Let There Be Light

I wanted to write more about other crazy people at my day job, but it turns out that the woman who cries about the alignment of staples is just way ahead of the pack, and cannot stop providing me with blog fodder.

Here’s the current problem.

Recently, we started an effort to go more “green” This is corporate-speak for “let’s make stupid empty gestures while changing nothing”. For individual people, being green might have actual meaning, but filtered through layers of committees and focus groups and middle management, it just ends up being stupid.

They went into every single office and installed motion detecting light switches. They did this because there are one or two people who always left the office lights on when they left at night. This is not such a problem, because one, the cleaning crew comes around after everyone leaves, and they turn ALL the lights off, and two, most of the guilty light-wasters have been laid off and nobody really cares whether they’re sitting at home in the dark or not.

It probably would have been cheaper to go tell the remaining idjits to turn off the lights, but that would have been (gasp!) CONFRONTATIONAL. So the passive-aggressive pantywaists just gave all of us motion sensors.

I don’t WANT a motion sensor. It destroys what little dignity I have been pretending to have, because it turns your lights off if you stop too long to think, and you have to do a lot of arm flapping to turn it back on, so several times I’ve been caught sitting in my chair doing a spirited impression of a wounded whooping crane. Also, I always turned my lights off when I left, and my sensor is way too sensitive, so it turns on my lights when people walk by my office door. Therefore, I am using MORE light than I was before they gave me this great “green” device.

And of course there’s more. There’s always more, isn’t there?

The Staple Weeper is worried about flashing light, because she heard once that it might cause fits in epileptics. She does not have epilepsy THAT SHE KNOWS OF but thinks it is better to be safe than sorry. She is VERY concerned that my office light turns on when she goes past my office to the ladies room, because she might have a seizure. And she goes to the ladies room a lot, because she is an obsessive flosser. (What a shock, huh?)

Now, a normal person might solve this problem by walking down the center of the hallway, not so close to my office door, therefore not triggering the light. But that would be a NORMAL person. What SHE does instead, is to wait for me to leave, and then run over and immediately shut my door.

When the cleaning crew comes, they’ve been given instructions to leave closed door offices alone. So the cleaning crew does not come into my office, and they do not throw away my trash. I am sitting here with four days worth of sandwich wrappers and old Yoplait cups, which are beginning to reek a bit, because the Weeper is obsessed with closing the door so she can be sure she’s not going to have a spontaneous attack of epilepsy. Asking her to, and I’m quoting here...

...just results in her sobbing, and then doing the exact same thing that very night.

This is why I was in human resources this morning pointing out that our office should have a mental health professional on call 24/7. Monk is cool when he’s on his TV show and all, but hella annoying to work with.

I have two things I’m going to do to solve this.

One, I’m going to cover the sensor with a little piece of tape when I leave at night. Two, I’m going to wait until the Weeper isn’t looking and put my aging sandwich wrappers into her office trashcan.

I should be angry but I’m too busy giggling.

This should be good.

Bite Me.

Well, crap.

I’ve managed to get behind on ranting again.

I had been putting off some long-needed dental surgery, because I was reserving money to make someone an offer. That fell through, so off to the periodontist I went, and had the surgery done.

I regret it, of course.

Let me start out by saying that I had somewhere between 25 and 30 shots before they even got started. I got twelve – TWELVE – shots in the roof of my mouth. I was a wreck before they even started the procedure.

With a wind-up that bad, you know the actual work was horrific. To keep from disgusting everyone, I will just say that it’s been two weeks and the sutures are really really bothering me, plus I am concerned because my supply of Vicodin is getting a bit low.

Furthermore, dammit, I am getting mighty tired of mashed potatoes and squishy overcooked pasta. I want some actual food, something I can – you should pardon the expression – sink my teeth into.

I want a crunchy salad.







I want a nice crusty loaf of French bread.






I want an apple, and my sympathies are completely with Barbossa when I watch Pirates of the Caribbean.


So I’m drugged and cranky. Jesse and the dog are both somewhat pleased about this, because the drugs slow me down and make me confused. So I haven’t found their new hiding place just yet.

I hate the damn dentist.

Bander, the Bionic Dog

You may have noticed we haven't mentioned anything about Bander getting the cast off yet. After a week with no improvement, we shelled out money for some MRI soft tissue scans, and learned that the damage to his wrist was a lot worse than anyone thought - as in, he snapped every single connecting ligament.

That gave us three options, per the vet - one, very expensive surgery. Two, amputation of the leg. Three, put him down. Since both two and three were impossible, unthinkable, and just generally not happening, we went for the expensive surgery. This involved fusing the affected joint and inserting a steel plate to stabilize the whole thing.

It's been eight weeks now, and here are the first x-rays of the nearly-healed repair job:































Impressive, no?

The downside is that we still aren't allowed to walk him much, and he needs another four weeks in the cast. He always had a lot of energy to burn, and has a bad case of cabin fever, so any little behavioral problems are magnified a million times. The separation anxiety that caused him to jump off the roof in the first place? Yikes. Bring on the puppy Prozac! (so not kidding, here.) And some training. And he needs company while we're at work.

