Each morning a group of students from the special ed area (for lack of better term, even after a search of my school’s website) roll out a couple of carts and a popcorn wagon.
They set it all up on the commons area and spend a couple of hours selling pretzels, popcorn, cookies, and nachos.
It’s a great educational deal for them. Working on communication with the general public, making eye contact, handling food and money.
It’s a great bargain for us. Something besides the bags of chips, candy bars, and greased lettuce* & more that they sell in the cafeteria (greased food that I love).
I didn’t notice it until this week, when one of my classmates pointed out to me, that one of the wheels of the popcorn cart looks as though it got backed over when somebody parked the popcorn wagon behind their mother’s minivan.
Wobble wobble wobble wobble, down the hallway it comes. Pushed by one of the students who will, with the aid of an aide, get it all plugged in, filled up and ready to sell.
That wobbly wheel is the perfect metaphor for the program and the students behind the popcorn wagon. And the students in front of the wagon, with a drive for the taste that goes with that smell – fresh popped popcorn – wobbly, yes, but just the right thing for everyone involved.
And the fact that I only got 30 cents in change, when the student owed me 50 cents, but had tossed all the coins into one bin, because they were so much fun to play with – and then got confused about the denomination of each coin, gave me a smile that lasted for hours. Well worth the 20 cent tip.
*A fellow student said this week, after I’d been talking about how my turkey burger was so good that it had to be mostly fat, “All of their food is filled with fat, they grease their lettuce here!”
I want two of these and a matching couch. In a brown. Chocolate brown.
I’m so tired of our furniture. We’ve had both the living room and family room couches and overgrown chairs for over 12 years now. God. I hate them. I want smaller furniture. But given the state of our economy, the one in our house, it’s going to be awhile before we get some new furniture.
So I’ll just continue to get a bug up my butt and make an attempt to like the furniture again by rearranging it. Which is what I did yesterday. Last year, I swapped the living room and family room furniture altogether, and I think that was a smart thing to do. But still. Sick of it all.
It would also be nice to have a bedroom suite instead of the dresser my dad made and the dresser my grandfather made. They don’t match, at all. Dad’s was made in the 50s and Grandpa’s was probably made in the 30s or 40s. I love them both. The dresser. And the Dad and the Grandpa. And I’d never get rid of the dressers. They’d be great in a guest room. But really, I have hand-me-down furniture that is mismatched and just not what a decorator would recommend.
I am tell you these things because I have a fever. 98.7. Which means nothing to you but to me, who runs at a constant 97.9 (I’m always checking myself after checking the kids, who are always trying to get out of going to school) so 98.7 has me feeling flushy and achey and ready for the bigger fever to drop any minute now. But not right just now because my fingernails don’t feel pressure. So that means I’m not about to spike a fever. Which always happens when I get a fever. It feels like someone is pushing on my fingernails. Or, I suppose, me pushing on my fingernails.
It’s the fever talking.
I better hurry up and get my homework done so I can run it into school on Monday and cough in Crabby McTeachersen’s face.
This morning, while getting the kids ready for school. God that makes them sound like primary schoolers. Like we had to help them with their shoes and backpacks and Elmo lunchboxes!
Anyway. God, I get so tired of when I interrupt myself.
I was sipping my coffee when The Big Nugget came out to the kitchen and said, “I was just reading an article about building an elevator to space.”
“Space?” I asked.
“Outer space,” he replied.
“Well, I understand that a cable could maybe reach space, it’s flexible enough,” I said, “but once you built an elevator shaft, you’re going to have some structural issues.”
Lordy, I’m an engineer, ain’t I?
“It’d be an elevator box that would ride up the cable, not an elevator shaft,” he snapped back at me. Like I was an idiot for not understand the details in an elevator to outer space.
The conversation went back and forth about how, maybe, instead of an elevator, they should put up a set of stairs.
“Except it would probably be those stupid spiral stairs. Jesus. You can’t haul you luggage up those damn things!” I said. Knowing how much of pain in the ass that is after our many visits to see our friend, Ben, in Breckenridge. Thank god he spent big bucks and got those damn things out of there. And also? It’s important for me to discuss how I’ll haul my things with me when I walk the staircase to outerspace. A gal’s going to need a couple of changes of underwear, at least.
“Maybe they’d just build them like a wheelchair ramp,” Ricky Nugget explained to me so that I wouldn’t have to worry about getting my luggage to outerspace.
“Oh! Like those chairs you can ride up and down the stairs on?!” I asked so very excitedly, knowing now that I would be able to bring my luggage along when I took the stairs to ourspace.
“Yes, dear, sure, why not. ‘Where’s my sandwich?!!!’ you could yell back to me, while riding your chair up the staircase to outerspace,” he replied.
“Stop making fun of me!” I said, “You’re the ass who started this whole, stupid conversation in the first damn place!”
I’m almost feeling sorry for that teacher of mine. 30 academic teaching years in a trade school with just a few weeks left to go, and she’s go nobody to have lunch with?
Bitch much?
Hell, even me, who’s had the song “The Bitch is Back” by Elton John, dedicated to her over the campus radio station, has friends to have lunch with at the trade school. (Not the trade school campus radio station. Back in the old days at the Real College campus radio station. I think the trade school’s version of a Campus Radio Station is when the kids in the auto mechanic schooling area and turn on the radio in a car they’re tuning up.)
Maybe I should start bringing a sack lunch with me, and join her at the little common table for the rest of her tenure.
Kill her with kindness.
