Take This Job and..........

don't shove it just yet, because I still need it until I find another one. I have had a nose full of these idiots. It's not just the constant "AWESOME!", that stopped back at the end of September when one co-worker quit. It's not even the creepy "Your team means EVERYTHING! Are you giving ALL to your TEAM?!?" messages on the monitors, constantly showing all day, every day, threatening to turn me into a Moonie if I let my guard slip for a split second.

No, it's the piss-poor lack of planning of the management and the monster ego of the CEO, a man spoken of in reverent tones by almost everyone there. This is a man of whom I've heard the following:
- "he walks the walk and talks the talk of the God I worship". That was in an email today.
- "if you look at his eyes, you can see the constant flow of ideas flitting across his mind. The man's a genius."

This is the same man who hires people based on their Enneagram scores, not on work history or personal references (If you're not familiar with the Enneagram, click on the link. It's pseudoscience at its worst).

This man also has determined (through the magic of the Enneagram) that he will mandate attendance of certain classes. Do these classes teach you how to perform your job better? Why, no, they don't. The classes are based on which of your personality traits that he has decided need pursuing. Mine was "leadership". Apparently, wanting to come to work early everyday, work through lunch and do my best to make as much money for his company as possible indicated a "lack of leadership skills".

So, every Monday for the last 3 weeks and for the next 7 weeks, he wants, nay, DECREES that I shall explore my leadership abilities in this class, leaving work to pile up on my desk. This also means that I get to work on Saturdays at time and a half to make up for the last hour and a half I lose on this class. Oh yes, and there's also "How Not To Think Like A Victim" classes. I get to take those too.

I recently attended a purely functional meeting between the upper management and the shipping dept. They asked what ideas we might have to make things run more smoothly. My ideas were the following:
- stop making us move to different cubicles all the time. I've been there less than 4 months and I just got moved into my 4th cubicle today. Fat lot of good THAT suggestion did.
- stop forcing us to take classes that have nothing to do with our jobs. If we were such damaged people, we should never have been hired in the first place. Believe you me, I wish that was the case with me....when I indicated that perhaps this indicated a Messiah complex on the CEO's part, you should have seen the looks I got. Like I had stepped on a kitten.....
- how about hiring some more shippers? Nope, didn't think so. They've hired 12 more production people, but no more shippers.


When I left my former job (oh, how my former co-workers will laugh when they read this post...'that bitch got what was coming to her!'), my boss gave me some helpful advice, which I would have followed, but could not. He told me to "hide it, if you're not feeling great." I can't HIDE anything. I'm physically unable to do that. My heart is on my sleeve, my emotions are always on my face. If I don't like something, you'll know about it, sooner or later, probably sooner. I've always been like that and I know a lot of people who don't like people who can't lie and fake things. My ex-boss is a very smart man. He doesn't lie, he just picks his battles. I've never been good at that. I've always been more like a Don Quixote type...tilting at windmills. That's why he has a very stressful, high-paying job and I'm stuck with this one. There was one lady at my former job who suggested that my way of being was due to "immaturity....or ADHD", but what the fuck did she know? She didn't even have a college degree and was jealous of mine. Now I have a chronic health condition and couldn't handle the stress even if I wanted to.

Triggered Memories

Every year starting on November 1st, I give myself permission to listen to my favorite holiday CD, "A Charlie Brown Christmas" by Vince Guaraldi. I love this recording so much, I only listen to it during the holiday season, so it doesn't lose its power over me. This is one of the few recordings I've found that can trigger pleasurable childhood memories for me, such as:

- my mom and I getting the green bean casserole put together to take to my great-grandparents' house for the family xmas celebration. It's very cold outside and Mom is letting me carry the foil-wrapped glass dish to he car. I feel very excited that I'm going to see my family and also because there will be lots of wonderful food.
- a similar memory: Mom and I heading out to Campbell to see the family there. One year, when I was 6 years old (1971), my grandmother and I had baked cookies to leave out for Santa Claus with a glass of raw milk (they lived on a dairy farm). I was sleeping on the couch, and about 4am, a light from the kitchen woke me up. I sleepily woke up and saw my grandfather eating the cookies and drinking the milk! I cried, "PAPAW! Those are for Santa! Now he won't leave me any presents!!!"
My grandfather replied, "Aw hell, girl, there ain't no Santa Claus. Now git back to sleep!"
My grandmother "set him straight" the next day, but that's when I found out the awful truth.....I did get a great present that year; a stuffed Flip Wilson doll. When you pulled the string, Geraldine said "The Devil made me do it!"

There's another recording that gives me sad childhood memories, and I can't listen to the song without crying: "Young and Innocent Days" by the Kinks on the Arthur album.

I look back at the way I used to look at life
Soft, white dreams with sugar coated outside
It was great, so great
Young and innocent days

I wish my eyes could only see
Everything, exactly as it used to be
It’s too late, so late
Young and innocent days

I see the lines across your face
Time has gone and nothing ever can replace
Those great, so great
Young and innocent days
- Ray Davies

This song reminds me of when I was grown up and I found out that many of my happy memories from holiday celebrations were put on purely for the children's benefit. My mother's siblings were angry at their parents for mistreating them when they were children, and for making some of the grandchildren favorites and almost ignoring the others. This hurt me tremendously, thinking that all this jealousy and anger was swirling around me and I was too dumb to notice.

It also reminds me that the people I love have gone, leaving me bereft. Others I love have grown so much older and I realize that I won't have them much longer.

This song is beautiful, as are many of Ray Davies' songs, but this one I have to skip over when I listen to the CD. It hurts too much to hear the truth sometimes.

Keeping Austin Weird singlehandedly

I love living in Austin. I've tried unsuccessfully to convert my family and friends into moving here too, not just because I miss them all terribly, but I want them to live in a place as great as Austin. Alas, they just won't listen....so they won't get to experience on a regular basis the "Roller Coaster" drive, aka my drive to and from work everyday.


This means driving east on Highway 290, which becomes Koenig Road when it crosses I-35, then Allandale Road when it crosses Burnet Road then Ranch Road 2222 when it crosses Mopac Freeway. The 13th Floor Elevators wrote a song about this drive called "Roller Coaster" on their 1st album. Members of the band used to drive up to Mount Bonnell to smoke pot so the Austin cops wouldn't bother them and this was the way to get there. It really IS like a roller coaster; I can't imagine making the drive while stoned. I drive it at 45mph, which is the fastest I feel comfortable making the hairpin turns going up and down the hills, and people fly past me like I'm standing still. I HOPE they're not stoned.....

It also means that they won't get to stand in the very spot where Austin Police shot Charles Whitman to death on August 1, 1966, when he decided to go up to the observation deck on the University of Texas Tower and start shooting people.
"There was a rumor about a tumor, nestled at the base of his brain".
- Kinky Friedman, "The Ballad of Charles Whitman"

I don't know about a tumor, but he was obviously crazy if you look at how he was dressed:

This was August in Texas, people......105 degrees outside, and this dingbat was wearing two sets of clothing. He probably welcomed getting killed by the police. Anyway, since my husband works in the Tower, we've been up on the Deck several times and it's always rather creepy, even with the beautiful view. Here's my feet standing in that same spot:

Notice that I was smart enough to wear only one pair of pants, plus I didn't have any pot, so cops were nowhere to be seen.
Why would you want to live anywhere else?

42

My great-grandparents used to play a dominoes game called "42" with their friends. I knew how to play dominoes, but I never found out where the 42 entered into it, unless you added up the dots on your dominoes. Seems to me like the game would be over pretty quick.....

I turned 42 today and Adrian treated me to a lovely day. He bought me a book I wanted ("The Story of the 13th Floor Elevators and Roky Erickson") and treated me to lunch at Red Lobster. My co-workers were baffled at my choice of restaurant for my birthday nosh, but Red Lobster has given me 30 years of comforting memories.

My mom used to let me skip school on the days when my grandmother had to drive to Dallas to get her post-colon cancer check-ups every year. She had colon cancer surgery in 1976 when I was 11 years old and for 5 years after that, she got checked every year. After her appointment, she would take me to lunch at Red Lobster on LBJ Freeway in Garland on the way home. My mom and I would eat at that same Red Lobster whenever we went to Dallas and she had the money for it. It was always a HUGE treat.

