Caterwauling

Went out last night, which in and of itself isn’t an unusual occurrence, but as ALWAYS there’s no such thing as the perfect evening.

I looked fine when I left the house — not exotic or anything, but you know. Clean. Slightly fashionable outfit. Makeup. All that happy crap.

And I know I looked in the mirror and must have approved myself before I left, but I had somewhat of a drive to go meet someone. So when I got to my destination, I did the whole freshening-up thing in the ladies’ room just to make sure I was still somewhat cute and fresh and all.

And I noticed that there was a big, oily stain on my green tank top. Bizarre.

Luckily, I had another shirt to pull over it (and I was headed into a movie. *whew*) but it didn’t cover it fully and I admit, I was all “WTF?” over the mystery stain.

I mean, I admit that I miss my mouth most of the time when I’m eating. I’m one of those women who doesn’t eat much on dates — not to be dainty or anything, because you can look at me and know I like food. So, it’s really pointless to pretend to eat like a bird when everybody at the table knows better.

But I end up “getting more on me than in me,” as I am fond of saying. (Ahem.) So, knowing that I tend to spill a lot, I tend not to want to eat at least until the evening is almost over.

Anywhoo, got through the movie. (I rather loved “Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day” although I highly doubt it’ll be nominated for Picture of the Year.) And as a side tangent, I was very depressed for a moment during the show when I realized I no longer put myself in the young heroine’s shoes but, instead, I related more to the dowdy (read, “older”) Miss Pettigrew. When did I stop being the heroine of my OWN fantasies? Lord. < / tangent >

Dinner was at Brio, which was wonderful of course. I’ve been to its counterpart (Bravo) a few times but this was waaayyy better. The Italian Wedding soup tipped me off, as I knew I had tasted that recipe before. I rocked some lobster risotto for dinner, and it almost usurped Carrabba’s as my favorite Italian restaurant.

Anyway, I don’t think anyone noticed the stain — which, when I got home, I found out the one side of my Wonderbra had EXPLODED and the gel is what leaked all over the shirt. (Joy.) Luckily, the theater was dark, the restaurant was dim and I toddled off on my merry way like a good girl so I could be up for church today.

Proof positive once again that you can dress her up but you just can’t take her out!

So thanks to Craptastic Comcast, I’ve had spotty Internet connectivity for two weeks and the modem was dead as a doornail for the past two days.

I finally called to talk to a rep last night, who was just a rude little thing. She was mouth-breathing into the phone and giggling at whatever her coworkers were doing.

I knew there was an outage in my area but I was trying to reassign IP addresses and figured I’d effed something up. But, alas, I was fine and the rep should thank her lucky stars that she’s still employed. (She asked if I’m running XP and I said, no, I’m on a Mac. And she said, “Is that new?”)

My favorite moment was when she said, “I have 29 minutes to go and I can not WAIT to get out of here for the night.”

God forbid we talk about MY problems! She went on to say her brother locked himself out of the house and that he works there too and she had to go by his place before she goes home. Huh?!?! The fuck? Who gives a shit?

She wasn’t able to give me a reference number for the call because her computer froze up. I had full intentions of complaining. But then again, at least my call wasn’t outsourced to India this time and, minus the mouth-breathing, I could sort-of understand what she said, even if it was pure nonsense that has nothing to do with all the money I pay these morons each month.

Good to know that the world may change, but Comcast customer service has no shortage of suckage when there’s an outage.

Spent the morning in traffic court for a $140 ticket thanks to a suspended registration. Yippee.

I was dressed up and looking calm — it was interesting to see how many people wore their laundry-day best and looked annoyed to be there. C’mon — we were ALL annoyed to be there. No one was special in that regard.

There was an article in Slate recently in which they compared the uber-cool Bugs Bunny to the temperamental Daffy Duck in a political context. And while I think I’d rather have a president who is emotive because you can actually see that they care about the country, I’ll save that argument for April 22 (the Pennsylvania primary) if need be.

Oh, where was I? Yeah. I was trying to go the classy, cool and grateful route.

And it worked.

I was doing fine until my cop showed up. Yeesh. I was hoping she wouldn’t, not that she wasn’t a lovely person and all but because I didn’t want to pay my fine. (It was for not getting emissions done, which I did three days after I got the ticket for a splendid $400 fine.)

So, the judge called my cop’s name and brought 17 of us to the front of the room. And NO ONE before me got their fees waived. This judge wasn’t taking any crap from anybody.