So. He now has a vet, an orthopedic surgeon, a behaviorist, and a pet sitter. The freakin' dog has a staff of FOUR. I, of course, just have Jesse, but since he only has me we just order each other around a lot and nothing gets actually done, because we're too busy catering to the dog.

It's a good thing he's cute.

Hot Dog!

Crazy Contest Entry Three:

About twenty years ago, a good friend of mine, Larry, had a black lab that loved chasing and retrieving stick, balls, squirrels etc. But as a playful dog also loved being chased.

Anyways, we were in the barnyard burning some brush and branches that we had cleared previously. We set the fire far enough from the barn so as not to cause any catastrophes. But as the brush pile went down the sticks got farther from the fire, thus we started to toss branches and twigs farther to reach the fire.

Little did we know that "Randy" the lab was watching excitedly. Stick after stick went flying past him. Longing to do what labs do best, instinct took over and he charged after a stick that Larry threw.

Unfortunately, in his excitement, he grabbed a short branch from the fire and ran with it. I saw it first and chased after the dog cursing. Larry also freaked out and joined the chase. This just thrilled the dog.

Now he was running everywhere with this flaming branch.

We had the dog cornered and the thankfully the flames died down to coals on the stick end. Carefully we approached the dog talking low and cursing it sweetly.

Larry reached out slowly for the stick. But the dog knew better and off he went...STRAIGHT INTO THE BARN!!! Screaming, we gave chase as the dog ran straight to the fresh bails of hay and lay down.

Instantly the loose hay on the floor caught fire.

But as we caught up with him and stamped out the fire he ran and started more fires. With no water, and a super dry barn our fight was lost.

The fire spread fast and furiously. And while we were fighting valiantly, the stupid dog was smart enough to leave and ran to the barnyard, still with the now smouldering stick. We escaped and could only watch from a distance as the barn burned to the ground.

Larry built a new barn and started anew.



The dog still goes after sticks and squirrels.



But during brush fires, he was chained up.

Just to be safe.

Driving MeCrazy

You may remember this, well, it's changed somewhat.

I’ve been driving to the office lately, because the dog is leading a very complicated life. He’s still in the cast, and likely to stay in it for another month, which is driving him absolutely bonkers. On top of that, his separation anxiety is pretty much through the roof right now – we’re working with a behaviorist/trainer, but one of the keys to success is getting enough exercise and of course he isn’t allowed to have ANY exercise, so he’s losing his mind and taking mama right down the drain with him.

So, I need to be ready to rush home at a moment’s notice. And that means that I cannot take the train, which has a set schedule. There are trains that leave Irvine at fifteen minutes past inconvenient, followed by a later train at waytoolate thirty. Sometimes those trains are late, and when a train is late, they mean it – I had a couple of nights where I sat on the tracks for three hours, wondering if I would have time for a shower before work started again.

What I’m doing instead is driving, through heavy traffic, every damn day.

The worst portion of my commute, by far, is the bit close to my office, deep in the heart of Orange County, California. And I have a couple of words about Orange County:

Heidi and Spencer Pratt live here.
And fit in without being noticeably worse than everyone else. Since Heidi and Spencer are two of the most horrible, odious people who have ever lived, this should tell you just how awful the OC is.

It’s filled with people who behave like complete self-important tools at all times. The job losses during the recession hit Orange County hard, and a lot of these folks are living on the brink of financial doom, but by god they worked hard at being so superficial and pretentious and they’ll still be yakking into cell phones via cutesy Borg-style headsets when they’re bedding down in the shelters.

If they have to sleep in cardboard boxes, they’ll check the brand of the product that used to be packed inside before crawling in.

I’m generalizing, of course. But it’s my blog, so I’m allowed.

Anyway, this population segment manages to be wildly obnoxious while standing in line, so just imagine how they act when they all run get in their Beemers and get on the freeway. I swear, I spend two hours every day on the Sphincter Expressway. That gives me a certain amount of expertise, and therefore I think I can offer some advice.


...and stops talking on our cell phones and sits up very straight while holding the wheel at ten and two, we probably saw that highway patrol car hiding in the bushes. Clearly you didn’t, and you made a point of flipping me off as you cut around me going ninety.

I’m sure you understand why I was pointing and laughing a mile later while you were getting your ticket. Next time, you should assume that the rest of the group knows something that you don’t, and fall into step.

Especially if you can see that it is at least four car lengths of space, and your lane is stopped. You might be tempted to suddenly change lanes and floor it, but be aware that you might slam into the back of a stopped car just five car lengths ahead of you. I saw some random jackass do this exact thing last week, so take the time to look ahead more than 100 feet before you test your car’s zero-to-sixty performance.


It does no good to tailgate me, then swerve wildly into the next lane and back into this one, if you have not noticed that there is a reason I am going slow. I am trapped behind a cement mixer, and so are you, and being pissed off at me is not going to make me go any faster.

What it WILL do, because I am getting pretty tired of your antics, is make me very careful to make sure that any openings for getting around said truck are just big enough for me. You’re still stuck back there?

Awwww. That’s too bad.

