MFA Mama

an administrative note for those of you with mobile devices

   My dear friend Aurelia, who often reads from her Blackberry, pointed out that MFA Mama was not very easy to read that way. Something about the text column getting really narrow? I don't know, if she'd just get an iPhone she wouldn't have that problem, because along with every OTHER way they're superior to Blackberries* they're MUCH EASIER to browse the web with, but not everyone is a) rich** and b) discerning enough to have an iPhone and I like to include everyone whenever possible.

   Know who doesn't always think that way? TYPEPAD. It turns out there's no easy way to set your Typepad blog to display in mobile format when viewed from a mobile device, although you CAN accomplish that by adding /.m to any Typepad URL. Entering URLs is a pain in the butt on Blackberries too though, not to mention that /.m is hard to remember, so I've put up a link at the wayyyy top of the right sidebar where you can click to view MFA Mama in mobile format. I hope that makes it easier on those of y'all who like to read from your mobile devices of ALL kinds! xox

 

 

*   I'm not sneering at anyone who is without an iPhone either by misguided choice or out of fiscal necessity, y'all, I promise. That's mostly just smacktalk for Aurelia's benefit, because she's Team Blackberry and I'm Team iPhone :)
**   Yes, I know, I have an iPhone and am far from rich, as someone has already pointed out in the comments. So, you know, replace "rich" with "impulsive" if you like, or whatever. 

Monday lunch-hour kvetching (EDITED)

*   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!

well, yesterday sucked

*   I dropped Hotter in front of Local Teaching Hospital and circled around to find meter parking, because I hate the hospital valets. $5? SCREW YOU.

*   I got a $20 parking ticket, though, so I guess I didn't actually save any money. DAMMIT.

*   And it looks like someone rammed the back end of the MFA Minivan while it was street parked, and now the rear hatch doesn't open. Which since I don't currently have car insurance is now just going to be part of life. Fuuuuuck.

*   Hotter got two vaccines at his appointment (flu and pneumonia), and they were both killed virus shots so I don't think he's CAUGHT flu or pneumonia or anything, but he did get super-cranky, start shivering violently, spike a fever, and pretty much look like death when we got home. Whaaaaat?

*   Plus the creepy repairman? Pronounced our water heater to be an "odd size" and had to order the new one, which means that we still have an ongoing leak in the house and no hot water. SERIOUSLY?!?

*   I'm expecting Creepy Repairman back any moment with the new water heater, or rather he said to expect him back between nine and ten. I? Am not holding my breath.

*   In light of current world events and even current HOUSEhold events this is a very minor little first-world problem, but I upgraded to iOS 5 on The Precious and I don't love it. I got rid of that stupid little Newstand thing with The Coding Massacre's hack, but am unreasonably upset about Apple changing the little orange iPod icon to an orange box with a stupid music note inside it. I LIKED MY MOTHERFUCKING LITTLE ORANGE IPOD ICON, APPLE, AND THIS WILL NOT STAND. Oh, wait, I'm stuck with it? Well, I guess it WILL stand but I will NOT like it!

*   How are all of YOU? 

making me want to diephone

*   Yesterday, I went to message a friend of mine. In the name of necessary background I will tell you that said friend is a bisexual woman currently partnered with a man, and that she and the man have a child. I tried to send her a one-word text saying "Heeeeey!" But the iPhone decided that what I REALLY meant to say was "Breeder!" FAIL.

*   Today while playing Words With Friends (I am addicted to that game, by the way, so feel free to challenge me; I'll take all comers but I usually lose...apparently the terminal degree in writing isn't even good for games!) (I'm "MFAMama" on there) I received the following warning:

Sorry, "cunt" is not an acceptable word.

   You're not my mother, Words With Friends.

*   Aaaaand finally, about an hour and half before quitting time I texted Hotter with "I miss you :(" Or at least I thought I did. Instead it went to the XY. FAIL, OMG, I QUIT LIFE.

the one where I knew my life was going too well lately

*   I am doing a review and giveaway that is SO amazing...I'm excited for me and for whoever among you gets to win it! I can't do it justice right now so I won't even try, but look for that post soon and the upshot for me PERSONALLY is that I get a free pair of prescription glasses (my first in nearly six years--yes I have had these frames AND these lenses for that long)!

*   I just got a job offer from Temp Agency #1 in which I will make as much money per week as I usually do in a month of working fulltime for the next three weeks. Obviously that is a wonderful thing.