I have done and gone a very very very scary thing. I have been a fanatic fan of teesha moore for a very long time. Even took a class with her when she came to St. Paul to teach a class. Funny how that worked out, right?
But I walked away from most things teesha moore when I quit rubber stamping and got hooked on beading. However, I continued to read Teesha’s blog, and drool over her collage journal pages. All that color. All those polkie dots and stripes. Lordy, I love me polkie dots and stripes. I want to adopt a couple of widdle doggies, just so I can name them polkie dot and stripe! Hell, Stella Mirra, Retrieved Golden, arrived at our house wearing a polkie dot collar. It was love at first dot!
So lately, that evil temptress, teesha moore, has posted videos that show up exactly how she makes her collage journals. And I watched every dang one of them. And? It makes me want to quit school and cut up magazine pages. Who needs an income? I ain’t got time for income!
Besides, half of that damn school of mine has succumb to the H1N1. Sick bastards. All they do is cough and hack and sniffle, and a gal can not catch a lecture even if her life depended on it.
That being said, this is not the weekend to start collage journaling. Nay, this weekend has been dedicated to Cleaning. Mothertrucking cleaning! Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve cleaned this house?
Probably even longer than it’s been since that damn trade school teacher had a friend join her for lunch.
Yesterday, for my Word class, I had to wait half an hour before class started so that I could turn in my finished work that wasn’t due until next week. No big deal. I was glad to have it done. It wouldn’t kill me to hang around. While I waited, I worked on some other stuff. Finally, the teacher came into class and I handed her my finished projects. “Come back tomorrow for the next chapter summary test,” she said.
Because, you know, why shouldn’t I have to wait around for her again the next day, too, when all she really had to do was give me a copy of the damn thing she had in the trolley she’s pushing around school all the damn time.
Fine.
So today, I got done with the class before her class about 40 minutes early. And this time I thought I might just pop into her office and, if she’s there, ask if she would give me a copy of the next chapter’s summary test.
She was sitting at the table outside of her office, in the pod that four instructors share. And I said, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but would it be possible to get the copy of the summary questions now?”
“It is my lunch break,” she snappily replied, “but I suppose I can do it this once.” She snarked at me.
I had to bite my tongue, but of course, me being me, I couldn’t bite it fast enough before saying, “Sorry to interrupt your comic strip.” She was reading the comic strips in the newspaper.
“It is my lunch break,” she said again as she got the question summary out for me. Which took all of about 3 seconds.
Jesus fucking h christ. She’s retiring at the end of this semester and has about 7 weeks left to go and she wants to go out being a bitchy mc bitch bitch? I had just heard that morning, from another student, that the teacher wouldn’t accept late work, even though the student’s best friend had just died in a car accident, and the student had informed her before leaving to drive 7 hours away. Teacher McBitch Head reminds us that things do not work this way in the business world.
What?
When somebody dies, your boss insists you come to work? When you get sick? You better show up and answer the phone?
Also? I can’t count the days in my past working career, because there were so many, that I didn’t have time for lunch. Or that I ever copped an attitude because someone had the nerve to interrupt my lunch to ask me a 3-second question. This reminds me, in my last job, there was a guy, who’d worked at the same company for way too many years, who took his lunch in the office break room and then got crabby when coworkers spoke to him, accidentally mentioning a work issue – even if it was a passing comment. Oh. And he was a regular reader of the comic strips. That’s very interesting, isn’t it. Two people in relatively unrewarding careers who ooze bitchiness.
I get that she’s had it up to her goofy eyebrows in students’ excuses, but bitch, please, stop it.
I can’t decide if it was worth me getting out of school 39 minutes and 57 seconds earlier today after witnessing such ridiculous behavior.
I don’t ask for much. Hell, this is the first time I’ve ever asked a teacher for anything. I’m always in class. I’m always respectful when a teacher’s lecturing. I don’t ask stupid questions. I take notes in one class for another student, because a teacher asked me a favor (The Big Nugget thinks I should get a discount in that class). I get A’s. I get my work done early. I barely ask questions because I read the damn instructions. And then I get chastized for this?
She was reading the frickin’ funny papers. Her retirement, next month, can’t come soon enough for everybody involved.
Last week, on Wednesday morning, I drove Thing 1 to his school and then I came home before it was time to head out to my school. I pulled into the driveway and hit the garage door opener, only to find that The Big Nugget had parked in the center of the garage, making it impossible for me to pull in.
“Is this what you do when I’m away?” I asked him.
“Why are you here?” he replied.
Normally, I run some errands on my way to my school but this one time I wanted to run back home. So sue me, dude!
This morning I said to The Big Nugget, “I’m coming back home after dropping off Thing 1, so stay off of my side of the garage!”
So when I pulled into the driveway and hit the garage door opener, imagine my surprise when I saw this:
I laughed my ass off. I don’t know how he did it, but he did it fast and he did it well.
Asshat.
He’s a funny one. He was just on the phone with one of his brother’s, trying to work out some sort of a plan for their mom’s birthday this weekend.
I heard this…
“So you’re taking mom out on Sunday? How about you take her out on Saturday, too, and tell her it’s from me.”
He’ll have to come up with a Plan B.
I called the hostess from Friday night’s dinner party to ask if she’d share her recipe for the amazing chicken she’d served. She was happy to oblige. It’s cooking on my stovetop right now. Well, sort of.
It’s cooking but I think it’s only 45% accurate to the recipe she gave me. One reason why it’s not 100% accurate is because her Spanish is so thick, I have a dickens of a time understanding her. She’s from Spain but was schooled in French immersion, moved to the United States and then did some further schooling in Japan. So she’s kind of a cocktail of speech.
