Caterwauling

Because Fate saw that I was looking a little hungry, it decided to serve up a shit souffle. My best friend, who was supposed to be in D.C. today, was unable to get on the plane because she and her two small kids are sick.

She had left a VM for me a couple of days ago to tell me the bad news, but I couldn’t retrive the message. I felt like it was bad news. I knew she was the one who’d called, but as her visit was the one thing in life that was sort of keeping me going, I felt the rock in my stomach and knew not to ruin that particular day.

I’m going to give you one of about 4,000 reasons why this woman is the BEST best friend a girl can have. Her new plan is to come out here in May to help me move. (Seriously, only the world’s BEST best friend would travel 3,000 miles for that kind of odyssey! Of course, if she moves back here, I’ll return the favor.)

Perhaps the only reason I’m not on suicide watch at her inability to visit THIS time is that we’ve talked a half-dozen times since then, of course — not to mention that she’d trained her precious 2-year-old to call me to wish me a “Happy V.D., Aunt Dawn!” (ingenious!)

Alex is potty-training right now, and when she’s done with her toilet time, she announces, “The end!”

Well yesterday, she said those words as my friend was attending to her 6-month-old son. So she asked her daughter to stay still for just a second (which she didn’t) as she raced across the room to put her training pants on her. Then Alex said, “Uh oh! More!” So my friend scooped her up to drag her back to the potty, at which time she stepped in the pile of poo that the kid had deftly left on the floor.

Reason #752 that I don’t want to have kids. 😉 I just couldn’t possibly handle the glamour of it all.

Of course, I told her to train Alex when to say “the end” and when it’s more appropriate to say “to be continued. …”

This, to me, is a great lesson in punctuation. It exemplifies when you should use ellipsis points instead of an exclamation point. Or, like I said in Reason #752, when a period (get it?) is better than anything else at all. … 😉

I normally drive like a bat out of hell to work, with rare exception.

During a short stretch of highway, however, I took exception today.

On the road that connects 395 to the GW Parkway, I have the Pentagon on my right and Arlington Cemetery on my left.

I always look at both. I always drop down onto the parkway and admire the monuments on the other side of the Potomac, so realize that I love that part of my drive.

Today, though, as I looked upon the thousands upon thousands of white headstones in the cemetery, I saw a regular sight, but one that made me pause nonetheless. I saw a funeral in progress — a small one, with maybe seven or eight family members dressed in black.

And although all I had was a momentary glimpse, they all seemed relatively young — 20s, 30s, 40s. I’d like to think they were burying someone who’d come back from another war and who’d gone on to live a long and fulfilling life — not someone who met his or her fate in this “war that never ends” in Iraq.

The snow from the weekend has melted under 50-degree-plus sunlight. It almost seems unfair that the sun should shine on such a tragic day for the people who loved the person they were returning to the earth. But then again, perhaps the light and warmth is the one shred to which we cling that the world will still turn even though that person is gone.

I said a few words in my mind for the soldier and his or her family. And I thought about my grandfather’s mother — four of her boys went off to World War II at the same time, and for that she was known as a “four-star mother.” In my mind, I think “saint” would be a more fitting term — I don’t know if I’d be more scared fighting a war in some foreign, hostile country or whether I were waiting to hear news (of any kind) about someone I loved who was.

I know wars are necessary and they’ve enabled the liberations of many nations, including my own. But Mr. President, it’s time to make the war that’s in progress end. Haven’t we lost enough of our own already? How much more can the people of this country take?

The blogosphere is full of the same, tired crap this Valentine’s Day. There are two camps spewing the same, unoriginal bullshit.

In one corner, we have the happy! in love! we celebrate our union daily! and this holiday is wonderful! camp. Then we have the it’s a Hallmark holiday! meant to torture singletons! I’m going to wear black! where’s the half-off candy bin? group.

In the interest of full disclosure, count me in the second group. But I don’t want to be. So hand over the candy and no one gets hurt. 😉

In a high-school anthropology class, the instructor gave us a brilliant magazine article called “You don’t bring me flowers.” It was an opinion piece, written by someone who abhors the holiday about as much as getting a root canal done, about how absolutely stupid it is to send and receive flowers. But, he concluded, maybe he wouldn’t mind the flower thing so much if someone would actually SEND him some.

