Blown Fuse

"Is your refrigerator running?"

Here's the update. The refrigerator repair dude showed up at 11:45. He went out to his van, got the part he needed, and fixed the refrigerator.

He replaced a 3/4" rubber washer and the job took less than fifteen minutes.

It cost us $65.

Fuck going back to work in an office. I'm going to take courses in appliance repair and start my own business. I'll charge crazy rates. The housewives would love me--I wouldn't be very intimidating with an infant strapped to my back, so they won't be afraid to let me in the house when they're home alone.

Brokeback Refrigerator

Unbefuckingleivable. Stuff like this ALWAYS happens to us. We get a bit of a windfall, say such as a tax refund, and some shit in the house goes "kablooie!" That's what happens when you buy a money pit.

I'm not sure when this happened. All I know is that yesterday I was in the kitchen making a sandwich and it felt as if there was water coming through my socks. I squatted down to the floor to see if Puffy Savage had done her business in the kitchen and didn't see any puddles. Cool. I went on about my business (business involving roast beef). Water on the kitchen floor really isn't that big of a deal - maybe I had sprayed a little when I was filling the tea kettle or something, who knows?

Later on, I walked through the kitchen again and AGAIN felt my socks get wet. This time I noticed that the linoleum tiles (shut up - we didn't pick them) in front of the refrigerator were peeling up. I was pissed. I have people coming over on Friday. I pushed it down with my foot and figured I'd cover it with the rug if need be. Then, the little "common sense" center of my brain kicked on and said "Dumb-ass, LOOK UNDER THE FUCKING TILE." So I did that. Twice. Didn't see what the big deal was. After my third cup of tea I put one and one together and finally figured out that the fridge was leaking and the subfloor was soaked.

Heh heh, here's the funny thing. You're going to laugh now. Monday when Scott came home, he asked me if I'd spilled some water on the floor. I answered "Yes." He asked how much. I gave him stink-eye. What difference did it make? I spilled about a quarter of a cup of water on the carpet in the t.v. room while Roland and I were watching Star Trek. I dabbed it up and moved the ottoman over it. I didn't think it was that big of a deal.

So...our lines got crossed. He thought that I had spilled water on the KITCHEN floor and I thought he was making a big stink out of a spill on the T.V. ROOM floor. So...overnight the area got even more wet.

Oops.

You know how normally you can go into the yellowpages, call a service guy, and expect him to be out the SAME FUCKING DAY? Because THAT'S WHAT THEY DO? Because stuff like this is EMERGENCY-LIKE? Yeah, well, they don't give a shit about you. They don't return your calls, they don't drive out to Durham, and they don't come out the same day.

"I'll be out tomorrow. Between 10 and 1."

Fuckers. So, now I have a booby-trapped refrigerator that we can't unplug because there's frozen breast milk and too much food to waste in there.

When we sell this house, I'm going to make sure we replace the fridge first, even if it's just a cheap contractor's model. I don't know what we did to deserve these home improvement nightmares, but I hope our karma is better than the previous owners of this house for wanting to fix them before we sell.

Obligatory boring Sunday post

AWESOME!!! IT'S RAINING!!! HARD!!!

Y'all know about my love affair with precipitation, right? Rain on Sundays when you have nothing else to do but sit around nagging your husband is super-relaxing. I did want to get outside and rake the leaves out of our driveway while there are two of us in the house to tend the baby, but I guess that'll have to wait [if I could figure out how to get him safely strapped into his carrier I'd just wear him while raking, but that sounds like a head-bump waiting to happen].

In other news, anti-social me has volunteered to plan/host events for other local moms with babies Rosco's age. I figured it'd be a good way to network with people whose extracurricular activities don't include barhopping and one-night stands (I'm all grown up, I guess!). I'll let you know more about that as the first event approaches.

Better than a white-tipped cane, but oh well.

You may not know this about me, but I wear Coke bottle glasses. Or would, anyway, if I ever took my contact lenses out. I'm super-nearsighted. I've been wearing corrective lenses since I was in the fourth grade. I would have been wearing them before then if my mother certain people had actually believed me when I said "I can't see!" Instead, they just chalked it up to me wanting to sit really close to the television. No, I'm not bitter about the fact that my eyesight could be much stronger right now if I was treated earlier. Not at all.

