This is a public service announcement

Dudes.  Duuuuuuuudes.

Better World Books is having a flash sale - If you buy five or more books from the Bargain  Bin, you get 'em all for forty percent off. 

I've currently got 28 books in my shopping cart.  Unfortunately, their server keeps crashing from the massive increase of traffic to the site, so you may need to exercise patience.

Sale runs through Wednesday afternoon.  What are you waiting for?

And!

BOGO starts at Payless today.  Big whoop, right?  But at least here in the Northeast, they are ALSO having a clearance sale on tights/leggings/stockings.  Two bucks a pop.  After BOGO, that works out to a buck-fifty a pop.

You're welcome!

The plot thickens

Okay, so, in that earlier post (you need to scroll down to "Vengeance is mine ..." - I am EXTREMELY INVOLVED in a Biggest Loser episode right now), I toyed with messing over someone who had treated me shabbily.

Ever since she done me wrong, I've been ignoring her.  I mean, due to our professional connection,  I couldn't totally shut her out, but I've been maintaining radio silence as much as possible.

And I'm sorry I have to be so obscure, here, but really, I can't see myself getting Dooced over something like this.

ANYhoo, evidently she's getting a leetle nervous over what-all happened, and  she keeps reaching out to me.  Offering opportunities that normally I would jump all over, but right now?  "I'll  have to think about it".

Tonight? 

Her HUSBAND emailed me.

Dudes, I can't.  I just can't deal with this level of WTF.  If she's too chickensh*t to deal with what I believe she is now realizing to be the possible consequences of her actions, that's one thing.

But to involve her husband?  I mean, unless I've been totally snowed over in some kind of Machiavellian style, her husband had been totally unaware of what was going on.

Until now.

This ... this ... this is kind of ... odd for me right now.  I think I need to sit on things for a few more days.

Sauerkraut

On Saturday, before things went from "I feel a little queasy" to "Oh no oh no oh no", I made myself a Reuben sandwich for lunch.  Yum!  I put the leftover sauerkraut in the fridge.

It was Saturday night when things really went south, and by Sunday afternoon, when I shakily made my way out of bed and opened up the fridge to grab the diet Coke, well, I am pretty sure that the last thing on earth that I needed to smell right then was ...

sauerkraut.

Holy Mary Mother of God, that almost did me in.  I slammed the fridge door shut and leaned against it.  "Maybe it wasn't that bad," I thought.  "It's just my upset stomach that's making that sauerkraut smell so disgusting."

I turned around and cautiously cracked the fridge door open.

Slam.

Yeah, it was that bad.

Now, I am in no way, shape or form blaming the sauerkraut for my intestinal distress.  I felt queasy when I woke up on Saturday morning, when the sauerkraut was not yet even on the horizon.

But that does not negate the fact that because I was sick, that sauerkraut smelled DISGUSTING, and I had to get it out of the house.

"Just ... just ... fling it out the back door," I thought.  But hell, even I'M not THAT white trash.

I finally steeled myself, opened the fridge again, grabbed the container of sauerkraut, and, trying desperately not to breathe, quick-stepped to the garbage can.  The OUTSIDE garbage can.  The one all the way out by the SHED.

*Whew*.  Crisis averted.  Except, sadly, I may never be able to eat a Reuben sandwich again.

Sunday mornin' comin' down

Stomach virus.

'Nuff said.

Vengeance is Mine, Saith the Rocky

Somebody f*cked me over recently.  Treated me really, really poorly.

She didn't have to do it, and I'm not even sure WHY she did it, but she did it.

And now I'm pondering revenge.

I could really work this person over good, should I so choose.  I'm not really sure why she didn't consider that before she worked ME over; maybe she just didn't take the time to think things through.

But I have.

And, well, this is not something I'm exactly PROUD of, but I am really, really good at retribution.  I can blindside this gal and mess her over big time.  It's been a while since I've had the opportunity to go medieval on someone.

It's just ... I don't know.  For one thing, if I take her down, it's also going to take her husband down, and he seems like a nice enough guy.  He'd end up being collateral damage, if you will.

But if I DON'T take her down, then she gets away with what she did to me.

And that ain't gonna stand.

I guess I've got to ponder on this a little more.

I dunno

Today at work I'm wearing a dress that is ... let's see ... four inches above the knee.

Is that too short?  I mean, I AM an old lady now.

In my defense, I'm wearing heavy tights underneath. It's not like I'm flashing a bunch of bare leg and frightening the cattle or anything.

Whaddaya think?  Too short for an old broad, or still acceptable?

They say it's your birthday ...

Today is Ponyboy's second birthday!

Happy Birthday, Pone-Pone!  Champagne wishes and caviar dreams.

Or, you know, mousie wishes and catnip dreams.  Whichever you prefer.