*   Then after work today, which finished early, I went to the eye doctor to get my prescription checked (I was pretty sure it had changed a lot, since my vision has started to suck pretty badly) and found out I'm going blind. Yeah. BLIND. Not maybe, and not even from ONE progressive eye disease, OH NO, but TWO of them. The first one was not a surprise, since I have it on both sides of my family, but the youngest person on either side to need treatment was in their late forties so I wasn't expecting to hear at thirty-three that the eye doctor was just SO terribly sorry my corneal issues rule me out as a candidate for any type of eye surgery and I needed to start medication for it immediately like RIGHTNOW. The second one she was more like "I...yeah...I don't even have the EQUIPMENT to tell you what kind of ____ it is, you'll need laser retinal mapping for that, but it's DEFINITELY ____" and when my face fell because I had heard of _____ before she consolingly said "well, but...in RARE cases it's JUST A CATARACT!" in a "hey, maybe you won the lottery, wouldn't THAT be exciting!" kind of tone and I looked at her and said "wouldn't a cataract need--" and her face fell. "Surgery. I...I'm very sorry. The good news is that treatment won't change you prescription, so you can go ahead and order those free glasses," she finished lamely. "I just don't have the machine in my office to measure your pupils, so you'll have to go inside to the optical shop" (this was the eye doctor at the local Big Box Store). I took my prescription and left, feeling numb, and the numbness lasted until I couldn't find my membership card and went to get a new one. "No problem," said the clerk, "I just need to see your driver's license and I'll give you a new card." I went to get that and there was the membership card (which I'd searched my wallet for three times already) and I started to say "oh, whoops, I guess maybe I'm just--" and I was going to say "blind" and instead kind of sobbed in her face. "It's okay! That happens to a lot of people, I see it at least once a day...?" said the membership clerk, before she realized that clearly I wasn't really beating myself up about the card and was instead in the midst of an acute mental health challenge. I didn't even try to explain myself, just walked away.

*   So I bought myself an iPhone. As a consolation present. 

*   It didn't work. I am still really, really depressed and now I ALSO don't know how to work my phone.

apropos

   I really need to bite the bullet and buy a printer. There are SO many good printable coupons out there, plus Big Child is apparently on the verge of needing one for homework and I occasionally need one for work as well depending on what I'm doing. Thing is, I have NO idea what kind would best suit our needs or what sucks and what doesn't. 

   Tell me about your printers. I'm looking for something inexpensive (obviously) and would appreciate recommendations and shopping tips.

shriek of outrage

   Noisy ads. ON MY BLOG. 

   My deepest apologies, until such time as I figure out how to kill it with fire.

Figure One: MFA Mama wrestling with the control panels of both Typepad and Adbrite from Hotter's desktop. Because that's how much she loves you!

many different things

*   Yesterday was a mercy-killing-free day.

*   It was also my big "solo at the helm" day over at the hippie food coop. I minded the store all by my lonesome for about three hours (the owners travel a couple of days a week doing CSA drops, foraging, lobbying, etc. and the one paid employee had to drive to another state on urgent business) and didn't burn the place down (GO, ME!). I effed up (maybe? I'm not even totally sure that I did) on one minor credit card transaction (think "less than five bucks"), and other than that I think I handled everything perfectly, which I think was better than any of us there expected. In gratitude the owners gave the MFAmily a CSA share, which was awesome as we can no longer afford to be members and have been missing it.

*   I am going to be helping another local business out with a banquet this weekend. Which requires that I buy some black pants that aren't of the yoga variety and a white button-down, but I'll be making enough for it to still be worth my while after clothes and gas. WHOO!

*   The MFA Children came home from Daddy Weekend with some type of upper-respiratory bug and immediately infected me (EFF). I had...what, maybe two weeks? Free of Asthmapalooza '10-'11 and inhaled steroids and prescription cough suppressants? And now I think I am headed in that direction once more, and my rib, which had been feeling MUCH better, is rather painful again. Shoot and heck and crap, y'all. I canNOT be coughing at the aforementioned banquet, for obvious reasons.

*   The surviving chicks are now eating over a pound of starter feed per day, all nine of their insubstantial little selves. It's crazy!

*   I have EIGHT baby cauliflowers. EIGHT.

