Pressure's Gonna Drop On You

Well chalk up another reason to dislike work meetings. Toxic Danish. Driving to get small child after school on Friday I darn near had to pull over and barf on the interstate. Joy. Ended up staying home. Didn't work this weekend either. I need the money like crazy, but frankly the futility of nothing working right here at the office is getting to me in a big way.

On the plus side I got a new monitor that is bigger, a flat panel, and doesn't have epilepsy. Woot!

Kiddlet had a halloween party on Friday, and man did I do a good job with her dead bride makeup and hair. She was lovin it. And she had a great time, so all was good. 20 girls together on sugar was my idea of a nightmare at age 11, but to each their own. She is waaaay more social than I was. Or am. Or ever will be.

Today small child is going to be forced into slave labor after school. I have many envelopes to seal and she is just the mini me to do it. Seeing that she has, in the past, out worked our temps, it's a big help to have her willing to do that. And I think she gets a kick out of it.

Tomorrow we go back to the ortho clinic to re-xray her ankle and see what is the skinny on that. I hope we are done with it. That has been a serious pain in the arse. Then on to my mom's for Halloween. We'll eat dinner there and then do the rounds of that neighborhood. Then stop off and model the outfit for Gramps and then she and her dad are off to his place for trick or treating there as well. I will be going home and going to bed. Sad to say that sleeping is about the only thing I look forward to or enjoy these days. I don't need a day off, I need to get the hell out of this state and get a real mental break. Otherwise all I have to look forward to is the blur of the holidays followed by my 50 hour weeks Jan-Mar. Once again I will surface for air around March and realize I am another year older and it never dawned on me on the day.

Oh and for the curious, that would be the Specials version on the song I am thinking of.


Man am I perky today or what?!

Blearg.

Eek! Beta

Well I took the plunge. Now I have to play around with it. Eek I say.

Be My Druidess

In responce to Jonathon's question in yesterday's comments I went looking for what exactely a "neo pagan" is. Below is the definition courtesy of the site where I took the test.


Neo-Pagans are a community of faiths bringing ancient Pagan and magickal traditions to the modern age--including mostly Wicca but also Druidism, Asatru, Shamanism, neo-Native American, and more. Neo-Pagan is an umbrella term for various and diverse beliefs with many elements in common. Some Neo-Pagans find no incongruence practicing Neo-Paganism along with adherence to another faith, such as Christianity or Judaism.

• Belief in Deity
Some believe in a Supreme Being. Many believe in God and Goddess--a duality. Many believe there are countless spirit beings, gods and goddesses, in the cosmos and within all of nature--God is all and within all; all are one God. The Great Mother Earth, or Mother Nature, is highly worshipped. Divinity is immanent and may become manifest within anyone at any time through various methods.


• Incarnations
No human incarnations are worshipped in particular, as all of nature and the universe are considered embodiments of God and Goddess, or of gods and goddesses, worthy of respect, reverence, or worship.


• Origin of Universe and Life
Generally, there is no conflict between observations revealed through science and Neo-Pagan beliefs on origins of the physical universe and of man. Many believe in a supreme intelligence that created a duality of God/Goddess who then created a spirit world of gods and goddesses as well as all of the universe and nature.


• After Death
Many believe in reincarnation after some rest and recovery in the "Otherworld." There is generally no concept of hell as a place of punishment, but some believe wrongdoing can trap the soul in state of suffering after death. Some (Wicca) believe the soul joins their dead ancestors who watch over and protect their family. Some believe that life energy continues in some, if unknown, form. Some believe in various spiritual resting places. Many say we don't or can't know what happens after death.


• Why Evil?
"Evil" is imbalance. Most believe there is no evil but rather that people sometimes make mistakes. Wrongdoing results when we forget we are one with the universal spirit.


• Salvation
The concept of "salvation" is essentially irrelevant; rather the belief that people can attain spiritual balance and harmony with each other and nature. The path includes group ceremonies, dances, songs/chants, prayers, meditation, trance, altered states of consciousness, the metaphysical, magic, invoking or evoking deities or spirits, Tantric practices. Intercessors are commonly used: psychics, seers, shamans, tarot, Oui-Ja board. Ethical choices are influenced by a belief that one is rewarded or punished within this or after this lifetime for one's choices and an ethical code to do no harm.


