bitching, so here’s a beautiful photo of Lokii.
Zoom in. Yes, do. He’s drooling just because he has sunshine. Now, doesn’t that make it all better?
Hey, do I go to work tomorrow or not? Took the day off for a medical appointment, came home to find it cancelled. I have 12 holiday days left before the end of year, which they will pay me for if unused, but I’m also about 2 months behind as there’s so much work.
Answers by comment please, I can’t seem to put up a poll!
I’ve been reminded of a story from my life that is fun to tell – I hope I can do it justice in writing – this tale, up until today, has only been an oral story.
When I was 30, I was engaged to someone. I also worked in an office, doing distinctly non-officey things. I was a diamond and precious-gem sorter. The work was interesting and educational, but the atmosphere and the owners were terrible. I met the wonderful Socks at at that job, so I would never choose to delete it from my history. The fiancée was a horrible mistake that thankfully never necessitated extraction by legal means.
Short story: I got fired, and I left him. I’d be glad to tell the long stories if you want me to.
Before I left the man, and after I lost the job, I decided I was entirely sick to death of working in an office. Also, with a big ol’ track record of two firings in a row, I didn’t figure I had much hope in the land of phones and desks and computers for a while. So, as I was scouring the adverts in the paper I expanded my usual search parameters. I’d do just about anything; but as you do, I kept an eye open for the things that actually sounded good.
So, I rang to apply for a job at a horse farm. Mucking out stalls, cutting the pastures, etc.
I had at that point maybe five months cumulative lifetime experience with taking care of horses. And I was 30, not too out of shape, but not physically fit either. Not a chance, thinks I.
Somehow I got phone-approval by the owner of the farm and I was told to come out and meet the barn manager for an on-site interview.
Just ask for Elvis, the Barn Manager, he told me.
Whoo, boy, thinks I. No way am I going to pull one over on a professional horse-guy named Elvis who actually manages a barn full of what I had been told were very, very, valuable racehorses. Not a chance. I’m not experienced, I’m not terribly young anymore, and I’ve sat behind a desk most of my life. Fuck it, says I, all I can do is try, right?
So I show up, on time of course (all those office interviews drill that into you quite well). And… Oh my. It’s 20 acres of private property, with an electric buzz-in gate, and a house I that I soon learned was worth 2 million and a barn worth 1mil, and an artificial stream that started near the house and ran gently down to a Koi pond and then a lake. It was beautiful, and perfect, and I was so out of my league!
I wasn’t backing out, but my hopes had totally gone when I saw the fancy gate and the perfectly fenced pastures. Still, I was going to meet someone actually named Elvis! At least I’d have a good story about failed job hunting.
Five seconds after parking and walking up to the barn, my possible story got way more interesting. Elvis came out to meet me; complete with cowboy boots, Wrangler jeans, proper cowboy hat, and a blue bandanna around his throat.
Elvis was a black man.
I blinked back my presuppositions based on his name – it never occurred to me that anyone who wasn’t white and from Nashville would name a child Elvis – and I smiled and said I was there to interview for the job of Farm Hand.
Elvis asked a few questions which I answered honestly – nope, I had no clue how to train horses for anything. Nope, never driven a tractor. Nope, no experience with horses injured on the track, or ones about to give birth, or weanlings or yearlings. Nope, nope, nope.
Oh well, thinks I. It was worth it, I tried, and I really like this guy – he’s the real deal, the first cowboy I ever met (he told me he was a former bare-back rodeo rider!), and I’m glad I had a stereotype I didn’t even know that I owned broken so completely and utterly.
Then he told me to go and meet some of the horses, who were still in their stalls awaiting the morning turn-out. Hell, ya! I am so not getting the job, but at least I get to meet some horsies!
He directed me to the first stall in the barn by the door and asked me what I thought of the young filly inside. She came up, stuck her head out, and we had a good old conversation. Me being a bit shy with her, as I really didn’t know where horses liked to be touched, scratched, etc. She was really sweet and put up with my fumbling, however.