I ate there with my mom and my friend Esther on the day I had to check myself into Presbyterian Hospital psychiatric ward. It was a small bright spot in an otherwise horrific day, and it's the only part of that day that I remember really well, besides my new roommate falling asleep standing up in the hospital that afternoon. She was taking Halcion and had shuffled hypnotically over to my bedside to comfort me, her slippers rhythmically sliding across the floor in short bursts. I was sitting on my bed whimpering, because not only had I never been in the hospital for anything at that point, I was in the hospital now for being CRAZY. The Halcion kicked in at mid-sentence and she started snoring while she stood next to my bed with her hand on mine. I was so afraid she would collapse and hurt herself, I picked her up and laid her on her own bed. I hadn't slept for 2 weeks prior to that and I didn't sleep that night either, even though the nurses kept dosing me with benzodiazepam. It worked eventually, because I don't remember the next two weeks that I was in the locked ward. I had visitors apparently; Esther and her then boyfriend came to visit me and he was so freaked out by my "zombieness", Esther had to talk him out of kidnapping me from the hospital and taking me home with them.

That Red Lobster eventually became a funeral home. Adrian always wondered why they didn't keep the lobsters on the funeral home signs. It would have attracted sailors, so maybe they should have: "Let us bury you at sea, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!" or maybe "You stab 'em, we slab 'em, YARRR!!!" or how about "When you're dead, you ain't red no more!" Garland wasn't really anywhere close to the sea, but you get the idea. I don't know why people don't hire me to think this shit up for them.....

at the bottom of the well

This week's homework assignment from the shrink is:

a. name 4 things I'm good at
The only things I could come up with related to work or how I do my job. I can't say that I'm a talented artist like my husband or a great educator like my friend. I can't even call myself a musician anymore. I guess I'm a good worker and I don't find much comfort or pride in that. It's like saying I'm a good donkey. I can't call myself a writer because I don't write. I can't keep a flow of words going anymore. It's too frustrating.

b. name 4 things that are good about me
When I get in black moods like I'm in now and have been in for some time, I can think of NOTHING. I'm not fishing for compliments here; this is an indicator that my depression is back very strong and perhaps I shouldn't be fighting myself about going back on to antidepressants. I've never had a healthy self-respect but my self-loathing is getting out of control lately. I don't like myself. The fact that other people may seem to tolerate my presence doesn't have any effect on that estimation.

c. name some clubs or associations that would be fun to get involved in
I joined Wheatsville Co-op but I haven't been to any meetings. Maybe I should go. I have no idea about other clubs in Austin; I'm sure there are loads but the idea of being among lots of college-age kids holds no allure for me. I do plan on Googling this subject to see if any clubs exist specifically for middle-aged depressed women with nasty attitudes. How about a "TOO OLD TO BE EMO" Club?

Farmers Market - links aplenty!

Last Wednesday, I stopped by my local farmers market on the way home. There's a small one right smack dab in the middle of a newish housing/retail complex here called the Triangle. There were only about 15 or so stalls, not nearly as many as the big one downtown on Saturday mornings, but it was pleasant enough and I got some great stuff.

I bought some lovely squash and some bell peppers, also some locally made soap that absolutely rocks ass, as my pal Shelly would say. There were several food vendors there, so I stopped at one and bought a couple of frozen Boomerang's Aussie meat pies for dinner. An Australian version of a Cornish pasty, these had light flaky crusts and the fillings were quite good as well. There were also vendors of pizza, Nepalese vegan food, grass-fed bison and bistro-type fare, and live music on top of all that.

I would encourage anyone who reads this to visit the farmers market in their own hometowns. I remember the one in Greenville, where I grew up. My mom would always want to stop by there when we were downtown because the vendors had homegrown tomatoes and my mom LOVED tomatoes. They tasted better, looked prettier and were cheaper than the ones you found in the store. That's how farmers markets usually are. The produce I bought was about the same price as the organic produce you'd find at Whole Foods, but it was more convenient to get to after work. Plus, it's not just produce, there's other fun stuff too and it's a relaxing stroll. It's a great place to hang out on Saturday mornings or whenever your town's market happens. You'll get to buy beautiful fruits and veggies (probably grown in someone's back yard or "back 40" as they used to call it) grown without pesticides, bursting with flavor and goodness.

If you wondering why all the links, it's because I just figured out how to do it. It only takes me a few years.....just like it did to learn to eat healthy.

Well....OK, then.

I thought I was getting bored with my job, then on my 2 month anniversary last Friday, the controller (an important sounding position, isn't it? Makes it sound like we're all marionettes and she's in charge of the strings) called me into her office and told me that they were very pleased with my performance and were giving me a $2 an hour raise.

I was relocated to a new cubicle that day and I'm on a "team" now, along with a closer, a funder and an underwriter. I will work only on their files and I'll be responsible for QCing everything and ordering the wires. So, a challenge is in store for me.

I also FINALLY found a shrink who'll I'll be seeing regularly. My first appointment with her was that day too. I was so relieved to find someone to talk to after looking for literally 2 years now. All the shrinks in Austin either don't take my insurance or aren't accepting new patients. She gave me an "activity log" to keep track of for a week until I see her again. She says that many depressed patients don't reward themselves enough. I'm not sure what she means by "reward" though. We'll take that up next time.

Now I'm a Farmer and I'm Diggin', Diggin', Diggin'!

The flowers have been blooming and it would be great if I could go out in the back yard without losing half my blood volume in the first 5 minutes to the mosquitos. It's hard to garden (Carmen?) when you're woozy.



The cannas are so tall, I had to get a step ladder to take this photo. I have yellow cannas and orange ones.


The caladiums (caladia?) showed up this year. They weren't there last year. MAGIC GARDEN!!


There's also a small plant all by itself with a pretty little pink flower....I call it Harold.


Then there's this grassy type bush with tiny purple flowers in it......dunno what it is either, but it's nice.


I've also got a kitchen garden going in containers. I've got Sweet Basil. Thai Basil, Peppermint, Rosemary and Flowering Lavender. The plant at the back is an ivy I got from a co-worker last year as a birthday prezzie. I haven't killed it all year!! I've also started a coleus in a pot in my kitchen window from seeds, and it's so gratifying to see the little sprouts push up through the soil.

Whatever farmer's genes I've inherited through 300 years of farmer ancestry seem to be working now. I can actually grow stuff now. I'll be glad when it cools off so the flying vampires die and I can spend more time outside.

Record Store-ies - Celebrity Edition

I worked at the record store for 8 years. Because of its stellar reputation in the record collectors circle (which also includes musicians), every now and then celebrities would visit the store. I was not the type (nor were my co-workers) to be "star-struck" or act stupid when a famous person would darken our door; I figured they put on their pants one leg at a time too, right? I was fortunate enough to meet many people whom I greatly admired (in no particular order):

1. I was in college at North Texas and I came in late from class one day. There was a little boy standing at the counter, which he could barely see over. As I walked behind him, he turned slightly and I noticed that it wasn't a little boy, it was an incredibly short man whose head was even with my boobs (lucky him). I went behind the counter, put my books down and my manager handed me a silver American Express card with the name "Paul Simon".
I thought, "Wow, not only is the poor guy really short, he's named Paul Simon. I'll bet he gets ribbed about that all the time". Then I looked at the guy.
Oh. It IS Paul Simon. Wow, he's really short.
He was very nice and signed some autographs for me and my manager. He and his wife came back some time later to buy records to play at her father's funeral. She was very nice too and very tall, towering over her shorter and much older husband. They're still married, so things must be going well for them. Paul is married to Edie Brickell, singer for a Dallas band called the New Bohemians who had a big hit called "What I Am" back in the 80s. All of the New Bohemians bought records at the store, even the one who just got shot to death by his neighbor.

2. I came back from lunch one day and my manager Chuck told me to check out the guy in the 78 room, but don't bother him. I wandered back toward the hatch in the wall that divided the main store from the 78 room and noticed the shabby looking rat-like man listening to 78s on the record player. I didn't recognize him, so Chuck told me who he was and also told me that he had been in before and was very prickly, so don't ask him for an autograph. OK, whatever.
About 3 hours later, Mr. Shabby Rat-Like came up to the counter and wordlessly laid a stack of 78s on the counter. I mentioned that I'd be happy to give him a discount and all he did was nod his head slightly. I rang up R. Crumb's order, he paid and then he left, all without saying a word to me.
Maybe my ass wasn't big enough for him.

My husband and I went to see the movie "Crumb" at its Dallas premiere and I met the director and Crumb's Cheap Suit Serenaders bandmate Terry Zwigoff. I gave him a card for the store (which he had heard of from Crumb) and he came in the next day and bought some records. He was very nice and although a tad shabby, not the slightest bit rat-like.

