Sweetie

Kindness

Thank you to my boss's girlfriend, who sent flowers.

Thank you to my sister Texas, who held my hand over the phone lines.

Thank you to Badass Nature Girl, who has been stepping me back from the ledge via email, and who, because she is evidently psychic, sent me a card before she even knew what had happened.
Thank you to my boss, who decided that in this instance, grievance pay was applicable. It's not that the money mattered; he was acknowledging that for some of us, our pets are our family.

Thank you to my sister's friend, who sent a condolence card.

Thank you to the guys in the office, who tactfully failed to notice a teary-eyed secretary.

Thank you to all of you who have posted comments and sent emails.

Thank you for thinking of us.

The ancient garden seems at night
a deeper gloom to bear
as if some silent shadow's blight
were hov'ring in the air

With hidden griefs the grasses sway,
unable quite to word them
remembering from yesterday
the little paws that stirred them.

- H.P. Lovecraft

Brudder? Is that YOU?

Poor Little Girl.

So Sad

On Thursday evening, April 21, The Runt experienced what the vet described as a massive heart attack. Death was instantaneous; he was here, and then he was gone.


The cats had their dinner that evening, and then we went outside so he and Little Girl could supervise my work in the garden. After a while I went inside and the cats were going in and out; I found him around nine o'clock in the garage.


I didn't even know he was dead; I bent down to pet him and he didn't move. I picked him up and carried him in the house and put him in his pet bed, asking him what was wrong. He was so warm! And his ears were pricked forward. And he was not breathing.


On Friday morning, I took him to the vet so that arrangements could be made. I said my goodbyes, and then I got in the car and drove. And drove and drove and drove. You can't outrun sorrow, but I sure tried.


They say grief makes you do strange, strange things, and I now know this to be true, because on Saturday I found myself buying a cat statue. With wings.


SHUT IT, alright? I contend that grief gives you a free pass to do things you would never in a million years do otherwise.


So I took the winged cat home, and I was trying to decide where to put it. In the garden? On the porch? In his pet bed? I finally decided to put it in The Runt's favorite spot in the kitchen, which was on a ledge looking out the window. While I put the statue on the ledge, I noticed that Little Girl was out in the backyard.


She looked up, saw that cat statue in the window, and came running across the yard. She flew into the kitchen and up onto the ledge ...

... she thought it was The Runt.

She sat next to that statue for a long time. And then she laid down next to it.

Oh! And every time she hears a noise, she jerks around, like, "Brudder? Is that you?"


So, yes, we are grieving. Dammit, I KNEW that "look on the bright side" shit would come back to bite me in the ass. That, and the whole "I think I'll wait until the fall to have the ultrasound done" thing.


Thank you for all your kind thoughts. They mean the world to me. I will be sad for some time to come. And so will Little Girl.

We will have a sad season and mourn. We will abide. And we will miss and remember our friend.

The Runt

May 2008 - April 21, 2011

Oh, you were a good boy!

Goodbye, sweetie.

I love you.

A question for the guys

Dear guys:

How hard is it to pee into a toilet bowl?

Seriously, how freakin' hard is it to aim into a goddam toilet bowl?

And let's say, oh, I don't know, you get distracted, say a car alarm goes off or something, and you wander off course a little, and pee on the floor.

HOW F*CKING HARD IS IT TO GRAB A PIECE OF TOILET PAPER AND WIPE UP YOUR MESS?

Gah.

Not for the world and everything in it

Okay, so, I admit it - I was watching The Biggest Loser, AGAIN, last night. Well, all except for the boring-ass weigh-in stuff, of course.

And then they get to the *gulp* bungee jumping. And let me tell you right now, there are two things that I can say with a fair amount of certainty I will never do in life:

1. Heroin
2. Bungee jumping

Heroin, because, well, I can just see myself trying it once and then doing a fast-forward montage to becoming a sparkless sparktoid in a gutter someplace, and

Bungee jumping, because, PLEASE!

Look. I work for an structural engineering company which does a fair amount of forensic engineering work. Trust me when I tell you this: Shit breaks. Shit breaks ALL THE DAMN TIME. There is metal fatigue, calculation error, some dude rigging the cables who had a fight with his wife the night before and showed up to work shitfaced ... and it doesn't matter what your engineering safety factor is. SHIT GOES WRONG.

