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Today I ended my workday with a bang by slamming the testicles of a visiting executive in the security gate of PseudoCorp's front lobby via remote (by mistake). That...about sums up my day, honestly. And you?
* Yeah, I bet when you saw the title you thought I was using that word as a figure of speech, didn't you? Not so much! That poor guy. I hope his nuts are okay, but you couldn't pay me to ask if I see him again.
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* I wore a dress to work today, and managed to get runs in both legs of my pantyhose before 9 a.m. Clearly I fail businesswear. *. I kind of hate Typepad's mobile site. It screws the spacing up every time I use it and won't let me choose more than one category. So this post will look like shit until I can fix it from my laptop at home.
* It's Monday, OMG! I work seven days a week when I can get the hours, and spent Saturday and Sunday both at Weekend Warrior Job, so I find all the OMG Monday-ing on everyone's part to be just a little precious. But because I'm a receptionist during the week, I have to make sympathetic noises to over a thousand employees and visitors here at PseudoCorp when they point out that it's OMG Monday and sounds of agreement over the need for more coffee in everyone's life.
* I do very much like PseudoCorp as an entity, and everyone here seems very nice, but running the front desk here must be what it's like to be an air traffic controller. In between all of the good-morninging and OMG-Mondaying I have to check visitors and contractors in, answer several lines at once, accept small deliveries for everyone who forgot their lunch or their phone at home, call people taxis, take delivery of their rental cars, coordinate with security and the visitor center on meetings and their guest lists, and smile the whole goddamn time.
* I don't love corporate culture.
* I might have a new stress fracture despite all my precautions (I'm hoping I'm wrong and it's just...I don't know, something ELSE), and if it's any worse after tonight's run it'll be walking only for a month or so. And god dammit, I LIKE running! I hate my stupid defective collagen. * PseudoCorp is making me take an hour lunch, and I hate that. I can't exactly go for a walk in my dress and heels, and would much rather take a much shorter lunch, but oh well.
* Last night I dreamed that CATHERINE's mother was asking me if I thought her daughter was in any danger from the XY, and whether she ought to try and stop the wedding. It was a very uncomfortable conversation. Since I have no idea what CATHERINE! or her mother look like, the part of CATHERINE's mother was played in the dream by the woman the XY cheated on me with in 2006. FUN!
* I fixed this post, obviously, since it no longer looks like one big block of shit. Now it's bullet-points of shit with proper spacing. You're WELCOME!
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* Weekend Warrior Job kicked my arse today, but it was good to see everyone there and a really cool event, besides. I was running concessions, not doing banquet service, which meant I got to hang with my kitchen crew and shoot the shit with the chef about Kitchen Confidential, which I'm currently reading (a reader lent it to me on the Kindle app for The Precious, and I failed to finish it before the loan was up and went ahead and bought a Kindle copy, because I want to lend it to Hotter on HIS Kindle app) (thanks, Mary, for bringing this book to my attention!). So that was fun.
* I found the PERFECT holiday gift for Middle Child! He's been begging and begging for a laptop, and I've been telling him and telling him that second graders do not NEED laptops and the only reason Big Child got one was that it had been mine and he was older, but Middly's really been pining and today 1SaleADay had little seven-inch Android netbooks (factory refurbished, but still!) for $59.99 (the deal is good for another two hours after I post this if any of y'all are interested...I don't get any kind of referral bonus or anything but occasionally you can get really cool stuff on the cheap and it's worth signing up for 1SaleADay to see if anything strikes your fancy in my humble opinion, especially if you're trying to do the holidays on a budget). He's going to shit himself, y'all!
* Tonight when I got home I actually had a GOOD run for the first time in a WHILE and that was awesome. I'm still a little sore, but not to the point where I didn't enjoy myself; Bumpus and I covered a respectable 1.86 miles and I don't know about HIM but I totally got a runner's high, which is one of my favorite feelings. I skipped running yesterday because it was raining mixed with some actual SNOW (what the actual FUCK, Nature? It is OCTOBER and this is the SOUTH!), and while I don't mind running in a light rain, I'm not THAT hardcore and was worried about taking my lungs out running in upper 30s/lower 40s (I have ordered a mask that's supposed to allow asthmatics to enjoy all sorts of cold-weather activities, but it hasn't yet arrived). Tonight it's not precipitating although it's even COLDER, so I wrapped a scarf around my face and secured it with a hooded sweatshirt layer, and that worked pretty well.