3. Chuck handed me a letter with a want list of 78s and a return address of "William Morris Agency" in New York City. Mr. Allen Konigsberg was looking for some rare Dixieland 78s, most of which we happened to have in stock. I thought that name sounded familiar. In the letter, he asked us to call him and let him know which records we had and he gave a number, so I called. A woman answered and I told her who I was and why I was calling. She immediately put Mr. Konigsberg on the phone and my hunch was correct; Woody Allen was very happy to hear from us that we had most of the records on his list and would be happy to ship them to him ASAP. Chuck handled subsequent orders from him.

4. I was sitting at the store one day alone when a white stretch limo pulls up in front. The driver opens the car door and a man wearing sunglasses gets out and walks into the store. I asked if I could help him find anything.
"Where are MY records?" He didn't take off his sunglasses.
I showed him the Vocals section and pointed out HIS divider card. He flipped through HIS records.
"You don't have a copy of 'Reunion'?", he sniffed.
I looked under the fixture where we kept extra LPs.
"Nope. Sorry."
"Shit!" B.J. Thomas then swept out the door and got back into his tacky limo and drove away back into HasBeen Land, from whence he slithered.

5. I was alone at the store one evening (again). A very tall blonde youngish looking man came in with a shorter blonde older looking woman. They were looking at LPs for a bit and then came up to the counter.
"Do you carry styli for record players"? Yes, we did.
They had been to the Mexican flea market across the street from the store and found an old Donnie and Marie record player that still worked, but lacked a stylus. I found a stylus that fit and Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon were very pleased that they would be able to play records on their Donnie and Marie player.
Probably not Sonic Youth records, though.

6. I had worked at the store alone all day and it was 15 minutes until closing. I was bored, tired and wanted to go home and be with my husband. I was getting ready to close a little early since nobody had set foot in the store for the last hour when a short man with a white jacket and a black rooster hair cut came in. I recognized him and secretly groaned because I knew I couldn't throw him out.
"I'm a big fan of yours, but I'm closing in 15 minutes, so you'll have to hurry. I've been here all day by myself".
"Oh, sure, I didn't realize the time, I'll hurry."
Since he was so nice about it, I let Marty Stuart shop for an extra 30 minutes.

Awesome!

My job is still plugging away quite nicely. Although I am bored with shipping, I started funding loans today, so that should be an adventure, given my math skills. One thing I don't like about my new co-workers (and most of them seem to do it) is that "Awesome!" seems to be the exclamation of choice here:

"How are you today, Lisa?"
"I'm fine, thanks."
"AWESOME!"

"You're doing an awesome job, Lisa!"

"Thanks for showing me that computer short-cut, Lisa. You're awesome!"

People, the Grand Canyon is awesome, Victoria Falls is awesome, even Mount Rushmore is awesome, but I am not awesome. People here seem to use it in every sentence, like awesome Stepford Wives, so I thought to counteract that, I would use "groovy". So every time someone wields an "awesome!" against me, I parry with an equally spectacular "groovy!", to which the general reply is a stunned shake of the head and a "groovy?....awesome!".

It'll catch on, I'm sure....

Week Full of Foot Trouble

Adrian has an old surgical textbook from the 1920s with terrible pictures of people with rectal and anal problems: fissures, hemorrhoids, etc. He calls it his "Bookful of Butt Trouble".

I've had a week full of foot trouble. At work Monday, I noticed a sharp pain in my left ankle. When I got home that evening, there was a lot of swelling around my ankle bone and some redness. I figured something had bitten me, so I put some ice on it. There wasn't any pain so I wasn't worried.

By Wednesday, there were red streaks radiating up my leg from my ankle bone, which was swollen so much I couldn't put a sock on it. The pain was so bad by Thursday, I called my doctor and went in for a visit. He said it looked like an infection, but he wanted to do blood work in case it might be a blood clot. His nurse couldn't get any blood out of me after sticking me 4 times, so I went to a lab, where I got stuck (this time successfully) for the 5th time that day. Doctor said he would call me if the lab results indicated a possible blood clot. Doc asked me to draw a line around the border of the redness with a Sharpie, so he could see if it had gotten better or worse when I came in for a follow up today. He gave me a scrip for some antibiotics and a note for work and I limped out the door.

I went home, drew on my leg with the Sharpie and fell asleep on the couch. The phone woke me up at 4:30. It was the doctor, telling me to "go to the emergency room immediately." I said I would wait for my husband to get home from work in 30 minutes and Doc said "don't wait on him. Call him and tell him where you'll be". Oh great! I've got a blood clot and I might stroke out at any minute???

I called Adrian and asked him to come home immediately, which he did. We went to the emergency room at the Heart Hospital at Austin, which is the place to go if you don't want to wait. We were the only ones there, so they put me in a room right away. A doctor came in and looked at me and said "that's cellulitis", then walked out. What the fuck is cellulitis??? Why do I get stuff that I've never heard of?? Another doctor came in later and explained that it looked like a bug bite had caused an infection of the inner lining of my skin on part of my foot and it was a good thing that I came in, because it was starting to go up my leg. She said she wanted to do an ultrasound to rule out blood clots, so the ultrasound person was called. She came in and I spent 30 minutes having an ultrasound wand ground into my groin and down my leg while I tried not to scream. She couldn't get anywhere near my calf because it was too painful, but she determined that I was clot-free. YAY!

The doc gave me ANOTHER scrip for another antibiotic because "we've had a problem with MRSA going around". MRSA is a deadly staph bacteria that is drug resistant, and she thought that 2 antibiotics would surely knock the cellulitis out. She also told me that people with autoimmune disease usually have problems with cellulitis (Tracy???).

My foot looks better today but it still hurts like shit. I also still have a black ink line snaking up my leg for the doctor to peruse this afternoon. It reminds me of when I first got my tattoo and people would ask me "did you draw that on your wrist?" At the time, I would answer, "Yes, I'm 30 years old and all I do is sit around and draw on myself". Well, now I'm almost 42 and I really do draw on myself. I should have gotten Adrian to do it, it would have looked better.

A Good Kind of Tired

My new job is still going very well. I've worked quite a bit of overtime so far, including 4 extra hours this morning (Saturday). My next paycheck should look very nice indeed. Since I'm not on the phone a lot (not at all really), I might treat myself to an i-Pod next paycheck. I've noticed that a lot of my co-workers either use them or play CDs at the desks. I don't want to bother with carting a bunch of CDs around, so a Shuffle would be good.

My last job has stiffed me on 5 days of vacation pay I was owed when I left. I was owed a total of 8 days total, but I got a check for only 3 days. I've emailed my boss about it (he said he was unaware of the situation), and if he can't fix it, I'll be going through other channels.

My friends Phillip and Shelly came down last weekend and we had a great time hanging out. We went to the County Line BBQ place and fed the turtles, visited a vegan bakery:



We also had lunch with our pal John, plus Adrian's sister and her husband had come down the same weekend, so we all had a nice visit. A very enjoyable weekend.....

My New Job

They all seem to like me. A lot. Actually that's an understatement and I'm not bragging; my supervisor told me and several other people she introduced me to that she had been "fighting the urge to jump up and down and scream YIPPEE!". Well.....OK. They all seem very nice and went out of their way to make me feel welcome. I thought they might pee on the carpet when I told them that I had shipped only 3 files my first day there, but once I got settled in, I could probably do much more, seeing as though I don't have to do data entry, scan files, send docs out to county clerks for recording and send recorded docs back to the lenders, load copiers and fax machines with papers and fix them if they jammed, call copier companies to come out and fix the copiers that are broken, deliver faxes and all the other piddly shit I had been stuck doing at my previous job. All I have to do here is stack files and ship them; plus, I get to wear jeans everyday. I feel positively spoiled!

Actually, I'm sure the only reason they're so glad I'm there is that they've been pleading for someone to help with shipping for over a year and they've been working 6 and 7 day weeks all that time. Plus, I have experience, so they didn't have to cold-train me. I pretty much walked in and could do the job. They wouldn't even let me work the first Saturday (today). I told my supervisor I had friends coming next weekend and that I would prefer to work this weekend instead of next, if possible; my supervisor told me I didn't have to work that weekend either if I didn't want to. I'm an hourly employee here, so if I work through my lunch times, I'll get paid for a little extra OT. Time and a half, baby!

I said in my previous post that I felt like maybe I'd had to settle for this job instead of one that I really wanted. I think this one will be just great, actually.....if the other shoe doesn't drop. I'll keep you posted.

You Can't Quit, You're Fired!

The good news is, I got a new job. It's just doing the same thing I've been doing for another mortgage company, for not much more money at all and a further drive. I applied at several places and these kind folks saw my potential (or at least my past) and offered me a job. I could see the writing on the wall at my old job. The corporate owners are running the place into the ground and I will be majorly surprised if there's even an Austin location by the end of the year. I had to think defensively and get out of there before I showed up for work one day and the doors were locked.....

