Saturday, March 23, 2002

You know you are getting old when...

Yesterday I realized that when I conclude a business call I say "Okey Doke"

What is THAT about?

I used to be cool, at least I thought I was. Back in school, I hung around with the "wrong" people, smoked dope, skipped school. I only actually got into 2 fights in my life, but I was told recently by someone I went to high school with, that people assumed I was a scrapper, and that is why no one ever got into it with me. Hey, it worked for me.

So what the hell happened? When did I get old? I don't feel old.....but there it was "Okey Doke". How depressing. It got me thinking......what would I give to be back in high school? NOTHING!

But there was one year that I wouldn't mind revisiting.

I had dumped a long term boyfriend and moved in with my best friend. I was attending community college and she was in hairdressing school. It was basically school, party, sleep (a little) and school.....it was a vicious cycle. Well school for me lasted about as long as it took my student loan to come in, then I found that there wasn't enough hours in the day to fit in all the partying AND go to school....one of them had to go....I picked school. I have to say that that year was the best in my life. Outsiders looking in probably wouldn't agree. The thing is....I was a big slut.

Well slut might be a strong word, but I was basically living the life of a college boy. I was loving it! And after all...guys do it all the time and it is perfectly acceptable. I have never given a shit what people thought of me, so I had nothing to stop me. And mind you this was back in the 80's when it was still safe to sleep arround, well we thought it was anyway. (Did I just say "mind you"?)

Stop me if I start telling the story of how we had to walk 20 miles to school in 5 feet of snow.

Anyway, we were living the life. Booze and Babes. Then one night I decided to have a joint with a friend. It had been a couple of years since I had. Back in the day I could take half a gram of hash on one knife. Well we lit up this hash joint, and waxed nostalgic, and in about 10 minutes I was asleep. WHAT? You heard me....it put me to sleep, out like a light, right there at the kitchen table. I guess it was the end of an era.

Well not long after my friend got married and we moved out of the bachelor pad. I went back to the old boyfriend. And the year of the sluts was over. What would I give to go back there? To the booze and babes? ANYTHING.

But that is not possible ....I just don't have the bone structure for it anymore. Oh well, we all have to grow up and move on........depressing, isn't it?

Thursday, March 21, 2002

All that snow......and nothing to smother with it.

We had a snow day today. We get a lot of snow days in Canada. I am so sick to death of snow. I was complaining about it while playing cards today, (since I couldn't watch the satalite dish because of the snow), and someone from North Carolina said "oh snow...I would love to see that!"

What people don't realize is you don't just see the snow...you have to shovel it, and walk through it, drive through it, scrape it off your windshield, plow it out of the way, salt it and on and on and on. Snow is pretty to look at....but it gets old really really fast. In fact it can get downright depressing, day after day of shoveling and freezing your ass off in the car till the heater finally kicks in (usually seconds before you reach your destination). Unless you are a skier, there is no use for it that I can see. I keep searching for a place that has only fall or spring...but the world isn't built that way.

I thought we were finally done with the snow.

We had a week of mild weather and all of it melted...but this morning I wake up to huge quarter size fluffy flakes falling down. It was beautiful, for about a minute till I got out in it and fell on my ass on the way to clean all that shit off my car so I could go to work. I picked my self off the ground, took one last look at my car and said "Fuck it", schools are cancelled, that's good enough for me, I am taking a snow day.
March 21, 2002

Addicted

My sister is a diet junkie. There must be a group for that? I am sure if there was ....she would have found it. She has tried (and talked me into trying) every diet out there.

Lets see ...there was the egg diet....eggs morning, noon, and night. Cabbage soup diet....yum. The great American trim down or something to that effect. That one was impressive...my sister had discovered infomercials, and had ordered it. It came in a huge box and she presented it to me for my birthday. (ya think she was trying to tell me something?) It had a book, diary, cards, and even audio tapes. Well worth the $90 US. That one was too much work for me...all that organizing and writing down everything I eat.

There was also Protein Power, also a birthday gift (do I detect a theme?), I tried that for a couple of weeks but I couldn't eat enough protein for the thing to work. It called for 7-10 oz of protein at each meal...EACH meal. I don't know if you know how much 7-10 oz is....but believe me ...it is a lot. Since I didn't have a herd of cattle in the back yard, I abandoned that one.

Everyone knows that Weight Watchers is the way to go. It has nothing to do with the program (they change their strategy every couple of years) it has everything, however, to do with the fact that at the end of each week you show up and some strange woman sets you on a scale and announces your gain or loss. It has nothing to do with the winning points, what keeps you from eating that chocolate ice cream or wolfing down an entire pizza, is the knowledge that that woman is going to look at that scale and give you that disappointed look and say "sorry dear, you gained a pound".

