…and, no thanks, I don't want it. I will be busy experiencing ORLANDO with Dawg and many, many other people. My recommendation is that you come back Monday night because I get home really late Sunday then I go to work the very next day. Sorry for your Poppy jones. I bet you haven't read all my archives. You could read those… but, meh, just have a great Halloween, how's that?
Monthly archives for October, 2008
October 31, 2008
October 30, 2008
Pretend it's Halloween
This is my treat to you.
Happy day where it's acceptable to wear orange.
Life is a smartass.
I was offered two jobs today. Neither of those jobs was the job I expected to get. I have no idea what went "wrong" there, but I think life just worked out how it should have for me. I chose to accept the position with the people who tested me on paper. I find them a bit quirky, just like me. I'm very happy to be employed finally after three months of no money coming in during a very bad time to be unemployed. I start Monday… as in, less than 12 hours after I get home from Florida for the weekend.
Before I had even definitely accepted the position I noticed something in the window of a shop and bought it as a "welcome home" present for Dawg who has to work a show until late tonight before waking up at 3:45am so we can fly to Florida. Don't tell him, but there's something for him on his chair at home.
The posts about the job search are now set to require that you be logged in to view them if you visit my site directly.
October 29, 2008
The day the Most Popular Girl in School became a Whino
Stop me if you've heard this one already, but I don't think I've told this story before…
Back in high school I was one of those girls who had one clique of people I felt most comfortable with, the computer people, but I hopped between cliques with complete ease. In the computer people clique, once I was the oldest member because NAT and Knitting Mama (my new name for Break Boy's Lovely Wife, I have just decided) and all the other old people had graduated already, I was the queen of the clique. I was The Most Popular Girl in that circle. I was looked up to, I was coveted, I was protected, I was awed. I'm not kidding, it was my reality. I was also the head SysOp for the raddest BBS in the state, which definitely helped with my Geek Street Cred.
My senior year of high school I was in a few more cliques than usual: The music clique, the National Honors Society clique (*shrug*), and the yearbook clique. I was one of two layout people for our senior yearbook, and because I was a geek but also had an eye for what looks good I was very awesome at layout. I would spend hours and hours getting layouts to line up just right, I'd consult with the photogs and the writers to discuss how they wanted their masterpieces actualized, and I would Make It Happen.
One day I was on a break from doing layouts, drinking a soda from the teacher's lounge (thanks to our teacher for letting us break in all the time). Becky, the Most Popular Girl in School, was in the yearbook room with me. One thing to know: You don't get into the yearbook room unless you're part of the yearbook staff or one of the staff members lets you in to hang out with them. That year I personally thought Becky's social status was declining. She had chosen to date a younger guy who was technically in our grade but… uh, he wanted to join the circus. That's cool! in adult life, but in high school that doesn't help you fit in with everyone else. So, I'm sitting around with Becky and she just bursts out with the following statement and follow-up question:
"It must be SO NICE to not be popular so that you don't have to deal with the stress of it. Is it nice to not be popular??"
I pulled my head up off the desk it was on and looked around behind me with an "are you talking to me, about me?" look on my face. Surely she could not have meant me!! I AM popular! I am the queen of my castle! I am who everyone wants to hang out with! I am the one everyone comes to for advice about their problems and to listen to their deepest, darkest secrets. I am the one everyone asks to the prom and wants to date! … in that one room in school where no one else goes but Little Computer People, unless it's for a class assignment, but STILL!
There was no one else in the room with us; she was talking to me.
I didn't know how to convey this to her, to explain to her that it's all about perspective, that it's her choice to keep the social status she has, that she had just insulted me to my core by presuming that I am not popular in any venue of life, and that saying such a thing should have merited a smack to her little perfect-to-everyone-else-but-never-was-to-me face. And, if I was so unpopular, why had I been over to her house before? The true Social Rejects did not get invited to Becky's House. But I digress. Back to me, people. I'm insulted here. Truly insulted. And what did I do to respond to her comment? I shrugged and mumbled, "I dunno" and left it at that. But then I left the room and started gossiping to my friend about how Becky couldn't hack being a Popular Person.
Pretty soon we all graduated and she got the shocking news that she wasn't popular anymore. Real Life was a lot tougher for her. She tried to be a singer, tried to get into commercials, but she had no success. I saw her at the doctor's office a few years after graduation. She looked tired and worn out and humbled. And she was dressed in dirty, raggy clothes that made her look like a drunk homeless person. And I'm sorry to say this made me happy that my favorite motto really does come true: What goes around comes around.
Sing it, Justin!
I love ending my posts on a dorky note. 
