Month: November 1999

sure couldn’t be around the Boys without supervision ’cause she’d probably be dead within the hour. It was a really difficult decision, but I think it’s for the best. It’s funny, though, how much I miss her. I only held her for about five minutes at the store Saturday, but I came to love her so much in that short period of time. As much as I wanted to adopt her, though, I realized this wasn’t really the ideal environment for her. Okay, enough of that before I start getting all teary-eyed. Speaking of kitties, Spanky is doing this weird thing where he can apparently see into another dimension and it’s kinda freaky. Five minutes ago, he was sitting on top of my monitor when he turned and began staring at…nothing. He was so fascinated by this particular nothing that he jumped down onto the floor and followed it around for a while. Just wandering around the computer room, staring at a fixed spot of nothing for several minutes before he curled up under the end table by the couch. I know I’ve mentioned that we’re remodeling our office space at work. They turned empty warehouse space behind our offices into 3 more offices and a conference room, and now they’re working on the front area; ie, the area that comprised our entire office before we added on. Friday we had to move everything from the front part of the office to the new, back part of the office. In other words, 6 people and their accouterments are crammed into 3 offices and a conference room. We have a lot of stuff, between the 6 of us. And, to add to it, a new guy started Monday, so it’s really 7 of us and all our crap. It’s a joy, I’ll tell you that. I’m in Fred’s office, and — have I mentioned? — I love that man with all my heart. But. There really is such a thing as too much togetherness. I really really really am needing my space, people. Needing it a lot, in fact. Yeah, yeah, woe is me. We could be in a 500-foot apartment, and my parents could be living with us, and I could be dying. I know I’m a big ol’ bitch, whining about needing space while I’m living in a big-ass house, when all over the country far more deserving people are making do without pools and Jeeps and 4 pain-in-the-ass-but-still-really-cute cats. I’m aware of that, okay? But still, I’ll be glad when life goes back to normal. That’s all I’m saying. —–]]>

that put the fear of God in them! The sound made them pause their rambunctiousness. They looked at me, looked at each other, then looked back at me. "What the fuck was that?" Stimpy asked, sniffing the air. "I’m snapping at you so you’ll knock it off!" I told him. "Now, stop!" "Oh yes," said Snoopy. "We must stop, or she’ll snap the mighty Snap O’ Doom again!" And then they laughed their kitty laughs before they raced off. The little bastards. My parents and the spud made it back from Nashville around 4:00 this afternoon. They appear to have had a good time, aside from getting lost in the Opryland Hotel (where they only visited, not wanting to shell out the bucks to stay). They hit the Nashville Zoo, Andrew Jackson’s homestead, and a bunch of other places I can’t remember. ]]>