So to put a long story short, I typed up my two week notice to give to my boss, the man who hired me three and a half years ago. I wasn't feeling particularly excited or "neener neener, I've got a new job" because I didn't get either of the jobs I really wanted. I felt like I had to settle. Anyway, my boss knew that I had been looking for another job and I used him for a reference, so it wasn't a total surprise on his part. He's a good man and I count him as a friend. I gave him my notice and he congratulated me, gave me some well-needed advice, asked that I would spend my last 2 weeks teaching a couple of my co-workers how to do what I did, which I pretty much had to train myself to do. I assured him that I would and I went back to work.

Five o'clock rolls around (did I mention this was Friday the 13th?) and my boss asks me to come to his office. I go in and sit down, noticing uneasily the tight set to his jaw. "Uh oh, what have I done wrong?", I think. He says that his boss, one of the assholes from New York who came in last year and supposedly "rescued" the company, has told him to inform me that my services "are no longer required, effective immediately".

I must admit, after being initially stunned, I did get upset. I mean, I did already tell them that I was leaving and I had another job lined up, but I felt that I was being discarded, like my over 3 years of service was worth nothing to these idiots. It wasn't. The only person my service mattered to was in the office with me, and he seemed to be having a difficult time telling me. Maybe he wasn't, but when I was at my desk, blubbering like an baby and gathering my stuff into a box, surrounded by my co-workers who were trying to convince me that this was business as usual in the world of finance, he came up to me, pressed a $20 into my palm and told me to share a bottle of wine with my husband that night and that he was sorry.

I wasn't supposed to start my new job until July 30th, but I'll have to call my new boss tomorrow and see if they need me immediately, because I can't afford a 2 week vacation, no matter how much I'd like to take one.

Helter Meme-ster

stolen from El Jive Miguel....
1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? My father named me after a rich man's airplane. He worked at Love Field in Dallas and some rich guy had a Lear Jet named the Lisa, so Lisa I was. My Mom wanted to name me Dawn Renee. Oh, the horror....

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? a few days ago, when bemoaning my lack of luck in job hunting. I was feeling the Sword of Damocles a little too close that evening....

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? I have handwriting like a mental patient. Things in my handwriting should be either of the following:
a: prescriptions in triplicate
or
b: scary diatribes against the President, the government and/or whole-wheat pasta

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? turkey breast or salami, salami, baloney

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS? NO. NO!!!

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? why the hell not? I'm nice enough, I don't smell and I have a contagious laugh. You wouldn't want to *not* be friends with me, capice?

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT? Do I fucking look like Doug Piranha to you? I prefer litotes, parody and satire, bucko...

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? Yes

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? No, and I don't drink my own urine either, which would be equally stupid.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? I eat the low-cost HEB version of Nut N' Honey called Oats & More. I guess they didn't want to limit themselves.

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? yes, I have to in order to get them off. I don't use elastic laces.....

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? more so emotionally, not mentally

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? Mint Chocolate Chip

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? eyes, hands, how they're dressed.

15. RED OR PINK? Red.

16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? I don't like myself very much. I wish I did. Maybe my life would have been easier if I had.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? My mother, by far. After over 5 years, I still catch myself thinking "I should call Mom and tell her....". I also miss my grandmother Rosemary terribly.

18. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? grey sweats and a blue t-shirt. Who are you, the fashion police?

19. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE? I fixed baked chicken breasts and green beans for supper. It was better than a cooked rat. (Note my wild and abandoned use of litotes!)

20. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? The television, which is to say, nothing.

21. IF YOU WHERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? on a bad day, I'd be blackest black with a stubby tip. On a good day, my fave color, dark forest green or silver maybe.

22. FAVORITE SMELLS? Gardenia, honeysuckle, my husband when I first see him after working all day.

23. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? my StudBoy(tm)

24. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? I worship the ground that she and her florid handwriting walk on....

25. HAIR COLOR? blonde by birth, auburn red by choice

26. EYE COLOR? greenish-grey

27. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? Yes, but I haven't been able to afford to get my new ones yet. They're at the optomestrists waiting for me, but my checks have been so lousy, I've had to keep my glasses a bit longer....BASTARDS!

28. FAVORITE FOOD? Mexican or Indian

29. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? Whichever doesn't suck.

30. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? can't remember....something on TCM

31. SUMMER OR WINTER? Winter, although at this point I'll take anything without rain.

32. HUGS OR KISSES? hugs, but only from people I want to be hugged by.

33. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? I need to go to the library, she muttered, whilst surrounded by piles of books....

34. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? the word Apple

35. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON T.V. LAST NIGHT? the last 2 episodes of Deadwood, the 3rd season, and the DVD of extras.

36. FAVORITE SOUND? the sound of my husband's voice, the sound of a day off from work, the sound of money in my account. I've missed that one lately.

37. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES? The Beatles.

38. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME? Salisbury, Maine. Got lost on the way home to my aunt's house in Salem, New Hampshire from Logan Airport in Boston. Up there, you can cross the street and be in another state.

39. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? I have several, but none I'll write about here.....

40. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? in a hospital which is no longer there in Greenville, Texas. It was an old folks activity center for a long time in the 70s and the delivery room where I first saw the light of early evening was then a men's restroom. I figured they should have put a plaque in my honor over a urinal or something. They razed the building to the ground instead.

41. WHAT SUPERPOWER WOULD YOU LIKE? The ability to not have to work for a living, yet STILL HAVE ENOUGH MONEY TO LIVE ON! Imagine that!

The Day I Cooked A Rat

When I first moved away from home, I didn't move very far away. Just next door in fact, to a trailer owned by my grandfather, located in a cow pasture under a stand of pecan trees. The trailer had seen better days. It had grungy carpet in the living area and in my bedroom, and the bathroom was outright scary. The only saving grace about this trailer was that it had a beautiful old Merritt & O'Keeffe stove in the kitchen, with a grill in the middle of the burners.

I lived there with a roommate, who was also my best friend from high school and two cats named Mousel and Gremmie. My friend and I were both attending classes at what was then East Texas State University and is now Texas A&M - Commerce. I was a music history major and she was also a music student, in performance. She would go on to switch to kinesiology. She was also a harpist and her 100+ year old harp stood in the living area. I worked second shift (2pm - 11pm, with overtime usually) at a cracker factory, a job I absolutely loathed.

One day in the middle of winter, a blanket of snow was glistening outside, a rarity in east Texas. I was planning to cook myself something warm for lunch so I wouldn't have to drive anywhere for fast food. I was already dreading the drive in to work that afternoon in the snow and ice.

I turned on the oven and opened up the fridge, looking for the ingredients I had purchased for my home-cooked lunch. Maybe there would be some left over for my supper and for my roommate too, who was in class at the time. As I was chopping veggies and getting my things in order, a terrible stench started to permeate the trailer. At first, I couldn't tell where the smell was coming from, so I stalked back and forth through the trailer, sniffing madly, until I realized that the horrible odor was issuing from the stove. I turned it off and started opening windows, letting out all the heat and letting in the ice-cold air from outside. I was fanning furiously and gagging all the while.

Just then, my roommate comes home from class and asks what the hell is going on? She starts griping that her room smells like whatever is ponging up the trailer and what did I do? Not what I meant to do, apparently.....

When the trailer aired out and the stove was cool again, we shut all the windows and got the heater started again. I lifted up the top of the stove and there in the corner was a small dried up little rat lodged in a hole in the wall of the stove.

Since then, I've taught myself how to cook and I've cooked things that smelled terrible and tasted even worse, but never anything that smelled as bad as that rat. Food Network is good for something, I've found. I do wish I still had that old stove. Cleaned out, of course.....

Pissed off and a Feminist!

I've been looking for another job because my current employer refuses to pay me a decent wage. I think the writing's on the wall when they hire someone to be an accounting assistant who has never even had an office job before and they pay them a higher base salary than yours, and you've been a loyal employee for over 3 years. They've also been taking away the bonuses I depend on for much of my salary.

So far since I've sent out my resume, I've interviewed 3 times, twice at the same place. Both places turned me down with the same excuse: we need someone with more experience. I've tried to get hired at title companies before and unless you've actually worked at one before or own one it's damn near impossible to get a job at title company. I'm stumped at why title companies are such rarefied places to work; I clean up after them everyday. They obviously don't hire people who can read closing instructions or answer emails.

