Ridiculous Thoughts

The kid thinks there should be a room, either in your house or at work or something that’s completely soundproof where you can go and just shriek like a banshee when the need arises. I would love such a room. Or I could do what Sally Bowles does and wait under a train bridge and shriek when a train passes.

Whatever works.

I’m having a bad day/week/summer. Money’s been so damn tight and we’re just sort of ‘getting by’ until things pick up this fall. But yesterday at lunch, I go home, fix my mac ‘n cheese, head back and when I turn the key in the ignition, my car splutters, coughs and dies. Cough cough, splutter splutter, die die. It’s 95 degrees out, I’m panicking because now I’m late getting back to work, and all of my fears about ‘getting by’ come crashing down on me when I realize I’m going to have to pull money out of my ass to fix the damn car.

So I call my long-suffering Grampa. Bless him. He patiently listens to me as I freak out about what could possibly be wrong with the car and offers his opinion on what it could be as I wait for my long-suffering coworker to leave work, brave the heat and come pick me up.

So once I get back to work, I open the phone book and look at auto repair shops. I’m bewildered as to who to call, who seems trustworthy, who won’t rip me off… and in the end I call a dealership who’ve been nice to me in the past when I had minor fixes.

Never again.

They swing by, pick up my keys and tow my car down there. Grampa picks the kidlet up from school and me up from work and we’re carless for the evening. No big. Not like I had anything to do. But it’s funny how, when you have a car, staying in is no big. When you don’t have a car, you think of a million things you need a car to go do. But we muddled through.

Grampa picked us up this morning and dropped me at work and Shan at school and I promised I’d let him know what the auto guys said when they call.

And now I’m *really* wishing I’d taken it somewhere else. They called. My fuel pump was shot and the entire “module” needed to be replaced. Cost? $845-ish. EIGHT HUNDRED AND FORTY-FIVE DOLLARS! That is single-handedly the largest amount of money I’ve ever had to pay for a car repair. Ever. E-VAR. The fuel pump “module” alone was $505. Haven’t these people heard of open source? 🙁

Anyway, I asked about trading my beloved car for something else and was told my car isn’t worth much anymore and any car they could sell me would be crap.

So my beloved grandparents, who are the best at soothing their hysterical granddaughter said they would dip into savings and cover the cost and that I can work out a repayment plan with them. I’m alternately relieved and guilty. I hate, HATE that they had to bail me out of a fix. I know they don’t want me to feel guilty and that it’s all good and paying them back will take a while but they know I’ll do it but it’s not doing much to improve my stress levels.

I’ve got my car back and it’s running fine and all. But what a price 🙁 I’m going home tonight, I’m curling up on my bed, having a good cry, then a cup of Earl Grey followed by fuzz therapy from Spooky and some Shannon-time.

Spooky had a bath today. She didn’t go willingly. In fact, this lolcat pretty much sums up her feelings about bathtime:

She was pretty pissed off at us for most of the afternoon. But now she’s all soft and fuzzy and smellygood.

Since we came back from Montana, I decided to give up on keeping her out of my room during the night. I usually prefer to shut my door when I go to bed, and ever since she was a kitty, she was not the most peaceful overnight sleepers. I think Shannon as a baby was better at sleeping through the night than Spooky is. She likes to meander around the bed during the night. There’s nothing like being in a deep sleep only to be viciously woken up because a cat has stepped on your hair, yanking strands out at the roots. All because she just wuvs me so much. Or, I’m a side-sleeper usually. So if I’m laying on my left side, she has to curl up against me so her whiskers tickle my lips. If I turn over, she has to get up, stretch, leap over me using my thighs as a springboard and curl up in her spot again. Apparently, she must alway be in front of me.

Anyway, I used to keep her out at night because I couldn’t get a full night’s sleep with her dong all that. Sometimes it worked fine, but most of the time she would yowl outside my door and scratch at it until I got up and chased her with the squirt bottle. Then she’d leave me alone for a while and around 5am-ish, she’d start in again.