Anyway, the last pair of frames I bought was in 1999. Those bitches were expensive - a pair of plastic Calvin Kleins that were the latest fashion. Add to the cost of designer frames the expense of special lenses that are cut from a special material so that your lenses aren't as thick as a glass coffee table and we're talking upwards of $350 for one pair of glasses.

Needless to say I kept those frames until now. I only replaced the lenses once...shit, it was before we moved into this house. 2003? Well, that's what happens when you're blind as a bat and don't have lens and frames coverage.

When we got this year's tax refund I had to get a pair of glasses. Had to. I can't keep wearing contact lenses all the time (even if the doc did say my eyes look fine for someone who sleeps in the seven nights/week).

What I hated most about my CKs was that I had to push them all the way up to the bridge of my nose to be able to see clearly, otherwise I had to peer over them like a librarian. This time around I didn't care about aesthetics - I just wanted something that would stay on my face. I actually wanted something really, really dorky a la Arvid from Head of the Class. Unfortunately, my optician didn't have "dork" in stock. Nerd or geek, either.

I guess the pair I picked out are pretty conservative. They're similar to my old glasses, but slightly more square which I think will balance the roundness of my face a little better. They're just plain, brown glasses.

What I'm worried about is that I opted NOT to get the "thin" lenses this time to save a few bucks. I fear that when I get the glasses and put them on my eyeballs will look like they're the size of dimes because of the refraction. That's not a stunning look.

Oh well, what do I care? I already have a husband. I ordered them on Monday, so maybe this week you'll get to see just how thick I'm talking.

Jealous much?

This is a picture of Puffy Savage stalking the cardboard I laid down over her most recent toilet location. Nosy bitch.

Scott took Puffy to the vet this morning for her vaccines and such and consulted with the doctor on her recent behavior. As this was a different vet than the one who treated her last year, I suppose she was coming at it from a fresh perspective.

She suggested that Puffy may be marking her territory. While I do believe Puffy is extremely territorial (you should see what happens when Bodie jumps up into Puffy's windowsill - fur flies), I didn't believe that there would be territory issues inside the house that would make her do that. The vet believes that the neighborhood strays that send Puffy scampering from one window to the next are the cause for her "accidents." The theory is that she doesn't believe those cats are NOT going to come into the house, so she's marking portals to keep them away.

The incidents do seem to line up. Puffy hasn't peed anywhere but behind the door and at the window (yet), and these incidents did occur after we spotted a stray in our yard. The vet recommended we buy some Feliway to clean up the areas she's gone in (maybe I'll be able to move her food bowl from out of the traffic area afterwards). I don't know how we can prevent her from marking the carpet in front of the French doors, though. Seems strange she hasn't gone there yet (or has she?).

Yeah, we'll see.

See my awesome drawing skillz?

What does your drawing say about YOU?

The results of your analysis say:

You tend to pursue many different activities simultaneously. When misfortune does happen, it doesn't actually dishearten you all that much.
You are a direct and forthright person. You like to get to the core of the issue right away, with few signs of hesitation.
You like following the rules and being objective. You are precise and meticulous, and like to evaluate decisions before making them.
You have a sunny, cheerful disposition.

Yep. Sounds about right...except for that "sunny disposition" thing.

Via Suburban Casualty.

Good news and bad news.

Good news: Ugly fucking ceiling fan in the t.v. room is gone. In its place are seven new recessed lights. I couldn't for the life of me find the "before" picture, but I'm pretty sure one exists somewhere.

Bad news: Our trusty electrician is being called back up by the Army "any time now."

That sucks so badly. For him and us. For one thing, he has two little girls at home. He did his time (I'm really not trying to make it sound like prison, but...), came out, and now contributes to the local economy as a citizen with a trade skill. There are very few people I'd trust to be doing work in my house when I'm not home, and he's one of them. His work is top-notch and he doesn't try to rip you a new asshole with ridiculous prices. As we still have a couple of rooms that need lighting work, I don't know what we're going to do.

If we could afford to go ahead an finish the lighting renovations in the house all at once I'd certainly push for that right now, but it ain't in the cards. Meanwhile, we're picking paint colors for the living room and trying to decide whether we want to paint the fireplace brick. Don't know what direction we're going to go in, but I assure you that the ceiling won't be goldenrod when we're done.

