Follow your heart

If you’re lucky, you find people who change (for the better) the way you view yourself, others and the world. Besides family, I have found three such people, two of whom are in a tremendous amount of emotional pain right now.

A few of you left comments regarding the strength of connections they feel to people they've met only through the internet and I couldn't agree more. Jock could be a modern-day St. Francis of Assisi, protector of animals (okay, the sainthood might be pushing it a bit unless whiskey is allowed these days, but still...). Last week, he was caring for twenty-one cats, and would rather skip meals himself than see one go hungry. I can't express how much I admire his devotion and dedication. He has buried four kittens in one week and the trend doesn't seem to be stopping. I don’t know if there is something a vet can do or a medication that will help, but I can’t live with myself if I sit idly by and do nothing as they continue to die from this "one day they're fine, the next day they're being buried" illness.

I was actually moved to tears when a group of strangers on the internet helped pay the surgery bill of a kitten that had been run over - there is so much good in the world sometimes, it amazes and astounds me. Though he would never in a million years ask for help, I will. The cat photo to the right will take you directly to Paypal to donate if you’d like to help.

For my disappearing act: I booked a ticket to Milwaukee, leaving this morning from Tallahassee (figuring I’d bypass the whole “speeding ticket/missed flight/get a hotel room” process I endure when I fly out of Atlanta). I may be able to do nothing more than cry with my friend as she mourns the loss of her father, but offering my shoulder from nine-hundred miles away and sending flowers hardly felt supportive enough.

Intermission

I was wondering why I hadn't heard from my sister for the past month. Turns out she met a guy on that child-predator/malicious-ware/superficial meat market MySpace, who lives in my town, and they've become semi-serious. I certainly hope it wasn't that guy with the video of himself shaving, because that seems a bit self-absorbed and he's going to need to focus 110% of his attention on her.

I know a wonderful man on the internet who is losing kittens left and right to some lethal, extremely contagious virus and my heart is aching for him as he holds his dying darlings. He deserves more than what little I offer and give.

My bipolar, somewhat crazy, sometimes soulmate, friend that I met in Basic Training (in 1987, 'cause I'm old like that), lost her father this morning. We had a falling out about six months ago so I haven't been there for her, but I know she must be devastated.

I feel helpless, isolated, and frustrated. I have no words, can offer no solace, feel this overwhelming sense of loss for my friends, yet know it's nothing compared to what they're going through (turns out I don't care about ending sentences with prepostions, either, so there).

This might possibly be the most embarrassing thing I've ever admitted...

I know she's as dumb as a box of rocks with an extremely limited vocabulary. A bleached blonde spoiled princess party animal who hasn't worked a day in her life. I do. Still...I can't help being fascinated by Paris Hilton. What is wrong with me?! (Answer at your own risk).

Her new single - that I might have already listened to (twice). That's hot.

St. George Island, Florida

A tiny island with not a lot of fanfare. Another perk? Dogs are welcome.

Dell's Bells

When my HP desktop crashed THREE TIMES for no explicable reason other than the possible alignment of Saturn and Venus, their not-so-English-speaking-customer service department sent me a box so I could fed-ex the computer that time forgot to them in California. They replaced the hard drive and eventually mailed it back to me - a week and a half later.

My current soulmate, a Dell laptop that's still under warranty, lost/misplaced two letters off the keyboard (completely cat-related, of course, as one was trying to jump on my lap, his claw gripped the keyboard and pulled as he tried desperately to stay attached, but gravity won instead*), so I was thinking they could send a few letters? P and 0? Nah, they sent a whole new keyboard PLUS a cute, tiny screwdriver.

*this reminds me of my boss, who insists that if you throw dice, the number three will come up most often and believes that he knows, from research, the luckiest numbers for the Florida state lottery to eventually win. I keep telling him statistically, the odds of each number is the same. He can refuse to believe in statistics and gravity, but they're still there, regardless.

My laptop screen occasionally blinks, so I thought I could find out if it was covered under the warranty, which it is. A technician came to my house, cleaned the connections and replaced the video card. Two months later, it did it a few times again, so another technician arrived the next day with a brand new screen.

I can't get over this customer service...Budweiser needs something similar.

Not again

At the risk of having cats completly take over my blog, meet Addison, the sister of one-eyed Bowie:
When I got home from work yesterday, I noticed her eyes were barely open and she seemed to be sick. Please let it be a sympathy reaction to her sister losing an eye and nothing more.

Uncle.

Men. I'd rather use an epilady on my entire body. At least you know beforehand it's gonna hurt like hell.