TRUTH IN ADVERTISING

You know why I hate the holiday? Because nobody gives a shit if I have a good one. Period.

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I love green. My new template belies that. My eyes are green, and I wear lots of it to try to bring them out. (Case in point, this old photo. And for the record, do I have any non-cleavage shots? Yeah, didn’t think so.)

Ahem. Anyway, my mom sent me a valentine today, and in it she gave me a sheet of Muppets postage stamps.

I called her to see just how large of a crack rock she was smoking thank her for thinking of me, and she said, “Yeah, I know you like Kermit, but they wouldn’t do a full sheet of those.”

And I had one of those horrible childhood flashbacks.

“Mom,” I said, “I didn’t like Kermit. In fact, I didn’t much like the Muppets in general. YOU were the one who liked Kermit. You’re the frog collector.”

She was stunned. “But you liked frogs.”

“Because YOU did,” I said.

And then the downward spiral in my mind began.

HERE’S THE STORY …

Maybe my mom was just overly excited about everything when I was a kid, but she liked “Kermie” (as Miss Piggy called him), so much so that I always associated him with her.

One night, I was happily parked in front of the TV when the Muppets came on. I must have been 4 or 5, and I ran to get Mom so she could see her froggy beau.

So I ran into her bedroom to say, “Kermit’s on TV!”

Yeah, that might’ve been true, but my stepfather? Was on HER.

Ewww.

I had no idea, of course, what the hell I’d walked in on. All I remember is her underwear and her beloved Virginia Beach T-shirt lying on the floor.

(That’s where they’d eloped to, and the day before they ran off, I as a precocious 3-year-old had said, “Mommy, don’t do it.” I hated him and didn’t want her to go do whatever it was that meant we were going to have to live with him. No wonder my grandmother thought I was the smartest kid on earth.)

So, I didn’t know what to do, so I closed the door and went back to the TV. And I never much cared for Kermit after that. 😉

I told mom the story today, and she’s more than horrified and is probably killing herself as I type this. But what else is a child to do than to torment her mother for all the things that contributed to screwing (heh) her up in life?!?!

On a Monday

1. Is there snow on the ground where you are?

Yup. Although I have to give D.C. major props as they were actually prepared for the latest odyssey. That and I live/work off of major interstates, so the roads were wonderfully clear.

2. When is the last time you played in the snow?

I was never allowed. Mom never let me get dirty in any way, shape or form. I was always dressed up and you seriously don’t want to see that woman freak out over so much as a ring on the coffee table. She used to be wonderfully neurotic like that — now she couldn’t give a shit less.

3. Do you generally like snow?

I’m accustomed to it (28 years lived in Pittsburgh, I tended to see it occasionally!). I don’t hate it. But the ice drives me mad, so no, Mother Nature and Old Man Winter need to quit cavorting, thanks.

4. Have you ever had a snowball fight?

I was trying to remember whether I did at recess in school or not. I probably would’ve been the kid who packed snow around a rock and beaned the popular kids. I’ll never tell. 😉

5. Do you like to ski or snowboard?

Is that multiple-choice? ‘Cause the answer would be no to either. I was kind of upset with myself that I didn’t ski when I went to Aspen — they have a lovely beginner run called Buttermilk, where you’re pretty much walking on flat ground in skis. But I can barely stay upright on solid ground, so I took a pass. Maybe I’ll grow a set if I ever get back there.

6. Have you been watching the winter Olympics?

Not if I can find anything better to watch.

7. If so, what’s your favorite even to watch?

My boss and I were watching men’s curling. Seriously, we needed our own show because the snark was flying a hell of a lot faster than those idiots were running in front of the Roomba-type object with their brooms. High entertainment value, I say.

8. Have you ever built a snow fort?

If I’d sat in my car this morning, with eight inches of snow on it, would that have counted?

9. What’s your worst snow-related injury?

I fall on my ass all the time on ice. I remember years ago, I got off the bus and waved for the driver to turn the corner so I could try to waddle across the street unnoticed.

But he was wonderful and insisted on sitting there so that I could cross with the lights of the bus (it was really late at night). Well, leave it to me to go ass over teakettle in the middle of the street — my feet went up over my head and I landed on my back. In a skirt. My ass? Bruised. It was that day when I realized that having a bejunked trunk is something to be thankful for sometimes, ’cause I bounced right back up!