God. I wish I was a cocktail of speech. With a cocktail in my hand right now.
It’s not just the language barrier that’s giving me tonight’s inaccurate chicken dish. I didn’t have all of the ingredients she’d listed. I had chicken and I had onions & garlic. And I had some nutmeg and a few cloves. But I didn’t have the saffron or the white wine. I didn’t want to do some of the steps involved, either. So pretty much, I’m making some chicken with a recipe that was Marga-inspired.
It smells fantastic! I’ll let you know how it goes. And if it goes well, I’ll share the recipe with you.
I can’t let November 1st arrive without first celebrating my blog anniversary. 9 years ago this very night, October 31, 2000, I sat down at the computer and started my diaryland blog. The rest has been a roller coaster of entries and comments and blog movings and meeting people in real life.
I’m glad I started blogging. I still love it, almost a decade later.
Thank you for reading and being supportive, and for being asshats when you felt the need to share your asshat with me. If it weren’t for the asshats, the rest of us wouldn’t look so danged pretty. I like to look pretty. Keeping on asshatting! (Hey! Is that a gerund?!)
And what a wonderful way to celebrate my nine blogging years…heading to downtown Minneapolis so see Ben Folds with the Minnesota Orchestra. It was really good. Not great, but really good.
He’s so talented. And such a geek. I love talented geeks.
Guess I should get off of the computer and go hang out with my own talented geek.
Keep reading!
The Big Nugget and I went to a dinner party last night. An actual, sit down, dinner party of eight. A self-thrown birthday party given by our long-time friend and her husband.
I was thinking about how, in my younger years, these kinds of sit-down dinners made me very nervous. But now, I look forward to picking up a bottle of wine and driving into the city for somebody else’s cooking.
And our hostess, the birthday girl, is originally from Spain so the food is not your typical lasagne and green salad spread, typical of a Minnesota gathering. (Unless it’s a Christmas gathering, which involves lefse, if your hostess is of the energetic variety)
I found myself in the kitchen, sipping wine-alot of wine, and helping (by mostly supervising) the frying of mushrooms (with chile peppers and garlic – awesome!) and a variety of unusual peppers. Suggesting higher heat for the breaded goat cheese and more wine! Fearing standing next to the pressure cooker with the chicken. (There were no injuries, and our hostess’ Spanish grandmother’s chicken recipe was wonderful!)
It was a great combination of dinner guests. A couple we’ve met at our hostess’ past birthday parties and a couple that was new to us.
We laughed our asses off.
Really. Somehow, even with all that wine and all that good food, I managed to weigh two pounds less today than I did yesterday.
I think the secret’s in the laughter workout I had last night. And that makes me want to have a dinner party of my own. It’s been awhile since I’ve had one.
A local Knights of Columbus hall hired a gal I went to high school with to handle their books.
Imagine my surprise today when I opened the local newspaper and saw that the gal had been arrested and charged with theft of over 50 grand.
My surprise wasn’t over the gal’s stealing. Nope. No surprise there. Gal’s got a rap sheet. My surprise is that the Knights of Columbus Hall would hire somebody who had three felony charges against her for stealing money that doesn’t belong to her. One of those times being theft of over $35,000.
Even little old me could look that one up on the records to know that she probably wasn’t the best person for the job. I’ve known about this for awhile. Little old me. A person who won’t even hand over our checkbook to The Big Nugget, for fear he’ll throw all of his hard-earned money at power tools.
People in charge of hiring, do this for me next time, will you? Run a criminal history check on a person before hiring them. It’ll save you money and embarrassment.
Oh Carolyn. I love you, too! But you know, in a way that doesn’t make me want to make out with you, or anything. More like a way where I think we should hang out together and laugh our asses off. Except now that will never happen because I mentioned not making out and got you all worried that the thought did cross my mind that maybe, just maybe…
Beth. I was so happy to have another dose of Xanax available for class today. Me and a microphone without Xanax equals bright red ears and matching red cheeks. And perhaps urinary incontinence. Me and a microphone with Xanax equals total fun in the front of the classroom. Except the part where I had difficulty reading the sheet of paper the teacher had given to me because of my damn bifocals and inability to read with them on, or off. I’m going to have to get a pair of those damn Carrie Donovan glasses.
I say that if there is a god and he didn’t want me to use the Xanax, he wouldn’t have come up with somebody smart enough to invent the wonder drug. If there’s a god and I get to meet him or her one day, I’ll make sure to say Thanks for the Xanax!
Hey! Did I tell you guys that after searching for decades, I finally found a bra that fits me perfectly? It’s the same damn bra I’ve been wearing for over two years now and I just decided to order it in a different size, thinking maybe, just maybe, the cup wouldn’t be pouchy, with lots of air space, when I’m taking a nap? And lordy, it’s important that my cup not have pouchy spots when I’m napping! So I ordered the same damn bra in a cup size smaller and there you go, upright fit, nap fit.
My world just gets better every day!
Oh. Hey. I got an A- in a written test for Word Processing this week. A test I walked away from, strongly knowing the answers to only 4 out of 30 questions. The other 26? I guessed at the multiple choice options. Totally guessed. So imagine my surprise, yet again, to get an A-. I think the Secretarial School Gods are on my side. They know that I’m born to be a secretary. Or at the very least, a Clerk Typist I, or gal from the steno pool.
And? The school cafeteria has a great turkey burger.
I love Secretarial School!
p.s. Head on over to Books & Snacks if you want a say in November’s book!
So that paper I did on Humor Therapy turned into a power point presentation in front of my medical office procedures class today.