It's so quiet, oh so quiet

My co-worker Jessicunt returned to work after her week-long vacation attired in a new, so-tight-I-could-see-the-34b-tag-with-her-bra-size-on-it Tinkerbell* t-shirt that said "I'm so done with you". She's choosing to embark along the path of the silent treatment, which works for me since her shrew-like voice and bitchy attitude annoy me, anyway.

*obviously a reference to my short blonde hair

The paranoid one also tried to enlist our boss to look on my computer to find my blog link so she could make sure I wasn't writing about her, but she's shit out of luck since I never access it from work. Now that I know this, though, I will make it a point to write about her weekly. One thing I would tell her: remember the two weeks you didn't talk to me after your dad flirted with me at the bar? Well, honey, he did much more than flirt (not very well, bless his tiny boner, but he did try).

One window to the soul

I started a pharmacy department in my bathroom for Bowie, the sevenish-week old kitten I took in last Saturday. I gave her eyedrops four times a day, general antibiotics, ointment and spray twice a day, but in the end, there was nothing they could do to save her eye (I might possibly have blacked out once the words "burst" and "eye" were used together so I'm not sure what the technical details are).

Weighing only 1 lb. 2 oz.*, I had to leave her at the vet's office today to have her eye removed.

*less than two cans of Campbell's tomato soup

Laying the almighty purple smackdown

I generally avoid heated discussions about politics or religion, because it seems sort of pointless. My beliefs work for me, as yours do for you, and I don't mind listening but please don't try to convert me. Well, unless you're a close-minded, hypocritical, right-wing Conversative Baptist trying to save my soul, then I'm just pretending to listen, while hearing the Brady Bunch theme song in my head and willing you to shut up. Quickly.

When I went to the gas station to fill up today, I had to walk inside to pay because the credit card option at the pump wasn't working (hey, it's 98 degrees with 99% humidity - I am not walking further than I have to). I heard the customer in front of me asking why the pumps no longer took the plastic, and the clerk told him it was a temporary glitch and he wished people would stop cussing him about it.
The customer said, "Guess you'll have to start cussing them back."
"Oh, I could never do that", the clerk replied. (I assumed he was going to say something about the customer always being right. Silly me). "God would never forgive me."

Huh? Guess that lands me right in the center of hell's shit creek. Who could get through this life believing that any cussing, flaws or errors in judgement are unacceptable? No, thank you. If (I mean WHEN), I screw up in the future, I know the people in my life, as well as a higher being, will be there to accept my apology. In fact, the people I respect the most have the ability to forgive the best (coincidence? hmmmm). Perhaps it's because I was raised Catholic, but forgiveness is generally a confession and a wafer away.

The rest of the day was spent burning through my full tank of gas by picking up my son after his piece o'shit car (the Patri-Camaro) stranded him twice and hydroplaned him into the ditch once. AND, if you ever sell a car, buy a car, ride in a car or think of stealing one in the state of Alabama, make sure you sign your complete middle name and not only the initial on the title because if you don't, we'll have to redo paperwork in triplicate and get it notarized before we can register it. And, I will personally cuss you out.

Kiss it

My boss: you know what your biggest problem is? Your impulsive Irish temper. Is it really worth losing your job over feeding some cats?

Me: that is hardly my biggest problem. And? I dare anyone to fire me...over fucking cat food. Kiss my impulsive Irish ass.*

*objects in blog are smaller than they appear. No, really.

They're poisoning cats on Fort Rucker, Alabama...

...and I feel sick.

I mentioned the other day my feral crew of approximately twenty cats at work (well, seventeen, since I took three kittens home. One with a bad eye needed antibiotics, but she was lonely so I grabbed her sister, then yesterday I took them up to visit their mom, who missed them not at all, though their brother was ecstatic to see them so I took him back with me).

Yesterday, there were only ten waiting for breakfast, then today, only six. Someone at work mentioned that they poison the feral cats on base about once a year, to keep the population down, and they had posted the "DO NOT FEED THE CATS" signs just last week, so he figured it was time again. What the hell? Is there a time warp tunnel from the Dark Ages around here?

Military bases are historically chock full of abandoned pets, with soldiers not wanting to go through the trouble or expense to take them once they move, especially overseas. I contacted the Veterinary office on post last week about a feral release program and they told me they would take the cats in, put them up for adoption, then put down the cats that didn't get taken. What part of FERAL do they not understand? No one will adopt these cats. I've fed them every day since November, some of them trust me enough that I could catch them, but I can't live with their blood on my hands if I take them in.

I decided to talk to my Veterinarian, to see if he would give me a discount so I could get the females spayed then return them back to their homebase to roam and hunt rodents, but I never got the chance. They're being murdered by thirds. every. single. day. My boss suggested I verify the information before I continue my obsession. Like our government won't LIE to me?