10. Ask me something.

I’m going to be in your neck of the woods this weekend. Will the snow be melted by then?

I got six inches last night, and (damn!) it wasn’t of any kind of variety worth bragging about! 😉

We’d been warned here in D.C. that we could see up to 14 inches of the white fluffy stuff. (Insert requisite joke that nobody’s ever seen anything that’s both white and 14 inches that isn’t battery-operated! Ahem.)

Anyway, this is the view from my balcony this morning. I can’t complain because it’s a mild inconvenience compared to Winter 2003, when I had to dig my car out of this shit:

I haven’t gone more than a week without blogging since, well, 2001. So, please excuse the twitching as I try to overcome my withdrawal — I’ve blogged in my head all week and now that the site is functional again, I find myself with a lot to say and no idea where to begin.

I did, however, write in my paper journal and I have been adding to my NaNoWriMo novel. (I hit my 50,000 words on Nov. 30, and I am just a sentence or two shy of 60,000 as of today.) I can’t go TOO long without writing!

FOR ALL TWO OF YOU WHO NOTICED MY ABSENCE

I stopped blogging three times in my life. Once was in 2001, three months after I set up my first Diaryland blog (*sniffle* — memories!). I was trying to cope with something I really couldn’t talk much about, and I set up a private page. Then I sort of left it unupdated for awhile (I worked a stressful, all-consuming job. And my boss? At first we thought she was Satan’s Handmaiden. But then we realized that nope, this was in fact Satan — the daily hot pitchfork in the ass should’ve been a dead giveaway.)

What I didn’t know then is that blogs go dead if you don’t update them after awhile. Whoops. Diaryland was NOT helpful in my request to restore my heartbreaking entries. Which, while that was some of my best writing, it was the healing that it spurred that I needed to take with me.

Then there was that pesky incident in 2004 when I ripped the blog down after I realized it had been found by unfriendly eyes. After going into hiding, the “other parties present” trailed me again, so I gave up on that and started the MyName.com blog, which morphed into this one.

But seriously, THANK YOU for the e-mails. But no, the very vocal webhosting group did not give me the boot (although I did migrate elsewhere to a host that, while the tech support isn’t as superb, my new package doesn’t come with offensive name-calling in the comment box, unwanted e-mails or “interestingly worded” cease & desist letters).

Nor was the blog found at work (they already know about it and we spend so freaking much time together that they have no need to read it — it’s not like I have enough time to come up with new material that they haven’t heard already!).

Christ, it occurs to me that I move apartments as much as I move websites! (And yes, that’s happening in May, too. Gah.) But I can’t think that far ahead — I have enough disasters in progress.

ONE DISASTER AT A TIME, PLEASE

So I was driving to work at 6 a.m. the other day (I had this Big Project that I could seemingly only accomplish during off-hours — early/late at the office and latER at home) when my phone died.

Cingular and I haven’t been getting along. Moreover, it was the former AT&T Wireless that’s been getting my goat. I renewed my contract (AGAIN) in December (I’ve been with them for five years), at which time I bought phones and got a paltry rebate. I’d asked at the time of purchase if they could just apply the rebate as a credit to the account, but that was a production (as was everything else) and ultimately a no.

Two months went by — no bills, no nothing. My old account was suspended immediately and I couldn’t create a new account for weeks. When I finally could set up a new account online, I saw that my bill was $11. Whatever. I paid it.

Suddenly, I owe them a shitload of money. And they’ve called every fucking day and sent a letter every two days, wondering where I am. And where was my stupid rebate? It got here yesterday. So what did I do? Went online and paid the fucking bill WITH THE REBATE. LIKE I’D ASKED TO DO IN THE FIRST PLACE.

I still have to settle the former AT&T account, but at least my phone won’t be turned off now.

So, I was driving to work during that 6 a.m. morning when the phone died. I was listening to my MP3s on it, and the thing, although fully charged, petered out.

And as I drove along the Potomac River, I looked up at the sky and pretty much did a, “Look God, I get it. I understand all the trials. I will overcome them. But I am NOT as strong as you think I am. You’ve got to throw me a bone because I am CRUMBLING.”