When I turned away, Elvis told me I was hired. My jaw must have hit the straw, because he explained why. It seems that this particular horse had a huge fear of everyone, and no one could approach her at all, at all! She was way too old for that attitude, and now she would be ‘my horse’ to gentle for the track.
I spoke Horse, apparently! It was a dream come true, and I worked there all that year and the next summer, too.
But that’s another story.
My brain is even more all-over-the-shop than usual… I am so behind on reading everyone else’s blogs and even responding to my own comments. Hoping to get my shit together sometime soonish. I feel…discombobulated.
And again I’m dead impressed that my iPad knows a word like discombobulated. It is smarter than most humans I deal with on a daily basis… Like the TWO people last week who tried to email me. While on the phone with them I said that I needed something in writing; in an email, and I heard, ‘ok, so… http://www.blahblah…’ NO!!! HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A WEBSITE AND EMAIL IN 2012?!?!
Maybe I’m just too work-stressed…
Argh. I have nothing going on, yet a ton of things going on, and I don’t even know where to begin. So I haven’t begun, until now… this is feeling like one of those times I need to ramble and write, just because I need to write.
That said, I caught myself cleaning the fridge this evening in what I knew damn well was an avoidance ploy. What’s up with that? Who the hell would rather wash the beer vegetable drawers instead of write? Especially when the call is so clearly upon oneself? Like that third person stuff? Yeah, me neither.
Maybe it really is that I have too much in my head and couldn’t figure out where to start. I’m just free-writing here, a big ol’ brain-dump. I guess I’ll see how big it really is. Good thing I don’t actually use paper, I’d be clogging the jacks…
I still need to post about my garden, and about a dozen kinds of beer I’ve tried recently, and an ‘invasion of the flour-mites’ update (I’ve gotten so many Google hits about it I feel I should do a proper post with advice on getting rid of them – they are gone). I have a ton of photos I’d like to share… I’m worried about my job security, and about Socks (who still is waiting, and since she has her mum with her we aren’t having our weekly phone call tonight). I owe an old friend a serious response to a difficult email, I’m worried about an ex who I’ve only just realised might be having a hard time and I don’t know why, and I just realised that it’s friggin’ Thursday and I have no hope of even getting a card to my dad in time for Father’s Day. Sorry dad, I really have been meaning to send something. I’m a terrible kid. Love me anyway? (that’s an old family joke)
We are also meant to have 36 – yes, thirty-bleedin-six, hours of rain, which started today at about 11 am. Yay. 36 hours of wet dog and no garden and no sitting outside all weekend. And I just know it will clear and be beautiful just in time for me to be stuck behind a desk on Monday. I can’t even get close to explaining how very much a sunny day that I cannot enjoy distracts me. My brain just does not appreciate being confined indoors, and my body is screaming for sunshine and fresh air.
I’m worried about my sister being lonely and having a tough time while her husband is away.
I started having graphic nightmares again, which try but fail to get my heart rate up, but still wake me and set my mind going. I can’t read myself to sleep on the iPad at those times: it will fall over and hit either me or iDJ in the face. I did, in one of those middle-of-the-night sessions, have an idea for a new blog; something I’d like to do that actually has a ‘theme’ but I can’t make the time for it unless I can think of a way it will make me some money. Which annoys me, because I’d much rather do it for the love of it, but ohmydog we are broke. Another worry…
And, suddenly, it’s 10pm and I have only an hour of me-time left before I have to sleep or be useless tomorrow. Hard as hell this time of year – even with the rain it is bright enough outside to read. It feels like 8, or even 7, but I have to finish making dinner, eat it, and go to sleep soon. Yes yes I know, we eat at crazy hours. iDJ has been on the air the last two hours and he has to wrap up some things still, and there’s no way we’d be able to make and eat a big meal in the hour of ‘free time’ we have between coming home from work and his show starting. Maybe if we didn’t cook from scratch and had something out of a bag or box it would be possible… Blecch.