* I got a very sweet card today from k. She rocks my socks, y'all, and once again I feel so very lucky to have such wonderful friends in my life. Plus the card itself? LOOK:
Figure One: YES!!!
* How are all of YOU?
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I don't know why, y'all, but today when several co-workers came bustling out to the lobby with the news that Robert Wood Jr. was found alive I about lost it. I hadn't been following the story very closely, because I avoid the news for the sake of my mental health most of the time, but oh, y'all, my heart. It wasn't so much that he'd been found that got to me (although obviously I was relieved to hear it, especially with the weather all over the South going to shit today), it was the way everyone was talking about him.
"He was probably hiding from the searchers, those autistic kids are a handful!"
"I'll bet it's because he's autistic that he survived. A normal child wouldn't have had the animal instincts." (yes, someone SAID that)
"They say he probably didn't know he'd been lost, or even notice; those kids aren't all there."
I get that most people don't "get" autism. Hell, I'm not even claiming to fully "get" Robert Wood Jr.'s type of autism; my two boys on the spectrum are both verbal, and made so much progress with therapy that both of them have mainstreamed successfully from kindergarten. It's apples to oranges, and I'm not trying to pull up a soapbox and be all "I am the Lorax, I speak for the autistic kids!" But after a couple of gentle attempts to correct some of the more egregious misconceptions I had to mentally take a step back and shut my trap on the matter, because I was about to lose my junk and say something really scathing.
I don't know what I'm trying to say here, except that I'm really glad that little guy is safe and warm with his family tonight, and I wish everyone would just say that and no more about the matter.
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Okay, technically 7-4, but that makes for a less catchy title.
Or actually 8-4 today, because GUESS WHO HAS TWO THUMBS AND SLEPT THROUGH THE ALARM THE FIRST DAY OF HER NEW! FANCY! JOB!? THIS ASSHOLE RIGHT HERE.
Sorry. That needed the caps-lock outrage. Because OMFG whyyyyy? I also made sure to get the day off to an excellent start by skipping breakfast, wearing really tall shoes to go with my achy legs (I'm still hurting from the Run Of Suck when I was refusing to admit I was sick), and spritzing myself on the way out the door with perfume I'm allergic to. In my defense I had no idea I'd developed an allergy to my favorite perfume of over a decade; I guess that's just what you get when you don't wear perfume very often?
Despite all of my self-sabotage, today was excellent. I arrived to a free employee breakfast being served right as I walked in the door, I continue to be VERY impressed with PseudoCorp's committment to sustainability on all levels of operations, and I really like my coworkers. They seem pretty impressed with my brainstorming/problem-solving abilities, too:
Co-worker #1: Hey MFA Mama, could you call the maintenance guy on duty to lift this giant suitcase full of books over the hallway to the carpet on the other side for me, please? If I drag it I'm afraid it'll scratch the hallway floor and The Boss will kill me.
Co-worker #2: He's REALLY busy. He says he's gonna throw something at the next person to ask him to do ANYTHING. Have fun with that!
MFA Mama: How about you just drag it REALLY FAST and if anybody asks we'll all say we have NO idea who did it?
Co-worker #2: MUCH better plan!
Co-worker #1: Ummmyeah except there's probably a camera that would capture my face.
Co-worker #2: Riiiight. Crap.
MFA Mama: You both give up too easily. Here's what you do, Co-worker #1, for occasions such as this. You carry a ketchup packet on your person at all times, and if you absolutely MUST drag something heavy across a freshly-polished floor on camera you squirt a little behind each ear and under your chin, make sure the camera gets a GOOD look, and then you call in and you have to sound really BEAT UP and you tell The Boss a masked assailant hit you over the head and STOLE YOUR FACE like in The Silence of The Lambs, and because he has that sense of context he'll believe you. But then you have to disappear for a few weeks, and you can pretty much only use this once.