Patience of Job.

The piss smell has returned. Puffy has an appointment to see the vet on Saturday morning to get her annual rabies shot, so I hope the situation can be resolved once and for all then.

This really bothers me, because yesterday I found out that our neighbor at the end of the street has a son the same age as ours. I've planned to go on a neighborhood walk with the wife and kiddo tomorrow, and when she stops by I won't even be able to invite her in because the smell is localized in the room where the front door is. I'm trying my damndest to figure out where the deposit is this time, but I'm so mad at this cat that I could scream. Out of all the shelter cats that I could have picked, how dd I end up with one with urinary problems? And a frickin' KITTEN at that?

Further, I'm planning some playdates for young'uns Roland's age in the next several weeks. This house needs to be pretty damn close to immaculate, or at least smell like it. I don't want people thinking we live like slobs. God, I just want to get a pot of cold water and douse her with it. Maybe that'll knock some sense into her fuzzy little head. She doesn't get that I'M the dominant cat in this house.

My poor, paranoid husband.

My dear husband suffers from a condition known as Papaparanoia: the symptoms include freaking out when the kid cries ("Why is he crying? There must be something wrong."), assuming the worst case scenario for every freckle, blotch, and scratch ("What is that, skin cancer? It doesn't look normal.") [okay, I made that one up], and creating mountains out of nonexistent mole hills, ("Whats wrong with his eye? Why can I see the veins in his super-pale, thin, baby eyelids?").

Okay, so I'm making Scott the butt of a joke here, seriously, he needs to loosen up. I'm home with The Kid every day all day and have developed a knack for knowing what stuff to sweat. For example, puffy eyelids are an unsweatable thing. A little puff doesn't signify pinkeye - it signifies "baby's been rubbing his eyes again."

However, if I hear Roland in the crib hacking and coughing, I sprint back there quick as lightening to turn him over and make sure he doesn't choke on his own spit-up (a peril of back sleeping, I suppose). I have my limits.

Last night, I had to put my foot down when Scott suggested we put a helmet on our child because his head is a little flat in the back. You want me to put my kid in a helmet? Let's just get him a hockey mask. Same thing, right?

The kid has a little flatness. Um. That's because he sleeps facing the ceiling. It'll round out when he picks a side to turn to. Besides, Scott has a flat head in the back, as do at least one of his sisters. (My head, mind you, is perfectly shaped as far as I can tell through all this hair.)

I just can't make it seem serious enough to worry about it. He's pretty symmetrical and it's not like his soft spots are fusing before they should. He just has a flat head.

Honey, chill. Or at least learn to take my word for it.

A Pox on Spike

I hate it when Spike runs those all-day marathons on holidays. Sometimes it'll be something tolerable like CSI or, of course, Star Trek, which I don't mind because I actually watch those shows. Today, they're playing The Three Stooges.

Recently they've been using Fridays to show MXC marathons. I hate that damn show almost as much as I hate Iron Chef. Anything that cuts into my regularly-scheduled Star Trek is crap. (In case you didn't know, Star Trek: TNG is on daily between 3 p - 5 p, and Voyager between 5 p and 7 p. I don't watch DS9 which comes on at 2).

I'm a girl who thrives on routines, so when a monkey-wrench gets thrown into my t.v. viewing schedule it makes me a little hot under the counter. I hate flipping around to find other stuff to watch. True, I could try just doing something productive like cleaning my house, but what's the point of that?

*points to end of rope*

Remember last month when I said something smelled like cat piss? Found it. It seems that Puffy Savage (who is yet one more step closer to permanent residence in the garage) has been using the front door mat as a piss pad. She was found out yesterday while being seen scratching the mat like litter. Scott pulled the rug up and put it in the laundry room, but I guess some of the wetness seeped through to the wood floor. I sprayed it with enzyme cleaner yesterday and cleaned it up. When Scott got home in the evening, he commented on how the floor seemed sticky there. I assumed it was residual cleaner there and left it be.

Guess what the front room smelled like again when I woke up this morning. Yep. Cat piss. The smell is gone now (from that specific corner) because I went and sprayed the entire area again. Every time I walk over there, Puffy appears from whichever hole she's been hiding in and watches me from the kitchen. She's lurking so she can go handle her business on my floor as soon as I turn my back.