*   The splinter I have had lodged in my heel for...um, well, it's been a minute, I think this splinter (or possibly it's glass of some sort?) celebrated the winter holidays with us...anyway this thing in my heel is rather painful lately, and I've already tried home surgery a FEW times with no success; I can SEE the thing under the skin (it's like a dot drawn by a very sharp pencil--TINY) but the instant I attempt its removal my stupid bleeding disorder takes this as its cue to turn things to eleven, which makes visibility poor and grasping anything in there nigh on to impossible (I can now honestly say it generates a loss of blood volume comparable to slaughtering a chicken). I've soaked my feet half to death on multiple occasions, tried the Vaseline/Band-Aid trick, all of that crap...what does one do in such a case, short of going to the doctor, which seems ludicrous over a gee-dee splinter?

*   The XY is recently writing all sorts of high flown appeal-to-emotion-y E-mails Of Ostentatious Crap About How Life Is Too Short (to impress his girlfriend? To hold up in Imaginary Custody Court?) about co-parenting classes (which I first begged for, then insisted upon, then gave up on and now cannot afford--don't worry, I've told him that if he pays I and even Hotter will be there, which ought to table the issue). As evidence of their necessity he informed me that two people (one about twenty-two years old, one a decade or so older than I am) who were "the product of divorce" were recently dead, one of a DUI-vs.-utility pole scenario and the other over "an allergic reaction to a medication with liver complications" (sounds like an o-v-e-r-d-o-s-e to me). "THINK ABOUT IT," his most recent missive exhorted me. I find this rather offensive, as both of the people in question (friends of HIS, not mine) were wretchedly unpleasant sluts whose custodial parents were useless deadbeats, and my kids don't have THAT problem (and yes, I told the XY as much). By all accounts I hear the MFA Children are very well-adjusted and the only dysfunction and unseemliness in their lives comes from the XY's direction, and you don't see ME peeing in HIS yard or contributing to getting HIM fired, so I'm not quite sure what he thinks he's getting at in the first place, although I AM sure I've had just about enough of whatever it is.

*   How are all of YOU?

R.B.O.C. (random bullets of crap)

*   I am getting sick. I mean, of course I am. Chowing the yogurt and garlic, slurping tea and soup.

*   I think some things are going to bounce, just because PayPal transfers take time, and it's making me die a little to think of the fees. Maybe not, nothing to do but wait it out, but I have a woogy feeling about this waiting, either way.

*   The XY sent me a truly shocking e-mail. Shocking as in "a real grown-up wrote this." I wonder if it was the girlfriend? If he walks his talk I will be very impressed.

*   Hotter and I are taking the dog and remaining mice to Artic Tundra State with us (the mice because they'll run out of something or one will die off and stink...the runt of the litter is still hanging in there but only just barely), but Poe ate six babies and the extra adult so we're down to a manageable number. They'll probably ride buckled into Little Child's Britax Marathon in their tank. The dog will ride in her crate, which we'll secure in the mid-cabin after removing the captain chair row with seatbelts on either side. I think it will be nice for her to have a place to be and we'll pack her pillow in there. It's too bad this isn't for a happier occasion because I'm rather pleased with how the trip itself is shaping up, funeral aside.

*   I gave Hotter a haircut and it looks fantastic, but he's carping about it because that's what he does, complain and moan and grab my arse, then suggest that the Great Clips girls used to massage his shoulders, etc. (at which point I remind him that they work for tips and I am rewarded simply by having him be presentable).

*   Rhetoric. My head hurts. If you follow me on the Twitter or are a facespace friend you know which rhetoric in particular has me het up, but y'know fuck ALL of it. At least today.

*   Sadly, I still have deadlines, and they make my head hurt extra-much.

*   I scrubbed the burn with MFOrganics Lucky Dog today, and debrided all of the dead skin from around the worst of it (which I think went down to the muscle? I dunno but it's gonna leave a hell of a scar). That stuff is great on such things even though it made Hotter shudder to see me do that. He was all "doesn't that HURT?" and I was all "it'll hurt a lot MORE if it gets INFECTED." All in all in looks pretty good, especially, as Hotter said, "for a burn healing on [me]."

*   I am VERY displeased to be getting sick. That drive to the Arctic Tundra state kills me on a GOOD day. Ugh...