October 27, 2008
Privacy Please and honorable mentions
I feel like I have a lot to say but I'm feeling it rather than being able to write it down. You know? I have images in my mind that don't translate to words. Some of them are happy images, some of them are bittersweet images, and some of the images are creeping in from long ago and causing me to need to take moments to myself to process them. In any case, they remain images, private to me. I don't mean for that to be my reality, but it is my reality. And, as much as I always want everyone else to be able to tell me what's on their mind, don't keep it bottled up, here I am bottling up both good and bad.
In sharable news, I followed up this morning about the job I hope to get and was told I am very much in consideration for the position, with a lot of positive feedback from the interviewers, and I should hear something by mid-week.
Also in sharable news, Sparky and Robin "threatened" last week to kidnap me for a girls' weekend. I hadn't told Dawg until yesterday. His reaction: "I need an address where I can send the FBI." This makes me infinitely happy and dorked out. I'm excited to go on the weekend (dates tbd) for myself, but I'm also happy to give Dawg a weekend to himself to sleep, stare at blogs, watch a lot of TV, cuddle with the kitties, eat Chef Boyardee, allow his mind to freestyle some stream of consciousness about life, hang out with his friends who he never sees anymore
, whatever. I get a lot of time to myself but he's always working or when he comes home I'm already here and he doesn't even get 5 minutes without me. Don't get me wrong, I love spending time with him and I know he loves spending time with me, but… everyone needs time to themselves. It's healthy and stuff.
And, lastly in noticeable news, I'm not so good at responding to comments right now. It's not you, it's me. I appreciate your comments. I'm sure I'll swing back to responding to every comment sometime in… um, March.
That's my update for now. I hope you're all doing well. Have a Happy Monday comma dammit!
October 25, 2008
Keep in touch …?
Last night I had video Skype time with Break Boy, His Lovely Wife, and their two kids EZA and LLA. You might possibly have some sort of idea, but let me just pretend you don't by saying: YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW GOOD IT WAS TO SEE THEM. I miss them all. A lot. Ow. Ok, anyway, I won't be seeing them in person until Dawg and I go to Vermont for my friends' yearly Christmas party, so until then the skyping has to do. But really, it's very convenient.
The lovely and talented Ms. Karen Sugarpants just shared this on twitter and I now need to share it with you:
http://view.break.com/592648 - Watch more free videos
*tap tap*
And, to steal the thunder of several people who have been mulling this over lately: Someone who was mean to you in school friend requests you on a social networking site. What do you do?
Poppy's opinion: Ignore. Although, funny thing is, sometimes people do change and letting them back into your life helps you change for the better too. My example is PiC. He reads my blog now so I won't embarrass him by relaying specific events that transpired between him and me at a poker game 12 years ago when we didn't really know each other, but consider it sufficient knowledge that I wanted to hurt him badly. NAT (who you may have seen in comments here and there, and who has been my friend since the age of 13) took PiC outside and straightened him out using only words.
I hated PiC for a really long time, and it was a BAD defining moment of my life. I gave PiC another chance when he applied to work at my last job and I never regretted it for a day. He is an awesome person and anyone would be lucky to have him as a friend. Plus he has a cute kid and a cute cat and a mad cool wife who increases his coolness by about 150% on any given day. (Yes, I did have to throw that in there.) That BAD defining moment is still a defining moment, but now it's GOOD. The reason it's good is because PiC and I both changed as people and let the past go. But the only reason I gave him another chance is because he was going to be sitting in the same office with me, sharing a major responsibility — my Partner in Crime. So, it was either get along or have really shitty days at work.
October 24, 2008
I know we're in a hurry, but…
I was driving to my pharmacy to pick up my prescription (went without a hitch, not the point of the story) and saw a man curled up in the road and a teal car about 2 feet from him. I am filling in the blanks that the teal car hit the man, although I don't know that. When I came to the scene that I did not witness there were no emergency responders there yet. Traffic was starting to back up in the lane where the teal car and man on the ground were. Nothing for me to do except move along little lady since I didn't witness it so I went to McDonald's for a Coke then CVS for my prescription. After talking to the pharmacist about my insurance information I left the store for a few minutes while she put together my order. While I was out there the traffic situation had gone from bad to worse and people were laying on their horns. I don't mean "beep beep," I mean New Yorker "HOOOOOOOOOO-notgettingoffthishornuntilyougetthefuckouttamyway-OOOOOOOOOOOOONK". And I really wanted to run up to those people with my "don't fuck with Poppy" face and curse them out for laying on their horn. But. Really, what good is that gonna do? Then they'd just start yelling at me about who did I think I was telling them what to do and get the fuck out of their way and some other choice words that might possibly make me open their doors and kick them in the face with my favorite running shoes. I mean, really, I could have done that. But I just sat in my car and spaced out and drank my soda and thought about how happy I was not to be that guy on the ground and maybe I should take a different way home than the way that I came.
