Author: Melia

Oh Hai. I iz stuck.

So I’m leaving for work this morning and I hear a mewling kitty. I think nothing of it, assuming it’s my neighbour’s new kitten who likes to popup in their window all the time.

Fast forward to lunch and I come home only to hear the same mewling. “That’s odd.” I think to myself and I look around. I don’t see a thing. And then, I looked up. Waaay the hell up in a tree behind my place is the kitty. It’s stuck, it’s scared, and a wave of guilt crashed into me as I realized that the poor thing had been up there all morning, hanging precariously from some thin branches, unsure of its footing, freezing (it’s cold and wet here today) and I just La La La’d on my way to work and ignored it’s tiny mewly cries for help. I will probably burn in hell.

I called the police (part of me just couldn’t bring myself to call the fire department. I mean really, they only rescue movie cats, not real ones) who forwarded my request to the Humane Society who then called me back to let me know they weren’t going to do a thing. Not going to come and see if they could help it down. Just going to leave it and hope Kitty figures it out on her own. How… Humane. They said they couldn’t/wouldn’t risk themselves just to get a cat out of a tree. Nice eh?

I spent my lunch hour trying to coax it down with some food. I took these pix because I was debating whether or not I should stay and try to keep helping it down and be late back to work. I wanted proof of what I was up to. But Kitty just meowed helplessly at me when I called to it. It tried valiantly to find its footing, but the branches were so thin where it was that it couldn’t get a decent grip. I could tell it was frightened as well. Poor thing was trembling and crying and I never felt so helpless. The kitty wouldn’t come down.

So, I went back to work reluctantly. But I thought maybe I could ask around up there and see if anyone had any ideas on what I could do to coax it down. Or if anyone had a spare ladder. I did call the fire department (after asking them not to laugh, and also asking if they really did rescue cats up trees or if that was only in the movies) who told me they couldn’t come unless the Humane Society requested them. But the HS wouldn’t come so basically, Kitty was screwed.

So I fretted and worried over the next couple of hours. I waited longingly for 3:30 to come so I could go get the kid and run home to check on the cat. Thankfully, by this time, the cat was down from the tree. I do not know how it got down – whether it found its way on its own, or whether a neighbour got it to come down, or whether my strongly worded email to the Humane Society’s director did any good. All I know is the kitty is down, and there’s no little broken body on the ground.

Oh and I was accosted by a duck as I was helping the kitty. 🙂 For all I know that duck is the reason the cat was up there in the first place.

Pets
Cat, Humane Society

I got a part!

Woot 🙂

Me 🙂 Remember that audition I did a while back for Buffy Between the Lines? Guess I got a part 🙂 W00t! I’ve no idea what the part entails or anything. It’s probably just a little thing, but I’m stoked. (Eesh, I haven’t used ‘stoked’ since about 1987.) I’ll be in the 4th episode and I can’t wait to find out more.

I’m reminded of high school though. Loved drama class/club. Always wanted the leads. Always ended up with a small part that usually required an accent. Ah well. I have nothing but excellent memories of those times. The whole vibe from rehearsals to closing night was amazing and I’m starting to feel that vibe again as I get engulfed on Skype where the cast and crew of BBtL meetup.

This is gonna be fun.

RickRolled

I got Rickrolled three times yesterday. All three times were classic too 🙂 I won’t explain what Rickrolling is if you don’t know what I’m talking about – just click the link 🙂

The three big sites I visit regularly – Fark, YouTube and even Blogger were the culprits and I laughed my ass off each time. And the beauty of it was each prank was a different kind of Rickroll which was teh awesome. Fark got a lot of people with this one, YouTube sent everyone to the classic Rickroll by changing almost every link on their main page to that video, and Blogger went totally karaoke by promising the Blogger faithful a spiffy new toy to play with, the bastards 🙂

Anyway, April Fools Day online was a lot of fun.

It’s like Christmas!

Shannon’s been out of it for a couple of days with an ear infection but not even that kept her from hunting down the elusive Wii. (For the record, the doc gave her some meds, and she’s much better, so don’t be thinking I let my sick kid wander around town looking for a game console:) )

As noted in my previous post, she and I have been frustrated and led around by our noses by disinterested and annoyed store clerks who must have had to field a lot of calls asking when they’re getting a Wii in (and don’t think for a second I haven’t felt like an eejit calling around asking for a Wii. My time in England makes me feel like I’m asking to go to the loo.) We started by calling all the stores in town and the ones in surrounding towns multiple times a day in case some came in on their trucks or via UPS. We just missed getting one on Thursday from Best Buy.

When I called Walmart in Hastings yesterday, they said they have 9 of them but cannot sell them until midnight. Now, I was willing to drive to Hastings around then to grab one, but then the clerk told me people start lining up for them at around 7:30pm. I’m sorry but no power in the ‘verse is going to make me hang around a Walmart for 5 hours. Not even for a Wii. I figured we’d just take our chances and go to Best Buy right when they open this morning. A friend from work said that was the best time to go.

But, I also thought it would be prudent to call both Walmarts here in town and see if they were doing a midnight sale of them as well. The South store said they had some, but wouldn’t be selling them until 7am-ish because of some sort of policy or something. I don’t know. Do you see how ridiculous this Wii-hunt has turned out to be? Anyway, Shannon asked me if I would let her get up at 4am and go to that Walmart and wait for it. Against my better judgement, and after repeatedly asking if her ears were up to it, I agreed she could go. I knew how badly she’s wanted a Wii for over a year now.