Snoopy two and a half years ago. They keep cats until they’re adopted out. Stopping there was a big, big mistake, because I immediately saw a tiny black and orange girl kitten who locked her eyes on me and called me Mommy. I took her out of her cage and petted her and kissed her and fell in love. She was the sweetest little thing I’ve ever seen and I really really REALLY want her. Fred was not swayed in the slightest from his “No more cats” stance, so I had to put her back. She looked so betrayed. I would name her Molly. Okay, change of subject before I start hysterically sobbing. After we left the cat store, we went to the extreme south part of Huntsville and bought oysters and jumbo shrimp from this tiny store by the side of the road that we only get around to visiting once a year or so. Then we headed back toward home and stopped at a furniture store on the way to order a tv stand for the spud’s bedroom. We originally ordered a tv stand for the spud for her birthday out of this catalog called “Home Decorators (or Decorating, I don’t recall and I’m too lazy to go look).” No, we generally don’t make a habit of buying furniture from catalogs, but we ordered two stands for our VCR tapes and DVDs, and were pretty impressed at the quality. Anyway, they were supposed to ship it a few days before the spud’s birthday, and when it hadn’t arrived a week after that, Fred called them. They had moved the shipping date to sometime in December, and not bothered to tell us. So we cancelled the order. It’s a nice, simple little tv stand, with a place for a VCR and storage space underneath — which she needs, since her grandparents keep giving her Disney movies. MollyMollyMollyMollyMollyMollyMollyMollyMolly. We came home and, since it was past noon and neither of us had eaten lunch, decided to eat a big lunch and then not eat dinner at all. Fred shucked the oysters (is that the correct word? Shuck? He opened them, in any case) and peeled the shrimp. I observed from my seat on the loveseat. He cooked the steak (in the oven, because our gas grill has apparently kicked the bucket) and shrimp and potatoes (regular baked potato for him, baked sweet potato for me), and then we ate. As the cats gathered around the table, taking turns meowing and looking very interested, we ate and ate and ate. The shrimp were excellent, the steak rocked, and the oysters were to die for. If you’ve never tried raw oysters, you are missing out bigtime, my friend. MollyMollyMollyMollyMollyMollyMollyMollyMolly. Then Fred left the cleanup to me (since he cooked)(and thank god almost everything fit in the dishwasher), and came downstairs, puttered on his computer, and took a short nap. I watched “The Bold and the Beautiful” and the last episode of “The Real World” that I taped this week. Is it just me or was Kaia a total bitch who needed a good ass-kicking? I would have kicked her ass but good, let me tell you that. Or I would have said really mean things about her behind her back. One or the other.]]>

Hey, here’s a tip for those of you who are service people and have to go to people’s houses and do things like hook up cable: PARK ON THE STREET, OR PARK FAR ENOUGH BACK IN THE DRIVEWAY SO THAT THE PERSON WHOSE TRUCK GOES IN THAT EMPTY GARAGE CAN GET THEIR FREAKIN’ TRUCK INTO THEIR GARAGE. Can you tell this irks me? Jesus, who the Hell pulls into a driveway, sees a garage door open, no vehicle in that side of the garage, and thinks "Oh, I should pull up here, this won’t be a problem."? ARGHHH.

Okay. So I arrive home this afternoon and find a cable truck blocking my side of the garage. The door was open, the space was empty, and yet I could not reach it. No problem. I parked in the driveway behind Fred’s side of the garage, plodded down the driveway to check the mail, and went back to the truck, because – of course – there were groceries to be brought inside. I grabbed several bags, balancing them with the mail and my bag, and – of course – one of the bags broke, tossing boxes and cans everywhere. I swore quietly under my breath and put everything down so I could chase down the rogue boxes and cans, and stuffed them into another bag. I finally got everything under control and walked to the garage door, getting more and more pissed. "Park in my driveway, blocking my spot, you motherfucker. You can take your digital cable and shove it! Who the fuck needs 140 channels anyway?" I growled to myself. I made it in the door, and just stood there because suddenly everything felt really heavy. Was I going to make it up the stairs? (Of course I was, because I’d rather fall backwards down the stairs due to a too-large load of toilet paper and soda than make a second trip downstairs.) Fred heard me, and came quickly down the stairs. He saw the really pissed-off look on my face and shushed me before I could get started. If I were a cartoon, I would have had steam drawn coming out of my ears. I made a few faces at him, then huffed and puffed my way upstairs, dropped everything on the kitchen counters, and hid in the spud’s bedroom until I got my breath back.

Other than that, my day has been pretty good.

I got to sleep in late this morning (until 6:15! I am so bad!), because I took half the day off. The cleaning girly was coming between 11 and 12, and rather than leaving work to come home and let her in, I stayed home and cleaned the spud’s room. And when I say I cleaned it, I mean I cleaned the hell out of it. Took me 2 hours, and when I was done, I had two and a half big garbage bags filled with stuff to give to the Salvation Army. Isn’t that disgusting? She has so friggin’ much crap that I was able to come up with that much to get rid of, and she hasn’t even noticed any of it is gone. One of those bags was full of Barbie stuff. She had, no kidding, 30 Barbie dolls. What’s up with that? The problem is that she gets a Barbie from my parents, her father’s parents, her father, and sometimes my sister for just about every birthday and Christmas. This year, everyone who sends her a new Barbie is gonna receive an old one in the mail. Probably won’t stop them, though.

