Potpourri Pot (heh heh I said "pot")

This is going to be a little bit of everything.  Total mish-mash.  Lots of things to talk about, none of them worthy of their own entire post.

Remember that midlife crisis I had last fall?  Yeah it's still going on.  Yesterday morning I was on the phone with Hitter (he was out of town over the weekend) and he tells me that his HR guy had sent him an email about a new job opportunity (just a new role within the same company)  This is not surprising, this company plays apple-cart-upset about every 18 months or so, and Hitter's been in this same role for 3 years now, so he's WAY overdue for a shakeup.  Of course I never really look forward to these games of corporate musical chairs, because this happens:

Yeah.  That's a lot of fun to deal with.  Side effects include irritability, short temper, complete lack of understanding, and general assholedness.  Except he's already been like that lately with the current position, so how much worse can the transition to something new be? 

Famous last words.

So anyway, I just kinda went "yeah whatever okay" when Hitter mentioned possible new position.  Right up until he said that it would involve a move.  And then my emotions got on the biggest baddest roller coaster ever. 

Just a few colors short of a Jackson Pollock painting

"OMG I might actually get out of Hillbilly Hell?!"

"Wait, when I imagined moving away, it wasn't to go to the east coast.  Ugh"

"Well, we wouldn't stay there for more than 2 or 3 years, I can do that.  And I'd get to move!"

"Hitter would never go for that, he couldn't be that far from his family"

"God what an ass, he is the reason I am so miserable!  Why won't he move away from here?  I hate Hillbilly Hell!"

"Wait, I'm a shitty wife.  Could I really move that far away?  I'd have to fly EVERYWHERE and I hate to fly.  So really I'm just blaming him and using him as the scapegoat but I wouldn't like it either"
"But there might be work and/or school opportunities out there that don't exist here"

"But the east coast is one giant city running into the next giant city, and my biggest problem here is that it's a freaking city"

"Seriously though, I want to get the hell away from this damned place!  I don't even care where I'm going next"

"Although... I'd have to leave my house and my pool and I kinda like them.  And I probably wouldn't get anything I'd like out there"

"But it would be an opportunity to get away from everything around here that's making me miserable, including my family."

"Except I probably won't be happy out there either.  I'm not sure if I've ever been happy.  And I don't think I ever will be happy.  Ugh.  Just... ugh."

It's like the lamest roller coaster ever.  Anyway the good news is I don't need to worry about it anymore because Hitter said he isn't taking it.  He wouldn't like the work, it's way out of his comfort zone and possibly not even something he really agrees with.  Althoug who knows with him, because he pretty much agrees with anything the Beloved Corporation does. 

So I think I'll quit thinking about that.  Or maybe I'll just quit thinking.

Random Internet Stupidity:

I got this in an email.  Don't get me wrong, I love me some Mike Rowe... *drool*... but seriously?  He's doing videos telling idiots they need to get their oil changed?  Wow.  I can't decide whether to be more annoyed by Ford thinking they need to make videos telling people that if the check engine light comes on you'd better... well... check the engine, or by the fact that I think Mikey boy has finally hit the "overexposure" status.  Perhaps a while ago. 

His voice is still dreamalicious though. 

New subject: my year-in-pictures is still going, although sometimes it's not very interesting.  I made it all the way to oooooooh about January 11 before I realized that some days I just don't have anything photo-worthy in my life.  So I've been randomly filling the boring days in with extra pictures from interesting days.  In some ways, that's probably a good thing though.  Then I can remember that good things do happen sometimes, and occasional boring days aren't the end of the world.  [/philosophical comments]  And then there were a couple days when I had specific pictures in mind that I wanted to use on those specific days... didn't get the pictures... and then didn't update the album. 

Today I had to catch up on two weeks worth of pictures.  There was much procrastination of anything that others would consider "productive".  Kitchen's still a mess, house didn't get cleaned, dog needs more exercise (although thank goodness the co-dependent beast actually spent an entire half hour in the back yard today without me) laundry didn't get done, trim didn't get painted, closets didn't get decluttered, office stuff didn't get organized, and most importantly, Hitter's model train didn't get landscaped.  Most importantly to him anyway.  I really don't care much, and I didn't feel that his hobby needed to be prioritized above mine, but I'm probably still going to catch hell for it tomorrow when he gets home.  *sigh* 

I think that's enough for now.  Way past my bedtime. 

Two Days: Gone

I officially need something to do with my life.  I have spent most of the last two days doing the following:

1. Watching old Doctor Who reruns.  And new Doctor Who reruns.  And realizing that Doctor Who is totally Barty Crouch Jr.  That last one kinda sucks, really.  Cuz Doctor Who is awesome, and Barty Crouch Jr. was a complete asshole. 