Yesterday I kept going back and forth:
To Xanax or not to Xanax.
It’s such a nice little class, filled with people who don’t all hate me. Yet. It’s nothing like standing up in front of my family, sharing a little something. There, I know that at least 50% of the people don’t like me much and one of them, my mother, can’t stand my guts (I really wish she’d admit to it).
So there I was. Xanax. No Xanax. When it hit me…I have Xanax, why not use it?
And so I did.
And I had 100% fun standing up in front of class, giving my speech, complete with my very first, ever, power point presentation.
Tomorrow in reception skills class I have to stand in a large room and make an introduction, using a microphone.
I could try it without the Xanax, but really, why?
Gee thee behind me, fear of public speaking!
I’ve got lots of homework this weekend. Lots and lots. For secretarial school. Good thing I didn’t decide to go back to school to become a doctor.
While researching for my paper on Humor Therapy, I came across this joke:
A man tells his friend about a dinner party he had at his house the night before. “I made a real Freudian slip,” he says. “I meant to tell my mother-in-law to pass the butter, and instead I said, “You silly cow, you ruined my life!”
Ha!
I’m working it into the paper.
Also in store for the weekend:
- Hunting for dog poop under the fallen leaves. That’s going to be fun.
- There’s a stone and glass bead strand sale at a local bead shop. There goes my college money. And the children’s college money. Mama needs a new strand.
- Cooking and baking. Right now I’ve got a roast in the crockpot, blueberry blintzes in the oven (from a box I found in the freezer), and the ingredients for Chipotle Chile Pepper & Chicken Soup. Plus, I want to make a new batch of Pumpkin & Cinnamon Chip muffins. This time without overbaking them.
That should keep me out of trouble this weekend. Except for the bead sale part.
The next time I make Orange Cake, would somebody remind me that the orange/cream cheese frosting is just too much? Thanks. It was good but it was too sweet. I think it needs some sort of chocolate frosting because chocolate is so much less sweet, right?
No?
Huh.
***
In one of my classes we have to write a two-page paper and then do a power point presentation.
I might just die.
I might be a mouthy gal but I’ve got terrible stage fright. So terrible, I have a bottle of Xanax to keep me from dying.
Here’s the thing, the worst thing that could happen, while I stand in the front of class and give a 3 minute talk on Laughter Therapy (my alternative medicine topic of choice) is that I could actually die. Not just pass out, die.
Because it’d be just like me to pass out, due to lack of oxygen to the noggin’, fall over and hit my temple on the corner of a desk.
Death by Public Speaking, my death certificate would read. Which would be cool but I’m just not ready to die yet.
Oh, and yeah, I’ve never used power point. Not ever before in my life.
Thank goodness the instructor doesn’t seem to see this as a problem and is promising to help me through it.
***
Oh dear, I like that mohawk boy on Glee!
Just thought I’d write that seeing as how I’m watching the show and there he is, singing Neil Diamond.
Does that make me lecherous? I am 50.
My leetle seestor-in-law called this afternoon, looking for my recipe for Red Velvet Cake. There I was, not thinking of cake at all when, BAM! I got cake on the brain!
So now I’ve got an Orange Cake in the oven. Which will be frosted with an orange, cream cheese frosting. I’ll let you know how it comes out. And if it’s good, I’ll share it at my cookbook blog. Which, by the way, I updated this weekend.
And that reminds me, if you haven’t taken a look at the low-key bookclub blog, do it. It now comes with a bookclub cookbook site, with all the shared recipes from people who’ve read the book and want to share an opinion and a recipe.
I haven’t been my blogging self for awhile now, in case you didn’t notice. So out of it that when I write an entry, I forget to tell you stuff.
Like:
After being divorced from my first husband since 1987, I got a phone message this week from a credit card company, looking for him. Wow. Where’d they dig me up from? I didn’t even take his name when we married. Perhaps they’ll go to old court records to hunt him down. That’s so damn annoying. I hope they call back. I haven’t used many swear words lately and they’re all backed up. Nice practice, credit card companies. By the way? I know exactly where he is and if you give me a credit line that I don’t have to pay back, I’d be happy to provide you with the information you’re looking for.
I have just gotten hooked on Mad Men. Had myself a Mad Men marathon this long weekend and am all caught up on season 3. Season 1 and Season 2, I’ll be marathoning with you soon!
I love school. Love it. But I’m getting concerned because all of my classmates are getting pregnant. Could I be next? Even though I have no uterus? Science is so advanced these days.
The New Five for Fighting brings tears to my eyes, and I have no idea why. It just does. Maybe it’s the piano. Ben Folds does the same thing to me. I love me a man and a keyboard.
Wow. I came back to write an entry and this is all I can remember. Why did I bother? I don’t rightly know!
According to what I’ve read recently,
- Being cold-hearted is the new black.
- Doubling up on your Bitch Pills is the new black.
- Being passive-aggressive is the new black.
Huh, I can see the appeal in that last one. Especially when I’m using it in an entry pertaining to all of the above.
Ever since the gas company came to repair our furnace last week, it hasn’t worked properly. They replaced our thermostat and warned us that we’d need a new furnace sometime soon. But the heat has come sporadically.
When the Big Nugget put in the three big new windows on the front side of our house, the furnace would not kick back in. I kept watching the temperature on the new thermostat drop lower and lower. With nights in Minnesota in the low 30s, I was getting a bit worried that we would freeze along with all the water in our house, causing burst pipes and more.
We called the gas company on Tuesday, only to be told they couldn’t come out until Sunday. Today.
