Caterwauling

I just got an e-mail from a newspaper subscriber, asking me how often I run my annual calendar of events. ROFL.

The power’s back on! The water’s hot again! w00t!

Seven fucking days after the storm, not to mention that my area was barely hit, minus a lot of rain and downed tree branches. Sheesh. Remind me to not hold my breath, the next time we have an outage. *sigh* I was just getting to a point where I might as well have left my overnight case at Shawn’s so I didn’t have to keep toting my panties back and forth every friggin’ day. Like I told my neighbors yesterday, it’s a shame to carry your underpants around town in a bag and not be getting laid. 🙂

In other news, I’ve been kitty training the past few days. Seems Kadi will scarf down her food, then run over to Maddie’s dish and poke her pointy head into her dish and scarf all that up, too.

So for the past three days, I have guarded Maddie while she eats. And that stupid little shit of a cat STILL harasses Maddie, no matter how many times I zing her with a squirt gun or just nudge her out of the way with my foot. But she knows she’s doing something wrong. I can snap my fingers and she will jump 10 feet, but she will recover immediately and stick her face in the dish the second she thinks I’m not looking. LIke right now, Maddie abandoned her dish five minutes ago, and I have shot the little cat with water 19 — no, make that 21 — times to get her away from the dish. Little ingrate — I spent more money on her specialty kitten food … that’s what she should be eating, not her big sister’s food!

I think I’ve worn her out for now. Maybe Maddie will wise up and just finish her food at each serving, but it’s a shame that now we can’t leave food out for her to graze, like we used to do.

Oh, well — who cares? Maybe now if the power stays on, I can actually keep some food in the house for me! 🙂

The problem with missing two weeks of work is that it’s all there when you get back. And what sucks even more is that you have to work twice as hard to do half as much, when you’re not feeling well.

Oh, I’ll get through this. It will just be a miracle when it does happen. 🙂

In better news, my apartment complex claims that within 24 hours, all services will be restored. I shall not hold my breath, because even though blue is a good color on me, it just doesn’t work when it’s my skin color.

God, I need a nap.

Why I have a KISS song in my head, I have no idea, especially considering that I’m listening to BT’s “Rare and Remixed” CDs. 🙂

Although I’m trapped in editing hell at work (guest contributors seem to have a problem with writing submissions with the verbs all in the same frickin’ tense), I’m longing for October to roll around. Punkin pickin’ on Oct. 25, hanging around Old Town for Halloween, apartment-warming soiree on Nov. 1 … the fun times go on and on. I look forward to actually being able to carry a pumpkin, as I get winded from shuffling a bag of cat poop to the basement right now. 🙂

I’ve got to send a big THANK YOU to Shawn for being my latest host on my Tour de Shower, as my utilities at my apartment are still nonexistent. You know, what are people without good friends down the street doing? I mean, what’s the point in washing your ass with cold water? How does that help matters? I shudder to think of the unwashed Fungus Amongus. *twitch*

Shawn and I went out to dinner at Damon’s last night. We had tons of them in Pittsburgh, and I was pleased to find the solitary one here in NoVa last night. We played the NTN trivia game, where Shawn showed up on the screen as Saddam and Hoebag. We were dismayed at how many names the trivia game banned from use — such as Hitler, Osama and Balls. 🙂 It’s sad, but they probably pay someone big bucks to come up with offensive names and program the gameboards to not accept them. I want a job like that!

Speaking of jobs, I need to get back to mine. I swear, I need me a Sugar Daddy (or Mama, at this point — I’m up for anything!) so I can sit on my ass and watch the “Ellen Degeneres Show” and not have to earn a paycheck. Damn it. 🙂

Went back to work today. Just left a little bit ago so I could come home and take some much-deserved Percocet. *sweet sigh* I also let my writer go home when I did, so she’s a happy girl, too.

Maddie looks like she has pinkeye in one eye, but I called the vet, who surmised that Kadi probably scratched her in the eye. If it’s still pink tomorrow, I am supposed to take her in. Kadi can’t be declawed till she’s at least five months old, but I might rip her nails out with my teeth if she’s hurting Maddie. Bad little cat.

Apartment situation (no air, no electric in kitchen, no hot water) is the same. I saw my buddy RC at work today, who lives behind me in the same complex, and she informed me that residents are supposed to be unplugging their refrigerators. Hah! Fat fucking chance. I shouldn’t be lifting much (and I’m definitely exerting myself more than I should be), so I ain’t movin’ that fucking thing to find the plug. Nobody from the management office informed me that I have to do this, so I am not bothering until I’m told … and then I’ll tell them they can come do it themselves.

Apparently one of our connectors to a transformer blew, and the electric company has declared that we are on the low end of the totem pole as far as repairing and restoring service. Joy. The original four-day window they’d told us we’d need to wait out is now extended indefinitely, as today is day four without power and hot water. What’s funny is that we were fine DURING the storm; shit just blew out AFTER it. In what world does this make sense?