I'm tired of explaining to rednecks that have shot at birds and squirrels their entire lives with BB guns that this is CRUEL. I'm tired of expecting co-workers to have compassion. I'm tired of not having enough money or space to save them all. I'm just...tired.

You say "to-may-to", I say "killer to-mah-to"

Tired of auctioning out my liver to the highest bidder (ha!) in order to afford fresh produce, I decided to start on a small scale with two slightly-wilted tomato plants in my back yard, inconspicuously hidden behind the gardenia and plumbago. Psyched to pluck the first fresh fruit of my labor, I tugged and noticed a gooey, sticky mess.* With her distinguishable eight legs and red hourglass, was a Black Widow Spider living between two tomatoes!! ACK!! That big white blob? Some sort of nest with many widow orphans.

*tomato wet dreams of sticking it to the zuchini?


Looks like it's back to the Lucky Charms.

Raindrops on roses and eyedrops in kittens

I take my "stupid" pills daily, like a good multivitamin, but this weekend I threw caution to the wind and consumed the entire bottle.

A major SUCKAH for cats, I accidentally ended up with six at home after one disappeared (read here). And at work? I've been feeding an average of ten cats since around October, when we discovered abandoned kittens under one of our storage units. That number has steadily increased, and with the birth of a few more batches, it's up to around twenty. About two weeks ago, I saw a cute little kitten with one brown eye, one blue, and named her Bowie. She was one of the more tame ones, occasionally allowing me to pet her.

When I went in Saturday morning, I noticed her brown eye was closed, with pus and drainage making it impossible for her to open it, so I drove her over to my veternarian, who said it could be a viral or bacterial infection that's caused such a deep lesion. He gave me antibiotics for the eye, antifungal for her ringworm, told me to keep her separated from my animals if I was taking her home, then bring her back Tuesday to see if she's improving.

She looked so lost and pathetic, sitting in the cat carrier in my bathroom by herself, but I didn't want to take her back to work since I have to give her medicine four times a day. I did the only logical thing: went back to work and nabbed her sister. The two of them are living like fat cats.

Captive audience:

Okay, I took a deep breath, counted to ten, slept on it and I'm STILL pissed off!

I guess if you go to bed with brain rage, nothing miraculous happens during the night to soothe hyper neurons, and you wake up in the same state the following morning. Perhaps it's even worse because the storm has been brewing and thoughts have been racing for a few additional hours. Who wants a piece of me? Huh? HUH?! BRING IT!

This will be the shortest (hopefully) recap possible: a couple of months ago, my boss took a few of us out to celebrate the end of a stressful week. We're both prior military and work well together, but festive beer night took a nasty turn when he told me, "I would divorce my wife and marry you tomorrow if you'd have me." Gulp.

As far as lines go? That's about a negative two on the "gonna-get-in-my-pants" scale. A real beer-buzz killer. It freaked me out, even more so when he started making divorce plans from his wife of TWENTY-SIX years. I understand midlife crises and all, but don't put me at the top of your To-Do list.

When he started writing poems and emailing them to me, I knew I had to put distance between us and become more aloof. I told my coworker/supposed friend J. (of "subservient wipe-him-after-sex" fame) that I was concerned because we were obviously on different pages. Hell, we were on different books.

Apparently, she told him everything I'd said and added her own twist by saying I thought his poetry sucked. I would never ridicule someone's creative attempts, but who the hell does she think she is by saying anything in the first place? I thought we were friends (sometimes, sort of) and thought she was loyal (in her own way).

She's on vacation all next week, so I thought I'd help kick off her absence from work by emailing her three little words:

Fucking. Lying. Cunt.

From the Barney summer collection

I don't "get" fireworks: they're loud, look the same every year, my pets are terrified and we're in a drought, for god's sake! Besides, I'm the anti-celebrator during holidays. It's what I do.

While everyone else was pigging out on hotdogs and rancid cole slaw, I spent my weekend refinishing the little desk in my kitchen. What I envisioned as a sleek, dark eggplant surfing-stand turned out to be more of a grape kool-aid disaster. I should have just gone to Lowe's, bought some black glossy paint and been finished with it, but I've learned the hard way to avoid that evil, paycheck-sucking chain store.

I rummaged through my storage shed and found some limewash, which I painted on the desk with my random criss cross brush strokes. Nope. I dug deeper and found some crackle buried beneath some ancient pesticide, slopped some of that over the "raisin" base coat, then covered with a layer of white.


Before: old, dark brown, ragged desk. Dated.




Midproject: grape monstrosity.



After: old, purple, crackled, one-of-a-kind desk. Never been kissed.






I'm still not quite sure what I'll do to help this ugly stepchild of a desk, but I'm guessing some sort of stripping will be involved (oh la la!). For now, I giggle whenever I look at it, and shouldn't home decorating involve laughter? Or is that just me?