This morning at ten minutes to eight, the phone rang. The gas guy was on his way over. I checked the thermometer that I have in the bedroom. It was down to 61. Not too bad for a night in the mid-30s. But if he couldn’t fix it, it was going to be a long week, until we could get a new furnace installed.
He was here not more than 20 minutes when he discovered the filth on a sensor in the furnace. A sensor that told the pilot light when it should kick in.
A sensor that had been missed by the two guys who were here last week and the gas guy who performed the annual maintenance on our furnace in June.
***
And so the window replacement continues.
The Big Nugget has put in six new windows and has five more to go. Unfortunately 4 out of 5 of them are on the second floor.
And…
I did all of my fun homework, but left myself all of the not fun homework for today.
Dang it.
The other day in one of my classes, my teacher, who also teaches Business English, said “pitcher” in reference to a picture.
Huh. I thought. I must have heard it wrong.
Until a few minutes later, when she again said “pitcher” in reference, again, to a picture.
Well. Ain’t that somethin’, I thought.
Then she said it again.
Oh no she di’nt.
Yes she did.
I said nothing but I have to tell you this, it took every internal edit button I had, set on “Don’t go there, girlfriend,” to not say something.
It’s one thing to be an informal blog writer, to be ironic and point out grammatical flaws in others. But it’s a whole other thing to get paid to teach grammar for a living, and use pitcher for picture.
Monday?
When she hands back our grades from Tuesday’s Business English text?
Game is on.
I just cracked open my latest copy of Minnesota Monthly magazine and there was my man, Ben Folds.
October 31st can’t come soon enough. Ben Folds and the Minnesota Orchestra. Good god!
I wonder if they’ll do Bitches Ain’t Shit.
Heh.
In other Logic news:
Stella Mirra, Retrieved Golden, had another big damn day yesterday. Only we might not have known it had the woman across the street not come to our front door to let us know that she’d just retrieved our golden for us.
Seems we had ourselves a chain of tomfoolery going on around here. Follow me here, will you?
1) Ricky Nugget and Thing 1 spent some time outdoors in the morning, getting the outside of the house ready for the very long winter we’re apparently going to suffer through this season (we got snow on Friday night, it did not get warm enough to melt it all away).
2) Stella Mirra, Retrieved Golden, played outside in her giant fenced-in yard after they were done.
3) The doorbell rang and our neighbor, who’s name I can never remember, informed us that she had just returned our hyperbeast to the back yard, after Stella Mirra had run over to visit. How she got the dog to do anything for her, I have no idea.
4) The Big Nugget and I did a tour of the back yard, where we found no unlatched gates (there are 4 gates on the 4 ft. high picket fence) Which means that Stella Mirra, Retrieved Golden, is now a leaper. Stella Mirra, Retrieved Golden, who won’t jump over the baby gate that blocks the door to her bedroom. Yes, Stella Mirra, Retrieved Golden, has her own bedroom. Making our house officially too big.
5) “Oh!” said The Big Nugget, “I may have left the privacy gate open earlier!”
And yes, that was the case. Stella Mirra, Retrieved Golden, saw that as an invitation to wander the neighborhood for a visit. I can’t blame her for that. But I can blame her for this…
She ate Thing 2’s Nuts.
That would make it two dead squirrels, for anyone keeping track of the number of squirrels Stella Mirra, Retrieved Golden, has killed since we adopted her.
I knew something was up when I honed in on the fact that the dog was not sitting right under me and she was awfully quiet for a not-normally-quiet dog.
So imagine my surprise when I turned around to see a long trail of those little plastic pellets that give a Beanie Baby it’s innards.
“No!” I yelled at the dog, “Not Nuts!”
Then, “Thing 2! Stella ate your Nuts!”
“Okay,” he said. Like the demise of his Nuts meant nothing to him. He got the vacuum and cleaned up the innards. And didn’t seem sad at all that his only remaining Beanie Baby (the only one who had survived the Great Beanie Baby Donation of ‘04) was now dead and deflated.
When Ricky Nugget got home from wherever he had been, and one should always assume it’s the buying of something hardware-ish, I said dramatically, “Stella ate Nuts!”
“Oh no!” Ricky Nugget dramatically replied.
“What in the hell is wrong with you two?” Thing 2 asked. “It’s a damn beanie baby! God!”
“But it’s Nuts!” I said. “Remember? ‘I can’t believe I’ve got Nuts in my pocket!’ you said, ‘I’m the only one that’s got Nuts in my pocket!’” (This was said in the aisle at the little local drugstore, causing snickering aisles all around)
“Let it go, mom” he replied.
Fine.
*sniff*
Last night (did you think this entry was over?) I ordered pizza for Thing 2 and a couple of his friends at 10:30. Then I handed the cash to Ricky Nugget and headed downstairs to hang out on the computer.
Doorbell rings, The Big Nugget pays, the guys eat the pizza. About 5 minutes later Ricky Nugget yells down the stairs…
“How much was the pizza?”
“18″ I said.
“How much money did you give me?”
“23″ I said.
“Uh. What made you think it was only 18?”
“I think that’s what I saw when I ordered it on-line”
And then I worried. I went to my e-mail and looked at the confirmation. $21.98. Damn. A tip of $1.02? What an asshat!
About a half an hour went by and I headed upstairs, grabbed my purse and said to The Big Nugget, “I’ll be right back. I’ve got to give that guy more tip.”
Ricky Nugget gave no reaction. He is immune to my urges to chase down pizza delivery guys and give them more tip, apparently.
I drove over to our Pizza Hut and arrived just as two drivers were pulling in.