The last time this happened (in the kitchen), we solved the problem by putting her food bowl on top of the suspect area. I obviously can't do that behind the door.

Don't know what to do. I'm having a real love-hate-hate relationship with this cat right now. The worst part is I still smell a faint piddle smell in the general environs of my desk...I've gotten down on my hands and knees and put my nose to the floor but can't quite find it. I guess when we take her into the vet to get her rabies shot we can question why she's being such a fucking little bitch (so that we can pay to have her piss analyzed again). The last thing I want to have is for my kid to start crawling in the next couple of months and land himself in a dried-up mess of cat yuck.

I'm considering ordering this stink finder from PetSmart, but part of me is afraid of what other stains I might find on my floors and furniture.

That's muh boy.

This is kind of blurry, but I think it's funny. You always wonder if your child will take after you and exhibit your traits. Yes. Yes they will. Here's Rosco in an identical sleeping position to my own. Scott took this using a slow shutter speed to not wake us up, so you may have to squint or look at it sideways to get a clear view. Click to expand.

Cupid is irrelevant.

Valentine's Day is a lot more interesting when there's a kid in the picture. Scott and I have been together for 5 1/2 years and tend to go through holidays like a frog bounding from lily pad to lily pad - we never really go all out and spend a lot of effort on one particular one...except for Christmas 2005 - the first time we bought a tree.

I can't even remember what we did for V-Day last year, so that should be a indicator of "nothing." Rosco won't even remember what happened on his first Valentine's Day, but now is a good time as any to start giving him these little events to look forward to. I want to mold him not to give his future girlfriends obviously cheap gifts like the one a certain ex-boyfriend gave me in high school (it was a cheap-ass stuffed bear holding a minature foil balloon mounted on a plastic container filled with hard candy and a single rose in a plastic tube that he got from his job).

Ever since he was born my arts 'n crafts gene has been working overtime and I keep wanting to start projects. Being home full-time certainly allows for a bit more freedom in that regard. I made homemade valentines for Rosco to send to his aunts and grandmothers this year (even though in a state of sleep-deprived delirium I accidentally put the wrong date on the inside: there are at least eight people wondering if that was meant to be some cryptic code). We (meaning I) made a special treasure hunt for Scott that involved enough decorative paper and planning that any Kindergarten teacher would be put to shame. Maybe he'll grow up thinking that it isn't all about the commercial crap, but a time for people to connect (yeah, right). I have to say it was fun hiding little clues around the house leading to Scott's gift - I actually looked forward to setting that up more than the fact that I would potentially get a gift.

Anyway. Rosco got a Valentine's Day outfit to wear for today. Unfortunately, he can't yet fit into his Captain Heartbreaker pajamas or booties...or the matching superhero belt we bought. :)

Cover that shit up, man.

This is one of those "laugh so hard you snort through your nose" clips. Just damn.

Pink bath pouf. Crazy.
Via Paula D.

Another hair-brained plan.

I have a sudden compulsion to cut my hair short like this. That was me seven years ago, and the only reason my hair was so short then was because I had two bad haircuts in a row and had to do something to fix it. As it was too many different lengths to salvage, I had a woman at the Supercuts in the mall sic the clippers on me. It was February, and cold, and as soon as I walked outside I regretted the decision. The cut grew on me, though, after I stopped waging war against my natural texture.

I have no real reason for wanting to cut my hair right now other than the fact that I'm bored with it, it takes too long to dry, and because it's so curly it never appears to grow - it just gets bushier.

My intent was to leave it in its current state until it grew out to a favorable length...whatever that be. Truth is, I really don't know how long my hair is. I last straightened it when I was pregnant and at the time (for obvious reasons) I didn't do that great of a job at it. I know I can pull it all back into a messy bun if it starts getting in my eyes, and that it's long enough for Roland to wrap his sticky little baby fingers around to pull on.

Yesterday, a little voice in my head told me that today as soon as Scott left for work and the baby was down for his nap to hook up the Flowbee and cut it all down to an inch long. I still have that nagging, twitching feeling to do so.

Scott probably wouldn't appreciate the action very much, so, I don't know if I'll actually do it. Maybe I'll try one more time to let a "professional" do something with it before I go at it myself. I just want to do some maintenance before it starts to turn into dreadlocks.