2. Watching Eagle Cam.  Up in Decorah Iowa there is a fish hatchery.  Right near the fish hatchery, there is a bald eagle nest.  Some people who might be bigger nerds than I am (I say that with the utmost of love and respect... I adore nerds) have put two webcams up watching this eagle nest.  It streams, live, 24 hours a day (one of the cameras is infrared equipped for when the sun goes down) at http://www.raptorresource.org/ and there are a whole bunch of us dorks with nothing better to do than watch these eagles try to make a comfy nest in the middle of the ice and snow. 

Apparently it's still freaking cold in Decorah Iowa. 

When the nest is covered in snow, it kind of looks like a powdered sugar topped funnel cake.  NOW I WANT A FUNNEL CAKE, DAMMIT!  It looked like that this morning, but mama and daddy eagle have been working on the nest and now it mostly looks like a nest again.  This is halfway through the re-nesting.  It's even more cozy now. 

Speaking of nest, that thing weighs 1.5 tons.  TONS!  It's 6 feet in diameter.  And it's actually kind of a smallish, newer nest.  They just started this nest in 2007... the previous nest fell out of the tree when a branch broke in a windstorm.  Don't stand under it in a wind storm. 

Speaking of things to not stand under... today daddy eagle brought mama eagle a dove for lunch.  After mama had her fill, well, don't stand under the eagle! 

not shown: eagle poop

One of the cameras is fixed, the other can be manually operated.  The operator can pan around (i.e. the poop image above) and he can zoom in.  At one point I'm pretty sure daddy eagle looked me square in the eyes and saw all the way through to my heathen unpatriotic soul. 

At the peak of nest-building and camera-operating, the viewer count climbed over 1200. 

Meanwhile, I sit here watching it and the size of my ass also goes over 1200...  or something like that.  I should get up and do something productive with my day, especially now that the eagles are off doing something with their day. 



*All images are screengrabs I took while watching the video.  Credit goes to http://www.raptorresource.org/ go and give them advertising dollars or something. 

P.S. I didn't turn the computer off in time.  They both just showed up for some more nest building.  They're getting close to egg-laying time!  Oooh and daddy brought lunch!  Which led to a fight.  C'mon daddy, let mama eat... she's gotta make eggs. 

P.S.again if you do go watch eagle cam, be prepared for bloody lunch.  The circle of life is shown.  And eagle poop. 

I need a hobby.  Or a job.  Or a life. 

No, You Choose. Really.

An email conversation, for your enjoyment.  My friend... we'll call her Patty... and her husband were going to meet Hitter and me for dinner after she got off work last night.  And the following insanity ensued:

Patty (5:07 pm) Hey... are we still meeting tomorrow?
Me (6:12 pm) Yep we're planning on it.  You have to work, right?  Wanna meet somewhere halfway-ish?
P (7:31 pm) You pick.  We'll meet you there
P (8:24 pm) PS Hubby says no mexican, he's still allergic to seafood.  How about that fancy BBQ place halfway between us?
(me, inside my head: he's STILL allergic to seafood?  did he think that would go away?  and you ate at a mexican restaurant that serves FABULOUS shrimp enchiladas twice in the last month, so WTF?)
Me (8:34 pm) Perfect, I've been wanting to go there. 
P (8:48) Reservations are required.  How about 7:00?  Do you want to call or should I?
(and before I even had a chance to respond to this email or call)
P (8:52) Earliest reservation is 9:00, I said no.
(the next two emails were sent simultaneously)
Me (8:55) Yeah that's a bit late.  What about 1st Ave?  No reservations required, and Hitter and I can get there a little early to get our name on the list. 
P (8:55) I know Hubby said no mex, but what about Vista Grande?  I know we can sit around and drink and not get run out.  Let me know your thoughts.  No strip clubs.
Me (8:56) I wasn't aware there were any strip clubs around here!  Can your hubby stay sufficiently seafood-free there?  I mean I want to see you guys but it isn't worth anaphylactic shock!
P (10:32, replying to my 1st Ave suggestion) K, where is that?  I mean I know it's on 1st Ave, but which town?
Me (5:55 the next morning, 10:30 is WAY too late for me) Whoops!  I meant 1st Ave Grill!  It's across the street from the mall, just down the street from the fancy BBQ place you'd suggested.  (sidebar: I don't even know where there is a "first avenue" around here... they don't name streets that way in this little section of Hillbilly Hell)
P (7:58) Bandana's BBQ.  7:15.
(me: reading entire email thread to Hitter, laughing at how "you pick" turned into "here's what you're doing, and you're going to like it")
Me (12:05) OK see you then.
P (12:50) Is that ok?
Me (1:14) Yep
(me, inside my head: do I even have a choice?!)

