Anything Goes

Cuz I got the green light to buy my appliances and furniture! Say WHOO HOOOO!!!! 

So, a new refridgerator, stove, dishwasher, microwave, couch, loveseat, two chairs, queen mattress and box springs, twin bedframe with mattress and boxsprings, a curio cabinet, new desk, and an office chair… yeah, I’m about flat broke, even my fire fund is just about broke. Appliances are coming on Tuesday, half of the other is coming on Friday, the rest two weeks after that, my parents will bring my stuff down on Friday, I’ll have my clothes and other things delivered sometime in the next two weeks.

There are still a few problems at the house though. One, they didn’t ask for a new hot water tank which I then had to tell my insurance adjustor about when he sent me an e-mail telling me he was sending another check, sort of like a final check. I sent him a long e-mail, detailing my complaints with the contractor’s management.

Then they got said water tank but the dumbass picked up a propane hot water tank. *Sigh* So, then they got a gas hot water tank and Ron called to tell me it had a big dent in it when they took it out of the box, so, now I have not just one, but two defective hot water tanks in my living room. Maybe the other one is already gone… I don’t remember.

My floors look incredible ya’ll. In-fucking-credible. I now have a monster heating and cooling system. It’s pretty. I heart my new heating and cooling. My heating and cooling guy was hot too… or did I mention that? Okay, he was hot. Now I’ve said it again.

T-Bird went with me to review my selection of ceiling fans. She knows what my floor, cabinets, and countertops look like in the kitchen. I switched my countertops from a sand color to something with sand, cream, chocolate, and black in them. They rock. So, I got a black ceiling fan. I know, odd, but I think it will really pull everything together.  Sand looking floor with cream, ivory walls, white ceiling, oak cabinets, aforementioned countertops, white appliances, and a black fan. Trust me, it will look good.

That was about the only ceiling fan we agreed on.  I found pics of all the ceiling fans but Nate’s. His is a space hugger and it has… a remote control.  Holy Hera.

So, we’ll start with the living room…

My sofa and loveseat. The tables are similar to this coffe table but they have glass tops.  Instead of getting the ginormous chair to match, I picked something a little different to match.

This is not the exact style or color but close enough. No ottoman either.

And, the ceiling fan. I’m not sure why this picture is so much bigger than the others.

And my new appliances…

18 cu. ft. of good eatin’

Somethin’ to cook it on…

Somethin’ to wash the dishes in…

and my black ceiling fan…

and the light kit for it

I can’t get the picture of the microwave to resize… oh well.

Now, one of the MOST irritating things for me here has been having to share two washers and dryers, which I have to throw change into. Ya’ll have to remember, I have never lived in an apartment. I’ve always had my own washer and dryer. Having to share and pay and not being able to do clothes at 2 in the morning while I blog has been a royal bitch, on top of everything else.

NO MORE!  To make up for it, I got a 3.5 cu. ft., 17 cycle, four wash temps, four rinse temps, four wash speeds, 2 rinse cycle washer. Yeah, take that! The dryer is… just a dryer. It dries clothes and I couldn’t find a picture of it.  This is very extravagant for me. Still within budget but also extravagant for an ole country girl. I showed it to T-Bird and we agreed the only thing better would have been a front load.

I said, “Wow, 17 cycles, I wonder how many of those I’ll actually use.” 

We stared at the washer for a few seconds and answered at the same time.

“One.”

and here’s kind of the chair I’m putting in the computer room. Couldn’t find a real pic of it. Nate picked it out. It’s a chocolate recliner. It is very comfy. Nate plans on laying back in it to play his DS while I work on the computer.

And the ceiling fan for the computer room

And the ceiling fan for my bedroom

Its called “New Orleans.” In honor of my cousin, Kama, who drew me a most excellent Black Stone Cherry picture and had it framed, and our buddy Se7en, and because New Orleans was where the first BSC video was shot.

And, I should have more pictures tomorrow of how things are going in the house, floors, walls, cabinets, and other sundries, including the fact,  I now have a toilet. (Just for you, Jammie J.!, well, and me and Nate).  Oh, and we have a kitten on hold. A little boy who is, naturally, black and white. I’ve named him Jack and if you know OUR Jack, then you’ll know why. (snicker)  More on that later.