As I mentioned, we had a woman come to clean today. I let her in at 10, and left for work. Fred came home about 1, since he’s still not feeling well, and she was still here. She wasn’t done until 2:30, and she did an incredible job. The shower I use hasn’t really been cleaned in about 6 months (yes, I know, that’s nasty), and she got it sparkling clean. The cat-hair dust bunnies that were threatening to consume the stairway were gone. She even changed the sheets on my bed! I think I’m in love.

Did everyone enjoy Fred’s guest entry yesterday? I thought he did a great entry, but he wasn’t that happy with it. He informed me that the problem was that I asked him to do it when he’s been doing nothing but sitting on his ass and coughing, so next time I’ll ask him to write when he’s really busy.

So, as you know, my parents are coming to visit tomorrow. They’ll be here for 11 days, and I’m not sure what that’s going to do to my journalling schedule. I’ll try to update every day, but I’m sure they’ll expect me to join them on their visits to my relatives. I may start writing and uploading during the day, but I have no idea if that will happen or not. Stay tuned!

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Fred hit the doc-in-the-box as soon as the office opened and found – to no one’s surprise – that he has bronchitis. The doctor tried to give him a prescription for tussionex (which has lots and lots of hydrocodone in it), but Fred didn’t want it because it puts him to sleep. Some days, the man thinks of no one but himself. Oddly, even though he’s had two doses of the antibiotic, he’s feeling worse instead of better. Because, instead of staying in bed, napping, and eating junk food all day (the Robyn method of dealing with illness), he went out and supervised the pool guy as he cleaned the pool. Then he cleaned the solar cover off and dragged it back onto the pool all by his lonesome, which left him so lightheaded he had to take a nap.

Because I didn’t have to wait for the spud to get on the bus this morning, I managed to get to work half an hour earlier than usual. It was really nice having the office to myself. I got a bunch of bills paid, did a lot of filing, and by about 9:00 was settled in surfing and catching up on journals. That’s pretty much how I spent the day, except for a quick run to the bank.

When I got home, Fred was talking to someone from a maid service — we haven’t really given up looking for cleaners who won’t charge an arm and a leg — and after she left, we went out back and sat on the patio and watched the cats explore the backyard. The weather’s been beautiful for the last several days, sunny and around 75, with a clear blue sky. I’m sure it won’t last for long, but it’s nice while it lasts. Especially considering it’s about 50 in Maine right now. The one thing I don’t much miss about Maine is the cold weather.

Fancypants is the one who likes going outside the most, but I suspect that’s only so he can search for a way out of the backyard. The entire time he’s outside he skulks around the perimeter peering through the slats of the fence. Either he’s trying to get out or he’s selling kitty drugs. He hasn’t tried digging under the fence yet, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.

A few months ago, when the pool was still warm enough to swim in (or at least it wasn’t so cold we’d immediately perish upon contact with the water), the cats were out wandering around the backyard. Stimpy apparently spotted a butterfly or grasshopper flying by and immediately went after it. I swear to you, he was leaping at the very least five feet in the air. Twice he bounced up and flailed his front paws at the butterfly/grasshopper, and on the third bounce, he hit the fence with his back feet and actually ran paralell to the ground for three or four steps before pushing off, flipping over, and finally landing on the lawn. I laughed so hard I almost passed out, and if I’d had the camcorder out there with me, I’d be $100,000 richer, damnit.

For tomorrow, Fred has agreed to write a guest entry. I’m frightened to see what he writes about, but I did inform him that he could write about the wonder that is Robyn. —–

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Sadly, I didn’t meet my goal of getting all the laundry done Friday night and even as I speak there’s one last load of towels gurgling in the washer. Woe is me.

