Category: Life

Girl, Interrupted, and by the time it was over, Fred was home. While he went for a swim, I ran to the movie store to return all the movies I’d rented Friday, and when I got home we talked for a few minutes before he started dinner. We had some incredibly good pinto beans with dinner. Then we listened to our Tony Robbins tape (hush up, y’all), watched Survivor, tried to go for a swim (too windy, making any wet parts sticking out of the water cold), and then Fred took a bath while I came downstairs and talked to my sister on IRC. Does this entry sound as rushed as I feel? I feel the urgent need to get something up tonight, and it’s after 11, thus way past my bedtime. Tomorrow, I should be a tad less rushed – though I do have to do all sorts of things to get ready for the trip to Pennsylvania.]]>

so good, especially the strawberries. Ah, gotta love the fruit… I guess our days of sunshine and blue skies is over with; it’s been overcast all day and it just started raining. I hope the weather’s nice on Friday while I drive to Pennsylvania. According to Mapquest, it should take me 15 hours to get to Pennsylvania. According to Mapblast, 13 hours and 15 minutes. According to Fred, who’s actually done the drive, it’s 11 hours. Any way you slice it, it’s going to be one hell of a long drive. ]]>

Dan’s Chocolates, and Fred’s stepfather, Jack, is getting bath fizzies from Garden Botanika – we sent bath fizzies, amongst other things, to Fred’s mom for Mother’s Day, and they were apparently a big hit with Jack – and Fred is getting a gift certificate for his dad from a golf store, so we’re all set. Except for all the Father’s Day cards I have to go out and buy, of course, which will add up to a lot, because I got into the habit of sending Father’s Day cards to the spud’s grandfather and great-grandfathers, along with cards for Fred and the spud’s father. I think a trip to Wal-Mart is in order. Fred left work early today, because his ears have been bothering him for the last few days, and he and I both assumed it was his ear infection, back again. When he went to the doctor today, she told him there was no fluid behind his eardrum, and she didn’t know what the problem was. She was going to give him ear drops, but he still has some at home. She also looked at his nasty toenail (actually the reason he made the appointment in the first place) and informed him that he was suffering from a fungus, for which he gets to take lamisil pills for some ungodly period of time. Which is better than it could have been – we were afraid his foot was slowly rotting off. Which would have sucked.]]>