*   In-law drama. Oh lord. Loud and Crazy's wife left him about a month ago and initially he didn't care because Big and Scary introduced him to some chick but then she dumped him for the same reason my former SIL did and now Loud and Crazy is very sad panda and Big and Scary has mortally offended me (details not For The Innernet but he's OUT OF THE HERD) and I can't promise that no one will get junk-punched, especially if their pets accost Isis.

*   Hotter is getting on my very last nerve. Mostly for petty reasons that make me a bad person, but I think we can all agree that failing to get my password on the Blackberry (his birthday) correct enough times that it perfomed a complete wipe and deleted my entire life is a great irritation at best. Bless his heart.

nothing unusual has happened at all

*   I can't take a knee anymore! My knees suck, and if I stayed down here until things calmed down I wouldn't get back online before BlogHer and I'd miss out on all the blogsturbation (tm mom, natch) and...well, anyway.

*   What's that? No, of course I didn't get things all good and transitioned over to the new-to-me blackberry from the previous, dead-to-me piece of equipment. It would be passésauce to go on a technology fast and then play with a new electronic gadget that way, and doing something that ironic would be all kinds of "writing-a-song-about-funny-things-and-calling-it-irony-without-knowing-what-that-means" so I didn't set it up. Or, alternately, I couldn't switch it until I paid the bill but the XY was late with the support check because he doesn't deserve a head and then I got pissed off at Comcast and canceled our innernet service, you know, as you do. Or possibly if I set it up I'd forget to deal with the innernet problem since blackberry=innernet and I used to think I was the fitter candidate to put the innernet back together again, until it became apparent that no one at Comcast deserves a head today and Hotter is SO much better at dealing with assholes than I am.

*   Yeah, when I put it all self-deprecating like that it almost sounds like I expected me to accomplish anything, but my "Summer of Duh" is not yet over with. It's possible it could have been, but my next appointment with Dr. Shrink where I could confess that I went without Ritalin all summer due to losing the prescription (yeah, my husband lost it, but y'all he has brain damage and I should never have left it unguarded or ignored him when he said he couldn't keep me company while I dug outside because he was looking for something--that's like telling your three-year-old where the scissors are without asking why; total supervision fail and my fault, not Hotter's--he just wanted to make some paperdolls really) was in the Blackberry...

*   Puppies. They're assholes, really. I know I said it was just like having a baby and I still stand by that statement, it's just that when you have a baby if you say they're an asshole people look at you like you don't deserve a head but with puppies you can be all "she sucks, Imma take her to a nice farm where she can run free and kick her out of the car" and everyone's just like "HAHAHA! THE FARM!" Animals are awesome because people aren't all "shut up, sanctity of human life, blah blah blah" except PETA, but I'm already dead to them because I find OTHER animals, like the ones that don't eat and roll in shit, delicious. Bygones!

*   I did at least perfect my Better Than Adultery cookie recipe, and if this was an inspirational Lifetime Movie and I didn't lack about eleventy health department permits and people were willing to shell out what I lose in overhead (HAVE you ever priced raw, organic macadamia nuts? Well OKAY THEN) I would sell them to pay the puppy's veterinary bills and still go to BlogHer in style, or else maybe Energizer would sponsor me and I'd use the whole $2,000 to bake Better Than Adultery cookie for everyone at the conference! Shut up, I said "if this was an inspirational Lifetime Movie," which totes leaves a loophole so that if I win the real-life contest I can be all "yeah, well, but mama really needed some liposuction quick before NYC." I named the cookies, incidentally, after an earlier, inferior batch that caused our neighbor to get googly eyes and fall in loooooove with me. Which is all you need to know about that fool. I mean, the cookies didn't even have coconut in them at that point and it was during the semi-sweet chocolate experimentation, and so it wasn't even a complement so much as a cry for help. Poor neighbor dude.

*   I was going to say how this is the kind of thing that would ONLY ever happen to me, but the Bloggess tells us this (the belief we are leading an extraordinary life) makes shrinks check off the cray-cray box on their clipboards and...well yeah, I still like to pretend it's not obvious. So now I'm all "nothing fucked-up going on here, move it along" and we're going to say this could all happen to ANYONE, AT ANY TIME. Right???

*   First one to tell me in the comments that I'm not only ordinary but also crazy as a loon sleeps on the couch, HOTTER, and should get back to signing up for new innernet because this aircard only has enough bandwidth for one of us and I'm meaner. How are the REST of y'all?