Employee Of The Month

Everyone who knows me knows of my love/hate relationship with Walmart. I go because I know they have what I need at the price I’m willing to pay, but invariably, after I walk out, I’m cranky and vowing never to step foot in one again. Mostly, it has to do with the register lines, which are always long and manned by barely apt employees who invariably must go on break right after the person in front of me checks out. Once, I actually had the audacity to complain about the short-staffed registers and was told, “We are short-staffed because we can’t get enough applicants who can pass the drug test.” Really.

Yesterday, I went and lo and behold, all four of the self-check registers were open. Lines at the manned registers were 20 minutes long. I jumped right in and started to scan. Scan, scan, scan, bag. Scan, scan, bag, rotate to large items. Stick in credit card, grab cash and I’m set to go. The woman who was running the self-checks came over and gave me a big smile: “I hope you have a wonderful night—watching you do that was like poetry in motion.”

I fully expect to see my photo up in the store as “Employee of the Month.”

We just hired a new senior employee who is looking for an apartment to live in while they get to know the area.

I emailed my buddy, who lives in a beautiful place: “What is the name of your complex?”

Her response: “Obsessive compulsive disorder with extreme delusions of grandeur compounded by acute procrastination tendencies and mild psychotic paranoia.” 

 

That’s just not right.

I don’t suffer from insanity, I enjoy every moment of it. ~ Unknown

A Little Mercury With Your Tuna?

Speaking with best friend about dentist visit last night (well, neither of us are getting laid this week, what’s left to discuss?): Her: I’m glad you are getting those old fillings out, then you won’t have any mercury in your mouth anymore.
Hahnathome: Whatever.
Her: What do you mean? You should rejoice and celebrate not having a toxin like mercury in your mouth.
Hahnathome: I’ve had them 25 years, never bothered me. But, I shall rejoice and celebrate, just for you. I know—I’ll throw a big party once my mouth is mercury-free.
Her: I love a party, what will you bring?
Hahnathome: Well, it’s a big occasion, so I’m thinking a lot of canned tuna.

Interestingly, I’m now sure I have Mercury poisoning—all this time I’ve been just been attributing these symptoms to getting older, menopause, allergies, being romantically ga-ga, my boss, and being the parent of three teens—silly me:

The primary symptoms of mercury-poisoning are vague psychic ones. Short-term memory deteriorates. You will find it difficult to concentrate on tasks which require attention and thinking. You lose your temper easily and switch between different moods for no particular reason. Little by little, a more physical kind of exhaustion is added to the condition. More and more effort is required to initiate activities and complete them due to inability to co-ordinate your movements with your visual impressions (ataxia). Occasional headaches, minor involuntary muscle spasms or tics within groups of muscles can also appear. Hands and feet become easily cold, attacks of dizziness or vertigo can occur, and periodically you may find it difficult to focus your eyes and to see clearly. Joint and muscle pains, stiffness, lumbago and similar symptoms often appear at an early stage.

Be sure to check my “Stuff I Like” page from time to time, I’m posting some good video from You Tube. Today, for example, I’m showing the classic Harry Shearer/Martin Short “Men’s Synchronized Swimming” bit from SNL, directed by Christopher Guest.

Age, Age, Freakin’ Age

Big dental appointment today. This may not be a big thing for most people but I am one of the 9-15% of people who avoid going to the dentist out of sheer terror. I won’t tell you how long it’s been. It’s too embarrassing. But, a few weeks ago, I bit down on a Boston Baked Bean and one of my teeth broke, I couldn’t put it off. I built myself up, to keep from going into full anxiety attack, to walk in the door. The waiting was the worst. And, I waited forever. Finally, I saw the dentist, and it was clear to him as I walked in that I would not be an easy patient, and I didn’t disappoint. Fortunately, I only had one hot flash in the few hours I was there.

I survived the experience, but did die later when they told me how much it was going to cost to fix everything over the next four or five visits.

So, then, it was off to the eye doctor to get the official notification that I am old, if the fact something falls apart every day wasn’t enough indication—the trifocal prescription. Damn, I don’t like getting old. I keep going over those words of wisdom imparted by my mom several years ago….”Don’t worry, you’ll never feel as good again as you do right now.” Damn.