I’m gonna go retire to the couch right now. I’m hungry, but now that I’ve thrown out all of my food, all I have are Mom’s cookies to live on. And that ain’t really a bad thing, when I think about it. 🙂

Interesting.

My alma mater is having a freshman phonathon whereby the school’s top brass call to check in on the kids, to see how they’re assimilating during their first weeks away from home.

I don’t have too much snarky to say about it, other than I remember the throngs of people who dropped out as soon as the semester started, for whatever reason. Most people were pissed off because we had no athletics (other than dance, and those dancers were bitchy and sweaty and annoying, giggling freaks). Or because it was a small school, you had to wait six semesters before your required core classes in your major would finally show up on the schedule, and they’d fill up early and be closed off to the people who really needed them to graduate. Or because we were absolutely incompatible with our roommates — not to mention the fact that we were required to co-exist with strangers with varying cleaning/hygiene issues in 10′ by 15′ cells rooms.

I wonder if the top brass will DO anything with such complaints, ’cause they’re gonna hear that and more, if memory serves. 🙂

At any rate, if they’d called me, I would have been whining because, of my group of a dozen female friends, all of us got on the same menstrual cycle within a couple of weeks. My god, to walk down the hallway of the 18th floor and hear us moaning … no WONDER people moved off our floor and headed for the hills!

If this WaPo article is right, power won’t be fully restored in Virginia till Friday night.

Fuck you, Pepco and Dominion. 🙂

Despite my aching staples, I dragged down shitloads of rotted food and cat poop to our trash room. I made several trips and threw up in my hand during the final run, when I accidentally breathed through my nose, because of the stench. Everybody dragged the contents of their refrigerators down there during the last 24 hours, and it’s funkin’ up the stairwell in the whole building. What really sucks is that, when the garbage men come, they have to drag all that trash back up the steps to take it outside. *gag*

Took my cold ‘ho bath. It wasn’t so bad, but that’s because I didn’t wash my hair. I needed the coldness, actually, after walking down into that steamy pit of trash downstairs. I couldn’t catch my breath for a half hour, and I was sweating profusely by the time I dragged my ragged ass back up to my apartment.

Ah, the joys of life. 🙂

My neighbors Sue and Bob invited me over for dinner last night. I had gone out to my car, headed to Dave’s for my glorious hot shower, and they had mentioned that there would be plenty of spaghetti ready at 5. And sure enough, at quarter to five, they sent their son Eddie over here to say that I’m welcome to wander over whenever I was ready, and that if I didn’t feel like coming over, he’d be glad to bring me a plate. (Eddie’s 20 — damn, if only I were 10 years younger. …)

I did go over, and I loved the whole bunch of them — three generations’ worth. Shawn drove in from Pittsburgh, bringing my microwave oven and other assorted goodies that Mom had sent (including chocolate chip cookies and peanut butter cookies — home-baked. Yum!), and they said to bring him on over. The food was great, and it was cool to develop some cameraderie with my neighbors across the way. In all, there were about three different apartments represented there — they have friends and family throughout the complex. They even said we should come back tonight for leftovers, as they tried to send us home with food but as the rest of us don’t have electricity in our kitchens, we had to pass. 🙂

Yeah, I just dumped out the entire contents of my fridge and freezer. Two full garbage bags and counting. Even the condiments have to go. It’s hotter than hell inside the fridge and freezer — everything’s skunked. Oh the pleasure.

I get my damn staples out today, in honor of which I will take a cold ‘ho bath. I drove by Staples (the store) yesterday, and I cringed and flipped it off. 🙂 Made my side hurt, just to see the word in 22-foot-tall letters.

Kadi (Short Bus cat) is wearing me out. In addition to jumping on my side where my staples are, she has farted on her sister, farted on my head and farted on everything in the apartment. And she keeps eating the flowers that work sent, no matter how much I try to punish her. They sent red and yellow flowers. The bouquet is … unique. 😉

I’ve got to get with it and clean the litter station. It’s stankin’ to high heaven. It just hurts to lift stuff, but if I’ve got to drag 40 pounds of rotting food down to the sub-basement today, I might as well drag 100 pounds of cat poop with it. Ah, the joy of being me.

I have NOT missed being at work. Not in the least. To not have meetings and people hovering has been sheer pleasure. I spent a lot of time thinking about how, if I only worked for myself, I would’ve been compensated for all the long hours I had already put in, and therefore I could rest and recover and not worry about all the bullshit that is associated with a leave of absence — particularly the fact that every employee feels the need to stand in your doorway and view you like a zoo exhibit, asking questions and giving you fake concern that you neither need nor want.

Shan and I were wishing that someone had kept track of all the nights and weekends we had worked, so that we wouldn’t have to deal with the semantics associated with sick leave. I mean, shit, I definitely put in more than two weeks of personal time during the course of seven months on staff by myself, but they’re gonna be calculating (I’m sure) down to the minute how much leave I needed to take. Because that’s just the way of the world.

