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 |  "Clean cup! Move down!" ~~the Mad Hatter, Alice in Wonderland, Walt Disney cartoon |
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Sometimes in life, you have to pick up and move down the table. A regroup, a fresh start. A clean slate. |
| I am a large Amazonian woman. I weigh more than two bills and at five foot eight, I tower over most of the women I know. I know that isn't super tall, but put a pair of even modest heels on me and I'm suddenly 5' 11" or more. My point? Moving through the world. And how I do it versus how the people around me do it. Once upon a time, long, long ago, when I was in high school, I took modelling classes because a girlfriend of mine wanted to. In it we learned how to walk and comport ourselves in public. It was the walking that intrigued me. The lady who taught the classes (a retired professional model) showed us how to move with grace. She taught us to walk lightly on the balls of our feet, gently placing each foot one in front of the other, head and shoulders high but relaxed. Moving like a leopard. Owning the space we moved through. I don't always nail the leopard thing, but over the years, I have retained the walking lightly thing. For a woman my size, I move fairly lightly. And when I'm not tripping, falling or otherwise injuring myself, I'm actually kinda graceful. We tease at work that Hubby is a Ninja. His office is downstairs from the main office where I work. We had to establish a signal here for when he is "in" because he ninjas in and out and we never notice him coming and going. We only know he is here if the stairwell light is turned on. He puts panthers to shame. He ghosts in and out of places scaring the bejeebers out of all of us. The sad part? He isn't trying. He just moves that smoothly and comfortably. He is just that comfortable in his body. One of my coworkers, A, is around 5' 11" and looks like a super model. She is gorgeous. She has the willowy body and is just stunning. But sady? She moves through the world like a wounded water buffalo. She stomps around on giant platform heels and you always know where she is because she just plows through the space around her. It is.......off putting. She has no grace to her at all. She is a clothes horse and sells jewelry on the side and I want to take her aside and explain about the water buffalo stomping, but.....how do you approach that? Because I know that she is trying to project a certain image, but, the stomping around really detracts from that image. I feel like how we move in our world is an extension of how we feel inside, how we feel about ourselves and our place in the world. Maybe I'm reading into it. I do know that I will be using the analogy in my writing. Is it sad that every aspect of the people around me is mere fodder for the people on my pages? Or simply the byproduct of knowing a writer? You just know that in some way parts of you will filter through their consciousness into their books. |
| Yesterday afternoon I came home from work to find a path of wreckage starting on my upstairs landing, going through my bedroom, ending in the master bathroom. Sofie (our doxie) had gotten up on the closed toilet seat, scrambled up onto the counter (completely unrolling a full roll of toilet paper in the process) and then wreaked havoc with my bathroom counter. (Which admittedly has too much crap on it.) She was thorough. Nothing escaped her destructive little tantrum. Because that is what it was. A tantrum. Because we had a big storm through here yesterday and she hates storms. She especially hates storms when she is home alone with no one to cuddle her except for the cat. She didn't chew anything up except for some Kleenex from the trashcan--which was tipped over, contents scattered. She just strewed the contents of my bathroom all the hell over my upstairs. And then had the temerity to come and sit with me while I was cleaning it all up as if to say, "Hi Mom. Whatcha doing?" Idiotic little animal. Like a toddler, this dog. Needless to say, today when I left for work, both bathroom doors got closed. Which I hate doing, because it prevents them from ever getting air. So they are musty and damp all the time. When we moved in we had to have mold remediation done in the attic above the bathrooms. (The little fans from both of them vented directly into the attic. How stupid was that?) So now we are paranoid about mold in the bathrooms. It was an expensive fix and a pain in the ass. We don't want to have to have it done again when we move. Plus...black mold is toxic and icky. And with my other health problems, mold related problems are just ones I don't need. Anyhoo. My job has gotten a lot better. The women in the office have gotten over me being a threat to them to a certain extent. Everyone has sort of pulled down to DEFCON 4 instead of DEFCON 2 about me. There is still uneasiness about me, but I just keep on keeping on. I got a raise which was nice. It makes it a little worth my time to deal with some of the hostility and stupidity. The minor snubs keep happening, but I've decided to just rise above. Plus, CJ and I work roughly the same hours, both of us tied to a desk. She introduced me to XFire. It is an in-game gaming chat system that is super cool. I installed it on my computer at work and so now she and I sit and chat all day long at work. When I'm totally losing it at work, she can talk me down and vice versa. And...bonus, I get to talk to my kid every day.  It is kind of cool. It is probably bad but....I don't care. It gets me through the day.  |
| I have a degree. I have a degree in a field that I really enjoy. I really enjoy it. I have a job that most days is ok. That's the best I can say about it. It is ok. But some days I hate my job. Hate it. With the fiery passion of a thousand suns I hate my job. 99 out of 100 times that I am hating my job it is because my boss is a misogynist pig and undervalues me and my female office coworkers because we don't do "real" work. Only the men in the company do real work because they sweat while they do it. Ok, buddy, fire us all and then see what happens when you don't get paid for these jobs you have all your guys go sweat on because no one is there to process the paperwork and no one gets billed. See what happens when none of your sweaty guys gets paid because there is no one there to run your payroll. See what happens when there is no one there to license your equipment, order your fuel, pay your bills, liaison with the state/insurance/feds/a billion, trillion other people who want to regulate the shit out of the construction industry. See what happens when OSHA drops by and you are out of compliance because there is no one running your safety program. But we are just women. Who need you to back us with the sweaty guys in the field who won't turn in their gods-forsaken state and federally mandated paperwork! And by all means pay us a fraction of what you pay those sweaty men, please...do! /rant  Back to my degree. I get that I am incredibly, immensely, angrily under-employed where I am at. In a field I would love to get out of, surrounded by people who resent me. Because they get that I am vastly under-employed. Although I try REALLY, REALLY HARD to quack like a duck and fly in formation. But.....when I solve major problems quickly and with ease, they get that I'm really a flamingo...not a duck. I've taken to just sitting dumbly and not opening my mouth at all until they come to me and say...please, solve this. Even when they are sitting there around me brainstorming for solutions. Because, that shit just comes back to bite you again and again. But, what do you do? When they ask you point blank? Even when you know they resent you when you solve the problems? Problems generally caused by sweaty men. /pity party  Back to my degree. Today was the proverbial straw that tripped up this broken camel's back for both Hubby and I. Two different straws...but same broken camel. Hubby is looking for work. I want to leave the area. I want to sell our house. I want to move to greener pastures. I'm done with Montana. I will never find work in my field in Montana. Not in the Bozeman area. I just won't. I need to move to growth areas. And Bozeman, Montana, ain't a growth area. No matter what bullpucky the local Realtor groups are peddling. It just ain't. Most of the jobs I have found have been with places down in Texas in the Houston/Galveston area. Or in North Carolina. Or in Illinois. Or....well...pretty much all points not Bozeman, Montana. So my point is....if Hubby found a job, I would be willing to follow him. But he makes big money. Twice what I would make. But I can't make that kind of money right out of the starting gate. I need to go where the jobs are and start from the ground up. I need to be flexible. There is literally nothing but this monstrosity of a house and our jobs keeping us here right now. And I hate them all. Why are we here? Why can't we jump ship on all of it? Short sell the house, flush the jobs, go wherever I find a job and he'll have a job with three phone calls. The man can do anything and has a dream resume. I went to a job fair and people saw my name and work history and asked me if I knew him and then when they figured out who he was, tried to hire HIM. People from Salt Lake and Denver and all over, too....not just local people. He is like...famous in certain circles. My point is.......any decent headhunter can get him a job no matter where we go. We need to get the hard piece of the puzzle in place with me. Right? Doesn't that make sense? Part of me just wants to say fuck it and find a job and say, "Follow me or don't. I don't care." I just know I can't stay here in a house I resent being a flamingo in the duck flock anymore. I gotta go find my own flock. Whether he comes with me or not. I can't keep dying a little inside every day. |