And that humiliating experience will cost you $13 each and every week. Now you might say to yourself after a month of losing weight "I have the books, I know the program, I can do this. I don't need to pay someone to weigh me, I could be spending that money on new clothes for my new slimmer, trimmer me. Please do not delude yourself. Within a week you will be gorging on chocolate macaroons or fried chicken. You need that woman, and she is worth every penny of that $13.

If you want to lose the weight.....she has got to be waiting for you at the end of every week. I know of what I speak......I was on the program for a month and lost 20 pounds, I got cocky and after two weeks on my own I gained it all back.

My sister however is certain that the miracle cure for obesity is out there somewhere and apparently Joan Van Arc is just the scientist to bring it to the free world.

Late one night she comes across Slim Down. A miracle fat blocker. The infomercial promises that this is the revolutionary pill that she has been waiting for. Joan�s emaciated face smiles out at her and says, if you want to eat a slice of chocolate cake take one of these pills, if you want to eat the whole cake ...take two! Have no fear this will block all the fat. Oh...did I mention you have to drink a gallon of water with the pill? (Joan neglects to mention that.)

Eureka! My sister has found the cure.....on Knots Landing! Who'da thunk it? And all for the low, low price of $230. A bargain at twice that price. And once again I am sucked into her delusion. After a couple of days I know how everyone is losing the weight....after you drink a gallon of water I challenge you to try and eat even a half a slice of cake or even look at the cake for that matter.

So it has been a couple of weeks with the pills. "Do you notice any difference?" I say. She replies "Not sure" , but she tells me that she is on another diet (in addition to the pills) she will be eating nothing but raw food. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Not only is she drinking a gallon of water, but she will be only eating raw food, carrots, broccoli, turnips...you know...raw. ;-) Here is where I interject....."You know that the only way to lose weight is WW" ..........I know she says.......but WW is too expensive.

You heard me right, my sister who just paid $230 for pills from some washed up primetime soap star, tells me that WW is too expensive.....I almost pissed myself laughing. (or maybe it's the gallon of water I drank for lunch.)

In closing I just want to say that my sister is an intelligent, beautiful, caring woman whom I love very much.

That last bit was added on the off chance that my sister actually figures out how to use the computer and stumbles onto this page. ;-)
March 20, 2002

Who exactly IS the boss?

What a fantastic week I am having.....I came back to work on Monday to find my boss had left for Ontario for the week ;-) I thought "this must be the luckiest day of my life".

As the day wore on, however, I came to the realization that my boss had neglected to sign any paychecks, actually he didn't sign anything. Ok....not a problem, his father is authorized to sign checks, I just had to track him down.

Tuesday afternoon I swing by his house, his truck is there....no answer at the door. Hmmmm....I get back to the office and one of the boys says " oh....isn't he in Ontario too?" NO FREAKING WAY! Yes it was true. So, we are left with no paychecks.

But don't cry for us.......with a little creative accounting I will make sure we get paid. This job is nothing if not challenging. Ok....its also stressfull, infuriating, stressfull, exasperating, did I mention stressfull? Which was the whole reason I had to take a vacation in the first place, my doctor said that the reason the side of my face was going numb could be my job stress......ya think?

Oh well we can't all be ice cream tasters at Ben & Jerry's, we have to take what we get. And it's not that bad of a job, even if my boss sometimes bangs his head against the wall when he talks to me...or at me. There are benefits. How many bosses can you call if you have a flat...who will come and change your tire. (or at least send someone to fix it). Everything in life is a trade off. You have to weigh the pros and cons. What's a little face numbing compared to being stranded on the side of the road. I may take a stroke.......but they can lay me out in the back of my car and get me to my funeral on time.

Saturday, March 16, 2002

The Vacation is over!

Was it worth it? I think so. I had some relaxation time, I got some things done that I had been putting off. (not much mind you, after all...it was a vacation) And miracles of miracles my boss only called the once. I think I may have scared him. Whatever the reason I am rested. But I think that it will just make going back to work that much more undesireable.

Tuesday, March 12, 2002

Hair

Well. Day two of the famous vacation. So far so good. It is only half over so I am going to reserve judgement. We shall see.

Hey...that didn't go too badly at all. No one called too early, no one came over unexpectedly. No one asked me to do anything. It was great. Now all I have to do is obsess about getting my hair cut tomorrow. I am kidding of course. Unlike others I don't view a hair cut as a traumatic experience. It's hair, it grows, you cut it, it grows back.

I remember going with my sister once while she had her hair done.