• Undeserved Suffering
Most do not believe in Satan or any spirit being as the cause of suffering. Some believe in a karma-like principle, that choosing to live a life of wrongdoing and pain will naturally result in suffering in this or later lifetimes. Many view suffering as a result of spiritual imbalance in one's life or on the planet or in the universe. The focus is generally on healing suffering rather than answering definitively why it exists.


• Contemporary Issues
Abortion is not condemned, as there is no official doctrine; beliefs about abortion range the full spectrum. Views on divorce, homosexuality, and gender equality are generally very supportive of human differences, equality, and personal choice. Many believe that involvement in community action, especially regarding environmental concerns, is integral to the belief in human interdependence and worship of the Earth Mother.

Ain't Too Sick To Pray

This post is a shameless pillage of Parlancheq's blog as I found the link for it there.

Interesting test. The Belief-O-Matic test calculates which religion you are closest aligned to. Apparently, I am one with the Wiccans and The Quaker and Unitarians. And I get down with Buddah as well. Go figure. Probably cause I tend to believe in the bigger picture aspect of religion and not the minutiae. Funny since I do actually believe in God, I just am not interested in attaching a lot of labels as to who or what God is. Or who or what truly represents God. Go give it a whirl. You can click the links on the results page and get more info on each of these choices. I am just to lazy to do all the work for ya!

1. Neo-Pagan (100%)
2. Liberal Quakers (97%)
3. Unitarian Universalism (97%)
4. Mahayana Buddhism (91%)
5. Reformed Judaism(87%)
6. New Age (86%)
7. Sikhism (83%)
8. Jainism (82%)
9. Theravada Buddhism (77%)
10. Hinduism (76%)
11. Bahá'í Faith (73%)
12. New Thought (73%)
13. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (71%)
14. Scientology (65%)
15. Orthodox Judaism (60%)
16. Orthodox Quaker (60%)
17. Taoism (59%)
18. Secular Humanism (55%)
19. Islam (51%)
20. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (40%)
21. Seventh Day Adventist (34%)
22. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (29%)
23. Eastern Orthodox (28%)
24. Roman Catholic (28%)
25. Nontheist (28%)
26. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (23%)
27. Jehovah's Witness (9%)

Five For Fighting

And Tag, I'm it! Well better late than never. I have been MIA due to MIA. And her ankle of doom. Damn thing. Boot three and counting. Hopefully this one will do the trick. And now, onward ho! Tag courtesy of TheThinker over at Theory of Thought. Go visit, she won't bite. I hope. Just don't wish her a happy period and you will be fine ;)

Five Things I Would Do If I Were A Millionaire:

Quit my job and go work at a charity or NGO. I wouldn't care if it was just sharpening pencils. I'd work for free and feel like I was actually doing something worthwhile!

Buy a Mini. TOTALLY trick it out. All black and silver and gothy and and and.....

MOVE OUT OF THIS FRIGGIN STATE. Yes I know the kidlet is not 18 but let me dream. At the very least I would buy a nice place in the South where it is warm and take a lot of vacation time. Oh..and Hawaii too. Yeah. Pina Colada. Oh Yeah.

Take literature classes just for fun. As in, take a class on Hemingway and tell the teacher just how much I think he sucks. Or sucked since he's dead and all. And for the record, he sucked hard.

Travel. A lot. In between those classes and my pencil sharpening sessions.

Five Bad Habits:

The men I pick. Or attract. Or whatever. (Yeah I'm talking to you.)

Procrastination. I can take that "tomorrow is another day" thing a bit too far. Fiddle dee dee.

Not cleaning up after myself. Most of the time I am very good about it, but I really really have to force myself. Add get a maid as number six on the above list.

Getting defensive with criticism. Comes from having a perfection complex.

Smoking. But I have an appointment to try hypnosis for that. Stupid patches work for not smoking but they give me huge hives.


Five Things I Hate Doing:

Cleaning. Blearg.

Laundry. Which technically is cleaning but I think of it more as the 9th circle of hell. I just hate it.

Trying to talk to bigots. That is all I am saying cause even thinking about it for this list is pissing me off.

Eating tomatoes. They are bad. They are wrong. They are badong. Seriously, they look like they are just not "done" yet, yah know?

Mixing with my neighbors and co-workers. Listen, I didn't choose the job or the neighborhood for these people, why must I share chips and dip?


Five Things I Would Never Do:
Frankly not much I wouldn't do. Unless it was illegal (ahem) or immoral (ahem again.) But for the record:

I'd never eat the freakly crap on those fear factor show. Screw that, keep your money.

Get married again. Trust me, I laugh in the face of the old saying "never say never."