Hey, remember that new job I started yesterday, they fired me today!  (Fire - fired, eerie again) Shortest time ever at a job. Ev-ah. Oh, I’m sorry, they didn’t fire me, they said, “We don’t need you anymore.”  Oh, so you’re firing me. Okay. I finished off my time card at 4:50, organized my paperwork, took it to the paralegal (who had her door shut and her two staff people in there), and said here’s this, this, this, and this, and okay, bye now.

As you can tell, I’m totally torn up about it. I mean, I’m truly going to miss my cubicle, the flourescent lighting, the cliquey staff, how they gossiped on the phone instead of in the hallway, yes, I’ll miss the headache I had already developed, the ache between my shoulders, busting my ass, and asking for work to do because I didn’t want to feel useless.

I’ll miss not knowing how much money I was making, which I won’t find out until I get my paycheck. Oh yeah, I’ll miss driving in morning traffic and paying for parking. I’m supposed to pick up my paycheck there tomorrow. I’m afraid that I have too much to do for that, plus, I’m not wasting my money on the gas and parking to pick it up. That’s what the United States Post Office is for.

Yep, I was torn up when I had to come home, change out of my Sunday-goin’-to-meetin’-clothes and high heels to cut-off shorts and tennis shoes and went back to the shop to pull shirts from the 200 degree dryer and laugh at Rich when he somehow managed to tangle superglue in his armpit hair.

Devastated, ya’ll, devastated.

No, they didn’t give me a reason, no feedback as to whether I was doing things correctly or incorrectly, what I should say, how I should say it, how I should answer questions, which I’ll also miss. Although I did overhear the paralegal say something about the temporaries answering questions and misleading or misinforming the clients and that those closest to the case should be answering those questions.  I’m sure it’s far easier for the three staff working on this matter to do it all, versus informing a legion of temporaries in a five minute meeting how to effectively answer questions, all of the answers which were in the information I was stuffing in envelopes.

But, you also know when you belong somewhere and when you don’t. I definitely didn’t belong there and wasn’t interested in any way in a full-time gig. I was there to work on a case, get paid, and go about my way. I’m just a little pissed that I don’t know how much I’ll be getting paid for the 13 hours and some odd minutes I put in. Something tells me, it won’t be worth it.

Like a petulant child, its lip puckered, scuffing its feet, dawdling. Waiting for my back to turn, for my third eye to close, for my sixth sense to numb. I know you, Fire. I have faced you, I know your secrets, I have traced your path. I see your puckered lip, I hear your scuffing, shuffling feet, I know you loiter. My back will never turn, my eyes will never close,  I will never numb myself, because I know you, Fire.

I was looking for a quote about fire but nothing seemed to fit other than what I decided to write myself.  Monday, I spent a lot of time at the house, which is coming along beautifully, no thanks I’m sure to the fact I crawled up someone’s ass and sat there until I got my crew back. I noticed that someone had thrown a box over the fence into the brush beside of the railroad tracks. I hadn’t noticed it over the weekend so I figured someone had done it Sunday evening after I left.  I had to get to work but I hadn’t been there very long when my phone rang. It was Ron asking if I wanted the bad news or the other bad news. Seems as though that box and the brush had caught on fire.

Since I have no water at my residence, my neighbor on one side was gone, and the neighbor on the other side, SpiderWoman, didn’t have a hose, Ron called the fire department to put it out. In the fifteen minutes it took them to get there, it had engulfed the entire area in front of my house, causing smoke to drift into and fill up my house, again. I told him to open the windows.  Frankly, the fire was probably caused either by broken glass and the right angle of the sun or a cigarette, tossed by me or someone else, and a stiff breeze.

Then, today, first day at my new job, I’m sitting at my new desk doing nothing but twiddling my thumbs, when the fire alarm goes off. I just kind of sat there for a minute to see if it was a false alarm and then it appeared it wasn’t so I took my purse and went down the stairwell. At the bottom of the steps there was  a crowd of people. The thermostat had caught on fire and flamed out against the wall, kicking breakers on the first and second floors.  I recommended that they pull the still smoking and burning thermostat out of the wall before it caught the interior of the walls on fire. Once that was accomplished, I went back upstairs and continued with my day.

Fire… it follows me, and I will never close my eyes because I know you, Fire.

I’ve been a little busy.

The little league I’m working with on getting all of their uniforms keeps adding more items, a day apart, which means, more shipping charges.  I told the coordinator after the 3rd time that I was going to have to start charging shipping on all items after the first two orders. I just finished taking the 6th order, or was it the 7th????