Um...where'd my mail go?

Some kind of weirdness happened to my computer today. With want of someone to blame for it, I blame Bill Gates.

I use Thunderbird for email and have been using it since Erica turned me on to it a couple of years ago. Outlook makes me itch.

Anyway, I went out to the eye doctor today and when I came home and opened my email, the fucking thing crashed. Microsoft Windows did that weird error message reporting thing, and when I tried to restart the program, it said that I needed to set up my email accounts.

DO WHAT NOW? All of my accounts and messages were gone. This pisses me off mightily because my deleted Earthlink email is set to self-destruct from the server whenever I close the program. I'm going to have to look around on my computer to see if the saved messages I had are cached somewhere.

Mightily pissed. This ever happen to anyone else?

What sound do chicks make?

"Cheap, cheap cheap!"

Okay, so I tried to pursue the editorial position and without sounding a little pretentious, it just didn't pay enough. It was 30 hours/week and I'd be making negative income. Part-time daycare is capped at 30 hours, so when I add in travel time, he'd still be there in the >30 hour fee group.

Scott and I did the math, and after taxes were taken out of my paycheck and daycare paid for, it'd be ridiculous. I wouldn't even be earning enough to buy a pack of gum.

Still waiting for the verdict on the other position.

There are words for women like her that begin with "B."

My mother is a bag of mixed nuts left cracked and unsealed, so is therefore rancid and decidedly untasty.

I've posted in the past about how she hasn't come to visit the baby yet. Where she and my grandmother live is an easy three hour drive on country roads to here. It's not like hard, interstate driving....well...until you get to 85, anyway. There have been ELEVEN weekends since Roland was born and now and she could have came up on any one of them. Rather, she asked when we were going to take the baby to see them. My mother-in-law live just as far away and has seen the kid at least five times.

I don't answer strange numbers on my cell phone - I just don't. A lot of the time, I won't answer the phone even if I recognize the number. If I'm not in the mood to talk, I won't answer. Answering for the sole purpose of saying, "Can I call you back?" opens the door to being questioned about why and after all that you might as well of had the damn conversation.

Apparently she conned her new boyfriend/ex-husband number two to get her a cell phone with a NY area code as she intends to move back up there. When she called last week, I read the caller i.d. display and thought "Hmm, that's not my sister..." and put the phone back on the desk. She left a strained "Hi, you never answer your phone" message and that was that. I didn't return her call because it's hard to carry on phone conversations with an unpredicitable infant in the house (that's my excuse, and I'm sticking with it).

This morning, around eightish, she called and left another voicemail demanding to know why I don't return her "calls" [all one of them] and stating that she was planning to come visit us. Then she got all passive-aggressive saying that she guessed she'd come see us when I got "good and ready."

What the fuck ever.

See, that brainwashing/guilt-tripping bullshit she pulls may work on the men she ultimately ends up marrying, but it doesn't work on her daughters. She hasn't even sent the kid a 99 cent card since his birth, and I'm supposed to bend over backwards to accomodate her wish to grace us with her almighty presence?

Pshaw.

Any guesses who I'll call back first? My money's on my father.

Yeah, I'll call you.

"Hi, Tiffany, this is your fah-tha. Give me a call when you get a chance."

My dad left me a voicemail yesterday. After a series of connections (me to my oldest half sister after finding her on myspace, my oldest half sister to my sister after I gave my sister my oldest half sister's phone number, and my sister to my dad after oldest half sister gave me his number which I gave to my sister) he's come into my phone number.

To give you the short version of the long backstory, I'll just say that I haven't spoken to my father in almost fifteen years. This is mostly due to the dysfunctional relationship between my parents. My mother is one of those women who likes to make life difficult for everyone involved after she's scored (she also likes to blame her children for her relationships falling apart even when we were nowhere near spitting distance of her men). After the divorce it was understandable that there would be estrangement between the two, but it was wrong of her to try to keep our father from us. On the flip side, he's not blame-free. He always knew where I was, and I haven't lived with my mother since I was nine. My grandma wouldn't have cussed him out for calling.