Then it was my turn. I bid the judge good morning and stated my name (as these sessions get recorded). The judge asked the cop what she had to say about me. And she knocked off my bobby socks when she told the judge that she had nothing to say about me and that my charge should be dismissed.

!

!!

!!!

Holy shit!

I had all my paperwork ready to go, but nobody wanted to see it. I’m thinking she must have accessed my record and saw that I took care of everything in a hurry, because I was out that door in a hurry. Whee!

I remember her name because it’s a “Melrose Place” character name, too. Is it inappropriate to send a cop a thank-you note for not fricasseeing your ass when you probably really deserved it?

I had to stick around for a moment to get some paperwork from the clerk, and while I waited, I heard the next case. The guy was pulled over for the EXACT reason I was, and he didn’t fare so well.

The cop seemed surprised that he’d gotten his emissions done, and she asked him when he did it. She looked at his paper and said, “Yesterday? You waited until YESTERDAY?”

Needless to say, he had to pay his fine as I FROLICKED out the door.

To reward myself, I drove my ass straight over to Bed Bath & Beyond to get a duvet set that I’ve been coveting. I had seen it at the new Columbia Heights location last week and didn’t want to pay the full $150 for a lousy cover and two pillowcases. But today, I had a 20%-off coupon in my bag and spent the money earmarked to pay for my ticket on the start of my new bed ensemble. (I can’t justify parting with $50 for each sham and pillow right now.)

So, even though I consumed some meat today (seriously, the Fractured Prune is da bomb! And I took a Reese’s cup donut to go. Nom nom nom), it’s a Good Friday indeed!

It’s performance review day for me. I have been struggling to find time come up with my top 3 accomplishments for the past year, but according to my team, here they are:

1. I didn’t kill anyone.
2. I didn’t sexually harass anyone.
3. I didn’t show up drunk.

With the caveat at the end of each sentence being, of course, “… that anyone knows of.”

What are my goals for the coming year? To meet last year’s goals, of course! To stop eating out of the vending machine and go out and get some real food once in a while. To rip down all my decorations and embrace the Spartan lifestyle. To meet deadlines more than just occasionally. To go out and smoke more. To not kill or sexually harass anyone and to definitely not show up drunk. (Hungover does not qualify as drunk, for the record.) To take naps whenever possible to keep up my momentum for longer stretches of time.

Here’s to another year of being gainfully employed!

“And I see you standing there
Wanting more from me
And all I can do is try.”

– Nelly Furtado, “Try“

Planetary forces are hard-at-work right now, basically creating a cosmic clusterfuck. No arguments here — in fact, the less I say lately, the happier I am. And I have never been in this crabby a mood without it being hormone-motivated.

Well, maybe crabby isn’t the word. Stretched, perhaps. Worried and disillusioned, mostly over the economy and wondering what it’s going to mean to me. Disgusted with national politics and afraid over what the outcome of the Democratic race is going to be. Outraged at a lack of outrage in general.

My horoscope said I should let go of over thinking today and just feel. Well, I feel like thinking. But damn, it makes my widdle brain hurt.

I’ve been so flippin’ busy for the past few days, I haven’t even thought about this space. And, judging from my feed reader, most peeps in my circle are experiencing their own version of March Madness, as I can’t find anyone posting even when I can free up a rare moment to see what anyone else is up to.

I can haz a Swiffer shoved up my butt so I can at least mop the floor while I’m running around like a madwoman? (Seeing as though time to clean is pretty much non-existent, too. *sigh*)

There was a lot of going out this weekend and trying amazing foods and beers and whatnot, as Paddy’s Day is a weekend-long celebration in these here parts. I could use a beer right now but, alas, the last thing I need to do is fall asleep right about now, although the results could be fairly entertaining.

At church yesterday, they were playing Hackey Sack with the brimstone in that you should always choose others’ needs before your own. Which, I pretty much always do. I just wonder who’s going to put mine first, seeing as though I’m not “allowed” to do it for myself. Blah blah “your standard of living shouldn’t compare with your standard of giving” cakes.

And applying that to my life was kind of interesting, actually, in that I keep making more and more money. But instead of my standard of living going up, the government keeps getting more of mah monies. So if that’s the case, why aren’t we enjoying a more-effective government? I’m paying for competence — why aren’t they putting MY/OUR needs above THEIR own?!?!