“Hey!” I said to the big guy who’s delivered pizza to our house before, “Did you deliver pizza to my house a bit ago, {address given to him here}?”
“I did” he replied.
“We didn’t tip you!” I said.
“Yes you did,” he replied. “Your pizza was 21.98 and you gave me 23″ (apparently the numbers were stuck in his head because, hells bells, what a cheap damn house he’d just delivered pizza to).
“No. That wasn’t a tip, here you go” and I handed him a 5.
I probably didn’t have to go to that length but I figured it was easier to run 3 minutes from my home and fix it than it would be to spend any more time feeling like a cheap asshat. Not that I give a shit what a random pizza delivery person might think about me. More like the fact that I understand that somebody who’s delivering a pizza is probably counting every penny they make on any given night.
I was just thinking about how lucky I am to have a spouse with similar political, spiritual and what’s funny views.
What’s funny views.
I just made that up.
That Business English class is paying off, I tell you.
And I’m sure that were my teacher reconsidering her retirement at the end of this semester, she confirmed that not only was December the time to retire, it might have been even better were she to have retired before this semester even began.
Man. I wonder how grammatically incorrect that sentence was.
Don’t answer that. I was being rhetorical. I pretty much don’t care about perfect grammar.
I got a facebook smackdown last night over a video I. From a woman who is more right wing than I am left wing (or as I’m sure she sees it “wrong wing”).
Was the video in bad taste?
According to me, wrong winger that I am, it was definitely in bad taste. So that just tells you how upset this right wing, wishing for more right, woman was. Enough to write a comment about how inappropriate I was.
Oopsie.
And, seriously?
How’d she get in my facebook list of friends?
Through association. She requested a friendship and out of respect to the person between us, I accepted.
My facebook friends are a mix of christians, jews, and heathens like me.
Anyone who knows me knows that I sometimes do “inappropriate” things. Case in point: Seeing Bruno with my 81-year-old mother and 15-year-old nephew. Even I knew I’d gone too far.
And anyone who knows me knows that if what I say or do makes them feel icky inside, they can tell me that I made them feel icky inside. (“Bitch! That made me feel icky inside!”) But I don’t know this woman. Not at all. Except for what I used to see on her facebook page (until last night) and the complaints of the association between us.
Damn. My mother didn’t talk to me that way!
She did make me feel thankful for all of my uber-christian friends that don’t feel the need to reprimand me for my un-christian ways. Thank you, conservative friends, for letting it slide. Stop me if I’m committing a legal crime, will you? I respect you and your faith, please respect me and my lack of faith but belief in morals.
I just posted a video because my son keeps doing this dance around the house called “Fork in the Garbage Disposal”, which made me laugh so hard that I had to ask him where he got it from. He got it from here: (Warning! Put the kids down for a nap! Not for The Repressed or people who dislike gay men or ugg boots!)
And if you find this as offensive as my old facebook pal was, blame it on my youngest son. He’s a bad influence on his mom.
Now, go off and be a fork in a garbage disposal!
Since I was last here:
1. Stella Mirra, Retrieved Golden, caught herself some breakfast on Wednesday. A squirrel this time. She got two hot dogs in exchange for the squirrel. Stella Mirra is hip to the exchange rate and is currently looking for racoons. If you were a facebook friend of mine, you’d already know about this. Why aren’t you a facebook friend of mine? Hmmmm?
2. I announced the October Book Club Book. Peace Like a River. Great book!
3. I’ve got nothing. Which explains why I’ve written nothing. I’m using up all my good material in my classes. Those poor teachers of mine. I’m wearing them out!
I have a thing for smart men. Always have. Not MENSA smart men. All the MENSA smart men I know have absolutely no common sense. Too many chemistry and physics synapses firing to allow room for street smarts, I guess.
I love a smart man who’s chock-full of common sense. Like my own Ricky Nugget. Smart as shit and almost so much common sense that were you to throw a stick or a bunch of rocks at him, you’d hit common sense.
I should try that some time.
I just got done reading an article on the Coen Brothers and you know what? I think I’ve got a crush on them.
Just thought I’d tell you that.
Yep. We need a new furnace. That’s what we get for calling our gas company back and insisting someone come out before Thursday’s appointment.
First guy found a crack inside the furnace. Called in guy #2, the master of Minneapolis furnaces (furnaci?) who tried a match test and thankfully didn’t RED TAG our furnace. For were our furnace red tagged, it would be unusable to all of mankind.
But they concurred, we need a new furnace; and the sooner the better. We don’t want to be in a 10 below zero cold snap before we fork over the money.
They’re having their sales department call us to set up an appointment to give us an estimate. Funny how much faster the sales department is than the maintenance department.
We’ll call a couple of furnace places to get two more bids. This is my element. As a previous commercial real estate property manager, it is mandatory in my head that we always get three bids.
Still. A new furnace. That’ll run about 3 grand. There goes the car we were looking at.
~~~
In better news – news about food, I just had a salad made with my corn salsa on a bed of butter lettuces. No dressing needed. I did cheat and add in a sprinkling of chicken breast. But hey, I’m a rebel like that.
I also made a huge vat of chicken noodle soup this morning. Man, I love my chicken noodle soup. I should write the recipe down. Unfortunately, it varies each time I make it. But still, I could come up with one if I put my mind to it.
~~~
My foot hurts. And I want a cookie.
These are first and foremost on my mind right now.
All those damn tests are behind me now. Just one goofy document production test in Word this week.