Oh! And that poor bastard Rulon! They're getting ready to make everybody bungee jump OVER WATER, and he's all, like, "um, I don't know if you're aware of this, but today is the four-year anniversary of the day I was on a plane that crashed INTO WATER."

And they made him jump anyway.

Note to self: Do not ever, EVER go on The Biggest Loser. They'd probably make me do heroin. Or, you know, bungee jump.

I'm not really one to get into politics, but ...

... to all those assholes on the right who keep bitching about how we can't possibly raise taxes on the rich, about how it isn't fair to punish people for working hard, blahblahblah ....

... I just got a peek at my boss's tax returns for last year. He makes approximately FIVE TIMES what I make, and ...

... I paid MORE in Federal and State taxes last year than he did.

Dear right-wing assholes: STFU.

Straight outta the obits

A line from an obit in today's paper:

"The Angles have come to take her home to them."

So ... I'm guessing she was a mathematician?

Smells like Ben-Gay

On Saturday, in a moment of insanity, I did Level 3 of the Shred.

As a result, I have been sleeping with a heating pad, smelling of muscle rub, and peeing blood.

Oh, Jillian, why do you torment me so? You know, when she trash-talked about "gargling your heart out" and "feeling like you're going to die" during the workout, I really feel like she should have included the part about "pissing blood". Just as, you know, a friendly heads-up.

Oh! But for once, a medical google search was actually less frightening than I thought it might be. Turns out peeing blood is actually pretty common. Now THERE'S a relief.

and you know, it's really too bad that the Shred only goes to 3. Right now I'm picturing Level 4, where velociraptors come and pick you to pieces. Or Level 5, where as soon as you press play, it activates an alarm at the firehouse so the EMTs can come wait in your driveway for you to drop dead.

Get on that, Jillian, would ya? You could test-market it on The Biggest Loser. Now there's an episode I'd watch. Or, you know, not.

Guilty

Oh howdy! Here I am, at the office on Palm Sunday. Is fun! For the paycheck, anyway.

I went to Target yesterday, where I hardly ever go, to pick up one item. Which I found. And then -

oh! But first I have to ask - Is the Target store-brand honey-almond low-fat yogurt any good? I wasn't planning on buying yogurt, really, but I got looking at that yogurt, and I thought, hmm, honey-almond could go either way - it could taste really good or really odd, but in the end, I went ahead and bought six things of it. So! I haven't tried it yet - Is it good or bad?

And then! I wandered into the home area, looking for a bath rug, and instead I found the prettiest bath towel in the woorrrrllllddddd. Seriously, this towel is gorgeous - it's got swallows and flowering trees on it. And they only had one left.

And it was $9.99, which is about four times what I would usually pay for a towel, but - so pretty! I bought it. The last one. hahahahahahahahahaaaaaaa.

Oh! But they still have one hand towel and one washcloth left. But! The hand towel is $7.99 and the washcloth is $5.99, which is SO FAR out of my normal spending on towels it's insane. But I may go back and see if they're still there. I checked online, and they're not on the web site, so this is my last chance.

So! Here I sit, feeling guilty about spending too much money on towels. But you know what? When I got home yesterday, and took that towel out of the bag and unfolded it, it was so dang pretty that I got out my hammer and some nails and hung that towel right on the living room wall. Like a tapestry.

It's very pretty.

Maybe he's ... an alien?

I'm beginning to think that The Runt may not be a cat at all. I'm beginning to think he's an alien from another planet.

First off, just look at his baby pictures. He doesn't look like a cat at all - he looks like some kind of mutant alien baby:

Add to that the fact that he's got an extra row of teeth, that he stares at the ceiling all the time, that he has a heart murmur ... maybe instead of a heart, he's got some kind of alien engine? Because just look at his new best friend:

See that car? See The Runt up on the windshield, HUGGING THE CAR? He's all, "are you my mommy?"

Does he hang out on his nice soft cat bed? No. On the couch? No. On the nine kabillion kitty-resting-places in the house? NO. He cuddles with the car.

Here's another look:

"I love you, Miss Kia."

Poor guy. He thinks he's found the mothership, and if he justs waits long enough, it'll beam him up to his home planet.

Aw, Runt. I hope you'll stay here with me for a while.

Pollyanna

I was reading a book of essays last night, mostly light-hearted stuff, when I came to an essay about something really, really sad. And I started to sniffle. And I was all, like, "Dammit! I was really enjoying this book, and they had to go and make me cry." I don't want to read anything sad, you see. And I don't want to watch any sad movies or listen to any sad songs, either.