'Twas 71

My parents both use the internet phone plan Vonage, so sometimes our conversations are a series of clicks and echos. Sunday's conversation with my dad was particularly crowded with my ghost menagerie, which led him to tell me this:

When my aunt Denise told her son Travis about taking her first trip to Ireland this summer with her four sisters, he told her, "don't go with them, go with me instead." My twenty-seven year old cousin passed away at the end of February, so in the end, aunt Denise would make the journey with her sisters.

They stayed in a room with the skeleton key inside the lock, but the door would rattle and shake every night regardless. "Leave us alone, Travis...we're old women trying to sleep" became part of the nightly ritual.

On the return flight home, my aunt Denise would have to take a different plane home. Flight 71, which was also Travis' jersey number. Coincidence? Or did he perhaps make the trip to Ireland with his mom, afterall?

Calla in the sun

Have suitcase, will travel

The states in which I've lived, driven through, and/or gotten speeding tickets in red (yeah, maybe I really do get around):

create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

Giza

"From atop these pyramids, forty centuries look down upon you."
-- Napoleon Bonaparte

AmesJay's last hurrah

I've written about my IT guy/pathological lying co-worker, AmesJay for over a year now, but the party ended last week when he turned in his key, I.D. card and walked out without notice (true to form, he left a joint in his desk drawer). He told us that his grandmother left him close to $300,000 when she died, so he bought a house and was starting his own computer business. Yeah, and I've got a herd of duck-billed platypus in my back yard.

His wife called yesterday because she found out AmesJay had been hooking up with some skanks he met over the internet and she was starting to doubt things he told her. She asked our boss why he fired her husband (he didn't) and said that he had moved in with his parents.

Karma? Always finds you, even without a forwarding address.

Some of his more memorable stunts:

June 22, 2005 -

I wasn't going to write about this because I don't want my IT guy to read it (I think he found my blog site)...but yesterday at work after everyone else had left, he had locked the front door and was "working" at his desk. I received an email that I needed to reply to so I wasn't paying much attention - but then I could hear some rustling and out of the corner of my eye I could see his hand - he was WHACKING OFF at his desk.

What kind of freaking perverts (um, and lushes, crackheads and whores) do I work with??

November 14, 2005

I went into work Friday AND Saturday to get caught up and because we're having an office relocation project - moving around desks and personnel (you know, 'cause I don't move enough in my HOME LIFE). I took over the area of my coworker AmesJay's - sexual freak extraordinaire IT guy who likes to watch porn at work. Yes, I doused the area in Lysol and spermicide.

Apparently, there are other inappropriate things he enjoys at work. He had forgotten to remove his things from two drawers, so I was helpfully throwing all his crap in a box. Guess who had a ziploc baggy with marijuana in it? On a MILITARY INSTALLATION! Oy.

Lesson: keep your hands in your own drawers.

February, 2006

Dear Mr. I-don't-read-your-Space-but-a-friend-of-mine-that-scans-computers-on-post-told-me-your-entry-popped-up-for-security-reasons-because-of-key-words-like-marijuana-and-military-installation:

Yeah, right. You may be the world's greatest liar. Your wife may believe you're a church-going, nonsmoker that doesn't drink and spends all weekend working (out of town? every weekend? with no overtime pay?), but obviously she has no clue that you're a snake in weasel's clothing. What you lack in integrity, you more than make up for with sleeze.

You have a problem with me because you're the dumbass that left drugs in your desk drawer? You want to start shit? Piss off.

And? Those photos of your dick that you circulate around the internet? You might want to rethink - you're not all that.

May 1, 2006

I haven't mentioned my IT guy, AmesJay, much lately, since he confronted me about information I had shared here. Okay, I won's say a word about the pathological lies, drug deals or skanky sex-capades. Happy?

Supposedly, his wife had a baby four and a half weeks ago. He said she was being induced on a Thursday so he had to leave early, but then she didn't actually give birth until three days later, on Saturday. He took the following week off to help with the baby...there were medical problems the following week with jaundice and heart surgery...week 3 was filled with car trouble and a new vehicle...then last week, his grandmother in Tennessee was ill, then died, so he was out that whole time. Thirty days of excuses.

Given his propensity to exaggerate/lie out his ass, we've all been a little suspicious about his life, wondering how much is true, and speculate that he probably has another job, but is using up all his vacation time so he doesn't lose it. Our boss started to worry that AmesJay could sabotage our work/computer system and make it impossible for us to fulfill our contract, so he asked me to change the administrator password on all the computers.

Our computer expert will no longer be able to access anything and I cannot wait to get to work this morning!