received. Say it with me, folks: I don’t fucking think so. When Fred got home, he called Amazon for me. He has a much easier time being an ass to people he doesn’t know (yes, I know y’all are surprised!), and therefore he’s this family’s designated asshole. He got some kid at Amazon, who listened to the whole story, and then wanted to talk directly to me. When he got me on the phone, he proceeded to tell me that I would have to deal directly with the seller and try to get a refund from him. Because the seller’s been so good at communicating thus far, you know. So I handed the phone back to Fred, who just went to town on the kid. When he was apparently getting nowhere with the kid, he asked for his supervisor, who the kid claimed was not available. Then he asked for his supervisor’s supervisor, who oddly was also not available. It went on in this vein for a few minutes, until Fred asked "How do you know? Are you the designated tracker for all the supervisors?", which broke the kid’s pattern (that’s a Tony Robbins-ism) and got him somewhere. I can fill out a claim form to Amazon, saying that the product I received was not the product advertised in the auction, and Amazon will decide whether to refund my money. All is not lost, however. If Amazon doesn’t refund my money, I’ll call the credit card company and dispute the charge. Thank god for Visa. We have a bird feeder hanging off the fence, behind the pool, and while we were floating around Wednesday afternoon, we noticed that there was a bird partaking of some fine quality generic birdseed. We discussed how unusual it was that the bird would be eating, with us so close. Then we forgot he was there, and went on to discuss other matters. Suddenly, we heard a loud noise, and birdseed scattered, covering a wide swath of the lawn near the fence. When I turned to look, the bird feeder was swinging wildly back and forth, the bird had flown off, and Fancypants was looking disgruntled. Apparently he’d done a high leap and hit the bird feeder in an attempt to catch the bird. We heard many loud, excited chirps from the tall tree in the next yard over, so apparently the bird had gone over to tell all his friends not to bother with the feeder in our yard. Yesterday morning, Fancypants, Spanky, and Spot spent a large amount of the morning laying on the lawn directly underneath the bird feeder. Birds would fly to the top of the fence, peer at the bird feeder, and then peer to where the cats were sitting completely still, laugh heartily, and flit off to a bird feeder next door. Poor kitties. I guess they’ll have to be satisfied with the grasshoppers and crickets they find in the yard. While I’m talking about bad online experiences, I’ll mention Fred’s experience with drugstore.com. He went on and ordered a bunch of stuff last week, and when he was finalizing his order, he was informed that he would be receiving a free something or other, since this was his first order with them. Okay, whatever. The next day, he got an email from drugstore.com’s customer service, informing him that he wasn’t eligible for the free item because someone at this address had purchased stuff from them before, and received a free whatever at that point. Okay, whatever. Except, instead of just sending the stuff he ordered – and wanted – they canceled his fucking order. Can you believe that? Idiots. He was furious, and emailed them telling him he hadn’t asked for a free thing, didn’t want a free thing, and he guessed drugstore.com wasn’t the only fish in the internet. They haven’t emailed back yet, begging his forgiveness and offering him an extra-special $15 off coupon. Fuck ’em. I don’t know whether we’re going to go to Gatlinburg for the 4th of July or not. We had intended to, but when Fred started calling to see what houses were available for rental, it appeared that all the good ones were taken. Other people, it would appear, thought far, far ahead and made their reservations months in advance. That’s what Fred gets for wanting to be "spontaneous", I told him. Coming down the stairs, I hear *thump*chirrup*thump*chirrup*thump*chirrup* This would be the kitten, who has caught and killed her toy with the long string on it, and is bringing it to Mommy, so Mommy will coo over her and scritch her on the head. Speaking of the kitten, I was dead to the world at 3 am this morning, when I was rudely awakened by her using her cold, cold little paws to smack me repeatedly on the back. She does this when I’m sleeping on my stomach, because she wants me to turn over on my side, so she can climb up on my arm and lay along my neck. I was so dead asleep, though, that even though I was awakened, I didn’t know what was going on, so I lifted my head up and petted her, then dozed back off. She tried smacking me some more – I vaguely recall it – then gave up and climbed up on my pillow and draped herself over my head. After a few minutes of her fur tickling my nose, I realized what was going on and turned over. She was happy, and settled in against my neck for a few minutes, until she heard one of the other cats making noise in another part of the house and had to go investigate. Y’all have a good weekend! ]]>

JC Penney this morning (note to self: JC Penney has online shopping) in hopes of finding her a couple of nice outfits, as well as a dress, because she’s wearing dresses my mother made for her two years ago and it drives me crazy. Oh, I hate shopping. Especially at stores like JC Penney, where we wandered around and around and around before we found a couple of acceptable shirts and shorts. I couldn’t, for the life of me, find a decent dress – they were all “career casuals” or sleeveless tank dresses, and she won’t wear sleeveless anything. So we bought the stuff I’d found and went out into the mall, stopping here and there to poke through various stores, before we made it to Dillard’s, where we wandered around for another 45 minutes before I FINALLY found a dress. At least in Wal-Mart I know where to find everything. And everything’s CHEAP. For 2 1/2 outfits and a dress, I dropped $110 at the mall. I hate the mall. I hate shopping. When I was growing in the womb, my love-to-shop organ failed to develop. o after we shopped at the mall, we went to Office Depot and bought the spud’s school supplies. They’ve completely revamped the store since last I was there – I guess it’s been a couple of months – but we still managed to find everything. There went $50, out the window. Damn, I hate spending money. And damn, could this entry be any more boring? Oh look, it’s Robyn, bitching. How unusual. I’m in a bad mood. I need to go swimming. I want Fred to stop being busy at work and talk to me on IRC. I want it to be time to leave for Pennsylvania, to see Deb and Brian (and my Mom). I want it to be time to go to Gatlinburg. I want the kitten to let me hug her and kiss her, instead of jumping up on the desk and prancing back and forth across my keyboard. I need a nap.]]>