| I have been talking to my therapist and she has been encouraging me to write a cookbook. (go down two entries to Food Free Food) I did it. I wrote a little 18 page mini-cookbook with 15 recipes I invented (ok...I got one of them from my aunt, but the rest are me) and I am about to go have 6 of them printed at the Staples. I will just have regular color pages printed (so that the little icons I made showing allergens show up) and then I am going to try to sell them. She wants the first copy. I need to figure out what to charge for them, though. Whew...it is a lot of....I don't know.....mixed feelings. I am still inventing recipes each week. I put them in binders because I hope to issue, like, installments of the book. Maybe, 3 or 4 times a year? I could do that many recipes a year. Say.....fifteen in the first one and ten for each installment? I could do that. That's doable. That's ten recipes a quarter. Ten recipes hitting various allergen profiles. I also need to get to getting on the food geography information I want to add to each issue. Take a specific food and talk about its origins and history and where and how it came to be used as it is today. Foods I use in the recipes like...coconuts, avocados and rices. I also would like to have a small (!) side business to go with them about coaching people how to learn to cook for themselves once they find out they have a food allergy. Like how to shop, where to shop, what to buy....just how to go about things. 'Cause I've done it, you know? Triggers to avoid, like ALWAYS have simple foods to prepare on hand so you don't "cheat" and then make yourself sick. Prepare foods ahead of time to save yourself having to think about meals. Shit like that. Ways to help people figure out comfort recipes for themselves. Food is comfort. We humans comfort ourselves with food. And when your comfort foods are all taken from you, you feel alone and lonely and you....well, you lose your shit. And you start eating badly and hurting yourself because you don't know how to comfort yourself. It is a viscous cycle. I've been in it. I'd like to help others not go there. Yeah. So...the end. If you'd like an e-copy of my little book, let me know and I'll send it to you. No charge to y'all as my beta group! |
My in laws visited over the weekend. Hubby asked me tonight, "So aside from the few hiccups we had, it was a good visit, right?"  Uh. No. It was NOT a good visit. There is no definition of the word good that would cover the train wreck that was this visit. OMG. Where to start? My bipolar FIL had an "incident" Saturday evening to the point where ugliness ensued and Hubby kicked him out of our house. Like told him to pack his shit and that he couldn't stay with us anymore. Sayonara. Hasta la vista. Buh-bye. For good. Never darken our doorway again. That he had now collected the full set of his children who would no longer speak to him. (BIL and SIL don't speak to FIL, for reasons.) He came back begging and crying and explaining his bad behavior and Hubby listened and agreed to give him another chance. So....there was that. Then there was my MIL who is in what we believe early stages of either dementia or Alzheimer's. She is only 66, but having a coherent conversation with her is a total crapshoot. She and I went out Sunday and had Girl's Day, like we always do when we are together. It was a little like spending the day with a confused 4 year old. I wanted to cry....all day long I wanted to cry. We ate breakfast right before we left the house (around 11) and so I thought we'd go shopping some before going to eat Italian food (her favorite). At noon, she started getting a little ansty, "It's lunch time, were we going to eat?" "Are you hungry, Mom?" Look of total confusion. "Oh. No, not really, but it's lunch time." (I think she eats lunch right at noon everyday.) "Mom, we just ate a huge breakfast about an hour ago. I thought we'd shop some before we go to lunch. We can go now if you are hungry, but it might be better if we wait." "Oh. We did? When was that?" "Right before we left, Mom. Remember, I made us waffles? And bacon? With the sweet cream cheese?" (Details help her.) "Oh! Right." Pregnant pause. I can tell she is processing this information. Mulling it over. She consults her watch again. "But it is lunch time." I want to facepalm myself at this point. I cajole her, wheedle her, distract her and put her off until 1:30. The whole day is a series of repeated conversations and conversation gaps caused by her not remembering things. We would talk about something and then 20 minutes later she would ask me about the exact same thing. Like we hadn't discussed it at all. The truly frightening thing is that she is carrying on a "normal" life back home. She still works 4 days a week, but they are cutting her back to 3. I think that they are on to her. I think that they are keeping her on because she would just sit at home by herself if she didn't work and they know that. She has worked at the same place for over 20 years. But...she has trouble with the computer system. She used to do the deposits, but they don't let her do that anymore she told me. What really scares me is that they live on the Front Range and she drives down in Metro Denver sometimes by herself. ~shudder~We went to a movie on Sunday and when the movie was over we stood up in the dim theater to leave and she just stood there. She was on the exit side of the row and I said, "Ready to go, Mom? You lead." She got an awful look of confusion on her face and then distress. I asked her what was the matter and she said, "How do we get out of here?" "Right over there, Mom. Where we came in. By the Exit sign." She was completely panicked because in 2 hours she had forgotten where the door to the theater was. She didn't understand how to leave the theater. And she is driving herself around Metro Denver WITH NO CELL PHONE. She has no cell phone because she is afraid to get one because new things scare her. I told my husband I think she is about to the point where she needs a bracelet. "If found, please contact...." He poo-poohed me, but I'm serious. If nothing changes, I foresee her needing to be placed in assisted living in the next 3-5 years. What kills me...just kills me, is that the family is in such denial about it all that she hasn't even been to see someone about it. They are just pretending that she is fine. It is nothing. She'll be great. I'm not a good ostrich. I come from a family of ostriches and I don't approve of ostrich behavior. It pisses me off. I feel that something could be done to preserve what little memory the poor woman has left if only she would go get help now. Ignoring the problem only makes it worse. For her and for FIL. I think part of FIL's bad behavior is being basically her full time caretaker with no help while pretending everything is hunky-dory. Even to himself. He is lying to himself and it is causing him to just kind of devolve mood and behavior-wise. It is ugly to watch from the outside. For almost 45 years, she has taken care of him and now he has to step up to the plate and he is so afraid of failing that he is screwing it up by pretending it is all ok. And it isn't. Honestly it is just a hot mess. And it is one that I think, unfortunately, Hubby is going to have to step in and help clean up. I hope he does it sooner rather than later. Although if he keeps asking me idiotic questions like, "It was a good visit, right?" I'm going to start seriously reconsidering his mental state. |