Co-worker #1: Wow. I... *wanders off looking dazed*
Co-worker #2: You? Are brilliant. I bet she's going to the cafeteria to get a ketchup packet.
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* I've been sleepy all day. This morning after the boys left Hotter and I went and got the oil changed and the tires rotated on the MFA Minivan, and its' blown headlamp replaced. The couch in the mechanic's waiting room would've been perfect for spooning on had it not been in public. Dang it. I took a nap after we got back but still...sleepy.
* There's drama with the XY's pending nuptials. Apparently HE wants a pre-nup (I...okay. I mean...he has nothing and is neutered and she's a rich idiot who's already dumb enough to be signing up to spend a six-month childless-divorce waiting period the rest of her life as the third Mrs. XY...I...this just breaks my brain, sorry, go on without me) and they're having a hard time putting together enough lawyers an affair to remember on less than two weeks' planning time or something. Too bad last weekend the XY had everyone cohabit at CATHERINE'S! place because he'd be getting married before his next weekend so NYAH! This puts me in a bad spot: either just overlook last weekend and the XY's attitude and send them, which then looks like I condone this b.s., or don't send them, which incurs Hotter's wrath (I'm working all weekend and he'd be lone wolf with the kids) and means Hotter and I have the expense of feeding/entertaining them all weekend.
* I don't guess it really matters at this point since Hotter has devoted all morning to being preemptively peevish and I won't be home to hear the bitching this weekend either way, but I wish it was easier to make everyone else happy.
* Tomorrow I start my new job at PseudoCorp. Whoo!
* Said job is very intimidating, as is PseudoCorp, and it's a little scary. I very badly want to do well at this job, because I'm awfully impressed with the company, but it's going to take a LOT of effort. Boo.
* I still feel crappy but not bad enough that I'm letting myself off the hook with running today.
* Groan.
* How are all of YOU?
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10/21 Woke up, went to Target, bought va-va-voom dress and shruggy-sweater-cover-thing to make dress more modest, clutch-purse-thing and pair of hose. Went home, put on grownup-lady warpaint. Went to interview, running fifteen minutes early per Tom Tom. Arrived five minutes late only to realize I was not then TEN minutes early to my interview at SouthAddress but rather was fixed to be five minutes LATE at my interview at NORTH SouthAddress. Cursed, shut Tom Tom off, called boss at Temp Agency #1, he was reassuringly smug and smarmy and made me feel all better, talked me into the door at North Southaddress where I handled the interview calmly and pleasantly. Came home to find I'd killed Frank.
10/22 I'M NOT SICK I'M COOKING LOOK HOW MUCH I'M COOKING SO HOW CAN I BE SICK!
10/23 I don't even care if I got the job I'm so goddamn sick. Still cooking though. Go for horrible run.
10/24 I could have gotten the job, or I could have gotten buried. Hotter asked me if I got the job. Wouldn't know. Didn't open eyes this day or if I did I forget doing it. So sick. Dying. Too dead to go running.
10/25 Woke up, not dead. If not dead then survived yesterday, ergo I WIN. Get children out door LIKE A WINNER DOES. Have obviously recovered! Whoo! Will celebrate by running early to shake off this feeling of slight illness and OH HOLY GOD OW. DYING. THIS WAS WORST IDEA SINCE...OW...have to stop running and walk, stop walking and limp, limp home, crawl into bed, lie down like a loser, cough, shiver. Hotter wakes up, wants to know if I've gotten job. Hotter makes me call Temp Agency #1 to ask about job. They don't know. I tell Hotter all is lost, I'm dying. Lie down to die. Hotter gets up. I go to see what he's up to, find the Sinusense Waterpik doodad a friend sent me, pik my sinuses, then decide fuck it, if I can't run or walk I'll limp pushing a motherfucking MOWER and mow a large part of the back yard. ROAR. FUCK YOU, GERMS, I CAST YOU OUT! Come inside on the verge of collapse to e-mail saying I got the job.