The weekend didn’t fly by as quickly as it has been, which in my opinion is good. I got lots of reading and lolling about lazily accomplished today, which means two thumbs up for today! For me, anyway. Fred isn’t feeling too well; I think he caught the cold that the spud had last week, and his colds tend to turn into bronchitis. He’s not sleeping well at all, and he’s been coughing on and off. He managed to get a nap in earlier today, which made him feel a little better. He’s already planning to take tomorrow off.

My parents will be here Thursday morning at 10ish to begin their long, long visit. On the upside, they’re going to Nashville next weekend and taking the spud with them. They’re leaving Friday afternoon and coming back Sunday afternoon. I’d be more excited, but the fact is that not much will be different around here with the spud gone. We’ll still be in bed by 10 Friday night, watch movies and putter around the house Saturday, and have a big breakfast Sunday morning. We do not lead exciting, club-hopping, beer-guzzling existences, but we like it that way. Stop mock-yawning, reader, you know you’re jealous of our idyllic lives.

While I sit here at my computer, Fred is sitting at his across the room. He asked me to turn around and check out a picture on his screen, and I did so. As I turned back to my computer, my heart did a little pitter-patter of joy when he said "Aren’t you looking all cute…" I smiled to myself and perhaps even blushed a little. "Spot," he finished. Hmph. Is it fair that the cats get way more lovetalk and compliments in a day than I get all month? I think not.

We watched "Go" last night. I liked it; it was rather Tarentinoesque. Jay Mohr and Scott Wolf as gay actors were great, and at one point when they shrieked, Fred and I laughed our butts off. Fred pointed out that no matter what Jay Mohr is doing or saying, he always looks insincere, and I’m not sure if that’s just because he has a fakey smile or because of the characters he’s played. Insincere or not, he’s beginning to be an actor I enjoy a lot. William Fichtner is in the movie too, as a cop. He was the blind guy in "Contact" and one of the astronauts in "Armageddon", and he’s been in tons of other movies, but I spotted him long ago on "As the World Turns" back in the late ’80s and early ’90s as a rapist turned good guy, and I’ve loved him ever since.

Did everyone watch "Annie" tonight? I got all teary-eyed when Andrea McArdle was singing and dancing, I’m not sure why. Kathy Bates kicked ass, of course, and so did Alan Cumming. I really like the new Annie a lot, though she doesn’t seem like she’s 11 years old. That, or the spud has skewed my view of 11 year-olds as looking and sounding older than that. And about Victor Garber, I have only one thing to say: Hubba-hubba!

And with that, I bid you goodnight, sweet readers.