Speaking of the shop, I have to e-mail a photo to a client.

 I start a new contract job tomorrow. It comes at good time because I’m about flat broke. I’ll be working on another class action where I actually get to send people money. What a great feeling. It will only be for a few weeks but may keep me out of the poorhouse.

Nate is going on his first long class trip on Thursday. They’re going to the Carnegie Science Museum in Pittsburgh and then to a Pirates game. Whoo hoo…. other than he has to be on the bus by 5:30 a.m. Argh.

Still trying to get a more part-time deal with my writing job and still working on my magazine idea.

They started putting the heating and cooling in my house today. And, lo and behold, they had a full crew working on my house as well. One who actually knew what he was doing besides Ron. And one of the guys putting in the heating and cooling was this green-eyed cutie that I’m sure I could teach a few things. He looked like he was 18, which is old enough for me.  The creepy guy was there too, the one who tried to railroad me on the heating and cooling. I got a much better deal with the folks I went with, plus the owner is hawt, not creepy, hawt, and rides a Harley. Yum.

T-Bird’s nephew’s grandfather passed away so I ran down to watch the other nephew and her son while she paid her respects.  J3 went to a ballgame and I put the littlest one in the bathtub, which he hated, put a diaper on him, gave him his binky/bippy/pacifier and a sippy cup of water, he cried for 2 seconds and fell asleep.  If only Nate had been so easy.

Trying to get an order ready for Tamarack.

Trying to scrounch together the money to go to Rock on the Range in Columbus on May 19th. I had tickets, then sold the tickets because of a really stupid reason and then decided, I’m going. I need to see my guys from Black Stone Cherry, although I’m sure we won’t get to hang out much because of all the bands and security, but my friends Kim and Matt will also be there and I need to be there too. I’ve missed 3 BSC shows since this fire and I’m tired of it.

Nate and I will go up to my parents’ place and go metal hunting on the farm. They have a lot of old pipes and fittings due to old gas lines and that metal is worth a lot! I NEED THE MONEY!  I knew Nate’s metal detector would pay for itself one way or another.  Plus, Jeff’s brother, who lives in GA, is coming up here to get hay for his horses. Because of the drought and fires in GA, he can’t find any.  I also coordinated the purchase and transport of said 20 bales of hay between me, Jeff, his brother, and my dad.

This is why I haven’t blogged in a while and why I haven’t been by your place.

I’m tired ya’ll.

I can always count on the guys at the shop to simultaneously gross me out and entertain me to the point of peeing on myself. Like today.

 I have been ass deep in MLB replica t-shirts for a local little league to the point the guys wander back on occasion and make sure I haven’t had an avalache and am buried alive.  Today I spent a lot of time in front of the 200 degree dryer, pulling shirts, counting shirts, folding shirts, and otherwise getting my exercise. I used this as an excuse to eat five ten freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.

Working with four men, you can imagine the shop talk can get quite raunchy at times and today was no exception.  It started when Rich came out of the back room and said we needed to order seven additional extra-large pussy pink t-shirts for Patricia’s Pussy. The t-shirts are actually azalea (a totally pussy pink color) and the order was for Patricia’s Posse…

This degraded further into how the guys didn’t want extra large they wanted smalls, which degraded further into the size of pussies and exactly how far a pussy can stretch, then degraded further into fisting and the ability to actually clap en pussio, further degrading into Junior talking about tying a two by four to his ass so he doesn’t fall in, degreading further into vivid descriptions, but thankfully no reinactments, of a grotesque pornograhic scene where a pussy does in fact, swallow a man’s head… and not the one between his legs.

I laughed so hard I didn’t know whether I should cry or pee myself. Rich, who was especially descriptive with the grotesque pornagraphic scene, said, “It’s a good thing you don’t act like other girls.” I guess so. Then talk degraded into whether or not nudist camps were really a good idea and I mentioned that there was one in our state and I’d love to go up there to get a tan. Not that I want to mow my grass in the nude or anything but I would definitely like to take advantage of a clothing free society for the chance at not having tan lines. 

The conversation ended with a discussion as to the shop dress code and the guys said they would not complain to the management if I chose to work topless during the hot summer months.

Bwhahahahahahahaha!

Dream on.

Oh yeah, here’s some earrings I made…

and this is an embroidered amulet. It isn’t finished yet… but here’s what I have so far.

