Author: Robyn

Four years ago today, I wandered into the IRC Undernet channel #!Fredsplace, thus setting into motion a chain of events which would echo down through the years. In other words, it’s been four years since Fred and I met. Who’d’ve thought it’d lead to this?

I was going to type up a whole sappy entry about how we met and fell in love and all that, but sappy stuff like that is only interesting to the saps who lived through it, so I’ll simply say:

Happy Anniversary, baby! I love you!

How, you might wonder, did I spend my day at the office. Did I spend the entire time surfing, while ignoring those bills needing desperately to be paid AND the inventory which has yet to be completed? Why, no. No, I did not. I paid all the bills waiting to be paid, I inventoried a couple more offices – leaving only one office to be inventoried, by the way – AND I spent the rest of the time backing up files from my computer to the network, and deleting all personal-type stuff. I’m getting a new computer at work! Grand, ain’t it? Yes, it’s quite exciting, although I’m finding more and more that it’s a pain in the ass to go through everything with a fine-tooth comb to make sure all the porn (just kidding!) and pictures of the spud and the kitten have been removed. We wouldn’t want whoever gets my old computer to find anything untoward.

I noticed a new and interesting thing about the kitten this morning. If I haven’t mentioned it before, she is the loudest sniffer I’ve ever heard. If she’s on your shoulder sniffing near your ear, you pretty much can’t hear anything else. This morning, as she was performing her daily inspection of my face and hair, sniffing loudly enough to deafen me, I turned so I was looking at her, and sniffed. She stopped and looked at me for a moment, then sniffed again. I sniffed, then turned my head and sniffed the back of the couch. She turned her head, watched me, and then sniffed where I’d sniffed. It was adorable.

Perhaps you had to be there.

Okay, I’m shutting down now and going to bed. It’s storming out, and I don’t want a flash of lightning to take down my computer. That would suck. Y’all have a good weekend, and I’ll see you Monday, if not before!

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My host, hispeed (whom I will not link to, because they’ve pissed me off something fierce this week, and so they can just bite me) appears to back in "working" mode. I’m sorry to anyone who couldn’t find my site for the last few days. Believe me, I know how annoying it is when someone’s site is down. The people on my notify list got a long, yammering email from me yesterday afternoon letting them know what was going on – if you haven’t joined the notify list yet, you oughtta. Go on, I’ll wait here.

So I had to wander from office to office doing inventory yesterday – my goal was to inventory each person’s office while they weren’t actually in there, which made it interesting, trying to figure out who was gone and who wasn’t so I could sneak in quick like a bunny and inventory. I felt almost like I was doing something wrong, sneaking around like that.

Okay, as if you couldn’t tell, I’m feeling mighty scattered today, so I think I’ll just toss this entry up and call it good enough. You still love me, though, right? Um, right?

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Be My Downfall by Del Amitri (that’s the song whose lyrics I’ve been quoting in the titlebar of my entries lately, if you were wondering), I did something really crazy and actually looked at the file options on Wave Player, and realized I could not only set a playlist but set it to play randomly. D’oh! Don’t I feel like a dumbass. That’s what I get for being a lazy-ass bitchypoo. Are bras the most torturous devices on the face of the earth, or what? I wish I was flat-chested and could go without altogether, but I always feel incredibly exposed any time I even try. Fred will tell you – I won’t even make a run to the McDonald’s drive-thru without a bra. However, there comes a certain moment every month wherein I cannot stand to be bound by the hideous thing one instant longer, and so I quietly slip my bra off, and hide it in a desk drawer. As long as I’m sitting at my desk, I feel safe. If I have to run out on an errand, I put it back on, then take it off once I’m back at my desk. I generally do this two or three days every month, then go back to full-time support once my PMS bloat has passed. Fred accuses me of always blaming everything on my menstrual cycle. When the cats act crazy, I suggest it’s due to the estrogen floating in the air, when I’m in a bad mood, I claim my period is only days away, and when it rains outside, I swear god hates it when I’m on the rag. What can I say? The sooner he realizes that the world revolves around my menstrual cycle and I, the better off he’ll be. Don’tcha think? ]]>