But I’m stubborn and I thought I could break her of it if I just didn’t give in. Years go by and she still did it. So after Montana I said, sod it and just let her sleep with me. Since she’s older now she’s sleeping more and doesn’t decide to walk laps around my entire body at 3am but she still must always be in front of me. And if she wakes me up before my alarm does and I boot her of the bed, she gets petulant.

It’s actually kind of funny. She walks over to the doorstop spring thingie and flicks it. Boooooioioioiong. I look over at her and she’s just sitting there looking so smug. Like, “Well fuck you then.”

Sometimes I miss having a dog 🙂

Tonight the kidlet and I watched the original “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” movie, with Kristy Swanson as Buffy and Donald Sutherland as her Watcher. Wow. First of all, the film is so far removed from everything the series became it’s almost painful to watch. That’s sort of sad to me because I actually kind of like the movie. I remember seeing it when it came out and thinking it was campy, but fun. I mean, Pee Wee Herman as a long-haired vamp? Can’t get more campy than that.

Hilary Swank is in it as well, which I’d forgotten. David Arquette, not to mention Luke Perry (damn, forgot how hawt that boy was) and I think I even glimpsed a walk-on appearance by Ben Affleck but I can’t be sure… quick alt-tab over to imdb… Yep! He was ‘Basketball player #10.’ Hehe. So for a cheesy, campy, almost b-movie worthy flick, it had some folk in it who went on to bigger and better. Oh and Rutger Hauer. I mention him last because after seeing him in Ladyhawke, I can’t forgive him for this silly, OTT vamp role.

I’ve read that even though Joss Whedon wrote this BtVS flick, he’s not fond of how it turned out. Or something. I’m not sure of the whole story and I can’t be bothered to look it up. All I can say is thank goodness he did the TV show. It was a kickass story idea that deserved better.

But I still love the shmoopy little flick anyway 🙂

This whole post is going to make me out to seem like a technosnob and maybe I am, a little. The computer questions and problems people have with what are, to me, fairly simple things boggles me. It’s hard to explain what I mean without giving an example.

I belong to a particular email list that’s mainly full of chicks who dig certain actor I like. I mostly joined so I could get scoops and info about what the actor is up to. I don’t know anyone on the list but I have to wonder how some of them manage to figure out how to turn on their computers much less get online and join an email list.

Ooo catty. These are perfectly nice ladies as far as I can figure out, but when someone sends a link to a photo to the list that ends up truncated and split onto two lines because it’s so long (why no one has worked out how to use tinyurl.com is beyond me), it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out you’re going to have to cut and paste both lines together in your browser address bar. Instead, a flurry of ‘I can’t see the picture 🙁 🙁 :(‘ posts are made to the list followed by a flurry of explanation emails from members who know what they’re doing.

I guess this example just made me think of all of the “I can’t find…” and “How do you…” emails I deal with daily at work. Most of the time I can tell the person asking the question is just too damn lazy to look for the info themselves and want me to do it for them. Sometimes the person just should not be allowed to have a computer. I answer all their questions without betraying the ‘Oh my god, please take a computer class’ tone that tries to creep into my voice and send them on their way because I am a professional and I have to remember that not everyone is tech-oriented, but man, sometimes I just have nod and smile and hope these folks listen when I teach.

I once had a lady ask me to help her out with her computer. I asked her what kind of computer she had and I swear to Elvis this was her actual reply: “I’m not sure… but it does have a mouse!” and she was very proud that she knew that much.

Anyway, I dunno where I was going with this little rant. Just felt the need to get it out there.

Awesome storm this evening. It hit, of course, right at 5 when everyone was heading for their cars so there was a lot of amusing scurrying and shrieks of ‘Ack I don’t want to get my hair wet even though I’m only going home.’

Me, I just sauntered to my car enjoying the cold drops on my face. I love walking in the rain. Yes, it’s a tired cliche, but it feels marvelous. So I drove home in the downpour (mental note – have GOT to replace windscreen wipers. The screech from them was driving me round the bend.) and then I took a little walk down to check the mail. By the time I got to my door, the utilities bill and myself were quite soaked. Ahhhh Felt lovely.