Since the movies I rented on Friday had to be back by tonight, I watched For Love of the Game yesterday afternoon, Eye of the Beholder last night after Fred went to bed, and Crazy in Alabama this morning. To my surprise, Crazy in Alabama was actually a good little movie; that cute little Lucas Black can do no wrong in my eyes. And I usually loathe Melanie Griffith, but she was surprisingly charming in this movie. It’s not for everyone – I know Fred would term it a "suck movie" – but I liked it. The other two movies were pretty much a waste of time, though. I’m so excited! Fred has the opportunity to go see Tony Robbins in Denver at the end of July, and not only is he going to go, but I’m going with him! I’m not going to go to the Tony Robbins seminar, but I’ve never been to Denver (or most states around there), so while Fred’s busy I’m going to find sightseeing, touristy things to do. If any of y’all have ever been to Denver and have any suggestions, let me know! We also decided that we’re going to spend the 4th of July weekend in Gatlinburg. Between the trips to Gatlinburg, Denver, and driving back and forth to Pennsylvania and Maine, I’ll do more traveling this summer than I have since we drove from Maine to California to catch the plane for Guam when I was 8 or thereabouts. Ah, world traveler, me. My sister went to Montana last Fall (was it Fall, Deb?), because she’s always, always wanted to visit there. I’d like to see Montana someday, myself. I promised her that when I won the lottery, I’d buy her a house in Montana, as long as I could stay with her a few times a year. I’d also like to visit the Outer Banks (NC), Seattle, Texas, Arizona, Virginia (though I’ve been through it, and actually stayed in a hotel in Virginia for one night – well, one or two nights, I don’t recall – I didn’t really experience the state, since I was locked in a hotel room with Fred, having large amounts of sex), Boston (been through it, been into it to go to the airport to pick up a friend, but never did the tourist thing), and New York City. Not to mention the thousand and one other countries I’d like to visit – Scotland chief amongst them. Maybe someday. —–]]>