Is there something wrong with me?

It's just ... life is hard ENOUGH, you know? We all go through our own share of sorrow, without having to borrow somebody else's. And sure, some sad things we HAVE to know about, like the Holocaust and stuff, in order to make sure that they never happen again. But in general? I'd rather be sunny. I mean, sure, I can bitch and piss and moan with the best of them (especially about Blogger, which is STILL refusing to recognize paragraph spacings), but overall, I'd rather just forget about the bad shit, when I can.

There's a scene at the end of The Life of Brian, where they're being crucified (!), and somebody starts to whistle, which leads to a song ...

"Always look on the bright side of life

Always look on the light side of life

If life seems jolly rotten

There's something you've forgotten

And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing ...

When you're feeling in the dumps

Don't be silly chumps

Just purse your lips and whistle - that's the thing

ANNDDDDDD

Always look on the bright side of life

Always look on the light side of life"

There's another verse that starts, "Life's a piece of shit, when you look at it,", but I can't remember the rest of that one.

And I mean, OF COURSE, it's supposed to be funny, and not, like, a LIFE LESSON or something, but seriously? I'll take the bright side.

Today's burning question

First off, thanks for all the input on yesterday's post about The Runt. I'm going to wait until his next vet visit, and then ask some more questions and hopefully make an informed decision, although honestly? I really don't see myself paying a grand a year for meds, especially for his particular condition. I think I'll probably go ahead and pop for the ultrasound, just to see what's going on in there, and then go from there. That's the plan right now, anyway. And it makes me feel like a bad pet owner, but maybe I deserve that.

Now! On to lighter fare. What is up with the teeth-veneers on all the reality-show contestants?

I was watching the Biggest Loser last night, which, that one dude who keeps whining is REALLY starting to get on my nerves, and WHY do they drag out the weigh-ins? I mean, I don't watch the show all the time or anything, but anytime they start with the weigh-ins I change the channel, because, COME ON, is there anything more boring than watching people get weighed? Jeez.

What's that? That's the POINT of the damn SHOW, you say? Yeah, well, whatevs. I just want to watch them exercise their guts out, and then watch Rulon cram doritos into his mouth in the middle of the night.

But! I was watching last night, and I noticed what pretty teeth one of the girl contestants had. And hey, that's dudes got great teeth, too! And him, and her, and ...

... veneers. Every single contestant on that show, as far as I can tell, was sportin' a bright shiny set of fake teeth. And now that I think about it, I don't recall any snaggle-teeth on Survivor, either, at least not since that great big farmer dude a few years back. What was his name? The one who got a consolation prize 'cause everybody loved him?

Hmmmm. Let's see. American Idol. Yeah, I'm pretty sure they've all got great teeth, too, not that I've been paying all that much attention this year.

Look, about all I know about veneers is what my hygienist was telling me the other day while she was cleaning my teeth, about how one of HER veneers fell off the other morning and it was a two-hour procedure to get it fixed back on, which leads me to think that they're like ... press-on nails? Maybe?

And I don't know how much they cost, either, except I'm pretty sure that it would be pretty damn expensive to outfit the entire cast of a reality show with them, but then again, those shows are pretty cheap to produce, so ...

... what's my point? Oh yeah, veneers! Do you have them? Would you get them if somebody offered to do it for free? Do you like your teeth?

See, I had braces when I was a kid, so my teeth are pretty straight, except I've got this one canine up top that decided it didn't want to be straight anymore, it wanted to be free! so now I've got a little bit of the snaggletooth going on, but honestly? I think it's kind of cute. It certainly doesn't bother me. And I'm sure that, after I smoked for thirty years, my teeth could be whiter, but then again, it's kind of scary to me when someone smiles and you have to shield your eyes from the glare of their blinding-white teeth. It just looks ... fake. Like veneers!

Oh my God! WHO was that dude on the Carol Burnett show? Lyle Waggoner? Remember him? And every time he smiled, they'd do a fake glint-thing with the camera? I wonder if he had veneers? Whoaaaa ...

I guess I won't be getting any press-on teeth any time soon. Or boob implants, as far as that goes. Or a nose job or a face lift or ... anything. Shoot. I guess I'm stuck with myself.