Well the little widget couldn’t even wait until 4am. She couldn’t sleep at all and I bet anything she had that feeling I used to get on Christmas eve when I was younger. I anticipated my Christmas morning traditions so much I could never get to sleep then. Anyway, she left the house at 3am and went to he South store armed with a book and ready to wait it out.

But when she got there, they told her that the shipment of the consoles didn’t come and they wouldn’t have any. Can you say ‘Crushed’? But then they told her that sometimes their shipments accidentally get sent to the North store. So she called and sure enough, the North store who had previously told us they wouldn’t have any, had them all. They told her there were only three left. So she drove up there (carefully I hope, it was raining hard) and triumphantly got one of the last Wii’s. She came home, woke me at 3:45am and said “We have a Wii.” I had been dreaming about silk trousers being hung out to dry (no idea) so my memory of this morning was a little fuzzy but I do know I had a happy camper who could now get to sleep.

I woke up around 7am and shortly after that, she was up. I asked her why she wasn’t sleeping in, and she said, “It’s like Christmas!” 🙂 I knew it.

So far, I enjoy the boxing. I like kicking ass. I still think the whole hunting down a Wii thing is silly and frustrating though.

Damn Nintendo

Why the feck is it so damn hard to buy a Wii? I understand the whole supply and demand thing, but I figured it’s well past Christmas now, shouldn’t the flow of Wii’s produced be back to normal? Is it really THAT COOL of a machine that Nintendo can’t keep up with demand?

None of the stores I called in this town seem to know when or if they’re going to be getting any. Why is it so secret? What kind of store doesn’t know what kind of inventory is coming in a shipment? Seems ridiculous to me.

Ignore me. I’m just frustrated that I can’t find one within a 50 mile radius AND I can’t find any of the bastards online either unless I want to pay WAY above retail and yeah, that’s not going to happen. People who do that are stupid. (Hopefully none of my friends or relatives have done this otherwise I will feel bad for calling them stupid.) Yeah, the kid and I really want to buy one, and we have the funds to get it, but we feel like we’re standing in a store waving our money around but no one will take it.

It’s weird.

Yikes

So I’m walking along, pushing my cart, heading for the canned vegetable aisle. I turn the corner and run smack into an ex-boyfriend. Working as a stockboy. At Skagway.
Like a deer caught in headlights, we stared at each other for what seemed like a Very Long Time (but was most likely a split second.)

And then I bolted.

I made a mad dash for the dairy aisle and became extremely interested in yogurt flavours. WTF was he doing there? I thought he left town. Crap crap crap. All this running through my head while I figured out how I was going to pick up the diced tomatoes I needed and avoid him.

He and I dated for several months not long after I returned home from England. I didn’t really know him, it was just sort of one of those things, how we met. I was out with a friend from work at a bar and well, he hit on me I thought he was cute and guys don’t hit on me much so we started dating. That sort of thing. He was a roofer at the time.

But I had no idea I was dating a guy who, when he drank, did it to get completely falling-down pissing drunk, was a bit of a loser, and evidently fell “in love” at the drop of a hat. He became incredibly clingy. He would come to my job and hang all over me, trying to see how far he could ram his tongue down my throat until finally, I had to dump him. It was weird. I’ve never done the dumping before and I did it badly, as you can imagine. I mean, I’m all for PDAs and a little smoochiness, but there’s a time and place for that, and on the job isn’t it. Aside from that, he showed up at my house one night incoherent, drunker than any drunk I’ve ever seen and he crashed on my bed. And while he slept it off he peed all over the bed. I’d never been so disgusted in my life. Boy had to go.

He came to the steakhouse, where I was waitressing at the time, for dinner soon after the ‘Stephanie bought a brand new bed and set fire to the old one’ incident. Sat in my section, and I was kind of cold towards him. As I back and forthed between him and my other tables, I told him we should talk. He laughed and said jokingly, “What? You breaking up with me or something?”

I froze and stared at him until he copped on to my meaning. He dropped his fork and began to cry. Right there at the table, tears. Thing is, I didn’t feel bad. Just embarrassed and relieved that he would soon be out of my life. If that makes me a bitch, as he came to call me later when the bitter drunk-dialing began, then yes, I am a bitch.

Eventually the calls died off and I never saw/heard from him again. I assumed he’d left town because this town isn’t that big. Eventually you run into folk, you know? So that’s why I was so gobsmacked to see him working in my favourite grocery store. I go there all the damn time. I’d never seen him there before. Argh. Now I’ll have to shop at Walmart. Grrrr.

It’s been a long time since I dumped him. I’m sure he got over it and who knows, maybe he’s got his act together now (tho.. he’s a little older than me. And working as a stockboy.) I don’t know. I don’t want to know. I just want to be avoidy.

I have never and will never date another guy I met in a bar. Ever. That was the first and last time. Lesson well learned.

NPR Jack Bauer Feature

Well NET radio let me down 🙁

The Jack Bauer thing was supposed to air at 7:50am, which was perfect because you know, I only told everyone and their uncle to tune in and that’s right during drive time etc. Well, they began the piece, and then clunkily switched to a show about the stock market or something equally dull. Le sigh. It’s *supposed* to air one more time at 9:50am CST, but everyone will be busy working by then.

*grumble grumble*

Ah well, the feature piece is online now (which doesn’t do my luddite grandparents a lot of good, but there you go), so you can catch it there if you’re so inclined and I should just quit bitching. But I woke up Shannon so she could hear it. Imagine her grumpiness to have to wake up and listen to a stock market report 🙂

And they’ve put up a blog about it as well an you can comment on how freaky it is that DHS honcho Michael Chertoff is a fan of the show 🙂

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