My sister is the kind of person who wouldn't say shit if she had a mouth full of it. She told the girl what she wanted and the hairdresser proceeded to hack away. I was watching and remember thinking "that is not what she asked for" but my sister remained silent. I figured if it wasn't what she wanted she would have said something, but then I remembered the mouth full of shit thing. As the hairdresser droned on with her "hair dresser" small talk (who was sleeping with who's husband, who's hair was falling out, who was having a baby) I saw a tear fall down my sisters face.

Personally I would have pulled a horror show. But that's just me, I do that. (one of the many reasons people don't like to shop with me) And I would have pulled one for her but at that point in the hair cut it would have made it worse. Better a bad hair cut than half a bad hair cut.

When it was over my sister paid her and we left. She cried all the way home. I never understood that. It's just hair. But what was with that hairdresser? To stand there and watch my sister cry and be completely oblivious to the fact that she might be the reason for my sisters distress. Maybe that was why my sister became a hairdresser. REVENGE!

She has definitely given me a few bad hair days.

Monday, March 11, 2002

Today is the first official day of my vacation!

The first vacation I have ever had. Well there was those three days about 2 years ago that I took off to go camping with my sister....but my boss called on the second day (What man invented cell phones? Tell me so I can hunt him down and castrate him.) and I ended up going in. But this is the first honest-to-God vacation. All the appropriate authorities have been duly notified.

8:55am - Phone rings.....is that possible? Didn't I tell everyone every single day last week that I was on vacation, when it would start and what I had planned? I am sure I told every living thing I came in contact with that I was going to stay up all night playing cards on the internet and sleep all day. For 7 straight days I was not intending to get out of my PJ's. I even told my son that unless he was bleeding or on fire there was nothing I could or would do for him. (Please....no sympathy emails for my son...he is perfectly capable of nuking a hotdog.)

The phone is still ringing....did I miss someone? Did I forget to tell one of my friends? No, I called both of them. Is someone dead? Someone better be dead.

"Hello?" (It's my boss? He is obviously not dead.)

It can't be my boss.....he, above all, knows without a doubt, unaquivically that I am on Vacation. We discussed it. I know we discussed it. Did we discuss it? Yes....I am possitive we discussed it....at length.

- I made flow charts.
- I put extra icons on the desktop for him to find stuff easier.
- I made flow charts.
- I organized his My Documents.
- I made flow charts.
- I renamed those files to things like "if you need to print work orders use this file.pub"
- Did I mention I made flow charts?

"Hello???"

"Ya, I'm up" (He better be, at the very least, bleeding or on fire!)

"I can't get my laptop to print anything." (SHIT! I was rooting for the fire.)

"What are you trying to print?"

"Heat Loss" (Great...a dos program. Don't ask. It's one of the few programs he knows how to run.Probably because he has been using it since the turn of the Century and I don't mean the 21st.)

I won't bore you with the comedy of errors that went on for half an hour and through 3 phone calls. I can hear the error message alert sounds in the background, I see where this is going.

"Just bring the laptop to me and I will print it here." (Had he called at a decent hour, when I was thinking straight, I would have reached this conclusion earlier.)

It is now 11:30 am I won't be able to get back to sleep now....my son is awake.

Please don't let this be an indication of how the rest of my vacation will go.

Sunday, March 10, 2002

And so it begins.

This is my first posting as a blogger, so if I am less than brilliant in my rantings, please take that into consideration.

I have often thought of writing a book....but that requires intellect and proficiency in spelling that are beyond me, not to mention organizational skills and a firm grasp of the English language. So I guess I have just found the next best thing.

I think I should start with a little bit of insight on the author of this blog........

I am not a man hater, I am not gay or overly religious.

That said, I live alone with my son and have for the past 11 years.

I am alone but I am not lonely.

I understand how some women need a man, but apart from sex (and moving the odd piece of furniture) I don't see the need for them. And it is really not that difficult to convince them to part with their seed, so when you need it, you can get it. (unless you are just a head in a jar.....oh wait...I guess you could get it then too now that I think of it)

I enjoy men. Their company and conversation. (from a distance via the net) I find that when you let them move into your space, they become a whole other kettle of fish. I like to do what I like, when I like it.

On the flip side I like NOT doing what I least like to do, like dishes. I have a girl who comes in and does that sort of thing. I am not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but I feel that the few dollars it takes is a small price to pay for ridding me of dishpan hands.

Women, upon finding out about my arrangement, give me that look. The look that says I have somehow failed as a woman, like scraping shit off dishes validates my right to walk around with the X chromosome. Personally I think they are secretly envious, because they have men in their houses, they can't get away with delegating the disgusting jobs to outside contractors.

I think I will stop now, not that I am by any means finished, I could go on for hours but I can see your eyes starting to glaze over and I need to figure out how to publish this thing. I will confess that this is actually my second draft...since the first was lost as a result of a misplaced keystroke. Ok...here goes.