Cost v. Outcome

So! As I mentioned, while we were at the vet's the other night, we discussed The Runt's heart murmur. The vet would like to do an ultrasound in the fall to determine the extent of the problem, and possibly put him on heart medication, which is not cheap. And I'm kind of conflicted about the whole thing, especially since LOTS of cats live long, healthy lives with heart murmurs and without medication.

I guess it boils down to two conflicting things:

He. is. a. CAT.

He is my cat.

Let's say The Runt, I don't know, fell out of a tree. And broke his leg. And I rushed him to the vet, and she said, "We can fix him! It's a pretty bad break, so he will need surgery and pins and plates and recuperation time, but we can fix him! And it will cost $5,000."

Would I spend the five grand? Of course.

NOW, let's say that The Runt has a congenital health condition. Say, a HEART MURMUR. *cough* That he was diagnosed with as a kitten, and that has not gotten any worse as he ages. And NOW the vet says, "We can fix him! We can put him on heart meds, which usually help, although even WITH the meds, there is still a possibility that he could keel over from a heart attack. And for five years on the meds, it will cost $5,000.00".

Would I spend the five grand? Let me think about that one.

Five grand for meds that may or may not prevent a heart attack, for a condition that he may very well live his entire life with, without suffering any adverse effects, without being on the meds. Oh, and if he lives as long as Rocky did, that would be a total of sixteen grand, over his lifetime.

Okay, now I can hear what you're thinking - "What if it was your kid?" And all I can say to that is, but he's NOT my kid. He's a CAT. And like it or not, there is a difference.

Okay, so now I can hear you saying, "Well, if it was medicine for YOU, you'd spend the money, right?" And to that I say ... maybe? I know a LOT of people who go without prescribed medications, either because they can't afford them or they don't like the side effects or they don't agree with the diagnosis or whatever, so who's to say if I would take the meds myself? I'm not in that position.

All I know is, in this situation at least, I need to weigh cost versus outcome. Do I love The Runt? Absolutely. Am I ready to spend a bunch of money on medication that may or may not help, that may or may not be necessary? Let me think about that a little more.

Am I a bad pet owner? I don't know.

Bye-bye now, winter

... and don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out.

Things that are coming up in my garden(s):

Bluebells!

Bleeding heart

Lily-of-the-Valley

Daffofils

Hyacinths

Chives

Tiger lilies

Weeping cherry

Foxgloves

Lungwort

Sweet william

Phlox

Columbine

Lupine

Globe flowers

Colts-foot (feet?)

and skunk cabbage by the creek

Dude! I think winter is maybe, truly, FINALLY over. Saturday night I was on the phone with Texas, and I kept hearing something outside. Some ... noise. I was all, like, "What the hell IS that?", and I opened up the window, and ...

PEEEEEEEEPERS!

The spring peepers are back! I made Texas listen over the phone, to the first real sign of spring. I even slept with a window open last night, so that every time I woke up, I'd hear the peepers calling away.

Ah, peepers. I'm SO GLAD you're back.

The Remedy

So! We all went to the vet's last night. And I will tell you right now, trying to find those two cats and get them into their carriers is the worst part of any trip to the vet's, and akin to the miracle of the loaves and the fishes once it's actually DONE. Once they've been lovingly placed (or, you know, SHOVED) into their carriers, my job is over. The vet does the rest.

We get to the vet's, and - oh! wait! The first thing that happens when we get to the vet's is that there's a Crazy Cat Lady in the waiting room, except it's a dude. Yep, I, too, thought that Crazy Cat Ladies were exclusively female, but as it turns out, men can be Crazy Cat Ladies, too. Who knew?

So anyway, the vet takes one look at The Runt's ear, nods her head, and says, "oh yeah." And I was all, "what is it? What is it?" And she says, "It's the ear meds."

As I've said before, The Runt has had wonky ears since he was a kitten. Various medications have been tried, and for the past six months he's been on an ointment that is squirted into the ear canal. Of course, once you let him loose, he shakes his head and ointment flies everywhere. As it turns out, the ointment contains corticosteriods, which can soften the ear cartilage over time, causing the ears to droop. While only one ear is currently drooping, the vet assured me that if we continued with those particular meds, pretty soon the other one would be drooping, too. Mystery solved!

So we are taking him off the super-duper expensive ear meds and putting him on ... mineral oil. Yep, from now on I am to squirt mineral oil into his ears once a week (FUN), and we'll go from there.

So! The Runt is fine. We DID discuss his heart murmur some more, but that is a WHOLE NOTHER POST, right there. Rest assured that he is FINE, and we will be re-evaluating the heart murmur sitch in the fall.