Bill Heard Chevrolet – which is where we got my previous vehicle, the much-loathed and not-at-all-missed truck – is running a radio ad these days that truly peeves me. They’re talking about their special program to extend credit to people who have a hard time finding it elsewhere, and they start listing all the people to whom they’re willing to extend credit: "Bankruptcy! Divorced ladies! Single working ladies!" Now, isn’t that just mighty freakin’ GENEROUS of them, to be willing to finance crappy used cars for divorced or single working ladies? Ah, the heart warms. The kitten (really, how many entries did y’all think I could go without mentioning her?) has the cutest damn meow. It sounds like "Em-WEE, em-WEE", and she always looks so earnest when she meows like that, as if she’s trying to say "The kitchen’s on fire! Get out of here, beeotch!" Speaking of the kitten, she went into the extra room downstairs while I was hanging up a shirt to dry, and I didn’t notice her sneaking in, so I shut the door behind me on my way out (if we don’t keep the door shut, Fancypants – that bastard – poops in the corner of the room. I don’t know why he does it, but it sure does piss me off). About an hour later, I heard the door banging and frantic meowing sounds. I opened the door, and she rubbed against my legs and told me of her tale of woe, which sounded pretty much like "Em-WEE! Em-WEE!" According to weather.com, it’s supposed to be sunny and 78 today, but it’s more like 65 and cloudy. I’d just really like to have two or three hot, sunny days in a row – is that so much to ask? The pool actually got up to 92 Friday, and Fred, the spud and I went swimming after dark. It was like stepping into a bathtub. Which is a good thing in my opinion; another 5 degrees, and it would have been the same temp as the hottub in G’burg the first time we got into it. Speaking of G’burg, Fred was talking about going back to G’burg, just he and I, while the spud is in Maine. I’m not sure whether it’ll happen or not, but it would be nice if it did. God knows I don’t get enough time to just lay around and take it easy.
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Ah, laundry day. If I were at all skilled, I’d create a little cartoonish laundry basket to put at the top of the page on laundry day, and y’all could look and say "Oh christ, she’s babbling about the fucking laundry again. I’m outta here!" Aside from laundry, I’ve been spending the morning backing up my entire system to cd in case of a crash, getting packages ready to go to the post office (there are 3), and searching Napster for a Del Fuegos song. I didn’t know the name of the song or when it was recorded, or even how it went. All I could remember was that there was a Del Fuegos song I heard in the ’80s (mid to late) and it had a line mentioning something rusting in the rain. Well, smack my ass and call me grandma – I managed to find the freakin’ thing! "I Still Want You." I hope I can find the album on Amazon. Napster is the shit. I’ve also – slowly – begun cleaning up my desk. You know, the desk I promised Himself I’d clean this weekend. It’s a major undertaking, tossing out all the crap I thought I needed but didn’t, and god knows how long it’s going to take – more than one day, surely. Have I mentioned that I’m not a big fan of cleaning and organizing? Okay, it’s hours later, and I’ve managed to get all of the spud’s laundry done, went to the post office to mail those aforementioned packages (Deb, you should get a box of books and clothes by the end of the week), and swung by Publix to pick up a few things Fred forgot to get when he got groceries on Saturday. An hour later, I’m back doing laundry and cleaning off my desk. Can you feel the excitement? So Fred got an interesting and somewhat odd letter in the mail Saturday. The return address is "Member Service Center", and it basically says "According to our files, your Credit Card On Account American Express card needs to be updated to facilitate future purposes. Your credit card’s expiration date is 06/00". Actually, that’s exactly what it said – I’m quoting directly from the letter. This is odd because first of all, they never say what company they’re with. I recognize the address as being the address for Book Of the Month Club, and the Literary Guild and those, so it’s probably from his Audio Book Tape Club, but it doesn’t say that anywhere on the letter. Secondly, his American Express card doesn’t expire for anytime soon. He immediately decided that it was a trick, and someone was trying to get his credit card number. I’m not so sure of that, but whoever sent the letter is going to get a "nice try, I don’t think so" letter from him. Oh my god, this is so fucking funny. Y’all have to read it; it made me laugh my ass off. And I got around to writing that letter I mentioned earlier: Dear "Member Service Center", I am in receipt of your letter, dated May 19, 2000, in which you claim that the expiration date on my American Express card is June of 2000. Oh, okay, let me get my new credit card out of my wallet and write it down on your convenient form and send it back to you so that when I get my next American Express bill, I can be surprised by incredibly huge charges for alcohol and women of ill repute. First of all, my American Express card doesn’t expire for two more years, and when it does expire, it isn’t in June. Secondly, have I done something to make you think I may be on mind-altering drugs? I receive a letter from a "Member Service Center", no company name, and I’m supposed to blithely pull out my credit card and send the number off in the pre-paid envelope? Nice touch, the envelope, by the way. And nice try. Sincerely,

Fred Why, oh why, does writing snotty letters amuse me so? Am I just weird? (Don’t answer that!) I once bought a 12-pack of Coke, and when I got home, there were only 11 cans in the carton, so I wrote them a letter. In the letter, I claimed to be a single mother on a very small income, my one "splurge" being a 12-pack of Coke once a week. I wove a tale of heartbreak and horror, and I wish I’d kept a copy so I could remember what I said. Anyway, a few weeks later the main company sent me a letter of apology – blaming it on our local Coke plant – along with two coupons for a free 12-pack each, and three coupons for free 6-packs. I thought that was pretty damn cool. There’s a letter I did save somewhere, about a trip Deb and I took to the grocery store and our run-in with a bitchy customer service clerk. I’ll look and see if I can’t find it here in the next few days. —–]]>