And another view…

We have seen some dark days in our time.  As a parent, I worry about sending my son to school. Grade school, middle school, high school, college. I figure if it can happen to the Amish, it can happen to anyone. If it can happen 300 miles from my home, it can happen 3 miles from my home.  There is no escape from this crazy fucking world.

 I also contemplate the attack on the American (gun) culture.  Funny, we have such a bad reputation yet people are dying to get inside our borders. What? To kill each other with easily accessible handguns? To seek education and fortune?  To escape terrorist regimes, famine, and genocide, where only the bad guys have guns? Which is it?  The land of opportunity or the land of opportunity to be killed with a gun?

Hey, no one ever said we were perfect. With the sweet, comes the sour. And the sour is some sullen stalker who took 32 lives from this Earth and left others to mourn them and the rest of us to wonder, what would we have done?

Yes, I’m just full of bright, cheery things to say.

Hey! Ho! I almost slit my wrists over the weekend but didn’t really want to bleed out all over my new floors. What a mess that would have been. I must say though, it is interesting to step outside of yourself and wonder, really wonder, what it would be like if you were gone. I wouldn’t recommend it.

 Then the following day I sliced my finger open shaving down a wand. It hurt like hell and needed 3 or 4 stitches, which I didn’t get. Again, I must say, given how bad that bitch hurt, it seriously deterred me from that whole wrist slitting jobby. Besides, how boring. I’m much more creative than that and by the time I figure out the most creative way to knock myself off someone else would have already thought of it, or in the meantime I’ll drag myself out of this highly temporary slice of shit I’ve ever been in.

Did I tell you about the new guy they have working at my house?  Oh, well, he gives me the FUCKING CREEPS, okay?  I don’t like him. He tried to railroad me on my heating and cooling and he gives me the creeps. He also gives my neighbor the creeps, especially when he spends more time staring out the window at her babelicious daughter than working on my house.  You know what happens when I don’t like people? When I don’t like people like that in MY SPACE?  I get rather emotional and I ponder and I worry and I fret and I frown  a lot. Oh, and I grind my teeth.

So, I says to my Momma, that I can’t wait for that creepy guy to be out of my house and I never, ever see him again and I don’t like him because there’s something just not right about him and did I mention I can’t wait until he’s out of my house?  Well, as of Tuesday, if the Lord’s willin’ and the creeks STOP RISING, he’s out. He had a little accident with the saw. No, he didn’t bleed out on the floors either but it might have broken his hand the way it got tangled or something.

I was relating this to T-Bird as I strode down the street after having reamed my contracting company a new asshole for neglecting me and I told her, “You know, I didn’t mean for him to get hurt, I just wanted him out.” And she knew what I meant, because people that I don’t like or who wrong me, have the really bad luck of something happening to them which can be quite heinous and I keep wondering if there is a spirit that does my evil bidding for me, even if I don’t ask it to.

Like Ron, he pissed me off and I was quite upset with him, in addition to all the bullshit about my house repairs moving along slower than MO-LASS-US, and well, his rental property flooded after the recent rains. And although, logically, I know that natural disasters are just that, natural disasters, and if someone is dumb enough to catch their sleeve or glove up in a saw, well, that’s just carelessness… but deep down, it makes me wonder.

 I have been beading though.  And I would post pictures, but of course WordPress is having some kind of SERVER MAINTENANCE. A pox on ye!

Nate was writing about the fire and he looked at me and said, “You know, writing is a good way to get your feelings out, Mom.”  Uh. Duh.  I told him that I knew that, which why I write all the time and he made the astute observation that I indeed, have not been writing lately. 

And with that, I will bid you a good day from my little slice of Nirvana.

So, I had to park myself up Steve’s ass today in order to get something accomplished. I told him I was having a bad day and then he said he was having a bad day and I said my day was worse and then he said his day was worse and then I said my day was worse and he said, “We’ll flip a coin.”

 I won.

 He was sweet because he knows he’s on my shit list and he’s on my shit list because I’ve tried for a week to get him to finish these forms I needed to order some shirts… 147 shirts that need printed and then they need numbers put on them which takes like, for-evah, and we’ll have like 3 days to do 10 days work and we have over 3700 other shirts due within the next 10 days.

 Smile! 

 Then I have this bet with the shop guys that I’ll be able to “pull ink” by the time Black Stone Cherry plays the Kentucky State Fair in August.  Pulling ink requires a lot of upper body strength, which I sort of lack in. However, I’m determined to print a new design to show the BSC guys in Louisville.