Oh! And I asked the vet about the whole staring-upward thing, and she said, "Um ... I have no idea. Maybe you have bats in your attic and The Runt can hear them up there?"

Bats. God, I hope not. I'd rather have ghosts.

Now! On to Little Girl. As it turns out, she did indeed have the problem that Anonymous mentioned in the comments of Wednesday's post. And I will tell you what - When the vet puts on the ol' latex glove - just one, mind you - you can be pretty sure your cat's about to get it.

And what happened next could be a "Dirty Jobs" episode all by itself, and for all I know it already IS. There was much yowling and losing of dignity, but Little Girl will be right-as-rain. And! The vet only charged twelve bucks for that little procedure, and Dear Vet? YOU'RE NOT CHARGING ENOUGH.

So! The cats are fine. I took them home and treated them to a little Fancy Feast, 'cause I'm a big spender like that, and they didn't even hold a grudge about the whole v-e-t thing, so all is well. The end!

Oh! And would anybody like to swap To-Do lists for this weekend? 'Cause the weather is supposed to be halfway decent here, i.e., above freezing/not snowing, and I've got a T0-Do list that is threatening to spill onto another page, so if anybody wants to trade, just let me know.

Unless your list includes doing what the vet did to Little Girl last night, in which case you can KEEP your list. Please.

Mug Shot

See his right ear? THAT'S why he's going to the vet's tonight.

And let me say right now, I feel PRETTY DAMN STUPID taking a cat to the vet's for a case of "Droopy-Ear".

(Actually, a quick glance at that wall calendar also reveals that it's not like I have anything better to do, so there's that ...)

ANYway, his ears have always been messed up, and now that one ear has started to DROOP, and he DOES have a heart murmur, and I swear to GOD, this is how strange I am, I'm all, like, "what if Droopy-Ear is a sign of diminished blood flow due to a worsening heart murmur? WHAT IF he's about to stroke out, and I could have prevented it if I had JUST PAID ATTENTION to the Droopy-Ear Syndrome ..."

Hahahahaha it's a barrel of laughs around my place, guys. Come on over!

So of course I call the vet's, and when I described the Droopy-Ear, the vet tech, instead of laughing and telling me to GET A LIFE, already, is all, "Oh, you'd better bring him in so the vet can take a look at him", because, COME ON, this is how they make their money, off of dipshits like me, so

we are going to the vet's tonight. The Runt with Droopy-Ear, and Little Girl with Scootchy-Butt.

Christ.

Enter pitchforks and torches, Stage Right

You know, I should KNOW better than to go off on these kinds of rants, but here I go, pissing off Blogland again ...

... it's just my opinion, but I really feel that a certain blogger* should have, maybe, oh ... STAYED BY HER DYING FATHER'S BEDSIDE instead of leaving to shuttle her kid to yet another preschool evaluation.

Okay. This strikes a nerve, because I was not at my own father's bedside when he died. He and my mom were living in Florida at the time. He had been diagnosed with cancer, and the doctors had given him six months to live, and of course, all of us family members were making plans to fly down to stay with him and mom. Six weeks after his diagnosis, two DAYS before I was scheduled to fly down to spend time with him, he died in the night. And it KILLS me that I wasn't there. I will always regret that I wasn't there to say goodbye.

So to read about this spoiled little twit blogger, who LEFT HER DYING DAD'S BEDSIDE because she had, you know, MORE IMPORTANT STUFF TO DO, just makes me livid.

Grrrrrrr.

(This is why Blogland hates me.) (If I don't show up here anymore, you'll know that this gal's friends hunted me down and killed me. Except I'm pretty sure we don't travel in the same, you know, bloggy circles, so I should be safe.)(And I mean, COME ON, she left her dying dad's bedside to take her kid to a routine appointment. SHEESH.)

*email me if you want the ID.

Maybe he's getting instructions from Ceiling Cat?

Okay, I am going to try to post this without manually inserting all the paragraph breaks in Html. If it comes up and then goes right back down, that means Blogger is still being an asshole. Here goes nothin'.

(updated) Ha! THAT went over like a lead balloon. Dear Blogger: I hate you.

A few months ago I mentioned The Runt's habit of staring upward at nothing.