Looks like "Hallelujah", by Leonard Cohen, is the new "'Amazing Grace"

And I'm cool with that.  

Amazing Grace got worn out with 9/11, and it's still been the go-to song ever since, any time a tragedy, major or minor, occurred.  Any time a memorial service got televised, look out.  Here comes Amazing Grace.  And if the bagpipes came out?  Yep.  Evidently, the bagpipes OWN Amazing Grace.

But now it looks like  "Hallelujah" is in the lead.  And I'm glad.  It's time for a new official Sorrow Song.

Like Amazing Grace, it's got a beautiful melody.  Unlike Amazing Grace, its lyrics are a little, well, PG.

But it's a pretty song.  And who can argue with the sentiment of the word Hallelujah?
Not me.

Just don't ever set it to bagpipes, please.

Recently Read

As always, skip this if you wanna.

1.  Light a Penny Candle by Maeve Binchy - Gosh, I always love her books.  I was sad to learn that she'd passed away.  Light a Penny Candle was about what Maeve Binchy books are always about - People in England, usually in one small town, living their lives.  I did not like the ending on this one - I thought it was lame and out of character - but the rest was good.  But oh!  Why does there always have to be at least one good-woman-stays-with-bad-man storyline in each of her books?  THAT gets kind of annoying.

2.  The Dry Grass of August by Anna Jean Mayhew - Novel about a girl growing up in the 50s segregated South.  Good.

3.  Movie review time!  The Man Who Would Be King - This came out in 1975 and was based on a Rudyard Kipling story.  Michael Caine and Sean Connery play British Army washouts who decide to take over a remote Asian country in the early 1900s.  Starts out slow, but builds to a rip-roaring finish.  I remember seeing this as a kid and being fascinated by it, so it was fun to see it again.

4.  Girlchild by Tupelo Hassman - Started out good, but developed a sour attitude about two-thirds of the way in.  I didn't finish it. 

5.  11/22/63 by Stephen King - Meh.  I felt like he phoned this one in. 

6.  Another movie review!  The Hunger Games.  This was okay.  It reminded me of the novella "The Long Walk" by Richard Bachman/Stephen King.

7.  Rachel and Her Children by Jonathan Kozol - Nonfiction - Study of poverty and welfare programs in NYC.  It was interesting, if somewhat dated (published in 1988).  I wonder if the programs are any better-run now than they were at the time this book was written.

8.  Are you ready for another movie review?  First Position is a documentary about a youth ballet competition.  This thing would usually be right up my alley, but I think I've seen so many documentaries about competitions that I'm pretty much over them.  But!  I did hear that they are making a musical out of Hands on a Hard Body, which makes me hopeful that THAT doc, which I have never actually seen but have heard plenty about, mainly from a radio episode of This American Life, will someday come out on DVD.
(And by the way, I cannot see any way that a musical version of Hands on a Hard Body would be anything but a hilarious failure, but that's just my opinion.) (And no, Hands on a Hard Body is NOT about porn.  Sheesh.)

So!  That's what I've been reading, and watching, lately.  How about you?

Hoo boy

What a day!

First thing this morning, my work computer crashed.  On a day when I had a lot of work to do on line.

I managed to hop on another computer, but still.  All of my files are on MY computer, so yeah.

And I was afraid to tell my boss my computer had crashed, because HE was having an awful day.  When I finally fessed up, he spent a couple of hours working on it before *I* finally figured out that it was the monitor that had tanked, not the hard drive.  Aye caramba.

I am STILL trying to locate the missing package that was sent to Texas on December 11.  Some progress was made, but man oh man oh man does the post office have its head up its ass.  Holy cow.

A co-worker and I spent spent half the damn afternoon trying to track down a mysterious meowing in my office building.  Tentative conclusion?  A stray cat has somehow managed to crawl up into a cantilevered crawlspace and can't get out.  Efforts to reach the cat from the inside of the building were unsuccessful.  Tomorrow morning, the landlord is going to start dismantling the exterior shell of the building in effort to free the cat.  Good luck, Mr. Gordon!  Good luck, cat!

On the bright side, the SECOND Christmas package I sent to Texas has reportedly arrived. 

Thank goodness it's Friday, is all I can say.

Because apparently I can't let anything go

Okay, first off, scroll down to the previous post to get caught up with the Great Catnip Toy Debacle of 2013.

Now!  Here's an email I received this morning from the FC, in a continuing conversation from the previous emails.

"Unfortanetly, not everyone realizes that they should cut it off and in this sue happy world, we can't be too careful."