Both women who interviewed me told me all through each interview that I was "the perfect candidate for this job" and "you have exactly the qualifications we've been looking for for this position". So why didn't they hire me? I was told by one woman, who had told me that her previous employee (a woman in her 60s) had had a stroke and she didn't want to walk into her office and find her slumped over her keyboard again, that I wasn't "experienced enough" even though she told me otherwise earlier. Who did she hire? A woman in her 60s!

The second woman, who called me "perfect" and "just who she'd been looking for" said she hired someone for a "front-end assistant". Apparently, I was perfect for a "back end assistant", i.e. one who doesn't look good enough to meet with clients but can rustle papers in a hidden away cubicle. My current boss won't pay me what I'm worth, but he's not interested in the slightest about what I look like, other than I don't wear jeans except on Fridays. He only cares that I do my job well and I do. My only sin in his eyes is that I'm not male and I don't keep my mouth shut, therefore I don't deserve to get paid well.

Is this what feminism has come down to? Women won't hire you because you don't look like a model and men are still pissed that you're not at home barefoot and pregnant, so they won't pay you a fraction of what they'd pay a man for the same job? Unless of course, you DO look like a model and your pay mysteriously goes up commensurate with your level of attractiveness?

I get outraged when I hear younger women say that they're not feminists. Then in my eyes, they should be at home, pregnant, and they'd better fucking have dinner on the table when their man gets home at 6 or get a good beating. A woman not being a feminist is the stupidest fucking thing I've EVER heard. Being a feminist doesn't mean that you hate men. It just means that you think women deserve equal status (and equal pay) to men. In my opinion, women are equal to men. PERIOD.

I find it painfully depressing that young girls nowadays find it so easy to post pictures of themselves naked or scantily clad on the internet, or to fag it up before the camera, ala Girls Gone Wild. They're going to get a rough awakening one day 5 or so years down the line when they graduate and go looking for a job. Their prospective boss will Google their names and what do you think will pop up? "Oh, I was just a kid when I did that!" "Oh, I was drunk, I didn't know what I was doing!". Yeah, I wanna hire you, baby! I'm still wondering when this great "lesbian awakening" happened; when I was a teen or even in my 20s, I didn't want to make out or even kiss another girl. I have no problem with genuine lesbians, just the wannabes.

It's not only the girls that do stoopid shit either, not by any means. One of our LOs, a young guy in his early 20s showed me his MySpace page one day, which consisted of pics of him drinking, getting drunk, being drunk or passed out. I mentioned that he might not want to show his supervisor that webpage and he thought I was being alarmist. He told me later that he had changed it because he "was older now". ROFL

I'm still going to try to find another job. I have to. I can't afford this one anymore. On that note, I've joined Weight Watchers. I don't know what else I can do. I need more money and I guess I'll have to look better to get another job. At my age, being a good and loyal employee who knows their business isn't good enough anymore. That's really frightening to me.

Creepiness ensues.....

I went to the eye doctor today for the first time in 3 years. I wore hard gas permeable contact lenses for more than 20 years, but about 2 years ago, my eyes started drying out and the lenses wouldn't stick to my eyes anymore. So...I went back to the hated coke bottle glasses, the bane of my childhood, always having to push them up on the bridge of my nose.

The good news is I get to wear soft lenses now. My astigmatism isn't so bad anymore. I have to go back and get fitted for them.

The bad news? Apparently, I sleep with my eyes open, so I either need to put this thick, viscous ointment in my eyes at night before I go to bed OR I can......


tape my eyelids shut.


Yes, you read that right, he said I should TAPE MY EYELIDS SHUT. Now, it's creepy enough that I sleepwalk on occasion, but I sleep with my eyes open too and I need to TAPE MY EYES SHUT?? That's fucked up! No wonder I can't sleep at night, I'm too busy scaring myself!

Frat Boys and their Dawgs

We had a run-in with a couple of the finer examples of the University of Texas' fraternity culture last Saturday night. My brother-in-law is very protective of his yard; he's worked hard to keep it looking nice. He'd have no qualms about taking a baseball bat (or worse) to anyone's head who decided to mess it up.

We went to my in-laws' house to visit them, right about the time when said frat boys decided it was a good idea to walk up into my in-laws' yard and allow their pony-sized dog to take a dump. In Austin, walking into someone's yard without their permission is called trespassing and carries a $500 fine. Now, it's one thing to let doggie do it's bidness in the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street and then pick it up in a bag and dispose of it; that's what most of Austin's responsible dog owners do. It's entirely another concept to walk your horse, errrr, dog practically onto someone's front porch and leave a steaming pile of crap.

I informed these flowers of young Texas manhood that my bro-in-law would shoot them AND their dog if he saw them in the yard so they needed to vamoose. They didn't respond, so I yelled, "GIT THAT DAWG OUTTA THUH YARD! WHAT ARE YA, DEAF?" or mannerly words to that effect, telling them so for their own safety, of course. One of them muttered, "we're going" and they skulked on up the street in the dark (it was after 10pm) right as my bro-in law came out saying, "what's going on?". We went inside for a visit and stayed for about an hour.

When we came out to our truck, there was a lovely smelling bag of dog shit on the hood of the truck, and more dog shit was smeared on the passenger side door handle. Just great. But see.....I remember what they looked like and what their dog looked like. So does my brother-in-law. I hope they have bullet-proof vests......

Blah

Nothing's going on AT ALL, she said with a wink and a nudge....so I'll leave you all with this from Canned Heat. Don't forget to boogie!



P.S. That's not Ron Jeremy on bass, by the way.....

Chipmunk Cheeks

I thought at one point that maybe my diagnosis of having Sjogren's Syndrome was a mistake. I didn't have any of the symptoms; my eyes weren't dry and I still had plenty of saliva. Slowly, over the last year, my skin and hair has started drying out when they had been extremely oily before, and I had to stop wearing my contact lenses because my eyes had dried to the point where the lenses wouldn't stick to my eyes anymore. The joint pain and fatigue has gotten much worse.

This past three days, my submandibular (under the jaw) and parotid (in front of the ears) glands are swollen hard and huge, like I have the mumps. Whenever I try to chew, my jaw rubs against them and irritates them, making them bigger and more painful. My face is completely huge and round and my facial features swim in the middle like raisins in a vast bowl of pudding. Very attractive.....

I've been taking Tylenol for the pain. It'll be so much fun going back to work on Tuesday....

Vacation!

This has been a quiet week. We've pretty much stayed at home, except for a day trip yesterday to Fredericksburg, a little German-themed tourist town in the hill country. There are loads of quaint little shops and restaurants there and we walked all over the downtown area. I'm paying for it today. My fibro was so bad that my physical therapist told me just to go home and rest. My glands at the base of my jaw are swollen up and are as hard as rocks.

I looked at different websites for Frederickburg to see what all types of lodgings were available, in case we wanted to spend the night. The only places listed on the websites were B&Bs and expensive resorts. Of course, when we get into town, we see a Super 8 motel and several other decent-looking inexpensive motels. I should have known better. A touristy-type place like that surely would have all types of lodgings, not just the expensive ones. We took our camera but didn't take any pictures, for some reason.

As far as souvenirs, I bought a t-shirt, a fridge magnet and a stuffed jackalope. I bought two hex signs from an Amish furniture dealer to hang on the doors of the shed. I also got some peanut butter fudge from a shop called Rustler Bob's and it is GOOD. When is fudge not good?

A long time ago....

in a land not so far away, HR Pufnstuf gave me the secret to true happiness: Marry your StudBoy(tm) and you'll be eternally happy.

And so we were married, 13 years ago today....and I am eternally happy, it's true.

Son of Record Store-ies

Another one of my co-workers at the record shop was a sweet little lady named Bess. Bess was probably in her late 70s or older when I worked there and she had worked in record stores since the 1940s. She was the stereotypical "little old lady" who looked as if she still wore white gloves to church. She enjoyed having lunch at the Luby's Cafeteria, where Miss Inez still played the organ during the lunch rush. My boss had given Bess a job when she read a newspaper article about how Bess had worked at Melody Shop in downtown Dallas for over 40 years and they had fired her so they could hire someone younger. Melody Shop quickly went out of business because of the bad publicity the story garnered.

Melody Shop's loss was our gain. Bess was a goldmine!

She told me some great stories about one of her favorite customers, Jack Ruby. Yep, THAT Jack Ruby. He used to bring some of his "floozies" (Bess's term) into Melody Shop and buy them records and record players. He always asked for Bess to wait on him and he always gave good tips. "I never believed all those stories about Mr. Ruby. He was always very nice to me." But not to Lee Harvey Oswald, apparently.

