Caterwauling

I was talking to one of my favorite people today (it seems the majority of my favorite people are at work. Please allow me to pause to consider this phenomeon!) about Thanksgivings past, and I remembered a great story about my mom. (“Wobin,” for the unfamiliar.)

It was years ago, when my grandmother was still alive and Mom cooked one of her patented 40-course meals (it’s been awhile. Mmm, stuffing balls. *drool*). The thing with Mom is that you don’t know where to be while she’s cooking. If you’re sitting on the couch, you get yelled at to help her already because she can’t pull off this goddamned feast all by herself. So then you will go try to make yourself useful, only to be yelled at for getting under her fucking feet already. But when you vacate, she assumed the orders she had barked out in a frenzy had been executed and you will, surprise, get yelled at for fucking up the process.

The neuroses? Yeah, they all start there.

So anyway, it was one of those times in which I’d been exiled and was seeking safety in the living room, where my grandmother was in her hospital bed that would confine her for seven years after her stroke. (Yay for the idiot medics who came when she had the stroke, picked her up off the bathroom floor, left her on the couch, LEFT THE HOUSE and had to be summoned back when she wasn’t as OK as they thought she was. Christ on crackers.)

Ahem.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, so Gram and I were having a rip-roaring good time watching Mom drive herself insane for — oh — FOUR of us (my grandfather being the fourth — he was hiding upstairs. Smart man). We’re talking turkey and balls and eight other side dishes and 72 appetizers and maybe a pie or two cakes or something also in process. And Rosemarino salad. I don’t remember after whom it was named but it involved pasta and whipped cream and fruit. That was our family’s version of healthy.

ANYWAY.

Gah.

(We’re probably grabbing Chinese on the run again this year, so forgive the digressions!)

So my grandmother used to be the matriarch who cooked for the masses. As an Italian mother/grandmother, it was HER kitchen and HER ways of doing things — if you fucked it up, she wouldn’t eat it. So, understandably, PRESSURE.

(Ask me sometime about the year she refused to eat the turkey and demanded — and got — a frozen Swanson dinner. My mother was scarred for life!)

SO.

We were cackling at Mom. (Easy target, trust me.) My sweet-natured, mild-mannered Mom, however, had HAD IT with us. So, she calmly opened a cabinet, found two boxes of something or other, and effortlessly hurled one at her mother and the other at me.

And that bitch? Has AIM!

We were so stunned silent that she would actually DO that. And Mom, without batting an eye, turned back to her 20 projects and completed them wordlessly.

And that was the moment in which you realized you DO NOT fuck with Wobin.

I was never prouder of her!

Later she did feel bad for beaning us, but I told her to shut up and not give up that moment of victory, as she had SO earned it. Yay Wobin!

Hey, we’re not having a traditional dinner for yet another year — let a girl slurp up some gravy wherever she can!

Chris Daughtry’s new album on iTunes

*searching for a mop for the floor beneath my chair*

“I ain’t settlin’
Just getting by
I’ve had enough so-so
For the rest of my life.”

– Sugarland, “Settlin’”

What a weird little week. Got promoted, went on vacation, got a new office. Fabulous.

Seven days ago, I was on my way to the MGM Grand and Mandalay Bay for an escape from D.C. And the one thing I learned is that just because people have enough money to stay at those over-the-top hotels, doesn’t mean they all actually step into the shower and take advantage of the complimentary toiletries and bath salts.

While I was away, I didn’t do much in the way of touristy stuff, other than catching the Shark Reef exhibit, where I absolutely loved sitting in one of the two tunnels with sharks of all shapes, colors and sizes swimming overhead. In fact, as I learned my last night there, they have a channel devoted to a live webcam of the Shark Reef — it was freaking awesome to fall asleep to. (It’s available on a delay here.)

If you’ve ever stayed in Mandalay Bay, please be assured that you will never go outside — you don’t have to. The place is its own empire, complete with a beach and great restaurants (StripSteak, Shanghai Lilly, Rum Jungle, Wolfgang Puck’s, House of Blues, Red White & Blue, etc. — I recommend them all foodwise but don’t bother if you’re trying to get somewhere else afterward on time). Everytime I was in an elevator and heard someone saying they wanted to try one, I was striking up conversations, telling them what to order.