Here at casa bitchypoo, we believe in extremely lazy Sundays. We’re talking lazy to the point of coma. For instance, this morning I slept until well past seven, lounged in the bed and gave the kitten her dose of morning love, discussed with her the mud between her toes, and eventually rolled out of bed to shower and dress. After Fred, the spud and I ate our usual Sunday morning breakfast of scrambled eggs, hash browns, and bacon, we each retired to our corners, the spud to watch TV, Fred to pretend to work, and I to watch one of the movies I’d rented from Hollywood Videos. To my dismay, the tape I put in the VCR, although it’s label said it was Trick, was actually The David Cassidy Story. Not quite what I’d expected, but I watched it anyway. It was cheesy and pretty predictable, but not a bad movie for a lazy Sunday morning. Then I read a bit, cleaned out the pantry – we have wire shelves in the pantry, and I finally convinced Fred to buy lucite to put over the wire so cans and bottles won’t fall all over the place – and ate lunch. I read some more, and while Fred and the spud watched a movie, I napped and dreamt that helmet-shaped bugs the size of my hand were gathering around me on the bed. One of them began nibbling on my hand, and I woke to find the kitten licking me, with love in her eyes. I dozed for another ten minutes, then forced myself to get up out of the bed so I’d have perhaps the slightest chance to get to sleep tonight, instead of laying awake until midnight. I do not have a busy life, and I know that this comes as no shock to you. I’ve never been the sort of gal to want a busy life, and despite the non-business of my life, I am rarely bored. I am able to entertain myself, and am comfortable enough to sit in long, thoughtful silences alone. The thought of a hectic lifestyle has never appealed to me, and truth be told if I had to, I would live in abject poverty if it meant that I could have time to sit back and relax, to think, to stare off into space and let my mind wander. Don’t misunderstand me – if I had to, I would rise to the occasion. If, god forbid, something happened to Fred and the spud and I were left alone, I would work, and I would work hard, to support us. If something happened and Fred couldn’t work, I would. But I like my life the way it is right now, and I’m fully aware of how incredibly lucky I am that I do. Even with the things in my life that annoy me during the week, I’m lucky to have the home life I do. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. ]]>

Spring has definitely hit the Huntsville area – the daffodils are in bloom, waving at me from nearly every yard I pass on the way to work. I love daffodils. Hands down, they’re my favorite flower. I don’t mean the fancy ones, with the double trumpet, or the ones with one color on the inside and another on the outside. I prefer the simple, non-fancy, straightforward kind.

Of course, now that I’ve put that picture up, y’all are going to email me, saying "Are you kidding, that’s the fanciest kind of daffodil out there!"

Over the years, yellow has become my favorite color. And I don’t like yellows that are too gold; I prefer clean, pure yellows, like the daffodil above. I wouldn’t want a whole house with yellow walls or even my bedroom or living room painted yellow. The downstairs bathroom – my bathroom – has yellow touches. Yellow towels, a yellow cup by the sink, and eventually there will be pictures on the wall with splashes of yellow. Little glimpses of yellow always lift my spirit. Yellow is a color best seen in small doses. My exception to this belief is that, more than anything, I want a yellow vehicle. I wanted a white Camry so that I could have it painted yellow. I’d be so happy driving around in a yellow car – maybe I can convince Fred to let me have the Jeep painted yellow, ya think?

It was a short, relaxing day at work.

I left work at noon, because… well, because I can, basically. And since I was swinging by Hollywood Video to pick up movies for Fred and the spud, I also stopped by Burger King to pick up lunch. Now, I worked the drive-thru at McDonald’s for three years, as I believe I’ve previously mentioned. Always, in those three years, I followed a very simple procedure: 1. Take the money, give change. 2. Hand over the drinks. 3. Hand over the food. 4. "Thank you! Have a nice day!" Simple, right? Well, the bitch at Burger King handed over my food, grunted, and slammed the door shut while I was in the middle of a perky "Thank you!"

See? I always say "Thank you" to the freaking servers at fast food places. Yet all I get in return is rudeness.

After Burger King, I went to rent movies at Hollywood Video, and lord what a production. I managed to get in line behind a woman who had picked the empty boxes off the shelf and taken them up to the counter to rent them. This is not how things are done at Hollywood. At Hollywood, you take the actual movie – which is located behind the empty box – to the counter, and then the one lonely cashier who’s working the cash register doesn’t feel compelled to run all over the store getting the actual movies off the shelf so the idiot who brought up the empty boxes can just stand there like the idiot she is.

After the one and only cashier who was working did run all over the store, the idiot asked her about each and every single movie she was renting. "Stigmata…is that good? The Astronaut’s Wife… is that good?", and so on. Interestingly, the cashier claimed that all the movies she’d seen were "Excellent!", and the ones she hadn’t seen, she said she’s "heard" were really good. I’m going to guess Hollywood employees aren’t allowed to say anything like "God NO,The Astronaut’s Wife sucked so badly I wanted to gouge my eyes out!"

Just a guess.