My favorite Bess story: one summer day, Bess and I were alone in the shop. A couple of "tough" looking punk wannabes came in and started looking through the stacks, making obnoxious remarks about the "fuckin' hippie records". I ignored them, as I was trying to re-alphabetize the country 45s. Bess walked up to the biggest one and asked sweetly in her tiny mousy voice, "can I help you young men find anything?"

He smirked at his friend and replied "yeah, ya got any Metallica?, which prompted snorts of laughter from both of them.

Bess turned around, flipped through the M's and pulled put a couple of records. "Here's a copy of Garage Days Re-Visited, and I believe this other one is the Enter Sandman 12-inch single. They're quite popular with the young people. Will that be cash, check or credit?"

The punk wannabes both stared at Bess like she was from another planet, ironic since both of them had multiple piercings and multi-colored hair, and this was before it was popular to look like a macaw. They bought their Metallica records and always said hello to Bess when they came in after that.

Bess was a rocker at heart, and I don't mean rocking chair.



Several memories related to the records we played in the store come to mind. By the way, this was a RECORD SHOP and we played RECORDS, not CDs:

1. We were all big Randy Newman fans, and a copy of his LP "Good Old Boys" was kept in the play stack behind the counter. We had explicit instructions to only play the less objectionable side two, NEVER side 1, which starts off with "Rednecks" ('we're keeping the niggers down" goes the chorus of that tune). Side 2 would be ending and I or another one of my co-workers would be involved in something or other and not paying attention. Bess would inevitably forget and flip the record over and then as I was helping a customer, I'd hear Randy sing "Last night I saw Lester Maddox with some smart-ass New York Jew", and I, Chuck or my boss would literally sprint through the store, leaping across the counter to rrrrrrriiiiiippppp the stylus off the record......

2. Whenever we played "Who Are You?" by the Who, my boss was usually in the office. At the point in the song where Daltrey shouts "Ahh, who the FUCK are you!?" she would come out into the store and always made sure we were all looking at her when she lip-synced that line. Then she'd turn around and go back into the office.

3. An older gentleman picks up a copy of "Trout Mask Replica", the Captain Beefheart LP, which had been on Chuck's desk. (Trout Mask Replica has an.... errrrr....unusual cover.) He brings it up to me at the front counter, shakes his head and asks me "what the HELL does this one sound like?"
The incredulousness in his voice immediately puts me into hysterics and I can't answer. Chuck comes up and says "what's up"? and I'm laughing so hard I can only point: record, old man, Chuck. Chuck says to the old guy, "Errrr, you won't like that one."

4. I was being interviewed for an article on vinyl vs. CDs in the Dallas Morning News when a customer calls and says that she needs a love song, but she can't remember which one. "Can you just name all the love songs you have in the store?"

5. I had a bit of a reputation for not suffering fools gladly. This happened several times: A customer came in and rebuffed me after I greeted them and asked what they were looking for.
"You can't POSSIBLY help me! You're much too young!" the customer pompously sniffs.
So they go to Chuck and ask him. He doesn't know the answer, so he asks me. Of course, I know the answer. The customer comes back up to the front counter, looking at me expectantly. "Well?"
"I'm too young to know what you're looking for, so I can't possibly help you", I seethe at them.
The customer runs back to Chuck, crying "she was rude to me!!"
Chuck replies in his laconic manner, "You're lucky she didn't leap over the counter and kick your ass."

more record store-ies

A couple of months ago I wrote about some of the more memorable customers I had when I worked at a used record store in Dallas. Those were the ones I remembered off the top of my head. Earlier today, I found my journal from those years and it definitely refreshed my memory of even more weirdos and unusual people:

1. A woman comes in and asks if we have any records by the band Point Blank. "My husband was in Point Blank and he wrote all their hits!"
"Oh yeah? What's his name?" She told me and I started looking through their records, all of which we happened to have at that particular point in time. "I don't see him listed on any of these, ma'am."
She becomes enraged ans starts yelling, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN? WHY ARE YOU SAYING THIS? YOU"RE ALL OUT TO GET MEEEEEE!" then she runs out of the store sobbing. She wasn't the first customer to run sobbing out the door after I was through with her....

2. Another woman came in and was looking through our Elvis Presley LPs. She brings a copy of Moody Blue up to me at the counter and says with a smirk, "You're ripping people off, you know."
"How is that?"
"This record is worth $40 and you have it marked for $20."
"How is it ripping people off if we sell the record for less than it's worth? I'd say that would be making them a deal, wouldn't you?", I replied, staring into her vacant eyes.
Her face sags heavily and she lays the record on the counter and walks out. About 10 minutes later, the phone rings.
"Hello, Record Shop."
" YOU'RE RIPPING PEOPLE OFF!! FUCK YOU!!! FUCK YOU!!!"
I hang up on the nutty bitch and she proceeds to call back and hang up 6 times.

3. A mousy little woman came in one day and asked for some records by Eddie & the Cruisers. (Eddie & the Cruisers was a movie, not an actual band. John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band (a real band) did the music in the movie). I tell her that we have the soundtrack.
"Don't you have any of their earlier records?" she peered through coke bottle glasses.
"Well, they don't have any earlier records. Eddie & the Cruisers was just a movie, they weren't an actual band."
"YOU'RE LYING TO ME! I KNOW EDDIE PERSONALLY!"
I thought I saw her hair actually go on end and I wasn't in the mood to deal with a psycho, so I tried to calm her down and asked if she maybe had a list of "Eddie's" older records. She reached in her ratty looking purse and brought out a crumpled piece of paper, which read:
Eddie & the Cruisers
Eddie & the Cruisers 2
Eddie & the Cruisers
Eddie & the Cruisers
Eddie & the Cruisers
listed 25 times. I told her that I would keep her list and call her if any came in. She walked out to her car in the parking lot and started ranting and raving to no one in particular, waving her arms, walking in circles around her car and poking her finger in the air. A policeman happened to be driving by and he convinced her to leave, finally...and no, I never came across any early Eddie & the Cruisers records. Not even Eddie & the Cruisers 2- Electric Bugaloo.

4. A Peter Lorre lookalike with a comb-over and huge bug eyes brings a King Crimson LP up to me. He's sweating profusely, so I step back and he stands even closer to me and pulls the record out of the sleeve, being oh-so-careful not to touch the groove. He points to a particular spot on the groove and simpers to me, "this is where the guitar solo starts, heh, heh, heh, heh........

5. An old codger wearing a fedora and suspenders comes up to me, winks, nudges me in the ribs and says, Hey Blondie! Whar do yew keep the "saucy" records?"

6. A drunk white guy in a Hawaiian shirt and straw hat comes in with 2 attractive black women who clearly can't stand the sight of him. He sidles up to Chuck, the store manager, and starts proclaiming about all the reggae stars he once played with. "Marley, Tosh, Wailer...all of 'em!"
He was standing so close to Chuck I thought he might kiss him. The black ladies were muttering "drunk-ass motherfucker....stupid son of a bitch...." etc.
The guy then goes out to his car and changes his hat. He comes back in with his new headgear, goes right back up to Chuck and starts all over again. Again, Chuck convinces the guy that he's just not interested, so the guy goes out to his car AGAIN and gets another hat. Chuck finally told him to get out......

7. A man starts telling me that records are no good and everyone should switch to CDs IMMEDIATELY (The loonies always seem to talk in CAPITAL LETTERS). I mentioned that I prefer the sound of LPs, since analog is how the human ear hears.
"BULLSHIT!" CDs ARE BETTER AND YOU KNOW IT! YOU MUST BE A DRUG ADDICT!!"

8. One of my favorite customers was a small red-headed gay man who was a serious collector. He was always nice and a pleasure to help. His catchphrase was "now, Lisa, no repros!" meaning only 1st pressings, no reproductions. Like I said, he was a serious record collector. One day he came in looking very sad and ill. He told me that he had just been diagnosed as HIV positive. I told him how sorry I was and how much I always looked forward to visiting with him. He thanked me, then said he needed to leave because he was hungry. I offered to share my Cheetos with him. He gingerly took one out of the package and burst into tears. He left, then about 2 weeks later, a friend of his came in and told us that he had died.