Yeah, he's still doing it. In the above pic, he's staring up at a corner of the window. There are no lights in the backyard, so it's not like he's watching something outside. Here, he's staring at closed curtains:

And it's not just by the windows that he does it, either. He'll hang out on the couch in the living room or on the bed in my bedroom and just look at the ceiling, like there's a TV up there.

You know, I'm starting to wonder. His ears have been mucked up since he was a kitten. I wonder if he's got some kind of inner-ear imbalance that's relieved when he tilts his head up?

The cats have an appointment at the vet's tomorrow night- The Runt for his cloggy ears and allergies, and Little Girl for a condition that I call "scootch-butt". No, she doesn't have worms - that's been tested. Actually, I would PREFER worms to the condition she evidently has, which I am not going to discuss here because I am a delicate little flower. And so is Little Girl.

ANYhow, I'll have to ask the vet about The Runt's upward stare. Any ideas? 'Cause I'm stumped.

MVP's customer service can suck it

First off, kudos to BNG, who dug around in the archives here until she found a photo of me. Granted, it was just a headshot, but still, congrats, BNG - although you should probably know that I haven't been that blond in quite some time. *cough*

Now! On to the story! Back a few months ago, one of our employees was heading off for (presumably) greener pastures. So I called our service representative at our insurance company, MVP, to have the employee taken off of our health care plan.

My call went straight to voice mail, and after several days, the service rep still hadn't called back. Okay, fine, so I emailed her. Nothing. I faxed her our request. Still nothing, except for during this time period, we got a letter from MVP stating that our rates were going up.

Yeah.

I tried logging onto the MVP web site, which would not accept my log-in info. And by now, we were getting bills from MVP with this employee's coverage still on them, because I could not find one single way to contact MVP about his leaving the company. And our service rep was still not returning my increasingly-panicky calls. Panicky because, if we had to pay bills past this guy's coverage date, my boss was gonna shit a brick.

So! While trying to get this dude off our health care rolls, I started researching other health insurance plans, and I found one that was actually cheaper than suck-ass MVP for the same coverage. And I signed up with them, while trying to get disentangled from MVP.

Okay, so I know this is getting long and boring, so here we go, to the point, FINALLY:

The other day, I get a letter from our old MVP service rep. And it was, all, "we're sorry that MVP will no longer be an option for your employees" and blahblahblah, and it ended with, "Please feel free to contact me with any questions at - "

And she had whited out her phone number. Where her phone number would have gone, after "contact me with any questions at", there was just a big white space. I shit you not, this girl was SO DESPERATE that people NOT CONTACT HER for ANY REASON WHATSOEVER, which, incidentally, WAS HER JOB, that she whited out her f*cking phone number.

Dear MVP: Suck it. And get yourself some better service reps. Except, you know what? I've got a funny feeling that you train them to act like that.

And Mr. Obama? Bring ON that nationalized health care. It has GOT to be better than what we've got now.

Toop

Today marks the two-year anniversary of the day I quit smoking, which turned out to be a pretty bad day to try to quit, but I made it. Here's what I wrote about it last year, one year in.

Let's run the numbers again just for fun, shall we?

Number of cigarettes I would have smoked between April 3, 2009 and today, had I not stopped smoking on that date: 21,900.

Amount of money saved: $3,905.50. (As in last year's post, a clarification: I smoked cheap cigs I bought on line. I used a dollar figure of $3.56 a pack, since that's what my smokes cost at the time I quit. If I had been buying Marlboros at the corner Seven-Eleven, at today's price of eight bucks a pack (minimum), that number would have been - wait for it - $8,776.40.)

So! Two years in. It doesn't seem weird to be an ex-smoker; it seems weird that I ever did it in the first place. I wish I could take some of the smokers I know, the ones who say they just CAN'T quit, that they've tried and they've tried and they've TRIED and they just can't do it ...

... yeah, you can. I did.

Finder's fee

So! Here I am at the office, on a sunny Saturday afternoon, getting paid time-and-a-half to blog.

Awesome!

Seriously, I've been here two and a half hours now, and I have not done jack shit other than find a file that everyone (my boss and I) in the FREE WORLD (the office) had been looking for. Ha! I work with the most disorganized people ever, so files go missing all the time. And no, I am not going to take over other people's file systems, because I AM NOT THEIR MOTHER. (sore spot)

So! When I managed to find this particular file, which was filed CROSSWISE between two other stacks of files (WTF), it was a bright spot in my stuck-in-the-office Saturday.