October 23, 2008
I want a recount!
I'm supposed to be in bed right now with Squishy Bunny, sleeping off my upset tummy, but it's my upset tummy that's keeping me awake, so here I am. More about that later.
First things first, Dawg received Hilly's October Blogger of the Month award. Please go visit, read the post, and follow the instructions for reminiscing about him. Thank you.
Yesterday I received an email from PiC, finally, who responded to my email titled, "I wish you had a blog". In it he explained that he has no desire to live his life twice by writing up the events of the day, but he enjoys being able to check in on my life by reading my blog. I don't blame him. If you don't have the type of personality where you need to process or legitimize the events of your life by writing them down then why bother? Unless, of course, you live far away from the majority of your family and friends and want to keep them informed… And where do a lot of his friends and family live? Not Vermont? Ohhhhhhhh. (JUST SAYIN', BUDDY.
)
Anyway, this is about me! And I want to recount yesterday for you, so I'm gonna. Long post. Here we go.
Yesterday morning I woke up lazily as usual, had some coffee, then left the home to run some errands. The original plan was to get a prescription changed over from Vermont to New York so that I stopped having to travel 300+ miles just to pick it up every month, go drop off laundry, then go grocery shopping. Mmmmhmmmmm. Silly me. I went to CVS to try to transfer the prescription, but my prescription is at a Rite Aid, so no go without a doctor's say so. From the parking lot I attempted to 411 the number but I was misspelling the name of my practice (forgot an 'i' in a strategically placed location of the word) and couldn't resolve the situation without the card that was on my coffee table, so onto the laundry errand where nothing of importance occurred other than I didn't have any change on me so I didn't have to pay the dime that went along with the $23 for 30 lbs of laundry. (It adds up quickly, pound-wise.) After that I was having a series of period induced "blonde moments," one of which was me trying to take a right onto 112 Street when… um, hi, read signs that say "ONE WAY" going left. (A very amusing coincidence: Later that night Dawg did the very same thing for that very same street. Neither of us has ever done that before.) After realizing I might cause major peril if I continued my ventures into the world, and not wanting to delay the prescription change any longer, I went home.
At home I sat down on the couch with the doctor's office card and dialed the number. I carefully relayed the fax number for the CVS and was told that the prescription would be called in by the end of the day. Fantastic! Easy!
I received a phone call from Dawg's mom saying, "oh, hi, wanna come over for dinner tonight?" but I explained that Dawg had his monthly vollies meeting after work and so could we come a different day and then 5 minutes into the conversation she finally mentions why she wants us to come over, not that there ever needs to be a reason because we love just going over and hanging out with them, but… KITTENS! Two strays from a litter had by the neighbor's stray cat. (As in, the stray mama hangs out in his yard.) So I said I'd talk it over with Dawg for visiting on Thursday or the weekend because Friday was regular work day, special event day, overnight with KC triple shift so I hung up with her then tried to work out the details in email about when to visit the kittens. Not an epic fail, especially since it works out in the end. At some point my last exchange was not seen by Dawg so I never called Dawg's mom back to finalize. Pausing this story…
Suddenly my cell phone starts ringing, chiming, and buzzing off the hook. The number(s) calling me show up as unknown so I let them go to voicemail, then I get a blank txt from my mom that I interpret as "call me back immediately". I checked the voicemail first just to see what was going on: TWO offers for interviews with other jobs than the job I've asked you to cross your fingers for. I called Mom and told her what had just happened and we both thought, "feast or famine". Speaking of which, we're now going to Tennessee to visit my parents for Thanksgiving weekend! YIPPY!
After talking with my mom I got a phone call from an unrecognized Vermont number, but I figured it was my doctor's office and sure enough it was. I think I'm a real New Yorker now. The nurse started giggling and telling me the fax number I gave her was someone's private residence. The number that the pharmacist hand wrote on the card for me earlier that day. I hung up with that nurse, called CVS back, confirmed the number with the pharmacist, CALLED IT, and got a fax tone. I called my doctor's office back and the receptionist started giggling at me. I cut her off and said, "the number I gave you is the correct number. I called the pharmacist, I dialed the number myself, it is correct. Apparently someone wrote it down incorrectly. Here's the number: [number]. Please read it back to me. [She does.] Please call me back if the fax doesn't go through again. Goodbye." Time wasting in New York City? NOT COOL. How do you fuck up taking down a number I carefully give you, and if you know that it's the CVS in a certain city because I tell you it is then WHY NOT CALL THEM DIRECTLY TO GET THE NUMBER? Just a thought. (Because there are 50 of everything in one city here so they would have called the wrong one. I know this, but shush, I'm ranting!) I can understand why you'd make that my responsibility since I'm the one who needs my script, but… let's try writing down what I tell you next time. (Yup, New Yorker.) Never heard back again, so I am assuming it went through. I will be calling the pharmacy today to verify before I waste my time driving over.