Here’s the analogy. If my body were a car, I’d be thinking about trading it in around now. I would like to upgrade. I would be actually on the lot somewhere and some guy with a loud sports jacket would be sizing me up…kinda lookin’ around goin–maybe kickin my knees. Looking behind me going: “That looks a little bashed in back there…Yeah. You mind if I check under the hood?” ‘Well yes I do! Thank you very much.
~ Ellen DeGeneres

Dr. Jekyll & Hahnathome

Okay, funny story, really.  I think.  Well, hell, in my hormonal state, what do I know.  So, we had something that needed the boss’ signature in several places tomorrow.  I had signed his name in many places, fully planning to sign it in the remainder of the places, not yet ready for signature.  Unfortunately, I will not be there tomorrow to sign them, so my boss will actually have to sign them himself.  I looked at him and said, “You do know how to forge me forging you, right?”  Then, I gave him a forgery sample to follow for his own signature.

 

Oy I’m glad I have a doctor’s appointment coming very soon.  I think today’s heading says it all.  I’m up, I’m down.  I’m thinking the world sucks, and then I’m on top of said same world.  The inferno flames, then dies down.  I found this little poem that sums things up nicely:

MY MENOPAUSE
And I’m afraid ~ yours too ~ by Shirl courtesy of www.minniepauz.com  (edited)

I know that I am different now
I know I’m not the same
There is a demon in my mouth
That makes me act insane

I feel so hot and sweaty now
My mind is full of rage
I’m sure this shouldn’t be happening
Not yet, not at my age

One day it will descend on you
From somewhere out of hell
You’ll think the maddest witch on earth
Has blessed you with her spell

This is my existence
A strange and manic place
I do not mean to hurt you
Just don’t get in my face

It’s so damned hot throughout the night
Central heating I don’t need
I know what will calm me down
I think I’ll smoke some weed

My memory has abandoned me
My balance, not too good
Restful sleep, is in the past
Anyone not happy can kiss my ass

So if you should come across me
Crying like a buffoon
It won’t be long before I start
Laughing like a loon

On Mental Paws

Yikes!  I’ve been having these freakin’ “symptoms” every few months for a few years, but suddenly these “symptoms” have grown to ten times a day or more.  What are these “symptoms” you ask?  Nosy, aren’t you?  Oh, all right, I’ll give you a freakin’ hint.  It causes my head and shoulders to heat up to 6,000 degrees, like it is radiating hotter than the freakin’ infernos of hell and all I want to do is strip naked and jump in a tub of ice water.  So far, I have enough sanity left to refrain, but if one day I do slip deeper into yet another freakin’ symptom of menopause (memory loss), I will forget I’m at work, I swear I will, and the clothing will go regardless—be-freakin’-ware.

 

So, putting this together with the fact I took a look at my post yesterday and it seemed to me to be a bit…tense, shall we say…okay, call it bitchy, and I decided some damn freakin’ thing or another was up.  This morning, I took the time to look up how others experience hot flashes, and seems I’m pretty normal.  This is freakin’ normal?  I demand to know why they haven’t discovered a cure that doesn’t require the removal of major organs? 

 

All I have to say is, if this lasts 10 years, as the medical websites said it could, there is no freakin’ way I’m not bringing every freakin’ person I know down with me. 

 

Don’t think of it as getting hot flashes. Think of it as your inner child playing with matches. ~ Unknown

Santa Claus Murdered The Easter Bunny

Toiling at my job-job most of the afternoon, with a little break to play a couple of board games with the J-Man.  I warned him I was going to kick his butt, and I did.  I do not let the kids win, ever.  Not to be nice, not to build their self-esteem.  What builds their self-esteem thing, I think, is winning fair and square.  Acquiring the skill or knowledge to beat me to the ground and leave me in a pulverized state.  I remember the first time Notorious B.E.N. beat me at pool after scores of resounding losses.  He had practiced and practiced until he got better.  The look on his face that important day was priceless, and he still managed to say, “good game.”  That is confidence building in my book.

 

Four dogs, all with big mouths, is a little too much for me.  I have my two girls, my friend’s male hound mix, and my sister’s giant beast dog here right now and I feel like my head is going to explode.  The dog-namics are way too much.  

 

Which brings me to my general state of intolerance for ruckus.  Today, I went to breakfast at a very nice restaurant.  We had the pleasure of being seated behind a very large extended family with two little kids.  Both were noisy, whining, fussing, and generally making it difficult for us to talk.  Then, the littlest whining brat leaned over to our side of the booth where his whining ended up right in my ear.  All the adults thought it was oh, so freakin’ cute.  My breakfast companion decided to take the situation in hand and loudly blurted, “Oh, my God, did you hear?  Santa Claus was murdered by the Easter Bunny, so no one is getting presents this year.”

 

Within moments, the family departed.