10/26 Me, out shopping frantically for businesswear that will span my bosom at the OTHER Goodwill, trying to get Hotter a pair of glasses in a day, hopefully not sick anymore because OBVIOUSLY...you?
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* I had managed to blame two days of exceptionally shitty runs on my running partner (Bumpus seems to really want/need plenty of stretching for those Fraggle-arm-esque legs of his and has become my running shadow, both to satisfy his need for "speed" and also to make Hotter feel better about me running at night with earbuds in).
* I think my gut knew better than my head though, because yesterday I had this desperate urge to get caught up on the backlog of cooking requests I'd built up from the MFA Children while working for Very Nice Company. I made the chicken soup and pumpkin pie Little Child was wanting, the homemade noodles Middle Child was craving, the fresh, fluffy bread and home-churned ice cream Big Child had begged for...Middle Child and I rolled peanut butter "cookie dough" balls for the ice cream before I added duck eggs to the rest of the dough and baked it into my famous peanut butter cookies...I even made myself a pan of kugel because I hadn't had it in forever.
* Well-played, gut. You called it. I am sick as a DOG today. Like, as in "swollen up hugely, earache, congestion WTH" sick and hating life. Which...well. You can probably imagine how much I'm enjoying this. BALLS!
*
Figure One: Oh, Mint.com. I know you're new around here and have only ever known life with me employed by Very Nice Company, but let me explain a few things, okay honey?
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* I had a really sweet run earlier tonight. I went a bit too fast, but didn't hurt myself and I got that runner's high...ahhh ENDORPHINS! I need to get one of those air-warmer mask things now that the air is getting chilly, though.
* I struck out at Goodwill. Found a couple of skirts that'll be good for if I GET the job, but nothing interview-fabulous. Fortunately there was a perfect pair of slacks in one of the Freecycle bags I picked up last week, but I'm ambivalent about my shirts. I have one striped shirt that I think will do...I'm going to try the entire outfit on tomorrow morning after the boys are off to school and if I'm not thrilled there's time before the interview to run to Target.
* There is a motherfucking mouse in the house (specifically Hotter's and my bedroom somewhere) and it is UNACCEPTABLE. Hotter and I disagree on this. He thinks I should leave the poor mouse alone. I think the little bastard is carrying Hanta-virus around looking for someone to give it to, and his habit of scurrying around our bedroom (remarkably LOUDLY for such a tiny critter) gnawing on things (what things? WHY SO LOUD? WHAT THE HELL?) is just...well it's DISRESPECTFUL. They're supposed to be AFRAID. Maybe it's rabid? Hotter and I can be in here having a conversation and we'll hear a scuttle and a pitter-patter of tiny feet and...well I baited the Havahart trap last week and this asshole wanted NOTHING TO DO WITH IT and today I just SNAPPED (oh haha, keep reading) and put out a snap-trap with peanut butter smeared on the bait-tray. Hotter, meanwhile, is trying to talk me into taking that up because he has named the mouse Frank and doesn't want anything bad to happen to his little friend. FRANK HAD HIS CHANCE TO TAKE THE EASY WAY OUT TO THE WOODS IN THAT HAVAHART TRAP, HOTTER. If I hear the snap-trap go off I will seriously come in my pants, I hate this effing mouse THAT MUCH.
* Yeah, I actually said that.
* How are all of YOU?
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* Hello from Temp Job du Jour! Today's assignment is one I've done before; they just need someone to sit in an empty office suite until closing time and encourage me to make use of their innernet, so here I am. It's the place with the excellent cappucino machine, so, you know, WHOO!!1!
* I've got a big job interview tomorrow, y'all! HUGE. It's for a temp-to-hire gig through Temp Agency #1 at a company I'm very interested in...their corporate headquarters has won many awards for its sustainable design and construction and I'm kind of excited just to see the building!
* The bad news is that apparently they want "polished" and I'm going to need to do some shopping to pull that off.
* Please send good interview juju, good Goodwill-shopping juju, and copious benzodiazepines, and I will as always keep you posted.
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