I believe I mentioned the other night that Fred bought a digital camera when he purchased my laptop. The cool thing about this digital cam is that we can make cute little movies. Tonight, for your viewing pleasure, I present to you – as filmed by Fred – Little Kitty, starring Scrappy and Tubby. If you have any trouble viewing it, please let me know.

I’ll leave you with this:

Don’t you hate it when you need to make notes to yourself so you’ll remember what you wanted to write about in your journal, but every single light you hit turns green as soon as you get to it, so you have to fish a post-it out of your purse, then fish a pen off the bottom of your purse – then eat the raisinette stuck to the pen – and put the post-it on your steering wheel and jot notes to yourself while you’re driving down a busy street filled with lunchtime traffic? —–

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I’m going to get a gown that will cover your fat ass. She came back with the gown while I was off trying to get a decent urine sample and cursing myself for having peed before I left the house. I stripped, gowned up, and settled on the bed and chatted and giggled with Fred for a while. They came and took blood, then started my IV, and the anesthesiologist stopped by as did various and sundry other people. Some time after 8, Dr. Dang stopped by to let us know she was there and what would be happening. Have I mentioned how incredibly sweet she is? I really like her a lot, and if anyone’s in Huntsville and needs an ENT, I highly recommend her. Too soon, they came to take me to the operating room, and the nurse who came to get me told me to give Fred my glasses and "get some sugar." Fred nervously took my glasses and kissed me, then told me fourteen times that he loved me. Which is funny, because he’d made a point of telling me that he loved me earlier, so he wouldn’t have to in front of other people. Once in the operating room, I shimmied from the table I was on to the operating table, and suddenly at least six people were bustling around me, tucking the blankets in around me and checking my ear and doing various other things. They put an oxygen mask over my face, then gave me something to make me sleepy. Finally, the anesthesiologist told me I’d be out soon, and I could feel my heart pounding and the overwhelming thought in my head was Oh, shit, why am I doing this? Why did I want to be put to sleep?? Is it too late to stop it?! When I woke up, I was coughing and my throat hurt. They intubate you every time they put you under, and usually extubate you before you wake up. I lay in the recovery room for half an hour or so, the nurse asking every five minutes How’re you doing? I don’t remember exactly what she said, but I let her know that the sooner I went home, the better, because if you’re going to feel like crap it’s much more comfortable to feel like crap at home. Finally, they wheeled me into a small post-op room and told me that if I kept down some crackers and soda I could go home. By the time they showed Fred in, two or three minutes later, I was feeling almost as good as I had before the surgery, and was more than ready to go home. So I went home. I took a nap this afternoon, and I’m feeling fine except for a little achiness in my ear, which Tylenol helps a lot. I think I’m going to drag myself away from the computer now and go read for a while. Thanks again for all your emails; I truly appreciate them. ]]>

stuff, and unless we get rid of it all or get a bigger house, I suspect we’ll continue eating at the kitchen table). For years now, he’s talked about how nice it would be if he could work while watching movies with the spud and I. He’s talked off and on about getting a laptop, but he really needs something with more power than a laptop could give him. Finally, he decided to put his computer upstairs behind the couch (the dining area is directly behind the living room), and with the monitor pushed to one side of his desk (which is actually a table), he could work and watch a movie all at the same time. We tried it out last night, he working while I watched Meet Joe Black. It worked fairly well – except for the fact that Meet Joe Black should be a ninety-minute movie and is in actuality three hours long – and then in bed last night he waffled about what he wanted to do. Did he want to leave his computer upstairs or take it back downstairs? Did he want to buy a second computer for downstairs, so he could work downstairs when I’m on my computer downstairs, too? He had decided on taking everything back downstairs, until this morning when he wandered out of his room and the computer was right there, and then he decided it was pretty nice having it that way. I’m going to get a laptop so that he won’t be lonely while working upstairs, and if he wants to work downstairs, he can use my computer. Or something like that. Before we went to bed last night, we started talking about creepy Stephen King stories, and I was getting truly creeped out, so I made him stop talking about creepy things. Stephen King can seriously creep me out sometimes, and I was afraid I’d have nightmares. Fred just laughed, but he’s actually the one who ended up having a nightmare. Which serves him right. While laying in bed last night, we also discussed something that happened about two years ago, when we still lived in the apartment. There’s this handyman-type guy, Mr. Stokes, whom you can pay to run errands or make a delivery or any other kind of errand-type things of which you can think. On one particular day, Fred had Mr. Stokes pick up a table we’d bought and had stained – it’s the table Fred has his computer on, now that I think of it – and deliver it to the apartment. While there, he decided to have Mr. Stokes take away a few items we were getting rid of. One of these items was a drafting table, which is what Fred previously used as a desk. Mr. Stokes followed Fred into the bedroom and stood there as Fred leaned over to the back of the computer, trying to figure out how to easily move everything off of the table. When he did so, he moved the mouse, which stopped the screensaver. At this time, I was out in the living room, blithely reading a book. From the bedroom, Fred called "Hey, Robyn!" I stopped reading and called back "Yeah?" Silence. "Yeah?" More silence. Then, finally, Fred said "That’s a nice picture you have on the desktop!" My heart stopped, my jaw dropped, and I whispered "Oh, shiiiiiiiiiiit!" You see, earlier that morning – having no idea that anyone would be going near the computer except for Fred and myself – I’d decided it would be funny to make a certain picture the wallpaper. A certain picture I’d recently taken with our then-new digital camera. A certain picture of a completely naked Fred stepping out of the shower. Fred had looked up to see Mr. Stokes grinning and staring at the monitor, and when he glanced over to see what was so funny, to his horror he saw an image of his naked self there, in all it’s glory. He slapped his hand over the monitor and fumbled around before finally getting it turned off. Say it with me, now: "Oh, shiiiiiiit!" I don’t know how the boy ever forgave me for that, though I felt so bad and grovelled with such hearfelt angst that it would have been pointless for him to be mad at me. Since that day, though, I’ve made sure to never be naked around him when he’s got the digital camera in hand. You can never be too careful, you know. Y’all keep your fingers crossed for me tomorrow morning at 8:30 (central time), ’cause that’s when they’re doing my ear. I’ll see ya in a couple of days! ]]>

