Harumph

It is now 5:30. I have left the dogs outside for about 40 minutes now while waiting for the furnace guy to show up (not the guy i called this morning, mind you. He never called me back. I could have been dead by now).

I rushed home (even left about 15 minutes early) because the lady at the oil place told me he was about 10 minutes away, which made me panic because i didn't think he would wait for me if i wasn't home yet. So when i got here, i let the dogs outside and figured it would just be easier to leave them out there for the 10 or 15 minutes it would take before the doorbell rang. The evil, evil doorbell that creates all manners of high-pitched, frantic, horrified dog-noises (as well as dog-face-and-claw-against-door noises). I was trying to avoid that. Ah well. Now i will have damp, cold dogs once i finally let them back in.

This is all sucking, exactly according to plan.

And it's still cold in here.

I'm sorry.

It was brought to my attention that you've been looking at a frenching rat for about a month now.
I did not realize that it's been that long.

It's been kind of a crazy few weeks and i started to write a post about my birthday weekend and then did not finish it and now who cares. It was a nice weekend, but at this point, it's kind of a waste to even talk about it.

Christmas was ok, but I've had a cold since last Friday, so my usual job of helping out my mother with dinner was much more of a chore than usual. I just couldn't get myself psyched about christmas. It kind of sucked. But i stuffed myself like an idiot as per usual and felt horrible afterwards.

In fact, so horrible that none of Christmas dinner stayed down.

Yay. Merry fucking Christmas, you have the famous New York Stomach Virus.

Tuesday night into Wednesday morning was quite eventful in the ClaireBear household. But you probably don't want to hear about that, so much.

I wound up calling in sick to work yesterday which is never a good idea the day before or after a holiday. They actually want a doctor's note from me for being out sick. However, i did not get to the doctor's yesterday on account of my being in bed all day. ALL DAY. Which is not something i ever do, even when i'm sick. It was bad.

On top of all the horking, the heat in my house miraculously died last night. DIED. No heat. In the house. House is cold. COLD, COLD HOUSE. I have been frantically trying to call the furnace guy all morning and begging his voicemail to come to my house and fix it, but he has not yet, as of 12:30 called me back yet. The dogs will most likely have icicles forming on their snotty noses today but i'm pretty sure that with the fur coats and all, they'll be better off than i would if i were there. Especially BigDog. She enjoys the cold.

This here was my Weekly Wrap Up. I hope you enjoyed sharing in my Christmas misery.

Please wish me luck.

Work and uh, work.

Today and tomorrow i'll be all alone. TheBoy is back in Boston for some more work-stuff and will be virtually incommunicado for two days. Not a huge deal, but it's rare that we're apart overnight and it gets kind of weird in the house by myself.

I take that back.

If i were ALL by myself, it probably wouldn't be quite as weird as it is with the two dogs WHINING and PINING and WAITING by the front door for him to come home. That's really the worst part. The later it gets, the jumpier they get. If a flea farts anywhere within a 5 mile radius, LittleDog barks, which makes me jump, and then i work on stopping my heart from racing. Repeat, ad nauseam.

I hate that.

So, i'm sure tonight i will be watching all the girly crap on the TeeVee that TheBoy has no interest in watching (maybe i'll finally check out Gossip Girl - a show that i've heard is horrible and yet must be watched) or maybe call it an early night and eat ice cream in bed or something. We'll see.


In other news, my Boss asked me to look into some industry-related training seminars. Apparently i'm slotted for one in the budget and i had better start looking before i lose it at the end of March. It's not easy, this training seminar searching, because i have to find something that is either close enough to not be a pain in the ass to drive to, something just far away enough that i can stay in a hotel (if it is more than 1 day), but not too far away that it won't be approved by management.

So far, i have found one in New Brunswick, NJ (just close enough that i will have to drive everyday - roughly 2 hours each way), one in Costa Mesa, CA (too far, and too nice for them to pay for it) and one in Dublin, Ireland (fat chance in hell, that one).

I think i'll have to start preparing my justification statement now if i want to spend 3 days in sunny Orange County in March on my employer's dime. Ooh. Won't that be nice?

Meh - i'm sure they'll stuff me in a class in Manhattan if i don't find something myself. Better keep looking...

I am anything but preachy.

So after all that shit on Monday, I decided to stay home yesterday and recover from whatever the hell it was that was vexing me. I think it was satan. Or maybe allergies. Hard to tell.

It has been awhile, hasn’t it. And thank you to TwoBusy for pointing that out and placing bets on my next post... Which is precisely why I’m posting today! Spite. It is my greatest motivator.