I have a lot more to say about the work, but I’ll save it for the book I should write about it. Why give ’em even more fodder to fire me? 😉

On that note, Shawn’s former employer keeps reading my page. In fact, they are one of my most frequent readers. I just have to laugh — I never mention them, so somebody is whacking off in their IT department, probably reading me for pleasure. Maybe that person should get fired for wasting their time reading this mindless mess instead of doing his or her job? 😉 Or IS it the job of the IT people to surf the Internet and read what their employees are/were reading? Oh well. It’s driving up my number of hits quite nicely, so I really can’t complain. Come in, kick off your shoes, and won’t you be … my neighbor? 🙂

Innovation … or inconvenience

My coffee pot does, in fact, work, if I put it on the living room floor and brew it there. 🙂 Now if I could have just moved the refrigerator, I wouldn’t have lost more than $80 in groceries because there is no power going to the fridge. Damn. It really pained me to eat that whole bag of Reese’s cups that I’d stored in the freezer. 😉

Ya gotta have friends

As for the hot water situation, Dave kindly offered for me to take a shower there. I am not going to pass up that offer, because without hot water here, my leg hair is leaning toward the “braidable” adjective again — ick!

Saturday night alone with a good book

I finished reading “Good in Bed” last night. I didn’t love the book, but I did feel moved enough to contact the author, Jennifer Weiner, to thank her for writing it. Not only did she write about a 28-year-old “woman of size,” but she also showed her having a great life filled with love and dates and adventures — which endeared me. But instead of sending her a letter waxing poetic about “I know how it feels,” I chose instead to compliment her on the storyline about delivering a premature baby and all the complications that went along with it — from the sleep apnea monitors, from the months spent commuting to the hospital, from the worries about neurological and cardio-pulmonary disorders, to the general madness that such pressures bring. That is everything that Shan is going through right now, and I loved reading about such real situations in a fictional novel. It even managed to give me a little bit more insight into what’s going on with Shan.

Ya gotta have friends, part deux

And, I guess I should admit it — we’ve been in irregular contact. She brought Alex to the recovery room after my appendix went away. We’ve talked on the phone a couple of times. And she’s always managed to try to talk about me, when I’m the one who’s dying to know what’s going on with her.

Long story short, the baby will be attached to her apnea monitor until after the December holidays. Because the electrodes have been ripping and tearing her fragile skin (read: Alex is ripping the cords off), the doctors came up with a new solution to put the cords under her clothes. She’s up to 7 pounds now and with the new equipment, she will finally fit into a baby’s size 0-3. And Aunt Dawn has a boatload of such munchkin-sized clothes for her new little niece, so Alex will be set for a long time. Now, just to get Shan to pick up her phone so I can get over there to visit! 🙂

Now for the rest of my book review

At any rate, back to the book. It wasn’t knock-you-over-dead wonderful, but it speaks to you if you have ever had body-image issues … and who among us hasn’t?. And like I told the author, “All in all, you got it right — despite being rather uncomfortable in our own skin more often than we’d care to admit, we do learn as we get older that we are pretty damn special, and the right people can and do realize it.”

In which I self-analyze after reading the book

I’ve always felt this weird cross between shame and appreciation of my own skin. I turned that shame, initially, into promiscuity. I didn’t feel like looking at myself, but I made sure that lots of people saw me. (And yes, despite myself, I can have sex with the lights on, although I’d prefer that to be DIM lighting. Heh.) But after my ridiculous bout with life and death and bad hospital service, I realize that my body is, well, the only one I’ve got. And It’s been pretty damned good to me for the past three decades, no matter how much I’ve used and abused it. And it ain’t gettin’ any younger. So it’s got its scratches and scars and miles upon miles of havoc and pleasure wreaked upon it. So what? Each bump and bruise tells a story — my story. And it ain’t over yet. In fact, I hope I have lots of healthy years ahead, because there are more stories to be told and more pleasures to incur. For all its faults, I do love my body. I just need to find someone else to worship it as much as I do!!! 🙂

*updated*

I have half-power in my kitchen. What does that mean? My fridge is on but all my food has thawed out since the storm hit.

I stocked up on all kinds of foods for during/after the storm, not to mention that it’s nice to have food in the house for when you’re, oh, hungry. But now, my stocked-full freezer is warmer than the running water, and everything’s spoiling. So, not like I needed an excuse, but I’m cookin’ up a storm tonight — getting rid of everything that’s going to go bad.

Heh. The saline in my I.V. bags put a good 12 pounds on me, and now I’ll be munching on the contents of my fridge. Oh, yeah, I see a visit to Weight Watchers (or to a plastic surgeon) in the near future, but tonight, we eat! Oompah! 🙂

Update The a/c stopped working. It’s blowing warm air. When does this madness END?!?!