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Goddamn little bitches, was my first thought. I wanted to hurt them. I wanted to kick and slap and punch them. I wanted them to cry like she was crying. I wanted them dead, the little bitches. Hurt the feelings of my child? I’ll show you! But we live in a civilized world where Moms don’t kill the brats who hurt the feelings of their child. At least, that’s the world I hope we live in. Fred called the coach of her team, and ended up talking to the coach’s wife because he’s out of town right now. She was appropriately horrified, but also bewildered. “When could they have been picking on her? The coaches are always around,” she said. I think she was imagining a scenario wherein the spud’s teammates pursued her, calling her names and pushing her around. That’s ridiculous, of course, because the coachesare always around, and there are always a few extra parents hanging around during practice, so if there were any sort of physical torture, it would have been nipped in the bud. What I suspect happened is that one or more of them made snide comments to the spud when the coaches were on the other side of the field. A smirk here, a rude comment there, and what’s supposed to be fun becomes not very. It makes me sad, because is this when it starts? Is this where the gradual ripping apart of her self-esteem begins? She’s an average student, she’s not very physically skilled (she gets that from her mother), and most of her clothes come from Wal-Mart. And when you’re not good at something, unless you’re hugely delusional, you pretty much know that you’re not good at it. Even if you don’t know, there’s always someone more than willing to point it out to you. Repeatedly. If you’re lucky, that person is not one of your parents. I happen to think that the spud is the cutest kid to come down the pike, but guess what? That doesn’t help her out there in the real world when her bitchy little teammate informs her that she can’t kick the soccer ball worth a shit. Why are people so intent on ripping others to shreds? Why do we feel the need to look at people and point out every imperfection, real or imagined? And it’s not only women, not by a long shot. Fred worked with a man who was completely average-looking, and whenever Fred would say that he considered this woman, or that woman attractive, the other guy would point out every single thing he perceived to be wrong with her, from her hair color to the size of her feet. Why? Because he knew he couldn’t get her? How does putting someone else down make you better than them? And before it sounds like I’m preaching from a self-righteous pulpit, I know I do it too. The Arquette conversation from last night is one very clear example. However, Alexis, Patricia, and Rosanna Arquette aren’t likely to be hanging out in our living room anytime soon, and chances are 99.999% that none of them will ever set sight on this site. I’d never tell anyone to their face that they were ugly or that they sucked at doing this or that. Fred and I both grew up overweight. Do you think, for one single, solitary moment that we didn’t know we were overweight? And yet, I was regularly informed throughout my childhood and high school years that I was fat. What does that prove? Only that the person telling me is a clueless idiot or a total asshole, I suppose. As an overweight adult, do you think I don’t see the people nudging each other and laughing at the fat chick? I’m sure they’re saying “If I ever get that fat, shoot me.” When I was 25, I made the mistake of purchasing half a dozen donuts to take to work with me. The cashier at the grocery store announced loudly that “my goodness, those donuts could feed me and them!” (gesturing toward the three people standing in line behind me). What was her point, that I eat too much? Gosh, thanks for the newsflash. Did I say “Thanks for the newsflash, you hideous old bitch”? Of course not. I took my donuts and scurried away, head down. Just the actual fact of being fat made me the lesser person, you see. And what’s saddest of all is that I feel compelled to tell you, reader, that the donuts were not for me; they were for the whole office. ]]>

I’m so glad the week is over. It was one of those weeks that just lasted forever, even with a day off in the middle of it. I thought about going to the movies after leaving work, but I was so bloated and gassy from the shrimp lo mein I had for lunch that the thought of sitting in a movie theater for a longish period of time just made me nauseous. Instead, I swung by the grocery store and then came home, put the groceries away, straightened out the pantry, tossed a lot of stuff, and waited for Fred to get home from work. Oh, and I started the laundry train rolling along. It’s my dream to finish the laundry on Friday night, just once. Most often I get one or two loads done Friday night and have to do the bulk of it Saturday morning with a few straggling sweaters or shirts that can’t be washed with everything else getting finished up Sunday. I hate it when laundry spills over into Sunday, though. I try my damnedest to keep Sunday a laundry-free day, but it rarely happens that way.

Hey, this is some exciting stuff, isn’t it? What will I talk about next, dryer lint? Woohoo, somebody stop me!

Spanky is in a somewhat clingy mood these days. Everywhere I am, he wants to be. It’s like having a 2 year-old. I like my privacy in the bathroom, but if I should — God forbid — go in and shut the door, he’s out in the hallway screaming for me. "Momma! Momma!" he howls. "Momma, whyfor have thou forsaken me? Oh my God, I’ll never see my Momma again!" and then he stands on his hind legs and digs at the door near the doorknob. The other cats often gather to observe. When I’m annoyed enough, I reach over and open the door so he can join me. The other cats either scatter or gather around the doorway to sniff appreciatively. Spanky winds back and forth between my feet, purring loudly. When he’s happiest (which is a lot), he has a very loud purr with kind of a catch in it. He sounds as if he’s singing, like a cricket, rather than purring, so we call it (can you guess?!) his "cricket purr." He’s been purring his cricket purr a lot lately, especially in my ear. He seems to be especially attached to me when it’s close to my period. Fred suggests it’s the estrogen in the air, which it very well might be; the other cats tend to get a little nuts at the same time Spanky gets friendly, so perhaps it’s hormonal. My hormones, that is, not theirs. They were all fixed long before they got a chance to develop any hormones of their own.