 

I think kids in restaurants need to be well-behaved and their parents need to see to that. ~ Tina Brown

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

A lot of things have changed in the last few months.  One, I no longer have any desire to clean the house.  I went from an anal-retentive clean freak 20 years ago to a, “well, as long as nothing is growing on it, it can wait until the weekend” kind of girl.  Seems I always have something more fun to do or people to see.  I find it highly satisfying up until the moment I realize that I’ve lost the dog under the layers of dust.  Today, I dusted.  And mowed.  And trimmed trees.  I also picked up the paint to repaint the kitchen because the color I used before went with the old floor, not the new floor.  And cleaned out the garage.  Oh, and picked up some tile to redo the bathrooms this winter.  And converted some digital photos to black & white and hung them in my house.  I followed this up with drafting long, outrageous text messages to tease my girlfriend who has three of her five sisters visiting her. 

 

One of the items I picked up in my reading this week was news that William J. Mann’s, Kate:  The Woman Who Was Hepburn, is due out very soon.  The more interesting portions, at least to me, being related to the fact that Hepburn was, in fact, at least bisexual and probably lesbian, and her 25-year relationship with married man and fellow movie star Spencer Tracy was a deep one, but not romantic.  Hepburn carefully constructed a mythic romance with Tracy, helped largely by their friends and publicists.  I found it fascinating, after reading the Vanity Fair article, that Hepburn had quite a long string of woman lovers, the major one being American Express heiress Laura Harding in the 1930s (they maintained a relationship until Harding’s death in 1994—as we all know, Lesbians hang onto their former lovers, they may need help moving in the U-Haul).  Whether this is more Hollywood fiction to churn sales will never be determined as Hepburn was a “don’t ask, don’t tell” kind of gal with the public.  This is one book I probably will pick up.

 

Time to scrub floors and pour a margarita to reward myself!

 

Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then. ~ Katherine Hepburn

Back Seat Driver

What a day at work.  We’re jamming, trying to get a big proposal out the door and little things were going wrong here and there.  Oh, that and trying to get 50 chefs to contribute in the way and in the time I need to complete my part of a 7-course meal is next to impossible.  So, I’ll continue jamming on my part through the weekend.  Hopefully all the information will trickle in.

 

Funny though, my boss and I were in his office with him and his computer on one side and me on the other side.  I insisted on “driving” the keyboard and entering the data that we needed to work on.  He spent much of the time correcting me on this or that, wanting to drive as he would.  Finally, in a very low voice, I grumbled, “back seat driver.”  He laughed and said, “I know, but you insisted on driving.”  Yes, boss, I thought, I will always insist on driving.  Do you not know me at all?    When I got home, I IM’d him, since I know he will be in the office until long after the traffic clears to remind him I had a very fine margarita in my hand and he didn’t.

 

My friend of the stolen car is coming tonight for a brief visit and then I get to babysit her dog for the weekend.  What the hell.  It’s catch up at home weekend anyway. 

Good, Good, Good, Good Vibrations

When I come home, one of the first things I do is look through my mail.  A good day is one in which there are no bills on the desk.  Today was not a good day.  I got my credit card statement—one I was sure I’d paid off and lo and behold, there was a hefty bit of a balance charged to someplace odd.  The company name was nonsensical.  I was sure I was a victim of fraud and that some notorious identity thief had absconded with the sacred number and I would be fighting charges for years to come as he lounged on the beaches in Fiji, swilling martinis two at a time, juggling multiple bikini-clad women with expensive tastes on his arms, and imagined my money going up in smoke like the fine Havana cigars he chain-smoked on my dime.  Immediately I called the company and after three transfers, I ended up with the people who dealt with potential fraud. 

 

“Hey, I don’t think I made this charge and it makes no sense.  I’m getting a little feeble-minded, and may have forgotten a charge, but this company name is so weird.” I asserted firmly. 

 

After giving him the reference number, he gave a little chuckle and said, “You may want to give them a call before we start working on the paperwork to reverse the charge and flag your card with the credit bureau. This charge could be 60 days old.”  He then gave me the number.

 

Sure in my belief that I’d been “robbed,” I called.  After several rings, I heard:  “Thank you for calling Good Vibrations…”

 

Ahhhhh…I smiled and slowly hung up, mystery solved

 

Funny, I don’t remember being absent-minded

Words of Wisdom

A friend related the outlook she’s grown into over the past little while:  When we learn to forgive ourselves and others, we can let go of the past and what we’d hoped it would be.  It frees us to our future.