Spanky if he doesn’t stop that infernal fucking howling. He’s lucky he’s still alive after I found yesterday that he’s been peeing over the side of the litter box, against the wall (thank god we’ve got the wall covered with plexiglass). And of course I’d skipped cleaning the litter box on Thursday, so there was a river of cat pee collected under the litter box, coating the floor and the bottom of the litter box, which I didn’t realize until I was holding the litter box and it was dripping cat pee all over my foot. The red veil descended, as Fred would say. I was already in a bad mood because of my FUCKING email (more on that in a sec), and then to have cat pee dripping all over my foot was the final indignity. (I seriously considered running upstairs, grabbing the little bastard, dragging him downstairs, pushing his nose in the pee, and spanking him, but knew for sure if I started spanking him, I would probably beat him to death, and I am many things but a cat-killer I am not.) I threw the offending litter box into the garage after cleaning the litter and tossing it in another litter box (I guess I wasn’t that out of control), then tossed a layer of clean litter on the floor, and heaved the litter box back where it belonged, then stomped into the bathroom to take my shower. Where I discovered that I had no towels, because I’d put both sets in the washer the day before and neglected to put them in the dryer, save for a small hand towel. I knew that if I ran upstairs or called up to Fred to drop me down a towel, I’d start ranting and lose my mind. Since Fred stayed home from work yesterday because his ears were bothering him, I didn’t think he’d care to hear my bitching, so I used the damn small hand towel to dry myself. Small towel, big ass. Let’s just say I wasn’t completely dry when I walked out of the bathroom. Then I stomped upstairs, complained to Fred about my email (I’ll get to it in a minute; be patient), and he yawned at me and didn’t say anything, proving his disdain for my troubles, so I flounced into the bedroom, slammed the door (okay, quietly shut the door), and threw myself on the bed whilst swearing to myself that I was going to stay in bed all day because if I didn’t, I would surely kill someone. After half an hour or so of perusing an old Entertainment Weekly, I’d calmed down enough to not bite Fred’s head off when he knocked on the bedroom door. Pardon me while I pause and tell y’all that the kitten just came downstairs with her toy feather duster in her mouth, chirping proudly the whole while. Did I get a picture, you ask? Well, of course.
So, the day turned out to be okay, despite it’s shitty beginning, which reminds me that I forgot to bitch about my email. My host, whom I shall not link because I hate them and they can kiss my ass, was in the process of updating their mail servers all day Thursday and all day Friday, and meanwhile I could not get one single, solitary piece of email. Can I tell you how FUCKING FRUSTRATING that is? Oh, and the best part is that instead of all my mail sitting somewhere until such a time that they finished upgrading the servers, instead of something REASONABLE like that, INSTEAD, all my motherfucking mail was BOUNCING. Ugh. So if any of y’all emailed me and I didn’t respond, it probably didn’t make it’s way to me BECAUSE MY HOST BITES THE BIG ONE. I’d’ve moved long before now, but where else can I find unlimited storage space for $60 every 3 months? *sob* I spent forever and a day shredding stuff last night, because Fred took a look around the computer room and said "Beeeeeeeeeessie? What would it take for you to clean up your side of the computer room?" I snarled "I’ll get it clean this weekend!" Why is my side of the computer room such a mess, you may ask. Well, mostly because I pay the bills, so all the bills are piled on my desk, and if he doesn’t know where to put a piece of paper, he piles it where? On my desk. Where does the kitten like to sleep? On my desk. Where do packages which need to be mailed out go? On my desk (granted, this is my fault, because I only get my shit together and get packages ready to go every once in a blue moon). Who has a too-small desk, so that the scanner and printer and CPU can’t comfortable fit on the top? Moi. Anyway, I filed the huge stack of papers sitting messily on the TV, which needed to be filed, and then I went through the files and pulled out things like my pay stubs from 3 years ago, and a lease from our old apartment, and other things I decided we didn’t need to hang on to. By the time I was done, I had a stack 6 inches high, and since you can’t just throw that stuff in the trash whole because there are people lurking out there who are ready to steal your identity given the slightest chance, I began shredding. And shredded and shredded and shredded, until halfway through the stack, the shredder broke. I broke the shredder, damnit, can you believe that? I ripped everything else by hand, and this morning my hands were sore. Well, since this entry is one big bitch-fest, I’ll close it out by mentioning a good thing that happened: Fred agreed to take over the weekly grocery shopping. This is good because he sticks to the grocery list, unlike a certain someone, who throws all sorts of bad-for-us stuff in the grocery cart, and therefore he spends a lot less on groceries than I do. —–]]>