This totally brought back the memory of the night, in the first year of our marriage, that Hitter offered to take me out to eat, and said "anywhere you want to go... your choice" 
Me: Italian
Him: No, I just had that yesterday at work
Me: Chinese
Him: No, I'm not really in the mood.  How about Mexican?
Me: what happened to "anywhere you want to go"?????
and for those keeping score, we still went for Mexican food. 
Hi, I'm a doormat.  How are you?

Of Dreams and Realities

Mother Nature is pretending it's spring!

The fact that I was excited by that statement is a real testament to how icy and bitter-cold the past couple weeks have been.  I'm a winter person.  Always have been.  My favorite vacations from my childhood were snow skiing trips.  I tend to hibernate in the summer.  But it's been witch's-titty cold lately and instead of snow we've had ice and I'm sick of it!  It got up to 60 yesterday, my garage is finally ice-free, and I've never been happier to see mud. 

No, wait, not that one.  I hate mud.  That is the biggest reason I hate spring.  I grew up on a farm, we raised cattle, mud is bad.  There are few things on earth that are more unpleasant than stepping right out of your rubber boot and sticking your sock-clad foot into sloppy wet cow-crap-and-mud.  It doesn't happen on purpose, but the mud suctions to the boot and the boot slides off your foot.  You can't help it.  It's awful.  And calves don't like to be born into mud.  You know those nice sterile hospitals where human babies are born?  Yeah, imagine instead having the baby come out of it's nice comfortable womb and being dropped into a swamp of slimy stinky sludge.  And then their navels get infected. 

I hate mud.  That was also possibly the most disgusting digression I've ever made.  I sure hope the sleep number bed guy is still reading my blog. 

Here's the thing though: spring makes me think I'm someone I'm not.  Spring makes me fantasize about gardening.  I dream about tomatoes and peppers and peas and beans and cucumbers and a million herbs and strawberries and carrots (I don't even like carrots much) and radishes (I hate radishes but Hitter loves them and I love to do things for Hitter... when it's spring and I'm dreaming) and blueberries and rhubarb (oh I love rhubarb, I've tried like 5 times to grow it here and I've failed just as many times) and flowers of every shape, size and color. 

And I dream... and I dream... and I see me in a floppy straw hat and flowerdy gloves out in my garden, lovingly tending to it, watering, fertilizing, weeding.  And I see me in the kitchen in my yellow apron (I already have the apron, I don't have the hat and gloves) putting up all my glorious produce.  I see jars of green beans and salsa and jams and jellies and pickles and pie fillings, I see dried fruits and vegetables, I see frozen bags of easy recipe fixins (hee hee I just said fixins) and I see myself with a giant smile on my face, loving it all.  And when it's winter I wish I had those jars and bags of foods.

But when reality hits, I'm lazy and I don't care. 

There are lots of things I could blame.  For starters, it's hard to garden in this little corner of Hillbilly Hell.  Our soil is nasty damned clay, solid packed crap that a little baby plant has no chance of pushing root fibers through, and even if it does make roots they either rot because the clay holds so much moisture or they shrivel up because the clay won't absorb moisture.  Trust me, this would make sense if you lived with clay.  Actually, no.  I live with it and it makes no sense.  But you would understand that what I said is true, somehow, oddly enough.  Also, summers are so miserable here with the heat and excessive humidity that when it comes time to go out and lovingly tend to the garden, I just want to hibernate in the basement.  I'd never see the summer sun if Hitter hadn't let me get a pool. 

Also, bending over a garden makes my back hurt so bad.  It takes me forever to get anything done because I'll do something for approximately 27 seconds and then I have to stand up and stretch for 4 minutes.  My garden space is a little claustrophobic too because we have so many deer around here that we had to put up an 8' high fence around it and we didn't want to fence in too much real estate so it's just a little box. 

So my spring dreams of gardening bliss end up being a weedy mess of untended wild plants so out of control that I can't even get in to reach the tomatoes that have miraculously turned red. 

Of course I also have dreams of having a clean house, and being a dancer, and doing all sorts of crafts.  Mostly I'm really good at playing computer games.  I think I should shut this damned thing off.  Except I've done that before too and I just find other stupid things to occupy my time and the productive things still get ignored.  I wish I could get a job being lazy, I'd be the best damned employee ever.