| Back in March, I got a blood test from my naturopath. I just kept having problems with various foods even after going gluten-free on his advice. In April, we got the results back. His response to me when he was interpreting the results? "Wow, Teresa, just wow." That instills hope and confidence. The upshot of the test results? I'm allergic to food. Which foods? Most of them. Dairy, red meat, eggs, citrus (really?), garlic (what am I, a vampire?), some veggies, soy, chocolate and lest we forget.....gluten. So post-graduation, my new life goal has been re-learning how and what to eat. It's nuts! I feel like I'm re-inventing the wheel. Every Sunday I spend most of the day researching and re-engineering recipes so that I can eat them. I told Hubby it isn't even cooking literally everything I eat from scratch that is killing me, it is having to cook from the step before scratch. What do I mean? I found a yummy looking recipe for Avocado Tuna Salad. Yay! It looked tasty, so I set out to adapt it. It called for tuna, check, I can eat that. Green onions, celery, dill; check, check, check. Avocado. Check. I can eat all those things! Yay!! Now I just mix those things up with......wait a minute......mayo. Frack. I can't eat commercial mayo. Ok, I'll look for egg free mayo from the health food store. Nope. It is all soybean based. No dice. Ok, I'll go online and spend an hour looking for a recipe that I can eat. Nope. No dice. Ok. New plan. I'll spend 20 minutes Frankensteining together a recipe that I can eat. No problem. Yay! Now I have a Goat's Milk Egg Free Mayo that is super freaking tasty--don't let the name fool you. It is made with avocado oil and whips up in just a couple of minutes with a stick blender. But, see what I mean about pre-scratch food? So, what am I doing with these new recipes I'm inventing? I'm a writer, so I'm writing a cookbook. I'm calling it "Food Free Food: How to eat gourmet foods when you are allergic to everything under the sun." I think it will sell well in the right circles.  |
| I don't know how to feel. I am without feeling. Or maybe, too many feelings. All at once. As of around noon today, I am finished with college. There are still papers to be rubber stamped and diplomas to be issued, but I'm done. Officially. I even went and harassed an extremely nice lady with crayon red hair at the Registrar's office because I was stressed about having all my i's dotted and all my T's crossed. According to her, this fat lady has sung. It's all over but the crying. And then she proceeded to have a nice cry with me. It was such a fucking relief, you know? I'm actually a college graduate. Six loooooooonnnnngggg ass years, later. At the mature age of 43 (on Friday). I have a Bachelor's of Science in Earth Science with an emphasis on Geography. Woot! You know what that means, doncha? I can successfully refold a road map. While driving. And it only cost me $65,000 to have them teach me. BOOM! |
| I got up at five this morning for no particular reason. I needed to leave early so that I could go to a dentist appointment before work, but not five am early. I just...was done sleeping. I decided to get up and start my day by getting my Spanish lesson out of the way instead of doing it after class when I got home at 6:45 or 7 tonight like I usually do. So, I got up, got dressed in the dark so I didn't wake up Hubby and came downstairs to the living room so I could close myself in and do things quietly. It was kind of nice. I think I might try to continue the habit of doing it early if I wake up in time from now on. I drove to the dentist, which is in Townsend--66 miles away. It is only about an hour drive because it is all Interstate and empty Montana highway the whole way there. I even had time to stop for gas. It's a pretty drive. We like this dentist because he and his staff are super nice and he is incredibly cheap. I got two fillings and a crown done today (the temp...I gotta go back for the permanent crown in three weeks) and it was around $450 after our crappy insurance paid the little bit it paid. The last time I got a similar amount of work done by another guy it was over $1500. We didn't go back to that dentist. A coworker turned us on to this guy and even though he is a little hard to get in to, he does excellent work and never tries to shyster you into unnecessary crap like "teeth bleaching" or any of that. The first time I went to him was because a different dentist was recommending two crowns and a bridge for a problem I was having and he was all...."Not no, but HELL no. Totally unnecessary." He did a minor amount of work on one tooth and sent me on my way. For $75. Instead of the $4500 they wanted for all they were going to do. I hate dentists. Except Matt. He is nice.Then when I got back to work it was more of what I've been getting at work. Our boss has made it clear that he wants me to learn everyone else in the office's job. That has all of my coworkers up in arms. But only in the way that women get up in arms. Catty, behind the back and cutting remarks. Tons of snark. But not in any way you can call them out on it. Until last week when the Payroll lady made a really nasty remark to my face like she was joking, only she wasn't. The other two in the office sort of sneered and tittered like it was funny but OMG did she really say that? I laughed like I was laughing with them and then found an excuse to leave the room and went into the bathroom and had to wipe away tears. It was such an ugly remark it made me cry. I told Hubby about it that night and he basically said No, I must have misunderstood. Then the next day, he actually witnessed the other two being what they thought was covertly mean to me. Trying to make me look stupid to a customer because they hadn't given me the whole information about the job. Hubby caught them at it and stopped it and sorted it out. He told me later if he hadn't seen it himself he'd never have believed it. He sat for a minute and watched them do it before stepping in because he just couldn't believe it was happening. I asked him if he believed me now about all the catty backbiting bullshit I've been putting up with now? At work I smile and smile and butter wouldn't melt in my mouth. The two I work with essentially side by side (we have an open floor plan work space, so I just sit at a long L shaped open flowing desk/counter with two of them-there are no real breaks between our work spaces) have decided that the way to deal with the fact that they have to teach me their jobs is basically to info dump the entire job on me as quickly as they can. Both at once. It is a good thing that I learn very quickly. It is also a good thing that I can stop doing whatever I'm doing and just...absorb....whatever they throw at me because they pick really inopportune moments to find new things that I MUST learn right that minute, regardless of what else I'm working on. The third, the Payroll lady, is dealing with things a different way. She only teaches me things if the boss goes in and says to her..."What are you working on......teach it to Teresa." She then proceeds to teach me that one and only thing. And then explain why she can't possibly teach me anything else of her job right then for whatever reason. Then boss will ask me, "Is Payroll lady teaching you stuff?" And I have to say, "Only when you tell her to." And then I look like a tattle-tell. The thing that really hurts is that one of these women was a really good friend of mine. Like an outside of work friend. And a really good friend of Hubby's. But then he watched her be deliberately shitty to me. And he is like....10000% done with her ass. He won't even talk to any of the office people now unless it is directly about work. And they all ask me, "What's Hubby's deal? Why is he in a bad mood lately?" And I want to say to them, "He isn't in a bad mood. It is all of you! The only real sure way onto Hubby's bad side is to be mean to me or CJ!!! And there is virtually zero recovery from it." He will never forgive any of them for being mean to me. Ever. You can be mean or rude or anything else to him and he will forgive you a billion times. But be mean one time to me or CJ and you earn his undying enmity. And I can't explain it to them because by the rules of the game THEY set up, I can't acknowledge they have been and are being ugly to me on a daily basis. And the really stupid part? The part that sticks in my craw the most? I didn't do anything. This isn't the job I asked for. This isn't the position I wanted to come back to work at this place for. I wanted a totally different position. But I agree with Bossman that the office is broken and sadly, I am a huge part of the fix. I just wish he could afford to pay me more to have a thicker skin in the interim. Because, make no mistake, he, Hubby and I have all discussed that for now I just have to ride it out and develop thick skin. I have to just leave the room and cry in the bath room when it gets really bad. I think when I understand Payroll lady's job (at least what she is doing with it), Payroll lady will be getting her walking papers. I'm not sure, but I think he'd like to issue them to one of the other ladies as well. There is quite a bit of redundancy and overlap going on. He already asked me to audit the jobs as I learn them and to start figuring out where we can start trimming down and streamline our processes. Because in order for us to stay solvent? Shit has to change. But that doesn't make my day to day any easier. |