During some portion of the day I get it in my head that I want to make chili even though I didn't know when I would eat it. Dawg and I weren't necessarily having dinner together, because there was no guarantee he could leave work any length of time before he had to go to his vollies meeting, but I love chili a day later so I made it with the knowledge that I could eat it that night or another night. Easy peasy: hamburger meat (a product of the USA, Mexico, and Canada, apparently!), diced tomatoes in burgundy wine and olive oil, Emeril's marinara sauce, kidney beans, a package of Ortega chili mix, and a package of McCormick taco mix. I kept waiting and waiting and waiting to hear back from Dawg about the kittens, or to hear from him about anything at all, but didn't so I realized we wouldn't be having dinner together and started warming up the chili for myself.
Then the Dawg ring sounded on my phone. He said he'd be home in 15 minutes and did I want to go see the kittens RIGHT NOW for the little bit of time he had between work and vollies meeting. I got all of our things together and rushed downstairs to meet him at the truck then we drove over to meet the kittens:
Adorable!!!! (They don't have names yet.) I spent about 15 minutes trying to coax them out from under furniture so I could hold them. Obviously my work paid off. In the middle of the 15 minutes I left to go pet Kit Kat, because he needs love too and I love that boy to little pieces. He was very happy to have the attention.
After kitten time Dawg dropped me off at the apartment and he left for his vollies meeting. That was somewhere between 7:00pm and 7:30pm. I went inside and changed my clothes so that the girls wouldn't get anything communicable from the not-yet-vetted kittens then I ate some chili! And one bowl wasn't enough so I ate another bowl of chili!
At some point during the day Hilly had emailed me about Dawg being her blogger of the month and wanted me to point out a photo for her post which I did so as I was eating chili I meandered over to her blog and there was a post about Dawg! So I let Hilly know Dawg wasn't home yet then forwarded the link to Dawg in email. I then started listening to Britt and Adam talk about some hypothetical world where Adam gets to decide who's too stupid to vote, and I receive an email back from Dawg: "I am speechless." He wasn't expecting Hilly's post.
And then we emailed back and forth for a little bit until 9:12pm when Dawg wrote "shit just blew up." I emailed back "uh oh. ??????" and never heard back, but that's just the way things go at those meetings so I knew it would be a long meeting for him and I went about my merriment finishing listening to the show and watching a little bit of TV.
During the end of the radio show my tummy started feeling blurgy from the chili. I tried to hang in there like a trooper, staying up nursing myself until 11:15pm, but then I just gave in. I txted Dawg that I was going to bed then crawled in with my earplugs and Squishy Bunny and went to sleep, completely ignoring his reply txt. (I was feeling really awful. Either that txt had good news or bad news about him coming home soon, but it didn't have him in it, so I didn't check it.) Ten minutes later Dawg woke me up to say he was home. He took off his uniform and closed down the apartment for the night then crawled into bed with me. My tummy was really cramping badly. He asked me what he could do for me, so I asked him to kick it TequilaCon style and tell me bedtime stories. So he did. And the sound of his voice soothed me, although the stories themselves were really horrifyingly sad, and if I tried to talk at all my tummy started acting up again so I just listened to him. And then we both went to sleep.
At 2:00am I woke up as if an alarm had gone off. My tummy was back to upset. I also woke up to being yanked like a ragdoll into Dawg's arms as he made growling noises in his sleep. Ya know how we all think Sam on "True Blood" is a werewolf? I think Dawg secretly really is a dog. Not a werewolf, a dog. A very strong dog. A minute later I started whimpering pretty loudly because my tummy hurt a lot, but Dawg was in a deep sleep. I broke free from his grip, laid on my back until the cramping subsided, then went back to sleep.
And that was the day. I'm all done. You can go now.
Oh, nope, didn't hear from the job I interviewed with, did email one job back for an interview on Monday (just in case the other job falls through or offers me $5 as a salary), and will contact the other today. And, yep, I still feel blurgy, thanks for asking.
Ok, bye!