Okay, I'm not even going to get INTO the whole "Unfortanetly" thing.  (It actually took me several tries to even RECREATE that spelling, so let's hear it for language creativity!  And God knows I've been known to misspell a word or two, although rarely in so spectacular a fashion.)
Here is my reply:

"Gee, that's too bad. I liked making those toys. Even if I stopped putting the ribbon on them, someone could say that a cat could rip open a toy and choke on the stuffing.


I guess we'd better stop selling the yarn spider toys, too - I mean, there's a choking/strangulation possibility right there. And we'd better stop putting blankets in the crates at adoption events - after all, a cat could suffocate under one of them. And forget about the bake sales - talk about a choking hazard!

I wonder how PetSmart gets away with selling all of those toys with ribbons/jingle bells/elastic pull-strings on them? Oh yeah - they probably tell people that if they're worried about a toy, they shouldn't buy it."



Harsh?  You betcha.

Burning bridges is my specialty.

Christ on a f*cking cracker

I make catnip toys for my rescue group to sell at adoption events.  They're just bits of mouse-shaped fabric, stuffed with catnip and polyfill, with little ribbon tails sewed in.

Email I got tonight from the FC:

"Let's keep the ribbon off the catnip toys. I've had several people express concern, then last month one of the agway employees was upset that we had it on the toys cause her cat was euthanized because he had a tumor on his tongue that may have been caused by a piece of ribbon."

My reply (and I have to tell you, I REALLY reined it in here):

"Wow ... If people are too stupid to take a pair of scissors and CUT the ribbon off of a toy if they think it's dangerous ... well, I have no words. And that Agway employee? Yep, we'd better ban ALL ribbon, EVERYWHERE, in memory of her cat. I'll just stop making the stupid things if people are having a cow over them."

I really, REALLY wanted to throw in a bunch of f-bombs, but the FC is a former Mennonite, so I didn't think it would be appropriate.

Okay, first off.  I am currently looking at a cat toy that I bought at PetSmart last weekend.  It's a big stuffed mouse, with long arms and legs.  And a piece of ribbon tied around the neck.  And jingle bells on its feet that could be chewed off and swallowed.  Ditto, button eyes.  And feathers.  And a piece of elastic (gasp!) attached for pulling it along the floor.

Yes, cats can swallow ribbon.  It can happen.  They can also swallow tinsel and yarn and string and sewing thread and twist ties and NINE MILLION OTHER THINGS that the average household contains.   One of my co-worker's dogs almost died when he ate one of his girlfriend's tampons.

BAN TAMPONS.  SAVE THE  DOGS.

Jesus f*cking CHRIST.  I give UP.

Live blogging the plumber's visit!

Well, the water heater is shot.  I kind of figured - it's ten years old.

Price to replace it?  Six-twenty-five, including install, which is fair.

We'll see how much the toilet fix is.  It's been flushing fine since Monday, so I'm hopeful that he'll just snake the line and leave it at that.  hopehopehopehopehope

What was my guess?  Let me see ... $759.36.  Hmmm ...

Let's play a game!

Let's try to guess how much the bill will be for the plumber who's coming to my house tomorrow!

Yes, the plumbing has finally forced my hand.

The water heater's been leaking for a while.  It's ten years old, so it's probably on its way out.  I was delaying the inevitable by placing a drip pan underneath the leaky valve, but, well, the leakage is increasing.

Still!  While it was on my "to-do" list, it was hovering somewhere near the bottom, in the vicinity of "take down Christmas lights" and "change furnace filter".

But!  Last night, the toilet clogged.

*shudder*

Oh sweet Jeezus, if THAT'S not a worst-case scenario, I don't know what is. 

I managed to plunge it out, and this morning it's flushing, if somewhat reluctantly, but

it was time to call a plumber.  THE TOILET MUST FLUSH.

So!   What will the bill be?

I am guessing that the water heater needs to be replaced.  I am guessing that the toilet needs to be ... snaked, or whatever it is they do to reluctant toilets. 

I am guessing $759.36.  Care to take a guess?

Rescue Porn

I was going to write today about how, this time last year, my cats had not yet come into rescue care.  I was going to write about the bad situations they were in, this time last year.

But the more I thought about it, the more I didn't want to write it.  There is a tendency in rescue care to, well, one-up worst-case situations.  "My cat was rescued from under a trailer!"  "Well, MY cat was rescued from under a TRAIN!"

It would be like if every time I was introduced to someone, the person doing the introductions said, "This is Rocky.  Back in '85, she was living in a trailer park and working at a fast-food restaurant!"

I mean, yeah, it's true, and I'm not ashamed of it, but it's not who I am today.  It doesn't define me.

So cats, I promise to stop telling your "rescue" stories.  You're here now, and that's what matters.

And dudes, I promise I'll always do good by you.  I might be far from perfect, but I'll always treat you right.