My bosses and co-workers had their moments too. Our 78 guy was a WW2 veteran and knew everything about 78 rpm records. He was vaguely grumpy, but never rude to customers. When I knew him, he was in his 70s and his pot dealer used to come to the back door of the shop. He liked a nice smoke and pretty young boys too. None of us had any problems with either the pot smoking (we all did it too, after all) or the pretty young boys. We all liked him very much and he had loads of customers who would come in to listen to his stories. Unfortunately, sometimes he would get on my boss's nerves and they would snipe at each other across the store.
One day, he had been talking to a new customer about Bunny Berigan's recordings and the customer wanted to get to know him better.
"How long have you dealt in the old records?"
"Oh, about 50 years, ever since I got out the Army. I was in WW2, ya know. Got a Bronze Star."
"Are you a married man? Got any kids?"
"No sir, I'm a life-long bachelor!"
I was standing in the office (which was 6 feet away from the 78 room) talking to my boss, the store owner, and she could stand it no longer.
"Life-long QUEEN is more like it!!" she exclaimed.
I stared at my boss incredulously, she laughed with that barking laugh of hers and there was silence from the 78 room.
"Well, sir, I'll be going now".

I went to the 78 man's funeral and his last pretty young boy (who had caused him many problems, stealing from him and the like) showed up with a transvestite in full disco regalia: sequined tube top, white short shorts, fake eyelashes, the whole works. My co-worker's family knew nothing of his private life and they were absolutely horrified. The boy came up to me with his "date" and said "Hi Lisa, do you remember me?"
"Unfortunately, yes." I turned around and walked away.

Here it comes........

Just one more week until vacation. I hope we get the truck back from the shop by then, so we can actually DO something. The rental car we have (a 2007 Toyota Corolla) is pretty nice, though. It drives and handles remarkably well, enough that we're mooting getting rid of my Mom's old Cougar and getting one after the truck is paid off.

I work half days most of this week. My desk is piled high with crap that apparently only I can imagine how to do, so I'm not looking forward to coming back after vacation. If they think I'm going to be checking my work email and doing stuff while I'm at home, they are sadly mistaken. They don't pay me enough for that. I check it during the days I get off early since I'm supposed to be working anyway, but not on vacation.

I start physical therapy this week too. The chiropractor was stressing me out too much, to the point that I had a panic attack on Thursday. So, my regular doc suggested physical therapy instead of letting this woman (who does not have a medical degree) tell me that I need a CT scan on my chest and I need to see an endocrinologist for thyroid problems, which she diagnosed with no blood work. My regular doc does blood work on me several times every year and my thyroid numbers are always normal. It's gotten to the point where my blood pressure goes way up whenever I go to her office. It's always on the low side when my regular doc checks it.

Mother's Day is not good here, but Adrian and I went out for lunch and tried to enjoy ourselves. The panic attack on Thursday was partly because I remembered Mother's Day was today. It's just too hard to remember that I can't see her or talk to her anymore.

Guess what? You have a broken neck!

Well, really just a hairline fracture of a cervical vertebrae, and some cracked ribs too. The chiropractor gave me a note to work a half day today, be off tomorrow and work half days for the next week.
I'm glad we have a lawyer now........

UPDATE: the chiropractor told me this morning that she looked again at the x-ray of my neck and I DON'T have a hairline fracture, just whiplash and 2 cracked ribs.

so Guess what? I DON'T have a broken neck! YAY!

Concussion

Yes, my doctor says I have a concussion. I also have a terrible contusion (bruise) under my left breast that looks absolutely disgusting. She wanted me to go home after my appointment with her yesterday and not work today, but I compromised with not working late yesterday and only half a day today. Adrian also needs to see his doctor. He says he's OK, but men will never tell you when they hurt.
I also am in the process of hiring an attorney to represent us in case the insurance companies have to fight it out. The truck is in the shop, we have a rental car......now we just wait.....

a lovely evening........

Old people should be required to take driving tests every time they renew their licenses after age 70. A 75 year old driver is 3 times more likely to die in a car crash than a 23 year old driver. Usually, it's an older driver losing control of their car that causes the most damage. A few years back, an elderly man stepped on the accelerator instead of the brake and killed 10 people at a farmer's market.

I was the recipient of this theory tonight. On the way home from work, my husband and I were riding along when an elderly man ran a stop sign. I could see that he wasn't going to stop, so I slammed on my brakes and started to lay on the horn. My hand didn't even get as far as the horn when our airbags deployed and we smashed into the front of the old man's car. We sat there stunned, in a choking haze of airbag dust.

We're both OK, as is the old man, but his car and our car will need extensive repairs. To add insult to injury, it started pouring with rain as we were talking to the cops. The cops ticketed the old man for running a stop sign. I got checked out by the paramedics even though I didn't feel I was hurt.

NOW I feel hurt. I have horrendous bruises on my chest and on my stomach, and my husband and I both are very sore and stiff. My face is red from the airbag dust and my eyes are irritated. We have insurance stuff to deal with tomorrow, so both of us are staying home from work. I should have the bruises looked at by my doctor and make sure that my back isn't injured further.

I'd rather be sore from exercising....

Who do you think you are?

I've had along-standing interest in genealogy, specifically in my own family's history. I've done my own research and borrowed the services of my distant cousin Martha Thayer to find out my English, German, Irish, Cherokee and Choctaw roots. It's as rewarding as a hobby can possibly be, finding out you and your family's role in history.

In the UK a few years back, there was a television series called Who Do You Think You Are? Each episode involves researching the family history of a particular celebrity. One of my favorite comedians (and writers) from the UK is Stephen Fry. He starred in the movie "Wilde" about Oscar Wilde and was nominated for an Oscar, and has most recently narrated the Harry Potter movies. Before that, he had a comedy series with Hugh Laurie (yes, Dr. "House") called A Bit of Fry & Laurie. He's a multi-faceted performer and I've been a fan of his for 20 years, probably. Stephen is thought of as being "quintessentially" English, due to his beautifully rich, plummy British accent. To the contrary, he is half Jewish and grew up among a large European Jewish family.
His episode of WDYTYA? is a search for his Jewish roots, starting with his grandfather Martin Neumann who originally hailed from Surany in what is now modern-day Slovakia. What Stephen finds out is heart-breaking and makes him realize how fortunate he is to even be alive. Most of his grandfather's family were killed in Auschwitz. He goes back to Vienna and finds many surprises, including finding his great-grandparents' names on a plaque outside the building they lived in before the Germans invaded Austria. Their names are there because a current resident thought it important to commemorate the Jewish residents who were sent to the concentration camps and never came back. Whole families were lost.

Here is the YouTube link to all seven 10-minute long excerpts from Stephen Fry's episode:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=WDYTYA+fry&search=Search

I highly recommend watching them. Even if you're not Jewish, it will help you see the futility and WRONGNESS of religious wars and religious persecution of ANYONE, not just Jews.

Stephen quotes Anwar Sadat: "Religious wars are just people fighting over who has the biggest invisible friend". Yes, it's really that childish. Think of that next time somebody says "we have to show those (Muslims, Jews, Catholics, Protestants, etc) who's boss". Whole families are being lost again, over and over. It's time to grow up now.

Spanish Pants

There was something different about Todd. He carried himself with an air of mystery, a sense of continental "je ne sais quois". He noticed how people looked at him as he passed by, gazing at him admiringly as if they knew he knew something they never would. He was a man of the world, a jet-setter, a man of taste.

Or so he thought.

People were actually looking at his pants. His "Spanish pants". He had just been to Spain for a fortnight and while in Madrid, had purchased a pair of bullfighter's short pants, with rhinestone stripes down each side and flowers embroidered on the thighs and across the rear, culminating in huge pink blooms on each cheek. These he wore with the customary white knee socks and black ballet shoes with little black pom-poms on them. That’s what people were staring at.

That and the little red cape.

Todd’s office had a casual dress code, but Todd thought that one should dress properly for the office, at least from the waist up. So, Todd decided to indulge himself in the sartorial version of a mullet: business from the waist up, party from the pants down. He wore an expensive cotton handmade shirt from Borelli, with French cuffs, silver cuff links and a Bruno Piatelli necktie. If you just saw Todd’s top half, you would see him for what he was; a banking industry professional with a taste for the finer things in life. If you looked down, you would think that Todd harbored a not-so-secret desire to be a circus performer or a particularly effeminate drag queen.

All that mattered to Todd was that people liked his Spanish Pants. Crowds gathered around him when he went out to lunch, staring and pointing. This attention made Todd feel important. The little red cape was necessary too. It gave drama to his Spanish Pants and people would get out of his way when he waved it around. Todd didn’t need a bull. He had Spanish Pants.....

Winter Redux

It's very cold outside and it's sleeting. Adrian and I went to IKEA this afternoon and it started sleeting on our way home. I hope it doesn't kill all my flowers and plants. Two more big lilies showed up in the front bushes just last week.....