I'm not mad at him as much as I am confused. I think about my son and get all weepy and irrational when I think about going back to work and sending him to daycare. How can any person who calls themselves a parent allow someone as crazy as my mother to take their kids and not try to be present at least part of the time? It boggles my mind. If only he knew what kind of shit she put us through.

He called yesterday evening...around 7, I think. I'm sure he was afraid that I would have some sharp words for him, but fortunately I didn't hear the phone. I haven't called him back yet because I'm just not prepared for several minutes of uncomfortable conversation where we "catch up" on what I've been doing in my adult years.

He and my mother are about equal on my "scale of scorn" right now. If they didn't spend all of the late seventies and eighties peering through a cloud of pot smoke, they'd probably realize that they they're crappy parents.

Ew

I was running out to the post office this morning and on the way to the car I dropped the kitchen trash into the outdoor garbage bin. In the process, I dropped half of the mail I was taking and my wallet down into the bowels of the receptacle.

As I'm 5'2", the can is easily 4' high, and since the dropped items had slipped down the side, I couldn't get my stumpy little arm far enough down to get my wallet. Of course I was pissed seeing as how I had taken a shower fifteen minutes prior, and there I was digging into a dirt-splattered, foul-smelling plastic bin.

I had to stand on the upside-down recycling bin to get my wallet out.

I feel so. So. Dirty.

When it rains, yada yada.

Okay, so the interview. I thought it went pretty well. A bit scripted on their part, but I was honest and didn't hem and haw. The interviewer told me that I sounded like a very confident person, which made my eyes bulge at the gross miscategorization. I don't really know what sorts of people I'm competing against, but when she said that it made me think they were amoebas or some other equally stagnant organism. The thing about writers is that that we tend to be more articulate on paper than we are in oral conversation. On the rare occasion that you encounter someone who has both a bubbly personality and great proficiency at their craft, you jump at them. I hope I conveyed that I can at least pretend to be bubbly, even if my smalltalk skills are limited to such statements as "I know the feeling," "Ha ha!," and "No, that's perfectly fine."

Oddly enough, a couple of hours later a woman left me a voicemail about a local magazine position I applied for three months ago. I recall the schedule for that position being pretty flexible because...well, can't say without giving too many clues about what the publication is. Let's just say that by the time Rosco turns five it'd make a big difference because I could be home in time to see him get off the school bus. I'll call her back on Monday to see what the gig's all about.

The worst case scenario is that I get neither job, but this is a great situation because I'm learning what skills I need to brush up on to find similar work. This has turned into a pretty good week, huh?

Oh God, I want this.

I have a job interview tomorrow. It's a phone interview, so I haven't really been giving it as much thought as I would to something where I'd have to pull a pair of dress slacks up over my fat hips and drive to a corporate office.

I responded to a Craigslist posting a few weeks ago for a job that seemed too good to be true - it fit my professional needs exactly. It's a writing position that would require me to only go into the office for meetings, to turn in assignments, and so on. I would be employed by a company on the west coast and contracted out to a [large] local corporation to create document copy.

Because I have issues with not wanting to put Roland in day care just yet (or ever), it seems like one of those opportunities that makes your mouth water with desire. If I have to work (which I admit I do), this is the way I want to do it. I could work comfortably in my paint-stained sweatpants and hire a part-time babysitter/mom's helper for the days I really need to crank.

I honestly never thought I'd hear from them because I a) was honest about how much money I need, and b) I chose to reveal that I have a small child that would benefit from having a parent work from home. Hope comes when you least expect it, I suppose.

The phone interview is supposed to occur at around lunchtime tomorrow, and though I feel confident right now, I'll probably wake up with a lump in my throat and doubting my strengths as a potential team member. The best thing I can plan to do at this point is to have a glass of wine with my lunch to take the edge off my nerves and to loosen me up so that I can get over my aversion to chattiness.

Send some good vibes my way. Baby needs a new pair of shoes. And momma needs a haircut.

Simple Pleasures

Mmmmm, spaghetti carbonara a la Rachel Ray. Bacon and scrambled eggs in spaghetti - yet another reason to love the Italians. Great way to use those last few bacon slices that aren't enough to divide evenly between two people for breakfast, too.

a PSA

Yo, it's snowing.

...

And for those who can't find the significance in that, I live in piedmont North Carolina. Snow here is as scarce as cashiers at Wal*Mart.