Somebody is changing the tire. It’s over on the side of the road. It isn’t anybody famous. Nothing to see here.

Can we all just quit staring and GO?

There’s nothing to do down here. You are supposed to be up in Orange County clogging up traffic and hogging the good restaurant tables and acting like assholes. What could you possibly want in San Diego? It can’t be good.

So that’s my summer.

Asphalt and insanity.

I can’t wait for fall.

Leader of the Pack

August Crazy Contest Entry Two:

Jen invited me to join her for a dinner party one summer's even many moons ago. She prompted me that her and her boyfriend were experiencing problems in their relationship, and to expect some peculiar behavior from him. I figured they'd had a typical argument, and assured her they'd be fine. To my bewilderment, "Pete" was exceptionally strange that evening in his mannerisms and conversation. It was at dinner that I figured out what was wrong.

He announced proudly at the table that he'd decided to live a lifestyle of a different sort, that he was by nature the Alpha male of a dog pack. My girlfriend cringed in embarrassment.

I didn't know if he was joking until their dog sauntered in the room and Pete proceeded to "dominate" the poor creature. I stared gape-jawed as the poor beast rolled onto it's back in submission and Pete got down on all fours and bit it's scruff. I shot a look of sympathy to Jen, and the room went silent.

The awkwardness subsided when Pete and the dog went outside. Until Jen's Dad bellowed "BAH, YOUR BOYFRIEND IS AN IDIOT!!". We craned to see out the window he was standing in front of. The dog ran past full tilt heading down the street, followed moments later by Pete in pursuit, and completely in the nude.

We decided to make a quick and polite exit.

My husband whispered in my ear as we left that it was a 'good time to go before Pete tried humping anyone's leg'. I snorted louder than I meant to.

As for Jen, she broke up with Pete soon after, and has since married a nice human :)

Crazy Cat Lady

August Crazy Contest Entry One:

Quite a few years ago I lived in a house on the outskirts of town. My Mom lived in a small cottage on the property next door.

One afternoon while we were having coffee, she told me that rather than go to the hairdresser like she usually does, she decided that she would wash and roll her hair and lay out in the sun while it dried. A little while later I saw her heading to the back yard with her blanket to enjoy an afternoon of sunbathing.

It couldn’t have been about 15 minutes after she got settled in, I looked out the window and saw her storming around the side of the house and heading for my front door. I rushed to the door to see what was wrong and when I opened the door she yelled:Although it wasn’t readily apparent to me at that moment, I knew it must be something terrible because after all, that’s why parents give us middle names. To let us know we’re really in trouble! The kind of trouble where our first name alone just won’t do.

After looking her over for a minute I could see what looked like little wet droplets of something on her lavender bathing suit top.

Then it hit me. I couldn’t hold back.

I broke out into uncontrollable laughter.

I thought I would just die as she angrily described the event….”So there I was, just enjoying the sun when all of a sudden it feels like it’s starting to rain. I opened my eyes and all I could see was this long black cat tail waving above my face.”

You see, I had this little black male cat named Zephyr. Anyone who is familiar with cats knows that in a cat’s eyes, all things belong to cats.

Being one of eight cats, Zephyr was determined to mark anything he felt belonged to him by spraying it. Cat spray is a horrible mix of urine and a pungent oily musk that they use to mark their territory. He would spray anything from a five gallon bucket that my husband brought home to a new lawn chair.

We even had to warn our guests that would come over for a visit to make sure to roll their car windows up or else Zephyr would spray the ins

ide of their car.

On this particular day though, it was my mother’s freshly washed and rolled hair. I don’t know if it was the rollers themselves, or the Dippity-Doo she used to roll her hair with that incited the heinous act, but the fact remained that she was as

mad as a hornet! She spent all that time washing and rolling her hair only to have to take the rollers out, wash her hair and roll it back up again.

Later that day, after she had calmed down, I just had to ask her the question that was burning inside of me....

The Poll's Up!

Hooray! Vote Early, vote often!

poll by twiigs.com

It's About Fricken Time.

Well, I got the computer fixed.

First he slowed down. Then he hung up. Then, in his infinite wisdom, Calculon the Third (C3) decided it would be fun to turn off the sound. And as a last bit of defiance, he told our printer, Gutenberg, to stop the presses.

Now I know that some of you would say that I neglected the poor thing, and that really he was sick, and needed to be taken care of. I know that some of you will recognize these symptoms as some attention seeking cry for help. But the truth is, our machines are on a Machiavellian machination of machina über alles. They hate us.

They're trying to kill us.

Really.

We've had more coffee machines than Angelina has had kids, hers or others. Jackie has been electrocuted by the crock pot. I've had various fingers almost severed by hovercraft, fans, and other sharp pointy electrical things. We may be the first people, ever, to hurt themselves with a clock radio not in a bathtub.

So.

They're trying to kill us.

Really.

Technology Hates Me

We have been having technical difficulties, so we're about a week behind in EVERYTHING. We'll have a new poll for the July winner, plus some other backlogged stuff, up in the next day or two.

In the meantime, if you could hum some hold music to yourself, that would be totally wicked.