It wasn’t just because of the phone. It was also because my best friend from Oregon had called me the night before to say her husband has a job interview and D.C. and that she would be accompanying him. But the kicker? That they were arriving the DAY I am going to New York and leaving TWO DAYS before I come back.

I seriously was going to call in dead. There was no way I could go to New York and miss seeing her. I’m already having a wee bit of a tough time (not a bad time, just a tough time) in every single life domain, and this? Was going to be the death of me.

IN WHICH THE HIGHER BEING DOES THROW A BONE

She left a VM for me that night, saying they will be in town two days earlier than expected. Whee! OMG, holy shit THANK YOU, UNIVERSE! And my always-cool boss allowed me to take some seriously short-notice personal days so that I can see her and not be a raving bitch for the New York trip. (I’ll only be my usual level of bitch, which is too exhausted to rave. LOL)

We’ve already got plans to do our “old usual” of manicures and much beer-drinking at Bennigan’s. She’s bringing the kids, too, so well, I hope they like beer. 😉

Seriously, how cute are these two?

Alex looks just like her dad, and Jordan is the spitting image of his mom. I haven’t seen Alex since October 2004, but we talk on the phone once a week. I’ve disowned other friends for making me talk to their kids on the phone, but Alex always asks for me and she loves to chatter. She blows kisses and, lately, has taken to putting the phone up to Jordan’s ear and telling him, “Talk Aunt Dawn!”

Alex called me at work yesterday (via her mom, of course). She wanted to say, “See you soon!” Which was promptly followed by an “I’m pooing, Aunt Dawn!” At which time I told my friend I might need to go to New York early after all. 😉

Anyway, life has SUCKED and continues to kick my ass, but that we only seem to have two six inches of snow and not the 14 we were warned to expect — and that my lifeline is coming back to town and maybe someday eventually for GOOD (which she will because her husband is a charmer and he will undoubtedly win over the interviewees when they meet him!) — life is definitely looking up.

That and I do love New York.

Well, maybe I will THIS trip. At this point, there’s no reason not to. 😉

Look, I am one of those people who — if I can do something myself — I will DO it and I will do it WELL. I hate asking people for anything and I hate it even worse when there’s something I cannot do at ALL.

There’s this company I deal with because, well, fate has thrown me that hand. I order from them once a month. They are in California, a good 3,000-plus miles away.

I used to buy their product from a much more competent third-party distributor. This company was efficient and effective. It also delivered to my post office box.

This wonderful party discontinued the product, so I have to order from the manufacturer.

I cannot find an acceptable substitute. And believe me, I’ve tried.

So today makes FOUR times — FOUR!!!! — that the manufacturer has Fucked Up my order.

Not the order so much as the address.

First of all, I’ve been ordering from them for years. YEARS. And my disgust grows stronger with every passing DAY.

So, they get the order right, but the fuck up the shipping address every time.

First of all, they refuse to ship via USPS and send things into the abyss known as UPS. I hate UPS. I got cut off tonight at 7:30 p.m. on the Beltway by a UPS truck. I almost crashed into it. Maybe it held my package!

Anyway, this manufactuer-type company — what they do is delete my company name from the address. Which, duh, I work in a Big Complex with Lots of Companies. My name + street address + city and state doesn’t do a shit bit of good to a UPS driver with a bajillion other companies to visit. I highly doubt they’d go that extra step to ask every business if I work there.

Anyway, last month when the order got fucked up, I called the company and asked WTF was going on. The customer service rep tried to convince me I was nuts. Which I would have accepted HAD IT NOT HAPPENED BEFORE. So he assured me that he made the change in their database but that I’d have to hunt down UPS to find out where my package went. *sigh*

It was suggested that there might have been a glitch with the website where I’d ordered it from. He told me to just call next time, as the phone people are quite competent.

Fast-forward to last week. I called, I ordered, I confirmed the company name was listed, I conquered.

Or so I’d thought.

I got my confirmation e-mail on Saturday to say the order had been shipped. Was their a company address on it? Noooooo.

For the record, in my MANY conversations with this company, I’d bitched to holy hell how I HATE sending shit to work because it’s nobody’s business what I’m ordering. And I hate it that they don’t deliver to P.O. Boxes, as when shit gets sent home, I’m never there for it and UPS ain’t open on weekends, so my stuff invariably gets placed in a holding facility until I can somehow swing some time to go stand in line on a workday to get it.