| I am so freaking stoked. Tonight Patricia Briggs came to the Bozeman Hastings to promote her latest book Night Broken. She signed books, did a reading and did a fairly in depth Q and A session. It. Was. AWE. SOME!!!!!!!! I got there early and met my girlfriend and her boyfriend. I was kind of in a scramble because I'm in the process of transitioning my entire library to electronic format so I had nothing for her to sign. So I decided to look for one of her graphic novels so that she could sign that. Unfortunately.....they are out of print or some such something. And she is in crazy negotiations with various folk about upcoming graphic novels, yada, yada....etc, etc, etc. But, the lovely and talented Hans, a minion of Hastings, was able to find me a back issue copy of one of her comics. Yay!! So...freshly sleeved comic book in hand, my friend and I headed over to the comfy seating area they had set up for the signing. When we got there, the nicest guy started chatting with us. Turns out it was Mike Briggs, Patty's husband. He talked with us for almost fifteen minutes while Patty worked out a couple of last minute details with the store people. He told funny, silly stories about their horse ranch and the various places they have lived. Patty read a selection from the new book. It was so cool to hear her read her own words. She told us she was grateful to hear us laugh in all the right places. She answered lots of questions about upcoming stories including a collection of short stories coming out in the fall. Her next full length book will be from the Alpha and Omega story line. She said she hopes the one after will be on the Emerald Isle Pack, specifically, Tom and Moira. I'm super excited about that one. (Ok...I'm excited about them all. )It was snowy and rainy and wintry here today, so there was a small turnout. Only about 20 of us. Patty said that was fine; it made it more intimate. When asked about book limits for signing, she said that if everyone there brought two copies of every book she had written, she would sign all of them. (She has twenty one books in publication.) She said if people were willing to buy her stuff, she was pleased to sign it all as long as they were willing to wait. She even personalized things. The Hastings people came around and gave us all sticky notes so we could write our names out for Patty so she could spell our names correctly. She was super gracious. And I have a spiffy new personalized Mercedes Thompson comic book personalized to me!Mike, her incredibly funny husband, stood near the end of the line and chatted with everyone, entertaining them, while Patty signed things. All in all a great evening. Memorable and enjoyable. Which was nice because the one does not always necessarily follow the other. |
I'm the new safety officer at my work.  Yeah. I said that, too.We have about twenty five employees over three states now. We are based in Belgrade (Bozeman), Montana, with a driver in Helena, two in Great Falls and one in Billings. We also have three in Pueblo, CO, and three in Twin Falls, ID. Our concrete plant and shop are here in Belgrade. Oh, and one random guy in Idaho Falls, ID. Once upon a time, there used to be weekly safety meetings held here in Belgrade every Tuesday morning. There was juice and donuts. 'Cause who doesn't love a good donut? But...things happened and times changed and the weekly safety meetings fell by the wayside. Now, once a month-ish, a safety bulletin goes out with the paychecks and you read it and sign and acknowledge you read it. The thing is, in the construction industry, there are hella safety regs and OSHA compliance articles. There are DOT rules and health and safety compliance articles and checklists. There are even job site specific rules and regulations. In short, construction is one of the most heavily regulated industries out there. Most of the regulations, rules and compliance crap is just that....crap. And it is redundant crap. Or it is common sense crap. Or it is "we are only telling you this so if you screw it up, you can't sue us or anyone else later" crap. But, some of it...say 25% of it...that stuff will keep you from killing yourself and/or others. The problem is digging down to that stuff through all the crap. A few years ago, we had one of our drivers accidentally run over and kill another of our drivers on a federal job site. Yeah. You just read that correctly. You want a red tape, "are you kidding me, did that just happen?" nightmare? The unholy irony? They had just left an onsite federally run and sanctioned safety meeting. Yeah. You just read that correctly. It is really hard to get a safety program up and running when that is the the last taste of safety meeting in everyone's mental palette. I have to figure out a way to run the meetings differently. I have to give them a little bit of "And now for something completely different." I want to sift through the redundant crap down to the 25% of the real essence of what job safety should be about. The stuff that keeps you from killing your coworkers. Without presenting it that way. Without referencing the death in any way, shape or form. Although I don't think that is going to be possible. I am afraid I'm going to have to kick that ghost in the nuts first rattle out of the box and then move the fuck on. Sometimes men prefer that. Women want you to pussyfoot around about shit, but men prefer the ole nut kick, move on approach. Construction workers are weird. Maybe this is one of the reasons G chose me as safety officer. 'Cause I've got the balls to say, "This is the kind of bullshit that got T killed. Don't do it." I've got such a big set of balls, I had to strap them to the front of my chest. ~sigh~ I have until April to figure this shit out. Maybe Hubby will help me. He's a kick'em in the nuts approach kind of guy, too, though. Maybe not. |
| Today was my first day back at work. It was great. I really enjoyed it. It was just me and the office manager, A. I really like her--she and I are friends outside of work. We sometimes do movies or lunch together. The woman who handles HR and payroll, S, took the week off because it is Spring Break and she has two middle school age sons. She is a helicopter mom and won't leave them home alone. She takes lots of time off in the summer, too. Our boss is really flexible with her hours and she often comes in late in the afternoon after her husband comes in and then she stays late. Or she will work weekends. The third woman in the office, T, took this week off, too. She is a bit of a hot mess in the men department. She wants to work two weeks on and then take every third week off so she can spend time with her new boy friend who works that schedule out in the Bakken oil fields. She performs a pretty integral part of the office work, so it is somewhat problematic if she takes every third week off. In terms of continuity for customers and drivers it is pretty much a total no go. People like to talk to the same person every time they call in. They like to talk to someone who is up to speed on a situation and can hit the ground running. They don't like starting from the top each time they call. And who can blame them? I met with G, the boss, this morning and he outlined his plan for what he envisions my new role being. He doesn't want me to have to dispatch (T's job). He sort of sheepishly explained that in addition to doing bids and sales for both divisions and all three states (we are here in Montana and also in CO and ID), he'd like me to handle all the state and federal fuel reporting (what I did before) and also be his personal admin assistant. He