Christmas Shopping. In January. Thanks to the United States Postal Service

Yep, I spent today Christmas shopping.  And wrapping presents.  And getting them boxed up and ready to ship.

All thanks to the United States Postal Service, into whose trust I placed a package for delivery.

On December 11.  Of last year.

According to the tracking number, it left a processing facility in Dallas on December 18.  After that ... well, it's anybody's guess, really.  MY guess is the old proverbial "fell off a truck" scenario, but it's hard tellin', seeing as how when I call the United States Postal Service customer service line, each and every day, they tell me, optimistically, to "try back tomorrow."

Emailing?  Oh yeah,  I tried emailing.  I'm still waiting for a response to the email I sent on December 27.

Dear United States Postal Service:  F*ck you.

When this next package goes out, on Monday?  It's UPS all the way, baby.   I am done and done with the United  States Postal  Service.  A**h*les.




p.s.  It's actually kind of FUN to shop for Christmas presents in January.  Shhhh.  Don't tell anybody.

I do not understand Bloglandia

Amalah put up a post about her little boys' socks and got 72 comments.  So far.

Crappy Pictures put up a post about teeth brushing and got 148 comments.

And don't even get me started with Pioneer Woman.  A poem about her CAT?  238 comments.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not jealous.  I'm more ... incredulous.

I read some of the popular bloggers.  I enjoy some of them.  But the idea that seventy-two commenters felt a need to chime into a conversation about kids' socks?

I don't understand Bloglandia.  I guess I never will.

Outplay, Outwit, Outlast

We have a kind of Mexican standoff in the office, here, on days when the garbage goes out to the curb.

Way back when I first got hired, as the lowly secretary, taking care of the office garbage was one of my job duties.  And then, about fifteen years in, I broke my wrist one winter, and one of my co-workers offered to take over garbage detail.

Once my splint came off, I offered to take up the garbage mantle again, but the co-worker said no, no, he didn't mind, he'd keep taking care of it.

Except, well, he was a guy, and you KNOW how guys are about anything they consider vaguely "home-maker" related - they stall and stall and put it off until finally YOU do it, just to get the damn chore DONE.

Want proof? Ask a guy to do a load of laundry.  Let me know how that works out ...

... Oh, and there's that THING that guys are so good at, where they f*ck up the execution of a chore SO BADLY, repeatedly, that you finally give up and stop asking them to help.  Food-encrusted *washed* silverware, anyone?  Christ.

Yeah, there's a whole lot of passive-aggression going on when it comes to chores.  Anymore, office-garbage-wise, we all just wait each other out until somebody gets SO TIRED of shoving the garbage in their desk garbage can down with their FOOT just to get out of garbage duty for another week that they finally cave and take out everybody's garbage.

Because you can't just take out your OWN garbage.  That would sail right past passive-aggression and into a**h*le land, and you've gotta be careful with people you work with every day, doncha know.

The one place where I definitely lose the standoff?  Bathroom cleaning.  I have been with this company for many, many years, and as far as I know, I am the only one who has EVER cleaned the (one, co-ed) bathroom.

I'm sorry, but I just can't use a bathroom that looks like it's been transported whole from a Tijuana truckstop.  That just ain't right.  I end up cleaning the bathroom EVERY TIME.

Happy New Year!

... and I've already got clients calling me this morning with "emergencies" that have to be solved RIGHT AWAY, doncha know.

*sigh*

Meet the new year, same as the old year.

Words to live by, clients:  When everything's an emergency, nothing is.

How's everything at your office today?

Okay, now I've heard EVERYthing

So, I was at the adoption center today, and it was pretty slow.  Which is fine, because it gives me time  to work with some of the cats who need extra attention, and all is cool.

And then an elderly couple came up, and started talking about their cats.  They have four.

And  let me say right here, I love that.  I LOVE that.  That is why I am there, to talk to people, and listen to their stories.  And view LOTS of cell phone photos. Ha.

And this couple started talking about their blind cat, who had recently passed away.

"Was it blind from birth?," I asked,  curious.

"Oh, no, no," the woman said.   "As he got older he developed cataracts.  But you know, he kept right on going outside."

"Excuse me?"  I said. "You had a blind cat who went outside?"

"Oh yes," she said, chuckling.  "He was a wild stray who never did want to be inside the house much, except to be fed, and once his vision started going, he still wanted to be outside.  If we didn't let him out, he'd hop up on one of our laps and pee on us! So we'd let him out, and you could watch him feeling his way around the yard.  He could feel the difference, of course, between the blacktop of the driveway and the grass of the lawn, and  he'd even venture out into the neighborhood,  before his vision went completely.  He passed away at home one night.   He was eighteen!  Gosh, I miss that cat."

Lady, I miss him too.  And I never even met him.

And now I've heard everything.