I’d wanted to catch a show or go to the Eiffel Tower again, but really, I breathed nothing but the oxygen that was pumped into the casinos. (Oh, gawd, there went the car payment!) Sad thing is, I walked around so much that I should have dropped about eight jeans sizes, but the yummy food more than offset THAT marathon! I swear, from my room to the restaurants would have been an $8 cab ride were everything laid out flat on the street!

I was joking with my colleagues yesterday that I was like a captor who had the chance to be free of her kidnapper, yet couldn’t go. I walked outside once — once! — and immediately stepped back into the revolving doors and went to the slot machines. People were looking at me funny, but then again, when DON’T they?!?!

The first day I was there and had some time to myself to go find breakfast, I turned on my little ROKR phone and the Sugarland song I quoted above popped on first. It was sort of an epiphany for me — that I CAN have good things and I need to go after them with all my might. They’re not going to just happen, y’know? I’ve worked really hard to get where I am and it’s going to take even more work to stay afloat and maybe go even further, but it’s doable.

I mean, I’ve settled for less than I’ve deserved for so long that I have had such low expectations of people, places and things that are just amazing. I’m starting to find that the world really is ours for the asking … and taking.

I was entertaining in my new office yesterday, and my buddy who made it possible was saying that, wow, just two weeks ago I was wondering whether there’d be any fallout from a random act of stupidity inflicted upon my superiors supposedly by me (but not). But all it did was remind everyone that I’m Web-savvy and I got a big fat invitation to develop/administer a Web portal and blog, since I’m so good at it in this very space. Talk about being in the right place at the right time! LOL. I love it. Just LOVE IT.

I also get to hire someone I respect very much. I mean, I always say that when bad things happen to me, the universe avenges my boo-boos and brings me out ahead. I tell you, I’ve spent my life being happy for the success of people around me, knowing that my day would come, too. It has, and I’m enjoying it more than I ever thought I would.

Don’t call it a happy ending, though. Call it the boost to keep me hanging in there to see what I can *really* do, when given the opportunity. I would never have had these chances in my previous incarnation — growth at my previous job was discouraged; now it’s mandatory. I’m thriving, and thankful for it.

So this holiday — a far cry from when I literally tried to slit my wrists two years ago (but I hate blood, so that ended that) — I’m giving thanks for everything that happened to tear me down, because it made me work harder on the way back up and I appreciate it 10 times more than I probably would have back then.

The American dream is on its way to being mine.

A-freakin’-men!

Along with the promotion, I’m getting a window office. Yes! Although it has been threatened that the windows will be painted because you usually find me in my little cubby, holed up in the dark.

I have five lamps and one overhead light, and it’s usually regarded as the terror threat alert system — if I’ve got all the lights on, that’s usually a “stay the hell away from Goddess” day. But with natural light? No one’s going to know when NOT to come and talk to me!

(Just kidding — I’ve got a revolving door just in case there’s some good gossip coming ’round!)

It’s a tiny cubby of an office but one with a lovely little corner in which I can buy some cheap excuse of Swedish craftsmanship upon which to plant my ass — I’m already envisioning closing the door, kicking off the heels and doing some writing.

It’s a good day in the World of Goddess.

I wish I could say the same for my grandfather, who was forcibly ripped from Good Hospital the night before I left for Vegas and has been abused and tortured repeatedly ever since and I’ve been too heartsick to pick up the phone when Mom calls to report the latest drama. It seems like I’m the one getting all the good luck in the family right now, and believe me, I’ll take it, but I just wish some of my good karma could be shared with those who could use something to believe in right now. …

Going from a five-star luxury hotel in Vegas to a tiny apartment full of cat shit landmines? Makes me want to cut off my ponytail and hang myself with it. Oh well, it was nice to have a break from “litter getter” patrol!