has so many irons in the fire that he is starting to lose track of stuff and he needs someone to ride herd on him. I was super excited about that. He also explained that I would also be a sort of floater for the other office positions in the event anyone is out of the office or if they need help. So I would be cross trained in all of the other positions. Which will be nice, because when A went on vacation to Hawaii last summer we all stood around with our thumbs up our butts when people needed concrete invoices. I didn't say anything today, 'cause G was kind of on a roll, but the only job I don't want to have a damn thing to do with is Payroll or HR. I don't want to know ANYTHING about it. I've always been really careful to steer clear of it. Hubby more or less is G's VP of Operations for the company. He runs the Ready-Mix Division and he runs the on site shop and handles the fleet maintenance. Technically, Hubby and I work for different companies. On paper, he works for the Ready-Mix and I work for the pumping company. (Although, almost everyone who works for G winds up working for both in some capacity.) In the past, our jobs haven't really intersected. Hubby, G and I have always been careful that they don't. At the most, I have been responsible for printing one report a week for Hubby. Besides chatting with one another in the office, that is the most interaction we have. If I were to have access to Payroll, between Hubby and I we would have access to literally every aspect of G's....empire. I find that unacceptable. For both G and for us. If anything were to happen, I don't want to put either G or us in that sort of position legally. The last time I worked for the company, I wouldn't let them give me a key to the office. Then they went and moved Hubby into the main office, so.......nuts to my plan. I feel like if I'm G's assistant, they will make me take the key.But...that is next week's problem. This week's problem is working out the dispatch software. I forgot how much I hate it. That and how much A snacks ALL DAY LONG!! |
| I was going to wait to write this, but....I start my job on Monday at 8 am. Yay! I'm struggling to be excited about it. I want to be all Wahoo! But....I'm.....it's not the job I was going to have. G, the owner, and I are going to lunch together tomorrow, but from what I gather from my husband, G is having a problem with the woman who handles dispatch for the pumping company. Mostly because she is a crap dispatcher. She was when I worked there before. Well, now she is giving him more fits. Her current boyfriend works two weeks on and two weeks off. She has told G she would like to work that schedule now. His main concern is and has always been continuity of service both internally and for the customers. Even when I worked there, he liked one person (her) answering incoming calls so that they always had a single contact person. I understood that. I respected that. It makes sense. Drivers get confused if every time they call in different people are telling them different things or if every time a customer calls in someone new has to get up to speed on a situation. That makes good business sense. However, I don't want to be that person. I am excellent on the phone. It is why he hired me the first time. He loves my professional phone voice. But, I sort of despise that this will pigeonhole me in the dispatch position. I had lots of ideas about how to help with the bids and other ideas on how to apply my degree to help build the business. It is stuff that G and I had discussed in the past. Now, I'm going to have to.....plug a hole in personnel. I don't want that. I want to do more. I want to do things. I guess I need to wait until tomorrow when he and I have lunch together to see where his head is on this. I want to be a team player. I want to be someone who helps solve problems, not someone who makes them. But, underneath, I'm still a little disappointed. |
I finished the project I had due today. It is crap. I'm almost embarrassed I did it. I hate producing things I can't be proud of. I am somewhat of an overachiever. Giving less than 100% on anything gives me the hives. ~shudder~ Part of the paper is a rant on why the paper is crap because the data sets we were given are crap. It is just a hot mess, including a pie chart for a total percentage of 106%. WTF? The data set included a total of 106% on one set. I was forced to make a pie chart of it. I feel great shame.  I met last Friday morning with the head of the Earth Sciences department. He is a nice guy. I've had a couple of classes from him. He knows that I am an A student. He was chagrined when he found out why I was wanting to see him. Dr. L is the weird cousin of the Earth Sciences family. The weird tenured cousin the department can't get rid of unless he starts ritualistically sacrificing the university's ducks down at the duck pond. Dept Head was appalled, though, as I outlined my problems with the class. He had me write out a letter detailing all of the things I had a problem with and send it to him so that he had a record to add to the growing complaint file on Dr. L. He said depending how his meeting with Dr. L went, there will be a couple of options with the class. We can all "drop" the class and then be enrolled into Independent Study courses for the remainder of the semester. Not ideal because then they have to figure out how to stack 19 students under the other four geography professors in the department so they can monitor our progress. Dr. L can straighten up his act. Not ideal, because neither DH nor I believe it will happen. Dr. L's grad student A will take over the class and A will teach us for the remainder of the semester. Great for us because A is a really nice guy (he's in my other class) but not so great for A because he knows crap all about the subject. It's a mess, honestly. And again, I reiterated to DH, I'm angry I'm paying for this. Really angry. DH agrees, but in a lot of ways, his hands are tied. Dr. L has been here for twenty years. DH inherited the mess and his options for solving it are limited. Barring the duck thing. Hubby is super angry about the whole thing. He wants me to get a partial refund on this class. The university says no. I just want to finish up and honestly the whole thing is screwing me up for focus on other things. I need to be focused on my Spanish. I need to be focused on finishing up this semester. I need to just be focused on getting the hell out of school. I can't be worrying about this fool. It stresses me out. Big time. |
| I am taking two classes this semester. Both are planning classes. As in urban/city planning. As in: Real life SIMs, where should we let them build the new Starbucks? kind of planning. One is taught by an adjunct professor who was the head of the Bozeman Planning Department for 20 years (during the 90s and 00s) and then retired into teaching for MSU. This professor, Prof. E is excellent. He still knows people in the planning industry and the class is an advanced practical approach to planning. This is how planning works, here are some case studies, here is how you work with your various all volunteer boards....etc. The other is taught by a different sort of professor. A tenured professor, Dr. L. Dr. L is a foreign national. He came to this country in 1989. I have had a couple of other classes with him and he starts all his semesters the same way: an indepth class long lecture regarding China's past and current political history. These are all geography planning classes I've taken from him. In spite of having been here from China since 1989, Dr. L continues to struggle with English. His lectures are at times completely indecipherable. You turn to classmates thinking, "Am I the only one who can't understand him?" only to see them looking at you blankly as well. This particular class that I'm taking from him is a planning class for recreation and tourism. Each lecture follows the same pattern. He hands out mimeographed (and I do mean mimeographed....these are copies of notes he clearly mimeographed in the 80s) outlines of the day's lecture. Then he proceeds to essentially read the outline to the class. He uses the overhead to project a copy of the same notes he has just handed us onto the board so that we can follow along as he reads them to us. There is very little deviation and if there is, he quickly says, "That's important, but it won't be on the test." Sometimes he will go over whole sections of the notes and then inform us, "That didn't make it into the new version of the textbook, so we won't cover any of that on the test." The second class of the year