I went out to a sake bar with the lap and the akk this week. I had no idea that I even liked sake but I’m always up for trying something new with my computer-pretend- turned real-friends.
I like sake. Maybe even sort of love it. Not enough to become an alcoholic over it, but enough to know that I’ll be jonesing it from time to time.
The food was pretty good, too. And the chef who came out to talk to us? Adorable. In a pat-his-widdle-young-head kind of way.
My most fond memories of the night’s conversation? lap’s recall of a pair of four dollar shoes she once got, as a child, from the Sears Surplus Store in my suburb. A store I frequented at least weekly with my mom, grandma and Great Aunt Effie. So I imagine we crossed paths when we were kids before finding friendship in our beyond-kid years.
And akk’s tale of her daughter’s meltdown over a pair of pony-embellished clogs. I could see the Bits throwing herself down as though I was there. Naughty little Bits. Good thing she’s so cute!
Thanks for the fun, gals! And another fine restaurant was found!
~~~
I am currently suffering from a broken heart. After six months of being an item, my youngest son and his girlfriend broke up. I feel bad for the both of them. They’re both so sweet.
But what about me?
I loved having a girl around!
I loved having a girl around who managed to get my kid to stop playing World of Warcraft on-line from time to time!
And now, after six months of carting their butts back and forth, as neither of them had their license, even though they were both old enough to have had them a year and more ago, she went and got her driver’s license (4 times is a charm!) If only she’d had her license when they were dating, I wouldn’t have had that much contact with her and wouldn’t be so sad about the break-up.
I don’t want to break in any new girlfriends. This one was the perfect fit for our family.
*sigh*
Young love. It’s killing me.
I’ll be okay though. Don’t you worry about me.
~~~
I went to the doctor the other day. Paid for sympathy for my plantars fasciitis. Got my money’s worth. I also got some good advice, a refill on my Xanax (20 pills lasted me a year and a half last time!) and another lecture on weight loss.
But this time I am listening and heeding his advice.
After watching my mother have to deal with a faulty aortic valve, that can’t be repaired, and seeing my weight and my blood pressure creep up; it’s time. Well, it’s beyond time but just shush.
And so, I’ve begun my new life as a healthy eater.
I went right from the doctor’s office to Barnes & Noble. In search of a good salad cookbook. Because the 250+ cookbooks I already have at home have no salad recipes in them.
I am a liar. I own every Jamie Oliver cookbook. He loves salads. I even own a Williams-Sonoma Salads cookbook for stupid’s sake.
I was feeling sad about breaking with my old life of unhealthy eating and needed to medicate myself, like I normally do, with food. Only this is my new life and medicating myself with food is behind me.
Then I went to the grocery store yesterday and plunked down over $200 for groceries. Produce is expensive.
But I’m so worth it. Ain’t I?
The doctor told me to stop having meat for dinner. Not always, but mostly. He told me to have a huge bowl of salad, with a sprinkling of cheese, for dinner. And if I felt hungry later on, have a little bowl of cereal with 1% or skim milk.
Not being addicted to salads, I am trying to find a way to make salads fun. So last night for dinner, I made The Pioneer Woman’s Black Eyed Pea Salsa. Only I used pinto beans because I’d gone to the grocery store twice in the same afternoon and didn’t buy black eyed peas either time, even though they were written on my two grocery lists. I cut the amount of dressing in half and then I served one cup of the salsa on a bed of butter lettuce. I was so full I thought I was going to die!
Tonight for dinner I’m making my corn salsa and having it on lettuce. I might party and have some southwestern chicken on top.
I’m going to lose the weight I need to, dammit!
~~~
Which should be a whole lot easier this week as I am shivering for exercise. I turned the furnace on at the beginning of this week and realized yesterday that it hadn’t been working at all. I called our gas company, who we pay a monthly fee to for the sake of keeping our furnace alive. They can’t come out until next Thursday. It’s supposed to get down to 37 tonight. Dammit, again!
You will be as surprised to find out, as was I, that I received a B- on the test. How I only got 7 wrong is a mystery. I plan on making an appointment with the instructor to have her explain it all to me. The ones I got right AND the ones I got wrong. Because I have nary a clue. By the way, I do like the instructor. She’s the same one I have for Business English. I just think she’s incredibly fussy about this.
But hey, if she wants fussy, I’ll have to decide if I want to spend the time meeting her fussy or just letting this class grade suffer a bit. So far I’m at an A-.
I have to share something with you that Ricky Nugget just shared with me via e-mail. Which is kind of weird that he’d send this to me because he isn’t the type to send random stuff to me via e-mail. But he’s done this a couple of times in the past few weeks. Just random stuff.
He’s acting out of character. Something’s up. I bet he’s having an affair. Throwing me off with random internet what-not. I’m going to start watching him sleep, listen for mumbled names of other women while he sleeps.
Where is my cast iron skillet.
Anyway.
This is what he shared with me. Told me I had competition. A blogging doppelganger. Pay particular attention to the comments. It is all priceless.
You go read and decide if he’s dead-on or just dead. While you read, I’ll go hunt down that cast iron skillet.
And some liquid feces.
You know that dream you have where you oversleep and don’t make it to your big exam? That didn’t happen to me. Instead, I took a test that made me think I may have read the wrong chapters. But I did not read the wrong chapters. I read the right chapters, I performed the right homework. I took that test, knowing that I knew 10 out of 40 answers for sure. It was a multiple choice and the options were so close that I might as well have taken the test in Farsi.
And it was in Word Processing.
Fucking word processing.