is nice to have Fred around, even if he’s on his computer and I’m upstairs reading, or I’m on my computer and he’s upstairs watching a movie with the spud. Or when we’re both on our computers and the spud is chattering away at us about her life. I left work at 12:30 for a cut and color. And I mean a serious cut and color. Under the lights at the hair place (I guess "salon" would be the correct term) my hair looked very red. The hairstylist (Bev) pointed out that there were three distinct bands of color in my hair – which is obviously what you get when you make your husband color your hair at home and then never buy the same color twice in a row. We went for a light-medium brown, and it’s nice to see it all one color again. As for the cut, I brought in a picture of Kathryn Erbe from Stir of Echoes, and asked for the same cut, only a tad longer. She chopped off about 6 very damaged-looking ends before she got into the layering and such. I was there for two hours, and by the time I left I knew that Bev’s going to be my stylist for life – or at least until she quits her job. Once I find a stylist I like, I stick with them for as long as I can. When I moved from Maine to Rhode Island, I always waited until I was in Maine for the weekend to get my hair cut. The problem with my hair is that I have a lot of it, but it’s all very fine and flyaway. I’d love to have long, straight hair, but that’s just not a look I can pull off. Once my hair gets to a certain length, it does the triangle-head thing where the top is flat and lank no matter what I do, and the ends are bushy and frizzy-looking. Not to mention that from about the tips of my ears down, my hair is wavy, so it always looks like I’m trying to grow out a perm. Of course, I will never once be able to duplicate this look, because I’m pretty much a wash-and-go kinda gal, but it’s nice that it looks good for a little while. At least until the little hairs she dropped down my shirt start itching and I have to go take a shower. I don’t think Fred likes it, but I hope he’ll get used to it. He’s always said he likes long hair, but it’s not like he plays with it or anything, so it shouldn’t be too much of a difference for him. My parents got a dog a few weeks ago. He’s a cute little thing, judging by the picture my Dad sent: They got him at the animal shelter, and he was already named Scrappy, but my Mom said they would probably change his name. They ended up naming him Benji. He looks like Benji, doesn’t he? It sounds like he’s spoiled rotten. When I get on the phone with my Mom, she spends as much time talking about him as I do talking about the kitten. Scary, eh? On the way home from the movie store (after I had my hair cut), I realized that traffic had come to a standstill for no apparent reason. Finally, I noticed that there was a funeral procession coming from the opposite direction. Once the procession ended, traffic started up again. What’s up with that? I guess they have a lot more respect for the dead down here in the South, ’cause back home if we saw a funeral procession we’d just keep on going. I don’t know when I’ll next be updating. Perhaps this weekend, perhaps not. I’ll be recovering from my life-threatening 5-minute ear surgery on Monday, so I don’t know if I’ll feel like it then, either. If you don’t want to have to keep checking back, go over there in the left column, and click on the link to join my notify list. Y’all have a good weekend now, y’hear? —–]]>