he makes a huge production about how he wants the class to function as a discussion class and not just a lecture class. He wants us to ask questions if we are confused and if we have them. Please ask questions. But if you ask questions, he acts like you farted in church. He gets super fussy and weird. Also...I have been keeping track. Since the semester started, he has cancelled class almost 40% of the time. He says things like, "It is too cold to have class. So, no class on Thursday." "We will only have class on Tuesday, take Thursday off to work on your project." "The project will be due Tuesday, so then we will just take Thursday off." "I have a conference Tuesday, so we will not have class Tuesday, just take Thursday also to read the next chapter." He doesn't arrange to have his grad student teach if he is going to be gone. And for the record, even though it is that cold? Montana schools just don't shut down. We just don't. This state doesn't shut down for less than about 4 feet of snow at a go. Anything else and you just need to make arrangements to make it happen. It's winter, it's Montana, nut up. Where am I going with this? I feel like I am not getting my money's worth. I feel like I want at least 40% of my tuition on this class refunded to me. It is ridiculous that I'm paying what I'm paying for this one class and we aren't even having class. OK, you can make the argument, then if I'm not paying full price, then I shouldn't get full credit. Wait, just a doggone minute. I signed up for the class with the expectation that I would receive a three credit class in recreation and tourism planning. If he has failed to deliver that then as the consumer, surely I should receive some compensation. Ok, then am I actually paying for the three credits and not the actual classes? If that is the case then why couldn't I just pay the $60,000 up front and buy the credits and the degree without bothering with the classes? Oh, then I guess I am paying for the experience and the grades. And the grades aren't dependent upon days in the class room. Then why bother to schedule them. Why can't I do it all on a couple of Saturdays? See where I am with all of this in my head? I feel like I want to complain to the head of my department. Possibly the Dean of the College of Letters and Sciences. Am I overreacting? |
| We live a few miles outside of town in a little subdivision. We are outside the city limits proper, but not really in the country. Like many subdivisions in the surrounding area, we are on a community well system and have our own septic tank. For trash services, there is one local company that comes and does pickup once a week, or you can opt to take your own trash to the county dump about 10 miles west of town. There are a couple of companies in the startup stage attempting recycling pickup services but they are all cost prohibitive at the moment. If we lived in Bozeman, for a small extra fee on our trash bill, they would do curbside pickup for us. Instead, in the interest of saving a buck, I gather and recycle my own recyclables. A few years ago, I realized that the most efficient manner to do it was to sort it immediately so when you get to the recycling drop-off point, you aren't standing in sub-zero temps freezing your nu-nus off trying to figure out if you are going to lose feeling in your fingers before you can decide "Cardboard?" or "Plastic?" I bought three of the biggest and sturdiest laundry baskets WalMart had on offer and lined them up in my garage. When you recycle, you simply put your item in the appropriate one at the outset. It usually only takes me about three minutes to offload my recycling on any given week with this system. Today I went to the drop off at the far remote end of the Home Depot parking lot. They push a lot of their snow there. So much so, that even though Home Depot is right on the busiest street in Bozeman, the area around the recycling bins was walled off and far from people feeling. Just beside and behind the lot there is an open wetland with marshes and a little pond. Lots of ducks hang out there. On the other side of the pond is an apartment complex, but it is about 1/4 mile or so away. The bins are about 100 yards from the Home Depot around the far side, near the back. But I have never been freaked out about recycling there until today. Today, I pulled up and I saw a little white 1990s Honda. It was parked near the bins and I assumed that someone was putting in their recycling, people park all kinds of crazy while they put in their recycling with the idea that they will only be there a few minutes. But, this car was parked in a parking spot. Positioned so that I couldn't see it behind the snow plow pile until I was about to park and take my recycling. When I saw it, my lizard/Caveman brain sat up and poked me. Hard. I instictively checked my door locks. Then I did the 360 degree owl look around me. Where was the person that belonged to that car? And what bothered me about the car so much I asked myself? It could be anyone's. It could be some employees. No. I looked again. The windows were down. No one in Montana with any kind of sense whatsoever leaves their windows down in February. Well, now my hackles were well and truly up. What the hell? I unlocked the door and slid out of my Expedition and opened the back door to grab one of the bins. I took the cardboard first, realizing I would have to do a couple of trips for the plastic because I had it stacked too high. The wind was really ferocious today. As I walked the ten feet over to the cardboard bin, my head was on swivel. The creeped out feeling had not gone away. If anything it was getting worse. For some reason, I wanted to get my carry piece out of the car. I talked myself down. No need to openly carry a gun for three minutes of recycling at 2 pm on a Monday in Bozeman, Montana, one hundred feet from a main road. What the hell was going on? My lizard brain would not shut up. As I turned to put the basket back into the car and get the next one, I looked through the opening of one of the far bins. Standing there staring at me through the bin was an older, bearded man in sunglasses. I got the all over heebies. I realized that he had been watching me this whole time. Just standing there. Hiding and watching me. I put the bin in the car went around got my carry piece out, lay it on the console so that I could reach it from either side of the vehicle and then quickly finished emptying the other two bins. When I finished getting my gun out, he was gone. But while I was emptying the plastics, the smell of cheap cigar smoke wafted over to me. I realized that he had circled around behind the bins and was directly behind the one I was using. I quickly got back in my car and locked the doors. As I pulled away, he watched me the whole time, cheap cigar in his mouth, mirrored lenses following me. Men wonder why women go places in herds or why they don't like to do certain things. Women will stop behaving as prey animals when men stop behaving as predators. Or when enough prey animals fight the predators back. This is one prey animal that will never be prey again. |
| CJ works for a computer repair place. She started out at the receptionist, moved up to the Office Manager position then began learning computer repair. A few weeks ago, they lost a computer repair person so she has transitioned to computer repair full time. Which is nice for her because a) it IS full time, the other was only part time and b) she is learning a skilled trade. As she learns, she sometimes needs guinea pig computers. So her boss lets her do "Tune Up" repairs on computers of people she knows so that she can practice. So she texted me Wednesday and asked if she could "Tune Up/Clean Up" my computer. I told her sure, why not? I've been having trouble with my anti-virus software anyway. I asked her if she could help with that. So....She hooks me up remotely to her computer there in New Mexico. (I'm in Montana.) And she starts running the software. I told her I didn't mind any of it as long as I could listen to my tunes while she worked. She laughed at me and let me open Spotify. So all afternoon Wednesday she and I chatted off and on while she worked on my computer between real jobs at her work. She opened notepad on my computer and we would chat in there or we would text if I was away. When I wasn't near my computer and she wanted to get my attention, she would mute my music. I had to leave for class early Wednesday, so we worked on it Thursday, too. Chatting and being silly. She got me all sorted out. She was actually impressed that I only had one malware program considering I've essentially been running with no virus protection in place since the first of the year. She said she usually digs out a handful. My computer was pretty squeaky clean. She razzed me about some of my programs. "Oh, my GAWD, the Momma, I can't believe you use Foxfire! Why don't you use Chrome!" Things like that. I told her awful puns. What is heck? It's where you go if you don't believe in Gosh and Jeeze. Hubby texted me Wednesday and asked me about my day. When I told him what was going on, he texted back, "If you and she break your computer, you don't get a new one."  