I guess the last thing on my mind is my spine – I have to wait until July 4 for a consult to go over the results of my MRI. I have no idea what they are going to say. My physiotherapist says that pretty much only shots or surgery are going to be offered to me as options. I’m not keen on either, but will take the shots just to feel like a normal person again. Heh. Like that is possible…
Right, let me find a picture to cheer myself up… Oh yes, here we go.
Okay maybe it’s too big. But I didn’t want you to miss the flailing kitty-arm! Neko and Spotty were having a big game that day, and I took a ton of photos I wanted to upload, and hubby took a video. I’ve just not gotten a round tuit yet for a real post, so I might put this shot up again later.
Right, need to go make a salad – one of these days I’ll share my dad’s dressing with you, it’s amazingly good and so easy!
…but I’m missing my blog. I thought I’d say a few things before heading upstairs.
I’ve finished re-reading what I wrote already on The Book. I still like it. I’ve also done most of my research on the stuff that needed researching up to this point. So… I guess I’m ready to start making words fit together in new ways!
My writing area is a lot different than it was for the first chunk-o-book, though. I’m in the house now, instead of hiding in the cold, uncomfortable shed, sitting on a toilet. I shit you not.
Now, I have pillows in front of the fireplace – but I also have constant interruptions. Not great.
But! I’ve been re-learning how to do several things at once, even if I don’t want to. I change the track of my thoughts so very many times in a day at The Job that I’m getting good at it. I hope.
Anyway, that’s really it. I have to retire for the night – because my brain is running out of my ear and pooling down around my collarbone.
But I’m here anyway. I guess I sort of treat this thing like a diary, or Morning Pages – even though I’m here in the evening for the most part.
I have so much random shit in my head that I feel the need to babble a bit.
I’d be seriously tempted to take off on Monday, so I could watch the Stuper Bowl in the pub. It doesn’t even start until 11:30 here! No way I can watch even a little unless I have the next day free. I have to sleep; not getting enough sleep is worse than the worst hangover for me. I don’t even care about the Super Bowl, really. iDJ likes to watch it, and he likes the idea that I’m getting a little bit of ‘home’ even if we don’t get to see any of the commercials (the best part, at least until hell freezes over and my Browns are in the Bowl). I mostly like being the only person in an entire sports bar that knows how the game is played. I really get a kick out of telling the men the rules, and it makes up for all the questions I ask during a rugby match (a much superior sport, and the Six Nations also starts this Sunday – Ireland v Wales).
About blogging: WordPress has some VideoPress thingie they are all happy about. I checked it out: it allows video upload from iPads. That would be very nice. If it didn’t cost over $50 a year. Go away.
I have £45 in Amazon gift certificates, the oldest dating back to early August. I can’t make myself buy anything: I don’t spend money on myself. I don’t know how to do it without going crazy, so I just don’t. I had a look on Amazon a little while ago… There are five Dean Koontz books I do not own! How did this happen? I don’t like his work as much as I used to, but I collect his books and have for decades. Ugh. Those five alone take me to £40. I also really, really want all of the Stephen King Wasteland graphic novels. I have some of them, but he just keeps making more. Damn him. The cheapest is £12.12. Bollocks, that puts me over the limit. There’s also a new Zelda game for the Wii. The previous one was brilliant and I spent over 70 hours playing it, so whatever they ask, it is pretty much worth it. But then I could only get the game and one, possibly two of the Koontz… What do I put back? I can’t decide. So, I’ll leave it for another few months, until there is even more crap I want but don’t need.
Right, I think I’ve rambled on long enough. Except I didn’t mention the two flat tires on the Mini this morning, and how the air hoses – both of them – at the closest garage didn’t work, and I had to use the little compressor we keep in the car (thankfully) and how I was almost late for work when I meant to get there early…
Wow, I think my hits today are my lowest ever, and my day is close to being over. I HATE that I can’t be on here much any more! I’ve barely played with Brushes in the last two weeks, too. Aargh!
I want to bitch randomly. But I’ll save that for when I have more time-ha…
Instead, here’s an adorable cat photo. Hoping it brings my views up for the day, otherwise I’m just going to be depressed a bit.
heretherebespiders 