What are you doing today? I hope it doesn't involved files in any way, shape, or form, unless you're, like, getting a manicure or something.

That ain't right

Okay, first of all, be sure to scroll down to today's earlier post, where we're chatting about all KINDS of stuff.

Now! I was reading the obituaries this morning, and you know how sometimes there's a photo of the deceased, along with the obit? And sometimes the picture was OBVIOUSLY taken, like, fifty years ago, which is kind of odd, but even WORSE are the more recent pics, with, like, Grandma on her deathbed with oxygen tubes in her nose. People! Nobody wants to see that while they're eating their morning cereal! Come on!

What? Why yes, yes, I DO read the obits while eating breakfast! What of it?

Okay, but the worst pics, in my mind, are the ones where the deceased's head was OBVIOUSLY cropped out of some larger shot. Come on, NOBODY bothered to take a picture of this dude by himself for the last twenty years? Oh, and just recently, there was an obit where they didn't even bother to crop the shot: It was a photo of two women, and you got to GUESS which one had croaked.

So! Let's skip to today, shall we, where I spotted this brand-y new twist on the obit pic:

Click here.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

*gasp*

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

OMFG. In case that link goes kerflooey at some point, it's an obituary where, instead of a photo of the deceased, there's a line drawing of a unicorn's head.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AWESOME.

Now I've got to figure out what I want to have in place of a pic of me in MY obit. Hmmmm ... maybe I'll use my blog avatar? The one to the left of this post?

Holy shit this is FANTASTIC.

Whew!

Okay, we've got a lot to talk about today, so let's get busy, shall we?

First off, Snowpocalypto Part Kabillion missed us. THANK GOD. I swear, if I have to shovel that driveway ONE MORE TIME I am going to lose my shit. I'm already thinking about subcontracting out the lawnmowing this summer, because that's got to be the SECOND most annoying part of homeownership, right after shoveling snow, but then again, maybe I'd BETTER keep mowing the lawn myself, because

I had to weigh myself last night in order to weigh The Runt, who has some weird ear infection thing going on, and while The Runt's weight is fine, mine? Not so much. I mean, I've only gained, like, eight pounds over the winter, but Jeezus CHRIST I know the kind of effort it takes to lose eight pounds, and I really don't want to have to do that.

But! I won't HAVE to do it, if it will ever stay warm enough to melt the goddamn leftover snow off the hiking trails so I can get some freaking exercise, already. Sheesh. The Shred can only do so much.

Oh! And in other news, one of my co-workers tried to foist one of his made-up-out-of-the-blue, totally bizarre projects on me yesterday, and I told him "no". And then he started to ARGUE with me about it, so I basically shut him down. And after he went to lunch, my OTHER co-worker was all, "Whoa, I didn't know you had it in you!", and I laughed and said, "you have NO IDEA."

Seriously? If the first dude had come to me and said, "Jeez, I'm really swamped right now - could you possibly help me out with this (made-up-out-of-the-blue, totally bizarre) project?" Sure, I'd help him out. Hell, I'd come in on a Saturday and do it if I had to. But when, in the time-honored practice of offices everywhere, he tried to forcefully foist a bunch of bullshit off on "the secretary"? No. Just no. People can only treat you shabbily if you LET them. Word.

And! Was I the only one appalled by that "Mobbed" show last night? Where the guy decides to propose to his girlfriend with the help of a flash mob? WTF! I mean, I really enjoy (some of) the flash mob videos on Youtube, as long as nobody falls off the escalator and sues the shopping mall or whatever, but that whole thing last night was just WRONG. Especially that whole bizarre sub-plot about the jilted ex-girlfriend and just ... yuck. Cruel. Mean. Note to the guys: DO NOT try to throw a surprise proposal-and-wedding-all-in-one for your girlfriend. I will virtually GUARANTEE it will not end as well as last night's little mess eventually did. Jeez, now we can all look forward to failed-flash-mob-proposal videos that are sure to starting popping up.

But! In other entertainment news, did anybody else hear that segment on RadioLab yesterday about the deaf girl who got in a horrible accident and then her boyfriend basically SAVED HER LIFE by remembering something he saw in a movie? THAT was the most inspiring thing I've listened to in a long, long time. Seriously. Goosebumps.

Oh, and I just hit publish on this whole thing, and Blogger is STILL not paragraphing correctly! What's the problem, Blogger?

Well! That's what's up in my world today. What's going on in yours?