Things have changed around again at work and I think for the better. After petitioning and a little begging, they’ve moved me back downstairs to the older, homier office space (where the rest of my department is – go figure) and I finally feel like I belong to my new department. I can actually ask my co-workers questions, people who know what I’m talking about rather than just staring at me slack-jawed. Also, it’s much less quiet down here. MUCH less quiet. So I feel a whole lot less conspicuous than I did upstairs in the library-quiet ivory tower of executives. Down here is a little dirtier, a little rowdier, and a whole lot more comfortable.

The problem, though, is that I have less privacy than I did in my cube upstairs, so even though I wasn’t posting much upstairs, it was mostly because I was trying to learn my job. Not because of the spies. Down here, I have a woman sitting across the aisle who can see what I’m doing if she just cocks her head slightly to the side. Not that I think she cares, but I’ve lived in No-Innernets-At-Work fear for far too long to give up the paranoia now. So for now, I will be trying to be all covert-like and sly with my posting. We’ll see how this works out.

Yesterday morning I woke up at the normal time and threw myself at the bathroom and tried to get myself pumped up to take a shower. Instead, I wound up sitting with my eyes closed on the bathroom floor with BigDog, and decided to say ‘fuck that shit’ and get back into bed. I haven’t taken a sick day since July, so I figured I was about due for one. I called in to work and snuggled down with my favorite thing in the whole wide world, my pillow. My sweet, soft,loving pillow who loves me and misses me when I go. Oh, how it misses me and I it. Mmmm… pillow.

As TheBoy was getting ready for work (the sucker), we had MSNBC on the tv and they were talking about the 9/11 memorial that was going to be going on later in the day. I was only half-listening so after TheBoy left, I kept the tv on as background noise and tried to get back to sleep.

While I was drifting in and out of sleep, I’m pretty sure they played the original news footage from 9/11 in its entirety without interruption or commentary from the news people.

If there was any punishment for calling in sick for no good reason, that was it.

Wow, I had some of the most horrific dreams i have ever had. I didn’t see it coming and I woke up in a cold sweat.

I don’t really have much more commentary than that, because as tempted as I am, I don’t want to get into a post-9/11 dissertation that may perhaps ruffle some feathers. I am not a ruffler. I will just say that a few months ago, I did watch the full news footage from that day and it is really incredible to see it all as the events progressed, knowing what we know now. Horrible and frightening, but since we already know what’s coming it is interesting to watch as the speculation unfolds. If you’re feeling strong, I recommend watching it for yourself. And remembering.

That’s all.

Well then.

So, uh.

Hi there.


You may be saying, "Jebus Christmas, woman. It's been a month and a half since we've heard from you. Where in the F have you been? And it better be good."

To which I would say, "Um... nowhere...?"

I've just been wiped off the face of the planet, it seems, for a month and a half and I really don't have anything to show for it. No, really. I've been working in my little cubicle in cubicle-land, day after day, without much entertainment. I don't know. Maybe I lost the inspiration to talk about the nothingness that has been my summer.

So, I’m sorry about that. For those of you who checked in with me to see if I was dead. I'm not. Now you know.

****************************

For newsworthiness, lets take a look at what kind of expenses I have coming up that I can't afford, not even with credit because I am poor in the sense of OHMYGOD where is all my money GOING??

• This past weekend, I had my school orientation. I'm starting up my bachelors (after graduating with my associates in December) and have done absolutely no research to try and get this shit moving before the semester starts the last week of August.

I am so screwed. I haven't registered for classes yet because I need to see a "Transfer Advisor" before being allowed to register. I haven't seen a Transfer Advisor, because I would need to go to the school during office hours and I haven't actually worked up the desire to try to get this all moving and take a day off of work and just DO IT already. I am so not excited about this and it kind of scares me. I can't really afford it, though I know I’ll just make it work somehow, as per usual. But if I could just register for a class on my own and get my ass in the classroom twice a week, I’ll be fine. Just let me do it on my own, I don't want to have to talk to someone within the bureaucracy that is a state-run university. It sucks, and everyone is mean and doesn't give a shit about how lost you are. You make phone calls and they'll transfer you all around campus because no one wants to deal with you, until you're on hold for 20 minutes and someone just hangs up. Goddamn them.

• I was asked to be a bridesmaid in Cousin G's wedding. Quite frankly, when she told me that she got engaged, I really didn't think I would be in the wedding party at all and I was actually really pissed off about it for awhile. When she started making wedding plans she wasn't giving me straight answers about the wedding party. I very staunchly assumed I was not going to be in it which I felt was a total slap in the face, because we had been such close friends, with the exception of the past 3 years or so.