So then it was off to my room, kick on the XM and enjoy the constant rolling thunder and flashes of lightning. I must say, ‘Dancing Barefoot’ by Echo & the Bunnymen was a cool tune to have on during that.

If the rain kicks up again later, I might go for another walk.

Of course, I’ll remember my keys this time 🙂

I’m going to give blogging daily a go. I may not always have something interesting to say but hell, it’s my blog. You don’t have to read it if you don’t want to 🙂 I have a lot of blogs though so the posts may not always be here.

It’s all in an effort to kickstart my brain into writing again. Flexing, exercising whatever you want to call it.

So today’s basically just a typical day in the life of me. Get up, putter around the Internet like the nerd I am, get in the shower, lather up, rinse, repeat. Get out, wake up the kid by flicking on the light in her dark cave of a room. She hates that but it makes her get up. Pet the cat, check email again, make sure the paper’s site is loaded, do the makeup, dry the hair, have some cereal, check email again, give Spooks some fresh water, possibly make coffee, fill up the red sports bottle with the Brita water, take a vitamin and possibly some advil, put on the shoes and head out the door.

Then it’s braving GI traffic, such as it is – mostly it’s waiting on a train – and teenage drivers and taking the kid to school. Or, like yesterday, letting her *gulp* take the car for the day so we can save on gas. Today though, I kept the car. Anyway, drop her off, drive back to work, CD blaring, singing along. I know I look like an idiot singing along to my CDs but I don’t care. In the car is the only time I can belt it if I want. It feels nice 🙂

Arrive at work, walk to my desk, turn on the fan, the lamp and the laptop. Put my water in the freezer for a couple hours, and come back and check email, deal with problems, sort it all out, handle forum registration spammers, quick flip through my newsreader and begin work for the day. This could mean heading to the studio to produce Newslink or just working on other stuff. Either way I’ll be preoccupied til lunchtime, when I head home, check email, have some mac n cheese, read a little, visit sites I can’t go to at work – you know, the porn and gambling etc. and then run a brush through the hair and head back to work.

Work work work all afternoon, chat to people who hang over my wall waiting for printer stuff, put out fires, etc. Go pick up the kid, come back to work for the last hour, boot down, leave at 5, head home, fix dinner of some kind or have ‘fend for yourself’ night since Shan is so picky most of the time, settle down in my room with the kid and watch some TV on DVD (currently rewatching Angel or Dr. Who), after a few eps, switch off, She goes off to do her thing out in the living room and I flip on my XM and knock around the net. Then it’s take out the contacts, scrub the face and teeth and climb in bed.

And that’s my typical day in detail. And you wonder why I can never think of anything to blog about.

I’m in a mood. A grumpy, maudlin mood. I figured if I documented it and vented or whatever the hell I need here then maybe it would go away. I hate putting on my game face for work. When I’m here I’d rather just be myself, but today I need the game face, the fake office laugh, and the hope that since I sit behind a wall tucked in the corner, no one will bother me much. I might put on my headphones and tune out the world for the day.

Hate feeling like this. There are various reasons for it, most of which I’m aware of but am not going to blog about. It’s enough that I know why I’m in this mood. I’ve had about three hours of sleep so I’m sure that isn’t helping any. But if you acknowledge the Mood, hopefully it goes away.

I let Shannon take the car to school today. I figured if she does that a couple days a week it might save on some gas. Of course it means I’m stuck at work for the full day and have to bring a lunch, but I can deal. She was very excited about it. I remember that feeling 🙂

But that’s not the reason for the moodiness. Been feeling it all weekend and tried to stave it off by reading fanfic (Oh sod off. Some fanfic is actually pretty good 🙂 ) and watching Angel with the kid all weekend. Mindless entertainment you know? Keep the brain busy so it doesn’t have time to dwell on stuff. It’s an old trick of mine. Worked for the most part. But sometimes it’s hard to keep it together. But this will pass. My favourite saying is ‘Someday this will all be twenty years ago’ and oddly enough, knowing that helps.

So enough of the whiny angst mode. I’ve got a lot of work to do, coffee to drink, some tunes to play and someone brought a bag of fresh cucumbers and tomatoes for the taking. Yum!!