So aside from doing laundry this evening, I’ve been paying bills and making a CD for myself. Our new computers came with nifty CD Reader-Writers, and I went through some of my CDs and made a mix. There’s all kinds of stuff on there, from Elton John to Edwin McCain, to Live, to Tim McGraw. Right now "Wrong Again" by Martina McBride is playing. I love that song. I really like slow, depressing songs. I used to have Pearl Jam’s "Black" dubbed on the front and back of a tape and would listen to it over and over. It’s one of the few songs of which I never tired. (yes, that sentence did previously read "few songs which I’ve never gotten tired of." I try to be grammatically correct sometimes. Wanna make something of it?)

Fred and the spud are watching another "Nightmare on Elm Street" movie. I went upstairs to put some laundry away and saw Patricia Arquette and said "Hey, it’s Pamie!" If you haven’t seen pictures of Pamie, she’s a dead ringer for Patricia Arquette, only better looking (which I guess wouldn’t make her a total dead ringer, but you know what I mean). A short conversation with Fred ensued whereupon we discussed the Arquette family:

Fred: Damn, she got the looks in the family, didn’t she?

Robyn: Yeah, totally. Except, there’s one last brother who’s entering showbiz, and he’s pretty cute.

Fred: He’s gotta be better-looking than Alexis.

We have truly scintillating conversations, don’t we? I know you’re jealous.

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Dear Grammy and Papa, Today I went to the Dentest because one of my baby teeth was cracked in half so they gave me two shots and pulled my tooth out then mama was paying and i felt dizzy then I felt like I was going to barf so i went in to the bathroom and barfed. How are you doing? Pretty damn cute, huh? Even cuter, this morning she came to the doorway of my bedroom and said “Momma?” I turned and said “What, spud?” She held out the envelope that the dentist had put several pieces of gauze in for us to take home with us, and said “I only have one gau left.” Get it? She thought “gauze” was plural, so obviously the singular would be “gau”! Despite the fact that I had yesterday off, today managed to crawwwwwl by the way Thursday always does. We managed to get our invoice and other reports turned in a day early, which thrilled me to no end (sarcasm). I thought I was going to have to throw a temper tantrum right there in the office because everyone except Tex had emailed me their monthly report. Once I get everyone’s monthly report, I have to format it a certain way and print it out to go to the customer with our invoice. It’s a pain in the ass and I hate doing it, but it doesn’t take very long. I mostly dislike it because they email their technical computer-geek monthly accomplishments to me in sentences and I have to cut and copy them in task & description form, and I pretty much have no idea what any of it means. I might as well be sitting there typing “Task: Blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blahblah.” I haven’t received any complaints back from our customer and I’ve been doing it for close to three years, so I guess I can’t be screwing it up too badly. The hugest pain in the ass, though, is getting everyone to get their reports to me without having to harangue them every five minutes. I gave them two days notice this time, and you’d think that would be enough. But not for Tex, oh no. God forbid he take time out of his busy computer card game-playing schedule to do something so mundane. The cleaning lady cancelled again today, so we’re not going to bother seeing her. If it’s this difficult to get her to come over for an estimate, how hard will it be to get her to actually clean for us? Besides, she doesn’t have her own car — the Yard Guy, her son, apparently drives her wherever she needs to go. We called around to several different places, and got over-the-phonequotes of $75 – $80 a week. We’re just not willing to pay that much for weekly housecleaning, so I guess we’ll continue with cleaning ourselves on Saturday mornings.]]>