Oh great, I have a creepy stalker

As usual, I feel compelled to refer my readers back to a previous post, this time the sleepless adventure.  It's an obsession, don't mind me.  And it turns out I apparently have at least three readers!  There's Best Friend in the Eastern time zone, Best Friend in the Mountain time zone, and a new reader who works for a company that manufactures a product I previously referenced.  I'm not going to say which one, but the item in question is a piece of furniture upon which people sleep... using their number...  and I hate said product. 

I mean it's one thing to want people to read your blog.  But I'm not sure a customer service rep was exactly what I had in mind.  Especially one who is trying to convince me to love Hitter's bed.  First of all, how cushy of a job is that where he just reads blogs all day searching for product complaints?  Secondly, it was NOT a robot-reply, a human being had actually read what I wrote and looked at my pictures.  He referenced things that were very specific to me.

Also, I'm definitely not posting about this on Facebook... one of my nerdy high school friends will correct my damned grammar!  Asshole.  I didn't really mind the first comment too much, but the second friend thanking the first one kinda pissed me off.

I seem to be on a tangent. 

Moral of story here is new readers are good, creepy customer service stalkers are creepy.  (Clarification: new readers who are NOT members of my family, or friends of members of my family, or who would in any way shape or form let this crap get back to my family.  I think I need to delete all the family stuff and then not worry about whether or not the blog goes public)

God wants me to be rich, Part 2

Remember when the fates were giving me money?  It's happening again.  Well, the fates are trying, but MasterCard might be resisting. 

MasterCard is an asshole.

Clear back in December, I had just received the next two DVDs in my Netflix queue and I went to pop them into the DVD player in the living room and watch......

Wait, I need to give some background.  I'm a tightwad.  Sometimes.  I mean I had to get a camper and a brand new car and a smart phone and a laptop and a swimming pool and an acreage and new office furniture and my shiny new KitchenAid and... and... and... other stuff.  But by gosh and by golly I do NOT need to be spending $35 on a cheap little DVD player for the living room, because we have a portable take-along-in-the-car DVD player that has cables to use with a regular TV too if you want to.  And that's good enough for me! 

I may be a hypocrite.

So this portable DVD player doesn't just have a tray you drop the DVD onto, it has that little spindle thing that the DVD snaps onto. 

And nothing happened.  The DVD wouldn't play.  Wouldn't even get to the menu, much less actually play the movie.  So I opened it up to take the DVD out and check for scratches or dirt or whatever, which is a pretty common issue with Netflix.....

Discs snapped in half are not so common.  *sigh*  So I get out the other movie, checked it to make sure it wasn't broken before putting it in, stuck it into the DVD player, pushed play... and.....

*sigh*

Cracked that DVD too. 

At this point I was left with a moral dilemma.  Do I just stuff the DVDs back into the envelopes and ship 'em, hoping Netflix thinks they broke in the mail? Or do I not be a big fat jerk, and actually 'fess up to the fact that I broke them? 

I tried to be an asshole.  I really did.  I had gone so far as to put them back into their envelopes and seal it all up, and had them sitting on the TV cabinet waiting to go out in the mail.  But then the goody-two-shoes inside me took over and was all "that's just not right" so I got on the Netflix website and clicked on the "I lost or broke a DVD" button... twice... and they charged me like $30 for the two movies.  But at least I still had my soul...

Fast forward to last week.  We're having the Winter Storm of the Century (aka Snowpocalypse, aka Blizzargeddon) and we get a phone call from MasterCard asking if I was off making hundred dollar purchases at 4 different pharmacies that day.  Kudos to our credit card company for calling immediately (unlike fucking Citi Card and their shitty fraud detection unit... but that's a post for another day) so we got my card canceled and they're issuing me a new one. 

Fast forward to yesterday.  I've had two other movies out for like two weeks now... which is a stupid giant waste of money... and I need to go run some errands anyway, so I plan to take the two movies along and stuff them in the nearest blue box.  I grab two red Netflix envelopes from the top of the TV and head out the door.  Then last night I'm sorting through my mail... and find a Netflix envelope.  Hmm...  Did I mail back the Wii disc? 

Then this morning I open my email. 

I had mailed back the broken DVDs... that I had already admitted to breaking...

AND NETFLIX REFUNDED MY MONEY!

To the credit card that was emergency-closed last week.

I'm not entirely sure I'll ever see this money, but God wants me to be rich.  And that makes me happy.

P.S. Now I need to find where that other movie is...  and I'm clueless.