Move to Los Angeles.

Sleep with Flava Flav. Gah. Just rap, Flav. Please keep your tongue in your mouth whilst on my TV.

Go blonde. I'd look like headcheese.

Five Things I Regret Doing:
Holy Mother, where to start? Most of them, I'd leave alone simply because I like who I am now and regrets get you no where fast.

Trying to be perfect.

Trying to be perfect.

Lying to my family so they would think I was perfect.

Pretending to be happy when I am not. That "I am fine" shit wears ya out by age 30. Don't do it.

Oh and trying to be perfect. Nearly all the boo boo's in my life can be tied to that one nasty little trait.

Five Favorite Things:

My Daughter and family including my cats. Even fat destructo boy Harley.

Writing.

Books.

Coffee.

Music.

So there you have it. The top five of the top five. Or those top fives.

Nevermind. I need coffee, I need food, I need a break!

Going home and will check in tomorrow. And no I am not tagging back, mostly cause I am too damn lazy to do a group email. So..GROUP VIRTUAL HUG! And feel free to share your responces to the above on a comment.

Hugs and chocolate

Peace out.

So Welcome To The Machine

The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round. Then they fall off the friggin bus and it crashes. That would be the case of my computer program. In an exciting twist, the new issue does not merely affect me, but everyone using Program X.* What this means for me is that someone out there MIGHT TAKE IT SERIOUSLY!

Seriously, it is completely unusable. The program freezes whenever you attempt to save info. The program itself is a customer service software program with a special application built into it that allows me to produce contracts. I had the Lord High King IT Server Geek come out yesterday to "observe" my issues. One of them asked me if it "impacted" my work.

Um....hello? I thought these geeks were supposed to be smart! Although according to the Ex's (husband AND boyfriend varieties) the bottom of the barrel IT people go into medical IT. Granted our guys here are usually bright, and I love my data center geeks, but that just puzzled me yesterday. Now the programmers who came up with Program X* and the idiot(s) who came up with proprietory application I use, they are a different story.

I spent yesterday jumping from machine to machine to see if memory or disk free space made any difference. Of course it didn't. I personally think the security patches they have been jamming through since the beginning of Sept are the culprit. But hey, what do I know. After all, I have tits.

(That was sarcasm people. It has just been my experience that in the male dominated Revenge Of The Nerds tech world we live in, boobs = stoopid to them.)

So I pick up kiddo and stayed home with her the last two days after school. 6 hour days for me. Figured why bother to come back for 2 hours of frustration. And the boss agreed. Today I am out of here at 3:30 to get kiddo for parent teacher conference. Going to hit Mad Greek Deli before heading to school. Gyros.....YUM.

I put up my new wallpaper on my computer here in keeping with my favorite Halloween.

Off for coffee and greasy fried foods.


*All names changed to protect the innocent and give cover to the idiots as well since the litigious bastards would probably sue me.

The Ghost In You She Don't Fade

Well it truly looks like fall outside today. It's all gray and misty. Which is awesome. What is not awesome is the inevitable monotonous months of rain that are on the way. But for today, in October, it's all good. Got out the old Goth As Fuck Mix Tape (pt1) that I made a few years back. Tres atmospheric.

I watched a couple movies this morning before coming in. I was up early courtesy of my warring cats. They have a Norman and Mother relationship some of the time. Woke me up at 7am.

I ended up getting sucked in by an oldie called I Married A Witch and then hung around for The Ice Harvest with John Cusack. Not a bad movie. Not great mind you, but watchable. The oldie was amusing. I love Veronica Lake. I copied her hairstyle back in High School. I have a thing for old movies. Try explaining Noir to someone who worships Madonna. Good Luck.

Also reading a book that annoys me. Best Friends by Martha Moody. I acknowledge the writer has talent, but her main character is a pontificating twat who is getting on my last nerve. Porn plays a central role in the storyline and the narrator Clare's hypocritical moralizing is irritating. And slightly naive. She herself gets off on porn. She finds out her best friend's dad is essentially Guccione and finds hardcore S&M mags mixed in with the ones she gets off on that he publishes. Not nice S&M either.

Of course she freaks and goes on about exploitation and violence towards women. All the while missing the hypocrisy of her own masturbatory excursions into porn she finds acceptable. Failing to see that everything has a spectrum. Not all porn is benign, on that she is correct. But then again, neither are all priests. The world ain't black and white and NOTHING is perfect. It's her lack of self awareness or her willingness to own her own actions that is getting to me. And she seems to blame her best friend for her father's line of business! Nevermind that her own dad was an embezzler!