Heh. I was wrong.

She was waiting to ask me when she figured out how many guy-friends her fiancé wanted in the party. So uh, yeah. I kind of felt like an ass, but now I am kicking myself for even wanting to be asked. It is so not worth it. How the hell was I supposed to know that I’m expected to PAY for things?? Why didn't anyone WARN ME?? Ugh... I have to go to lunch with the Maid of Honor and the two mothers on Sunday to work out the prices of the Bridal Shower. I am so unprepared for how much someone else's wedding is going to cost me.

• Also, I have not purchased an Engagement Present, which is apparently mandatory in the year 2007. Had no idea. What the fuck am I supposed to get her? Also, am like 3 months late on this. Help?

• BigDog had some trouble in June. She had been limping for awhile and we weren't quite sure what was wrong, so we took her to the vet. That was a joyous couple of hours, let me say. 113lbs of very strong, very scared dog had to be held down by 2 vet techs, the vet, TheBoy and myself while trying to feel around her joints to see where the injury is. There was a lot of screaming (BigDog), a lot of peeing (also BigDog), some blood (a vet tech who received a hard kick from BigDog and her long, sharp nails) and copious amounts of drool (also, mostly from BigDog).

It sucked. She's been on some anti-inflammatory and gloucosimine pills and has shown improvements. I'm hoping the pills will make it all better, because doggy-ACL ligament repair surgery is way out of my price range. I love her, but she needs to get a job that pays for health benefits, because pet insurance is a rip off. So says me.

These are just some of the fun things that have been going on in my world. Aren't you excited to get caught up? I know; it's enthralling, my life.

On the bright side, however, I may be getting to the beach this weekend and I think it's about time.
It's August, and I haven't been to the beach yet once this year.
And I live about 15 minutes from a really nice ocean beach.
There are no excuses, people.

Except the forecast calls for a chance of thunderstorms.

Dammit.

This is my 100th post.

It took me a long time, but I've made it - Post #100. Isn't it exciting? I feel like i should decorate with streamers and party hats or something, but I'm really just not in the mood.

To look back at my last post where i apparently made it sound like i was pregnant (First Nations, that's not even a little funny, not a little none at all icky yuck), i would like to clarify a bit and just say that in reality, TheBoy and I will be living off of my ridiculously small salary for a little while until um, a NEW and shiny salary comes into TheBoy's life. See, I'm not going to come out and say what actually happened, because that might be an invasion of someone's privacy and it's not like me to cross those lines.

So with that, I've been very stressy for the past couple of weeks and am now realizing that I've abandoned this here blog and feel kind of stressy about that, too, because i like it here and don't really want to lose it. But, while I've been at work or figuring out how to save money or not spend it at all, i have not had a considerable amount of time to sit down and spill my guts. Though this is much cheaper than therapy, should i ever decide i need some, it would be more economical to keep doing this rather than paying a shrink. You know.

-------------------

In other news, and unexpected money-spendingness, BigDog had a bit of a boo-boo on Monday which needed the vet's attention (and my credit card). She had a sebaceous cyst on her back that ruptured suddenly and violently, creating a nickel-sized hole on her shoulder. It is gross. It was still discharging yesterday. It is moist. And a hole.

And now we have to feed her antibiotics - which is fine for me, poke the pills into a spoonful of peanut butter and she's a happy puppy - and apply a topical bacitracin ointment.

I am having a real hard time with the bacitracin. Mostly because i am finding it really hard to smear a glob of stuff into an open wound. It's just gross and really hard to do, especially since the stuff is so gooey. And it must hurt like hell. Poor thing.

The vet said, she'll hardly notice us smearing her with ointment. HA! HAHA! He really shouldn't have said that after it took 4 vet techs to wrestle her down to shave all of her fur out from around the area, give her an injection and while they were at it, try to clip her nails. (Which, by the way, is a good-fucking-luck job for just about anyone. The vet techs have never been able to do it, and our fantastic groomer has finally given up. I don't even want the groomer to do it anymore because BigDog has caused some major bodily damage to an assistant while trying to clip her damn nails. Dogs are fun, eh?) They only got one before they gave up, and really, i wasn't expecting anything more than that.

So now we're dealing with a BigDog who doesn't trust us, "Come here puppy! Let me stick my finger in your boo-boo!" a LittleDog who would like to know why BigDog is getting all the peanut butter, and no money.

Luckily i have off for the rest of the week again, while i eat away at my remaining vacation days. Company policy is Use it or Lose it if you don't use your vacation days before your anniversary, so i am happily fucking off for a couple of days.