We bought a great floor lamp at IKEA. We had been wanting more ambient light in the front room, or "office" we call it. I also bought some cinnamon rolls, ginger snaps and some "Scandinavian Potato Chips" which are basically just thicker potato chips. Adrian got another couple of their good wood magazine holders. We could use at least 50 of those, but we only bought 2. Have to pay our taxes next week, you see......

I wanted to get one of their ergonomic memory foam pillows but of course they were out and wouldn't sell me a demo. "Health reasons", they ominously gave as the excuse. I guess they were worried that I'd catch some sort of monstrous head fungus or lice off a demo pillow.....

a busy week......

Bidness is picking up, as they say, and I've been very busy this week. The only doctor appointment I had this past week was a nerve conductivity test at my neurologist's office. That's where they stick needles in your legs and put electricity through them to see how the nerves conduct sensation throughout. It was most.........unpleasant. I had to be pried off the ceiling at several points throughout and I'm sure patients in other exam rooms were wondering what they were doing to me to get me to make those extraordinary sounds. I get to do another one on my upper body this coming week and oh......HOW I'm looking forward to it.

My great-uncle Bill passed away this week. I wasn't able to make it up there to the funeral, which I felt bad about. My Aunt Alice was always there for me when my Mom was ill. Aunt Alice is the only one of my grandmother's siblings still alive and I'm close to her. She and Uncle Bill were married for over 50 years and even though Uncle Bill had been very ill for a long time, I know she's suffering now. I hope she will be OK. I hate to think of her being sad, but she has children and grand-kids to help her through. I don't even want to think of Adrian going before I do.....

We got most of our yard work done last weekend. There were still piles of leaves that were starting to leave bare spots in the yards, so we finally got them all raked up and put into bags. We spread mulch in the front flower beds. Now our yard looks beautiful again. Adrian has been reading up on natural or "green" gardening and he now knows how to compost, make weed-and-feed without chemicals and when and how long to water. I pulled up all the dandelions that infested the yard while my back was messed up. It looks like this now:

This canna flowered with a lovely bloom.

The hummingbird vine has flowered again too...and it smells so good!

The flower bed is looking a little less bare.

5 Years On......

I lost my mom 5 years ago yesterday. Time does heal, but the pain of not having her to lean on or talk to never goes away. I miss hugging her. She was a large woman and soft all over, and hugging her made me know that everything would be OK and tomorrow was another day.
I miss talking to her, because she had a hard life, thanks to her parents and my father. Mom was never bitter about her life or how it turned out. She always knew what to tell me and how to best deal with a situation.
Last night before I went to sleep, I asked her to give me some sort of sign that she wasn't hurting anymore and was OK. I had a wonderful dream about her, my grandmother and my great-grandmother (both of whom I also miss).
I still have her with me and that gives me great comfort. I can't imagine having to go to a graveyard to visit with her. She never wanted that. She wanted me to take her with me wherever I went and that's exactly what I will do.

Ah Bin HEEEELED!

Yesterday, I went back to pain doc and received epidurals in my neck and my lower back. Once again, I was sent off to La-La Land with a lovely cocktail of Versed and Fentanyl, the deed was done and I was sent on my way, which was back home to bed. I slept deeply for 5 hours and woke up a bit nauseated. A tall glass of water cured the nausea, then Adrian and I went to buy some groceries and kitty food.
Went back to work today. I came home and let Dinsy out in the back yard. I then proceeded to pull some of the dandelions which have overrun our back garden. I did that very carefully so I wouldn't re injure my back. Unless you keep up with dandelion pulling without slacking for 3 weeks, you can be quickly and completely engulfed with the fuzzy, tea-making weeds. I think I'm going to have to dig up most of the yard to completely rid myself of them.
I'll be taking my new memory-foam lumbar back rest to work tomorrow.

More pain than I need

My pain level has skyrocketed since I last wrote. The pain doc sent me to a chiropractor for physical therapy. The first visit was OK, the chiro just put those electrode things on my back as well as an ice pack for 20 minutes. The pain kept getting worse, so on the second visit, the chiro tried adjusting me. It hurt so bad, I was in tears. I scheduled my third visit for a few days later to see if the pain would lessen, but by my third visit, I could hardly walk. Sitting and then getting up off the chair would just about make me faint. I wondered whether I had damaged the torn disc in my lower back even further.
On the third visit, I saw the main chiro who owns the practice. She again attempted to adjust me, but since I was literally howling in pain, she asked why I hadn't gone back to the pain doc. I told her it was because I couldn't get anyone on the phone, which was true. She said, Well, I'll fix that!"
She get somebody there on the phone and shouted at them about sending her a patient who was in terrible pain and obviously needed better painkillers than Ultram. I heard her say that somebody there better see me today. They gave me an appointment for 3pm that day.
I expressed my concerns to the pain doc about my lower back. She told me that she was sure it was just muscle spasms, that I hadn't damaged my disc. She moved my final injection appt. up 2 days to next Tuesday and gave me a prescription for Darvocet and told me to take my muscle relaxers during the day as well as at bedtime.
So........now I'm still in pain, but I can deal with it better. I wish they could have moved up my epidural appt. sooner.

On a lighter note, we missed Iggy & the Stooges (a free show) at Waterloo Records last night. They came on at 6pm and by the time I picked up Adrian and we got downtown with all the traffic, it would have been over anyway. I'm more sad that we'll miss the Buzzcocks at Emo's tonight. They only let in a few people without SXSW accouterments, so we'd never get in anyway. Two bands I've wanted to see since I was a kid and I miss both of them.......

What happened?

I was supposed to be feeling much better by now. I went to the chiropractor for my first visit and was worked over. Now, my head hurts, my arm hurts, my back hurts, my hips hurt, my legs hurt......and it pisses me off. My job is becoming more stressful and working when I feel so bad makes me feel even worse.
The chiropractor wanted me to come back every day for an adjustment, but fucking hell, who can afford that? I'm wondering where the money is for the appointment tomorrow. I'm TIRED of hurting. I want it to STOP.

On a similar note (being pissed off), SXSW is coming up this week here in Austin. If you can afford hundreds of dollars for a wristband or a badge, there are loads of great bands in town. If you can't afford a band or badge, you can still hear great bands for free. What pisses me off is that I can't go anywhere downtown or south of the river for the next week and a half because every place will be jammed with tourists and record company weasels. This is as close as Austin gets to being a resort town. Traffic will be much worse.

I'm only griping because I feel like shit. I really don't give a toss about SXSW.

Plants I haven't killed yet

Cannas in the back yard last summer.

Mystery plant in the back yard

Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow plant in the back yard

Pretty, lovely-smelling narcissus in the front yard

There are several other plants I figured out yet. We have feathery ferns, monkey grass, loads of ivy and several ligustrum trees. I hope the cannas come back. The stems all turned brown and dead looking in the freeze, but bulb plants usually do that, then bloom again in the spring or summer. When we were looking at the house, the blooms were flaming orange........

Morning From Hell and Day After of Beauty

Yesterday morning, I awoke an hour and a half later than usual. Forgot to set my alarm, you see. When I realized how late it was, I sprang up out of bed and then I felt it. You know when you turn a certain way and you feel that little "catch" in your lower back, then you have to walk very slowly and gingerly and you have to lift yourself out of a sitting position with your arms because your legs aren't cooperating? Yeah, that's it........it'll go away in a couple of days. Just a muscle spasm, but very annoying.....

Since we were going to be late anyway, I minced out to the truck and took Adrian to work. I didn't have time to make coffee, so I thought about Starbucks, which has a drive-thru. Paid $7.25 for a large Cinnamon Soy Latte and a cinnamon roll. That was the second mistake of the day. Starbucks is a rip-off and their coffee sucks. Plus, the girl at the window didn't put the lid on right, so when I got to work and picked up my "coffee", it came off and then all of the Cinnamon Soy Latte was all over the front seat of my truck. Didn't get to drink a drop of it. Nice start to a LOVELY day.........

Fortunately, I had the second epidural injection this morning, this one in my neck. I was also nursing a blinding migraine from yesterday, so I was hoping it would help that too. After a nice IV with a side of Versed, I breezed right through it and was soon sitting in recovery sucking on a juice box, like a happy 6 year old. I took an Ultram when we got home and stretched out on the couch for a 3 hour nap and, aside from the catch in my lower back, I feel pretty good. My shoulders look to be about 4 inches lower than they were, which makes my neck look longer. YAY! Anything to help the vanity, eh ladies?

Plus, I have lovely narcissus growing in the front yard. They smell divine. When I can bend down again, I'll take some pics. Adrian has been doing yard work today while I've been "Diva of the Divan" as the Yankee nurse at the pain doc's terms it. Yard looks verrrry nice-ah......