Caterwauling

I’m grateful Starwood made it difficult to spend more money. I hate this shit festival of a hotel. No outlets, no towels, and a sink that’s outside the bathroom. I went out last night to buy a power strip!

Add in the fact that any temperature you set the wall unit to that’s above 70 will blow hot air. Froze my fanny off last night. This room wasn’t made for Floridians! 

The lovely thing about vacation is limited cell phone battery and therefore use. But I did peek in on Facebook. And saw one of the guys posting passive-aggressive shit that would feel aimed at me if I were inclined to be paranoid. Or concerned. 

On a day when everyone’s fake-grateful (and maybe one or two actually are blessed and know it), stay silent like I did rather than sharing that shit. 

Or just post photos. That works too.  Just not the million photos he told me that he took of me when I wasn’t aware that he refuses to delete …

Of course, I just went to take a nap and the littlest Ubangis are banging shit off of the floor. Good news is the parents must be gone. Bye Felicias. 

Here are some happy moments from the whirlwind odyssey that had to be crammed into 36 hours. 

“Someone who spends 1 hour a week making $75,000 a year will likely be happier (all other things being equal) than someone who spends 80 hours a week to make $75,000 a year.”

ValueWalk, “Happiness, Time, Independence & Dividends“

Although I don’t know if I agree that money can only buy happiness on an income up to $75,000. Maybe if I had someone else in the house making the same or more, I’d be a lot happier. Of course, I’d just be thrilled to not have to float the rent check between the due date and payday …

The nice thing about moving out of this dump — aside from moving out of this dump — is that I’ve met everybody who is left in the building. And reconnected with people I forgot were still here.

We’re all moving out. We’re all scared that the assholes in the rental office will come after us for big fees. And we’re all horrified that this place might have paid off the fire department to not do anything to them for bolting shut our windows.

That’s a big accusation to make and I don’t make it lightly. But I haven’t been given one reason to disbelieve it could happen.

I have been hanging around with realtors lately and every single one says it is illegal what they are doing to us here. And the fact that these fools are coming after us for recognizing our rights to a SAFE, LIVABLE environment and asserting them? Is mind-boggling.

Evil Landlady forgot I was moving out, apparently, and told me yesterday I could get my rent prorated by $288.74 a month going forward.

What the actual fuck.

Odd dollar amount aside, I don’t even want to tell you what I pay but I can assure you that doesn’t take it down to a level where I would be happy living in dust and chaos and darkness till October, thank you.

Meanwhile I have a sunny, bright and lovely place waiting for me. It’s clean and the appliances work and oh yeah, MY WINDOWS OPEN.

Funny how you can’t take that for granted.

You’ve heard of Trump Tower right? This is Dump Tower.

And now it can suck it …

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I forget which of my boys said I’d be an excellent mother. Probably because I started singing “You Oughta Know” and promptly forgot about it.

In any event, I took the kids to the Veterans Day parade and out for Taco Tuesday. And I didn’t drink. Which I do think makes me deserve some sort of “Mother of the Year” award.

At lunch, my two favoritest people in the industry (both from different states, and both who employed me at different times in my illustrious career) ran up to greet me. The kids are like, is there anyone you DON’T know in this business?

That made me happy. As will the drinks on my calendar for later with my cherished friends …

A friend told me two years ago he’d be a successful copywriter and he’d be doing it from France. Today he posted on Facebook. From France. After a HUGE money-making copywriting campaign.

So thrilled for him, and so ready to say I’m going to be the housewife of a rich broker/trader with a novel-writing deal, and I’ll be in Paris in two years.

Remember my Post-It note with that phrase on it?

Yesterday I could have been at Carmine’s with my adopted family. Last night: Lean Cuisine.

(We ended up having our Xmas dinner on Tuesday, which was in fact lovely. So I’m not bitter. I was in Florida in holiday attire and NO COAT. So, win.)

And sea bass and pumpkin risotto and prosciutto and Amarone? Total win.

I know of a lady from Pittsburgh who was recently vacationing in Hawaii. There, she had a massive stroke.

She was with her 19-year-old daughter, and they managed to get her home.

Once home, her health continued to decline. The daughter lost her job, having to take care of her mom.

(I worry about that too. Mom has mini-strokes and I am terrified that I will have to take care of her if the big one hits. Who would pay for this palace … or for her care?)

But it gets worse.

The diagnosis has changed for this woman. Now, it turns out that she has lymphoma. I’m unclear whether there was even a stroke at all. But her doctor said to get her affairs in order.

From what I understand (I know one of the daughter’s friends so this is all thirdhand information), the woman really lived life. Didn’t let money or problems really prevent her from having a good time. So while there is nothing OK about this situation, it sounded like her life was one big adventure in crossing things off the bucket list anyway.

I guess I type all of this to say that I’m going to book a vacation. So what if I don’t have help. So what if I can’t even take a lunch hour, let alone spend a day on an airplane. So what if the world comes to a merciful end without me. I’ll bet it won’t.

I’ve started noticing the same sharp, flash, pulling pains in my head that my mom describes. Lord knows I carry more stress about my job than the owner of the company probably does.

And preparing to be away may kill me flat-out. But … I’m not going to ever be OK if someone tells me it’s time to get my affairs in order — because I haven’t had enough affairs to justify this existence just yet!

Expedia, here I come …

I know I’ve gotten men across the world to refer to me as Goddess, and I have earned that title. Damn it. 🙂

But I’ve been really struggling with how to reward myself for getting through the last fiscal quarter without any sort of assault charges levied against me.

And to me, that usually involves making a “big” purchase.

Don’t get me wrong — frolicking through Marshall’s for a dress that costs more than $15 or shoes that cost more than $20 qualifies.

I’ve been arguing with myself over a laptop purchase forever. Then one of my friends told me I can do some work for him for a day and he’ll pay me in the form of a laptop.

It’s not the one I want (it’s not even a Mac). In fact it’s an el cheapo Windows machine. A new one. With software.

But I’m going to squelch the inner princess and be grateful that God found a way to answer my little prayer. After all, momma’s got car repairs and now she can get them done with that “luxury” purchase off her immediate radar.

Weird how prayers get answered. They really do — not the way you expect or want. But I’m nothing but grateful here.

Can’t wait to see what the next prayer answered is. Now that I have proof that those sorts of things happen!