When CJ was younger she broke three of our computers. It cracks Hubby and I up that she is in computer repairs now. I told him, "Hey, if she were a hairdresser, I'd let her cut my hair. If she were a mechanic, I'd let her change my oil. This is no different." Honestly? I didn't care about the computer clean up. It was nice and she did fix my Micro Trend problem that has been driving me nuts since the first of the year. So now I've got anti-virus protection again. But I don't really care about that. What I care about is I essentially spent two days having fun with my kid. We laughed and were silly with each other like we used to be. We had a lot of fun messaging each other about dumb stuff. AND, bonus....I've got her hooked on Habit RPG. She is totally sold on it. Any one of you who reads me who hasn't checked it out.....go check it out right now. HabitRPG  You will NOT regret it. Watch the tutorials if you are confused. They are three to five minutes long. It is a wonderful way to get more motivated in your life. OK...no more PSA.I worry about CJ because she works two jobs-about 70 hours a week, and still has no healthcare. She is above government standards for any kind of help, but she is SOOOOOOO poor. And we can't help her. We are barely keeping our heads above water with me in school. She wants to go to school and get a degree so that she can be a therapist. (Talk therapy.) She would be really good at it, but.....I just can't see her being able to scrape together enough money to do that. I worry for her. I guess that is what you do as the Momma. Worry for your kids. Even though she turns 21 next month. She is an adult, but.......I can't help it. In my mind, she is still little and I need to make it better. |
| So, Bozeman is having a TEDx and I LOVE TEDx talks. I watch them all the time. And I've been thinking about what I would talk about if I were to do a TEDx talk. So, here is my short TEDx talk, read it like I am speaking in front of you. It's better that way. And then tell me if it is any good. Hello, my name is Teresa. I'm a recovering alcoholic and a bipolar. Wow. That felt like the opening to an AA meeting. You all know how those go, right? I say Hello, then you all say, "Hello" and then my name. We should do this properly. Let's start over. Hello, my name is Teresa. I'm an alcoholic and a bipolar. <audience Hello> Now some of you have sort of done a tune out of me. Because I've given you two pigeon-holes to drop me into. "Drunk" "Crazy" And you feel checked out of this talk because you can't imagine that a drunk crazy person has anything useful or helpful to tell you. Because we as humans like to pigeonhole people. We like to slap labels on things and neatly categorize them and then stop having to really look at them. Once our brain categorizes something, it stops further examination of it. It wants to scan it, identify it and then toss it into the bin with the other "like" things so it can go on about the business of categorizing other incoming information. And that is how we fall into ruts and habits in our lives. Our brain gets on autopilot like Adam Sandler in the movie "Click" and suddenly we wake up ten years down the road wondering what choices led us to where we are because we don't really remember making those choices along the way. And that is key, because we didn't make the choices along the way, we made them at the beginning. With that initial categorization of something. When your brain binned the information.....all other incoming information and choices like that were binned according to the initial choice. How do we stop that? How do we not do that? How do we not wake up at the age of 42 bipolar alcoholics? One way is to make better initial choices. But that isn't always possible. Sometimes that ship has sailed. Sometimes, that is just something that you can wave at in the rear view mirror as it flies by. Because our brain is hardwired to do the instant categorization thing. What then? I call it "One Thing." Sometimes when you have a lifetime of bad choices and categorizations to deal with, working your way out of them seems like digging your way up from a bottomless pit. It is just overwhelming. Your house is a mess. You are 50, 60, 80, 100 pounds over what you would like to weigh. Your diet is a hot mess. Your work habits are awful. You want to complete college. You have a mountain of debt. You are a smoker. Whatever your situation. The concept of "One Thing" can help you. How does it work? Now I feel like an infomercial. "Tell them how it works, Tom! It slices, it dices, it julienne fries! And that's not all...if you call in the next ten minutes, we'll throw in a set of Ginzu knives absolutely FREE!" Just kidding. Here is how it really works: Say my problem is that my house is a wreck but cleaning it seems like a Herculean task because I have chronic pain. First....start small. My first One Thing might be, Today I will pick up all the trash on this kitchen counter. That's doable, right? One thing. Just the trash. Not clean the whole counter. Not go nuts and clean the entire kitchen or living area. Just the trash off one counter. Now, if that worked out and I was feeling well healthwise the next day, I might up my game. Clean all the trash off all the kitchen counters. Soon, I would move on to dishes and clean counter tops. A little at a time. Maybe wash ten dishes one day. Or whatever doable One Thing you set up for yourself. That is up to you. Say you are over weight and trying to figure out a way to deal with that. Then, your One Thing could be eat one thing less than you normally would today. That's it. Just one thing. Say no to one thing. Or really up your game and your One Thing could be additive such as ride your bike to work today. Or take the stairs at school today instead of the elevator. Now the neat thing about One Thing is that you can do these cumulatively. Such as One Thing for your diet and One Thing for your cleaning. That is up to you. Make small sustainable changes, though. Don't go zero to 9000 miles per hour. That doesn't work. You can't say, "My one thing for today is I will run a marathon." when you have been a couch potato for the last thirty years. You CAN say, however, I want to start making changes in my life so that I can run a marathon soon. Then your One Thing might be, download a Couch to 10K app on your phone and start using it. Something my father used to always say was, "Anyone can eat an elephant. You just have to take it one bite at a time. And remember....you don't have to start with the asshole." So, be smart. Get out there and use your One Thing responsibly. Retrain your brains. Just because you do something or don't do something today, doesn't mean it has to be that way tomorrow. You are in charge of your destiny. Thanks. |