*sigh*

OK, so I called the company on Saturday — AGAIN — and raised hell, only to be told, “There’s no company name for you on file. Just (Blah blah addresscakes).”

I flipped. I mean, really. I lost my cookies. I asked where I can order their product, because the product is superb but their staff are fucking MORONS.

I was given the name of another third-party distributor (which, for the record, does NOT sell it and YES I DID CHECK). I was also told that, “We’ve made the fix to your records THIS TIME” and that “Um, you’ll have to contact UPS yourself to get the package in transit.”

Bah.

Fine.

Whatever.

I have them on speed dial.

So I called UPS on Saturday. I explained that we’d gone through this before with this stupid company and could they pretty please make it all better like they did the last time?

The rep assured me that he made the fix to my records while I was on the line. And that I’d get the package Monday.

So with today being Tuesday night and I’m on fire, guess who has YET to see her package?

I went to the UPS tracking website, where it has said for two days that there’s no company name/suite number and therefore the thing is undeliverable. And it also bore the CROCK OF SHIT of “We are trying to verify the address.”

With whom?

Seriously, WITH WHOM are you verifiying this address? I gave two reachable phone numbers (real ones! Not the usual fake ones I give out to creditors and such!) and neither one of those bitches were ringing duriing the past week!

So I got a UPS customer service rep on the line today and, per the usual, RAISED HOLY HELL.

Her response?

“There’s no record of you calling on Saturday. There’s no company name on file. You’ll have to pick up the package yourself in (city that I don’t know worth a shit).”

My blood? BOILING.

I asked why I paid for shipping and handling in the first place.
She rescheduled the delivery for tomorrow.

God willing, I’ll see it. I’m not suffering through these semantics for something I can do without.

I hate this shit.

UPDATE: The package came first thing in the morning. Sweet! I dread when I need to order again next month. …

In Pittsburgh, that’s what all the restaurants were advertising as their daily specials today — “Filet of Seahawk.” And hot damn, my boys WON the Super Bowl! Cahr Pahr!

(That’s “Cowher Power” for those of you who speak non-Pittsburghese.)

I knew we were going to win. First of all, I was wearing my lucky shirt (pictured). But more importantly? As halftime ended and the game was about to begin again, a Bon Jovi song was playing in the stadium. I mean, hello, my favorite team AND my favorite band? It’s called a sign!

I was yelling and going apeshit through the game — it was an awesome one. I didn’t cry, though, till Jerome Bettis spoke at the after-show and announced his retirement with a simple, “The ‘Bus’ stops here.” *sniffle*

If I had any brains at all (let’s dream for a minute here), I would have spared my neighbors the yelling and whooping from inside the hacienda. I regret not arranging for a personal day tomorrow, as I should have gone to one of the District’s many Pittsburgh bars and met some men.

Seriously, I pass like a ghost through the streets here, but when I go to Pgh just to VISIT, I get phone numbers. I should’ve been partying with other Iron City expats instead of dreading my morning routine experiencing my own fumble.

Oh, yeah, about that. …

I had just painted my toenails and wandered into my bedroom for something. But then I heard the part where my boy “Big Ben” was making the touchdown just before halftime, and well, I RAN for the living room.

Problem being, I was trying not to distub the wet nail polish, so I was running with my toes upturned and with nary a thought that there might be any, say, OBSTACLES like a CAT TOY in my path.

Alas, I went ass over teakettle, just as Ben was also face-down on the ground. At least he earned a few game points for his trouble. Me? Left a few red paint-streaks on the carpet.

Forget buying game jerseys — I need the fucking HELMET to walk around my house in. 😉

I have to tell you, your e-mails asking if my webhost shut me off like they did a certain someone else not too long ago made my day. Really. 😉

But alas, I’m the one who’s been tinkering behind the scenes in an attempt to upgrade and stuff. I can’t import MySQL for some unknown reason and I really don’t love the new WordPress, so consider this a disaster area space to be under construction for awhile.

Oh, and thanks to the idiot who hacked the site while it was down. Really. Bravo. I curse you with scab-inducing, pus-filled crotch rot.

In any event, it’s Super Bowl Sunday, so GO STEELERS!!!!!