Steve has money riding on me. I plan on winning and taking the money, although its not really about the money. Its about street ink cred. Plus, I need to build some muscle.

Did I tell ya’ll I’ve lost 12 pounds since the fire? I can’t remember. Anyway, it was a great start to returning to my fighting weight, which is another 12 lbs. down the road. Everyone in the shop stores winter fat, knowing the famine will come in summer.

Kevin used to go to the 7-11 and buy these ginormous burritos. Good Lord and Lady they were as big as his head and probably full of the nastiest substances known to man, drank a lot a beer, had a lot of the munchies (if you get my drift) and he still complained he had lost too much weight.

He would have been 40 on March 24th. He was the first one I pulled ink with, pulled shirts with, pulled from the dryer with, burned screens with, washed screens with, yelled at, yelled with, sweated, laughed, drank, ate, cussed… I miss him.

So, I’ll win the bet and be totally buff by August.

I win, i win, I win!

I had a post about Cybele and wands written, and I also have a post about old nemesises written but, now that’s news that will have to wait. Sort of.

One of my former bosses was killed last week. He was on the interstate and was struck by an 18 wheeler after attempting to run across the road. Then he was struck by another 18 wheeler. Not pretty. I had written about him before a long time ago in other posts but I’m too lazy to find them right now.

 I knew he had been having some problems of late but found out today that he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Which, is just incredibly sad. Being at his memorial service today was a stark reminder of how far the gang has come since Kevin’s suicide. I recognized the same numbness, grief, and shock that we must have carried with us.

 I spoke to my former boss’s dad, who remembered who I was even though I had not worked for his son for 7 years. He told me how highly his son had spoke of me and how much he depended on me as his paralegal. I can’t get into it right now, but that was… bittersweet.

And all this after staying up with Nate last night for his sleep deprived EEG to check his seizure activity. Now, after a long nap late this afternoon (4-8:30), I was just tossing and turning around in my bed and decided to write.

And because my life is so boring and I have nothing else to do and I’m, you know, independently wealthy, I’ve decided to start my own newspaper. I’ve been kicking around the idea for a long time and after being passed over for a full-time writing position without even so much as an interview or writing clips to diss, I’m going ahead with my idea. I figure the best revenge is to build my own newspaper and then let the bastards buy me out, if ever I choose to be bought out.

 As Bon Jovi says, “Luck ain’t even lucky, got to make your own breaks.”

After tossing around in the bed for a while I realized there was another warm body down there. Yep, ole Macy Mae has become a bed kitty.

Nate is tormenting his father for the night. Thank the Lord and Lady.

They started laying the new floors today after much ado about nothing, a wasted trip to my house, and 7 phone calls. This is what happens when someone other than Ron handles the arrangements. See, had it been Ron there would have been one phone call that went something like this….

“Hey there.”

“Hey, how’s it going?”

“Good. Look, instead of the natural finish, I think you should go with the medium brown. It’s going to match your trim better.”

“Oh, okay. Whatever is going to look best.”

Instead, it was 7 phone calls between four people. And a wasted trip. When I had had 2 hours sleep in the last 36. And gas is butt fucking expensive. And I have other shit to do, like sleep and attend memorial services and harass Steve about getting paperwork in so I can do my job. Gah.

Okay, I need to write up a flyer for my newspaper and figure out all kinds of accounting stuff that I know nothing about. I hope to be around to visit you all very soon.

VERY LONG POST - PICTURES ARE AT THE END

Was not such a good day. Having my period and dealing with all of this crap is a lethal combination. Not only do I have PMS but also PFS, or Post Fire Syndrome. They sprayed fungicide on the sub-flooring today. However, my cabinets are still sitting in boxes in the living room. I have no toilet, or stove, or refrigerator, yet, oh yeah, or floors. Essentially, I still have nothing because I have no where to put anything and I’ll be damned if I’m moving everything twice. It was hard enough to move Nate’s new chest. I missed out on a great sale on mattresses. I’m still wondering whether I should get a full-size bed or stick with my Queen sized bed.

January 29, 2007

The picture window in the living room.

This was before they boarded up all of the windows.

The drop-down stairs into the attic which was directly over the floor furnace.

I’ll have some new pics of progress on the house this weekend. Better than looking at how we used to be.