10/12/1999

Boy did I not want to go back to work this morning. Long weekends always do that to me, and to add to it, Fred and I took Friday off, so it was a 4-day weekend for us. I got into work around 7:45, and found piles of mail on my chair, and two messages from a Racquel in Puerto Rico. Racquel was desperate to place an order for the telnet client program our company sells. I finally got ahold of her mid-morning (today was a holiday in Puerto Rico; betcha didn’t know that), got the credit card number and all pertinent information, HUNG UP WITHOUT RUNNING THE CREDIT CARD, and when I did so, the card was declined. It was really kind of an all-day ordeal, the whole Racquel situation.

It makes me really tense to talk to someone who has a thick accent. I have to really work to understand them, and I don’t want to have to ask them to repeat themselves, because it seems rude. "Excuse me, could you repeat that? My delicate American ears could not understand your loathsome, thick, non-American accent." Not that that’s what I’m thinking. I’m not.

Work went by quickly, especially after my 11:00 dash to Wal-Mart to pick up a bag of Gummy Savers. My current candy addiction, and the grocery store doesn’t carry them.

So if you don’t live in Alabama, chances are that you didn’t know there was a statewide vote on the lottery today. Lots of people want the lottery, and the bible-bangers are up in arms, shrieking hysterically about the lottery being the downfall of civilization as we know it. Personally, I’d like to have the lottery. When I lived in Maine, they had the Megabucks lottery. Match 8 numbers, you win the jackpot. One week the jackpot was up to $8 million. I matched 7 numbers and won $1,000. One more number… It actually took me 2 days to realize how close I’d come to seeing the big bucks, I was so happy to have won the $1,000.

Like I said, I’d really like to have the lottery in Alabama, and if it passes (as I expect it to) I’ll probably buy 2 tickets a week. But you know what? The greatest thing about the lottery isn’t the winning. I don’t expect to ever win the lottery; no sane person does. The thing that’s so great is that those tickets allow you the luxury of a few hours of fantasizing about what you’d do with all that money.

Me, I’d quit my job. I just have no patience for Grandma who wins the $50 gazillion lottery and continues to work every day from 6 to 2 at the gas station and doesn’t move out of her trailer. Idiocy, that. I also have no patience for those who wail and sob that the lottery will lead to widespread poverty. People who spend money they can’t afford on lottery tickets and scratch-off tickets deserve no sympathy.

Yeah. I’m a bitch.

Nighty-night.

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10/11/1999

How hugely embarrassing. I tried to check out my web page this afternoon, and got an error. Called technical support at Interspeed, and they put me on hold forever to go fix the problem. When I was taken off hold, the guy who was helping me said "I have to ask. That’s you, right?" He was referring to the picture on the bitchypoo index page, which until two minutes ago was the "Throw Momma from the Train" picture. Oddly, it hadn’t occurred to me that I’d ever speak to a stranger who’d have seen that picture.

I was ambitious today. I mean, I slept in until 8, which is a good 2 1/2 hours later than I usually get to sleep on Monday mornings, but after that I was ambitious. After my breakfast from McDonald’s, I mean. A girl’s gotta eat. So after sleeping in like a slug, eating a grease-laden bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit and two hash browns, and taking a shower, I. Was. So. Ambitious. Are you ready for this?

I steam-cleaned the arms and backs of our love seat and couch. Yes, I know. Quite an accomplishment. Especially since there was an ungodly amount of cat hair matted all over the aforementioned backs and arms. Truth be told, I thought it would take maybe half an hour. I’d zing and zip that steam cleaner attachment over the nasty cat hair, and it’d be gonegonegone. In fact, it took more like an hour and a half. Not to mention that ten-minute break I had to take to get the Sloppy Joes started in the crockpot. (New recipe. I liked it. Fred did not. He only likes about every fourth new recipe I try) And after that, I vacuumed the kitchen, living room, dining room, and as far into our bedroom as the cord would reach.

After that, I felt justified in lolling about on the bed for the afternoon, reading some of my backlog of magazines. "New Woman", "Jane", and "Marie Claire", to be exact. There may have been napping. There may have been sex. I’ll save the whining about the birth control for another day.

A nice, relaxing, calm, far-too-fast Columbus Day, it was. And I topped it off by dropping a tupperware container full of leftover sloppy-joe meat on the floor and stepping in it. Just like a damn cat, I am. Fred laughed hysterically, I got a tad peeved (I was wearing practically new pants and got sloppy joe sauce all over them), and stomped off to throw my pants in the washer and sit downstairs and sulk for a while. A fun time was had by all.

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10/10/1999

So. Welcome to my journal. I’m your hostess, Robyn. Can I get you something to drink? No, I’m sorry. Here at bitchypoo, we only serve Coke and ding dongs. ‘Tis a quiet weekend so far at Robyn ‘n Fred’s house. I try to get all the laundry and errand-running done on Saturday so that I can loll about the house on Sunday. I’m really the laziest person you’ll meet, and can only motivate myself to get important things like laundry, grocery-shopping and other housewifely things accomplished by reminding myself that once they’re done I can lay around and do nothing. I hit Walmart yesterday morning to buy catfood (amazingly, 20 pounds of catfood lasts an entire month for us), and dragged the spud with me. Her hair is slowly growing out after the shoulder-length chopping this summer, and she desperately needed to blow her allowance on stuff for her hair. Which she will promptly lose under her bed and in her toybox, and come beg barrettes and ponytail holders off of me. So, I just got off the phone with my parents. They’re wanting to come visit in November, and we’re trying to pin down the best time. (When my mom first mentioned their potential visit, she suggested 6 days. Then my dad came up with a 10-day time frame that wasn’t good for us, and now he’s suggesting 11 days). And quick like a bunny I emailed my dad and told him that the 11 days he was offering were fine. So, tomorrow’s what? Columbus Day (observed)? I guess I’ll celebrate the holiday the traditional sit-on-my-ass-watch-tv-and-reading way. I’m such a patriot. —–]]>