| I have to make this quick. I have my first test in Advanced Urban Planning in an hour and fifteen minutes. I'm writing this during a study break. Luckily most of the stuff from the test is pretty common sense. Most of it is stuff I have learned in other classes or know from working in the industry for almost twenty years. I was supposed to meet another chick who takes the class and she and I were going to study together, but she flaked on me, so I'm in one of the computer labs on campus Little Red Henning it. Hubby texted me earlier. "Where are you?" Meaning why wasn't I home. It was 1:30 so I figured he had come home for lunch. Um....no. He was sick all weekend. He took a half day off to come home and sleep. He's uber passive aggressive and whiny when he's sick but he acts like he is so great at being sick. Drives me nuts. Save me from martyrs. Have you ever seen "The Santa Clause?" Not all the dumb followup movies. But the original one. When Tim Allen is trying to find somewhere to feed his kid on Christmas Eve and they wind up in Denny's? And Denny's is out of Egg Nog AND chocolate milk. The kid sighs this real put upon sigh and says, "Plain milk's fine." In our house when I give you options or tell you we are out of something and you give me the sigh and say, "It's ok, I'll take..." I tell you, "Don't 'Plain milk's fine.' me. What the hell do you want?" I hate martyrs. My mother is SUCH a martyr. She is SOOOOO freaking passive aggressive. My mother-in-law is passive aggressive, too. It drives me nuts. Fucking have an opinion. Pitch a fucking fit. Want what you want. Don't take the least objectionable path just so you don't rock the boat. Stand up and rock that bitch! When Hubby is sick he gets super passive aggressive. And a little snarly about it. Like he is the king of martyrdom. Fuck that noise. If you feel sick, make some fucking noise about it. Demand extra service. Demand pampering. Demand tea and soup and blankies. He sits by himself under his blankie (which he denies is his blankie, even though he dragged it out of the living room like Linus yesterday ) and watches "Cheers" on Netflix and drinks all the tea I bring him. He eats whatever I bring him, but he won't tell me what he wants. He takes whatever drugs I bring him but he won't tell me what he needs. ~AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH~ It's maddening. Are you stuffy? Does your tummy hurt? Do you have fever? Does your head hurt? Do your joints ache? I get nothing beyond..."I'm not feeling good." That and when I hug him I can tell he IS running a fever.I could tell he was sad I was gone today when he texted me. He had come home early so I would pamper him, even though he goes on and on and on about how he doesn't need pampering, he is happy to go off on his own when he is sick. He was all, "Oh, K." And then, "When will you be back?" Pitiful. But he is really good to me when I'm sick. So I don't mind doing it. I just mind the passive aggression. I think it is because I grew up with it. It just rubs me the wrong way. I know that I'm the boat rocker in our family, but sometimes I wouldn't mind him rocking the boat every once in a while. Standing up for what he wants. Saying what he needs. Not letting me always run roughshod over him. But I suppose I just need to learn not to run roughshod over everyone in general. It's the problem with being shod roughly, I suppose. |
| Yesterday and today were bad days for me. Emotionally and mentally, I mean. Nothing overtly bad happened. I just....had bad days. Sometimes when you have a mental illness, you have good days and you have bad days. Both for no apparent reason. I guess there is a reason, it is just a fucked up chemical reason in your brain. Not a "shit happened in my real life" reason. I sort of feel like Drew Barrymore in "50 First Dates." "We're having a bad day, Doug!" (That is my favorite rom-com.) I try to warn Hubby when I am having a bad day because I always feel bad for him. He catches all the fall out from it. I'm grumpy and sorta mean. He usually makes me laugh though. When he was trying to figure out what was my deal Friday night, he informed me that in the event of a catastrophe he was killing me immediately. "It's for your own good," he assured me. I'm not sure how we got on the topic, but he's not wrong. See....I'm a big baby. I like my creature comforts and lots of them. At all times. I don't do well when I have to "rough it." In the event of a Zombie Apocalypse, I'm dead weight. I'm bringing the group down. I mean, sure, I'm clearly the brain trust of any survival group, but for every ten ways I can keep us alive, I'll drag us down and get us all killed 50 other ways. I assured Hubby that in a clutch situation he is going to up the group survival rate exponentially by killing me almost immediately and then eating me. He agreed. And then went on to say, "And then we won't have to listen to you bitch about how miserable you are the whole damn time." AND, I'm a lot of protein for any group. I'm 5' 8" and over two bills on the hoof. That's a lot of Donner Party Dinner keeping people going right there. Plus, if I'm what's for dinner, I don't gotta sample the Longpig. I think I'd squick out over that. Hubby could do it if forced. He's a survivor. Not me. I want hot tea, my jammies, and a nice bacon sandwich. Not to mention, come the Zombie Apocalypse, suddenly I'm out my meds. Then I'm just a crazy ass pain in everybody's butt. No sirree, Bob. No, thank you. I've ridden the full on crazy train. I don't wanna have that ticket punched again. Could I shoot Zombies and stay alive? Hell yeah. I'm excellent with a shotgun. But.....show me the incentive. Anarchy, societal breakdown? Fuck that. Kill me and eat me quick. It's in everyone's best interest. |
| CJ and I had a text disagreement this morning. It was brief and hurt feelings were had on both sides. That's how those things work. She is young and poor and doesn't have television. She wanted our DISH passwords so she could use them so she could watch the Olympics online. NBC makes you prove you are an upstanding citizen with a cable provider worthy of watching the Olympics before you can watch them, I guess. I would have given them to her, but I was at an appointment and my phone was off, so she got her friend's Direct TV info. What she got from me was my manifesto on "Why I will be boycotting the Russian Olympics." She was not a fan of it. She agreed with all of my points and then felt like crap because she likes the Olympics and felt like I was saying she should be boycotting them, too. I explained that wasn't my message. My message was....here is why I am doing it, make up your own mind. If you feel bad, maybe examine that. So, here is my manifesto on why I will be boycotting the Russian Olympics: 1) Russia's human rights policies. Or, rather, their lack thereof. I know that in a lot of ways, the United States fails but, I think over all we don't have sweeping human rights issues like Russia does. Namely? Their policies on gays. I won't go into this, because a simple google search will show you their inadequacies here. The main one, for me, though is their ignoring the problem of human trafficking, especially of sex workers, both in Russia and as a main import and export of Russia. It is APPALLING. It is so awful they can't even estimate the numbers because they can't get a handle on exactly how bad it is. And when I say numbers I mean MILLIONS OF PEOPLE. Men, women and children. Forced into labor. Forced into being sex slaves. And this Olympic games in Sochi means that thousands of them will have been shipped into the city for the sole purpose of servicing foreign visitors to the city for the games. And yet NOT ONE DAMN THING IS DONE ABOUT IT. Russia turns a blind eye. Putin has been quoted as saying, "That problem has been dealt with." Um....no it hasn't. 2) The cost overruns on this Olympics. This one set of Winter Games are estimated to have cost $51 Billion dollars. Billion. BILLION. And yet so much was unfinished or just flat undone. WTF? Some estimates put at least, AT LEAST, $30 BILLION of that as bribes and pocket lining. Russia is run by the mafia. And Putin is the head of the Russian mafia. How many of the buildings and venues that were built will sit empty, never to be used again? Ask Salt Lake if that happens. The main contractor for Sochi? Putin's best friend. ~sideeyes~ Really?! 3) They are being broadcast...again....by NBC. I'm over NBC. I'm just flat done with them. I have tried several times to watch NBC shows and follow NBC things and every time they are cancelled or the writing is crap. Well....I'm done with you NBC. I'm just done. I'm not going to watch Bob Costas blather on in inane interviews showing me a stripped down, sanitized version of the Olympics. Touting how wonderful, how fabulous everything is. Because it isn't, Bob. Besides, you guys always cut away exactly when I want to watch. You show me edited versions of everything. I'm done with your version of the Olympics, NBC. I'm not watching the NBClympics anymore. I'm not sure how you got the Olympics in perpetuity. But I'm done with you. Those are the main points of my manifesto. Even many of the US athletes told their parents once they got the Sochi, "Stay home. Don't come here." Don't. Come. Here. Don't come see me win a gold medal. You know it is bad then. You know something is up when they are saying, it isn't safe, it isn't good, don't come. I honestly felt like we (the US) should have boycotted and not attended. But no one does that anymore. No one wants to hurt anyone else's feelings. And the thought is that the athletes have worked so hard. Well, I'm sorry, I don't care how hard I had worked. I would have boycotted and said no. I would have said I'm not competing somewhere like this. But then, that's me. |
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