I took the test in Business English earlier in the morning and had it down. Knew the difference between subjective-case and objective case. Pretty sure I got my hes and hims and hers and shes in the right places. Know my whos from my whoms.
But, dammit, that word processing test was my demise. And now that I know exactly how particular and anal the teacher’s going to be, I’m mad as hell. Do I really need to know where everything is by term? What happened to using a mouse and the help button for the most difficult stuff? I’m not going for certification. I just want to know the nuances of charts and graphs and mail merging.
“You sound like the kids” Ricky Nugget said to me.
“But the teacher is stupid!” I replied.
I have a test today in keyboarding and formatting. I’m pretty damn sure I know the difference between the layout of a block style letter, modified block style letter, business report, academic report, blocked table, open table and ruled table. And I might just squeak by that 47 wpm needed to get an A in the timed portion of the test.
Fucking word processing. Is this the secretary’s way of feeling empowered. Only she can define “content control” and “building block”. Not the lahdifreekindah chief executive officer she’s answering phones for.
“Hey Mabel! I got word certified! Ain’t I something?”
Damn!
Okay. Enough of that crap.
Reminder: I’ll be picking the book club’s book tonight from books that “members” have suggested. Are you in? You can jump in at any time. Read last month’s book and comment whenever you want. It’s all about being laid back. Well, and reading. Mostly it’s about reading the same book like-minded friends are reading.
Also? There’s a book giveaway. Last month’s book and a surprise.
I have five tests this week. 5. I’m mainly worried about two of them. The pharmacology exam in Medical Office Procedures. Tuesday – Business English (oy!) I’ll do fine in Thursday’s Medical Terminology. I’m at peace with the medical terminology.
I just jinxed myself, didn’t I.
The Big Nugget and I went to our city’s farmer’s market yesterday. We haven’t gone once this summer but now that there are only 3 weeks left, we remember that we should have gone all summer long. Come next January, I’m going to be hankering for the farmer’s market. Which I will then not go to until it’s almost over.
There must be a disease name for this.
We didn’t even buy much. A bag of lettuce, some cilantro and some onions. We did get breakfast sausages.
God. This is an exciting entry. How’s about I kick it up a notch?
Stella Mirra, Retrieved Golden, found herself a little buddy to play with yesterday. Only Stella Mirra, Retrieved Golden, got a little too aggressive and killed her new playmate.
I thought she seemed a little quiet out in the back yard.
I’m just relieved it wasn’t a lice-infested squirrel. Which is how I imagine squirrels to always be, lice-infested and rabid.
And that, is that.
I called my mom this afternoon, wanting to look at her old Physician’s Desk Reference. We were looking at PDRs today in class.
“Mom, do you still have your PDR?” I asked.
“I think so!” she said and then set down her phone and went off to look for it. A few minutes later she came back.
“I think I threw it away. Why?”
“We were looking at them in class today and I wanted to know what year yours was dated” I asked.
“Maybe it’s in the t.v. room!” she said and set down the phone (before I could stop her) and wandered off to look for it again.
Cripes. Lady. Don’t leave me hangin’.
A few minutes later she came back, again, and said “Nope. I must have thrown it away. I won that at the hospital one year. I never win anything and one day, I won that damn thing!”
I did not mention it again. I was getting tired of being set down on the boomerang countertop, original to the house.
I told her I was thinking about doing some videoblogging with her. Thinking she would ask me what I was talking about. Not having a computer, herself, how would she know?
“I remember when we had to sharpen the hypodermic needles ourselves!”
Okay. Mom’s already started.
“And when I had to call a Code Blue to the doctor, I was the Code Blue until he got there! One time I had to administer gas!”
“Mom! Wait for the webcam!”
“When I was in school at the one-room schoolhouse, we warmed our cocoa up on a woodburning stove, right in class!”
“Yes. That’s exactly stuff we’re going to talk about” I said, trying to get her to save her good stuff for the camera.
“And one time! I had to keep the phlegm from choking a female patient. All night long, I sat up with her. She died the next day, anyway. She had polio. I don’t know how I didn’t get it!”
“Mom?”
“And I had this one patient that was so mean, I would toss the washcloth into his room and say ‘clean yourself!’”
People! I need to get that webcam, stat!
The problem with my school career is that I peaked too early. I should have done worse on my first set of tests so that I could keep my bar raised to a level of comfort. I got that 60 out of 60 on my first Medical Terminology test and I really wish I hadn’t done that well the first time. I know. Silly me. There’s just so much pressure now!
I’m pretty sure I missed 4 questions on my Medical Terminology test today. One of them, I am 100% sure that I got wrong.
The question was – what does the abbreviation CXR mean?
Uh. Dang. I stared at that question, waiting for an epiphany. Hell, had I heard the words of Jesus saying “The answer, my child, is Chest X-Ray”, I’d have been a Jesus believer immediately.
No Jesus for me.
I wrote: Cephaloidon’tknowthisonedang!
Cephalo is the combining form meaning “brain”. I tacked on the other words because I couldn’t even give it an attempt. So I gave up and made it a funny.
I wonder, is Patch Adams hiring a funny medical transcriptionist/receptionist?
I had a Receptionist Skills test, too. This one was on Time Management. Who kow there was so much instruction to become a receptionist. Every time I’ve been a receptionist before, they pointed the desk and chair out to you, gave you a quick run-through of the phone system and said “Have at it!” I could see if the class was specifically for the medical office, but it’s not. I have Medical Office Procedures for that. Apparently next week we’re learning about The Telephone.
And still, I have to study my ass off for the tests. I should just go and get a damn job now. It’d be the easy way out! The easy way looks so much easier!