Lordy, it’s only 8:30, and I could use a nap already. I had to get up before 6 to make Fred’s lunch and breakfast (because I’m a good wifey)(not that I would be a BAD wifey if I didn’t, you understand), and then tore around like a chicken with it’s head cut off to get the house ready for the cleaning lady. Then I woke the spud up, took a shower, and left (avec spud) to meet Fred at the car place so he could drop his jeep off to be worked on, and took him back to the office.

After we dropped Fred off at the office, we went to Wal-Mart so that the spud could finally FINALLY buy the hoop earrings she’s been obsessing about for weeks. This morning, she was all worried "Will $14 be enough for a pair of earrings?" she fretted. I refrained from pointing out to her that if she was spending more than that on a pair of hoop earrings, she was spending too much, and simply nodded. Not only did she get a pair of hoop earrings, but she got THREE pair of hoop earrings (1 pair silver, 2 pair gold) AND a keychain.

I vegged in front of the computer for a few hours waiting for the pest control people to come – which they finally did – and then the spud and I went to the bank and post office, so I could get a money order to pay the ticket I got last week. $125, down the drain. *sob*

On the way home, I realized we’d never picked up the spud’s final report card, so we went and did that, and then stopped by the school she’ll be attending next year (Middle School! How’d that happen??) and found out that we’d missed an Open House sometime at the beginning of May, where all the (soon to be) 6th graders met the 6th-grade teachers and saw what the school was like. Anyway, we got the spud’s schedule for next year, and one of the ladies who works in the office took us down around the 6th grade wing, which was very nice of her.

I noticed that several homes and businesses we passed on the way home were running their sprinklers, which just makes me want to grind my teeth, and I have to fight back the compulsion to stop and say "Hey, don’t you know you’re not supposed to water your lawn in the middle of the day?! It’s not good for your grass!" I never do stop, though, ’cause I don’t want to sound like a nosy know-it-all.

Even though I am.

Fred’s ears have been bothering him on and off over the last few days, and this morning they were really hurting, so he tried calling his doctor, but she’s apparently on vacation this week. He stuck around work for a fairly important 10:30 meeting, and then had someone drop him off at home – his car’s still being worked on – and now he’s sitting at the walk-in clinic waiting to be seen.

Okay, Fred has not one ear infection, not two, but four – two in each ear. I didn’t even know that was possible. To his dismay, he has to stay out of the pool for 5 days. He’s blaming his ear infection on the hottub, because if anything our pool is over-chlorinated, which would kill any germs (according to Fred). And he’s the only one who went underwater in the hottub, so he’s probably right.

Poor Fred.

Using Napster, I downloaded the MP3 for Denis Leary’s "Life’s Gonna Suck." That song just cracks me up; it always has, ever since I saw him on MTV Unplugged years and years ago. Pissed-off male comics are my favorite, Denis Leary and Dennis Miller chief amongst my favorites.

Fred pointed out that I was listening to a song that proclaimed there was no Santa Claus in front of the spud, but she seemed none the worse for wear, though to all appearances she still believes in the big man. Is that normal? Well, what’m I saying – I believed, or half-believed anyway, in Santa Claus until I was 12 and my younger cousin told me that her mother had told her there was no Santa. I’m just waiting for the spud to ask me point-blank, which she hasn’t yet. If she’s like me, she figures as long as I think she believes, she’ll continue to get way too many presents under the Christmas tree.

If only she knew it’s not my doing. It’s her grandparents who go crazy every year, not me.
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