It's an interesting read but she is bleeting on and on like a sheep in the current passages and I am fighting the urge to throw the book across the room.

I am here most of the day and have to go deal with mail outs. Hopefully the printer queue will work for me!

Over and out.

Welcome, Welcome To The Boomtown

Swapped Saturdays with the ex so I do not have tiny dancer with me tomorrow night. He and his GF are going kayaking and Yurt camping next week. Even he admits to being unclear how he came to agree to that one.

My computer program and/or computer itself continue to go downhill here at the office. Of course I am running 248MB (!!!!!!!!!!!!) of RAM. Cause tonight we're gonna compute like it's 1995. On a 16k modem connection!

I'm a tad bitter about that.

Anyhow, I am off to make a Run For The Border for dinner.

Addition ~~Bitch and you shall receive. My computer is in pieces on my desk while the IT Geek fixes it!

Everybody Cut Footloose

Well the broken ankle drama has just been a bitch. She got the cast on Monday afternoon. We kept her home Tuesday to make sure the cast would fit. If the foot had been swollen and then shrunk the cast would be loose. Sure enough, we had issues. No sleep for Kiddobean Monday night. Or Tuesday night. I got next to none myself.

Took her back yesterday and they cut the cast off. It had rubbed the top of her foot raw and had somehow gotten wet. The entire side of her foot had been wet and it looked nasty. Like brain tissue in fact. Kiddo was freakin out about it. Had to bake it under a heat lamp before we could recast it. We ended up going for a a cast boot instead of a traditional cast. She can take it off to shower. Looks pretty good and worked ok. She was finally released to go back to school today.

Her dad got back last night and he picked her up from school today. That left me free to take my lunch hour and pick up my mom and get her to our Trimet train. She is on her way to the airport to fly out to Salt Lake. My great uncle George died this week and she is going for the funeral.

I am so tired I am running into things. I don't think I have gotten more that 4 hours of sleep in a row since last Friday. I am here late tonight too, since this time loss on top of all the other time loss is killing me. Bleh

I think I shot my wad, creatively speaking, with the title of this post. But I needed the whine :P

We're So Pretty, Oh So Pretty...Pretty Vacant

So today is the day kiddobean gets to see the Pediatric Orthopedic Surgeon. I am pretty sure we are looking at only a cast but you never can tell. I ended up not working this weekend. Was up at 3am on Saturday with a migraine and just as it was starting to get better I got to spend an hour talking to 2 different billing entities. This after having to go through it on Wednesday when kiddo was seen at Urg Care. My headache returned, needless to say. Something about being asked if the parent's birthdays had changed, was the final kicker. Yeah the ex and I like to go back in time and cherry pick our birthday's according our current whim. Duh.

And I WORK for these people!

Bout the only thing I got done on Saturday was making a large pot of homemade vegetable pasta soup, and a dish of homemade mexican chocolate pudding. The pudding was yummers. We ate that in a day! Last night while watching Iron Chef I was hit with the urge to make Butterscotch pudding. Added a splash of bourbon to that. That will be there for tonight. And it is hella good. Homemade butterscotch owns.

Last night kiddo stayed over at her grandmothers since the YiaYia (which is greek for grandmother and what we call my mom) is taking her to the appointment today and I am meeting them there. The ex (husband variety) is out of town again. He is also sick as a dog. Anyone flying to San Fran on Sunday on his flight has my condolances. Typhoid Mary, in the house.

Kiddo and I got creative on work arounds for her foot. Upside down laundry hamper makes a perfect shower stool. I see Hefty bags figuring into this equations with the upcoming cast. Small child is not amused by this injury.

Alrighty, off for coffee and a smoke. I am out of here at 2:15 today. Cross town traffic....eek.

Laissez Le Bon Temps Rouler

Mmmmm....Beignets.


I am outta here. Kiddo is on her own until 6ish so the split shift is off. I am heading to Cafe Beignet and getting some quiche, coffee, and beignets. Yum.

Tiny Dancer In A Cast

My child has broken her ankle doing her version of Riverdance in her own living room. Fractured tibia.

She is so my kid. Unfortunately, she was put in an air cast by the urgent care docs when she should have been sent to ER to see a pediatric orthopedic doc. My mom the nurse freaked out and called Ortho today, who freaked out when they heard what had been done, and promptly called me. This means that I am dining on crow since I poo poo'd Mom's freak out last night. My childhood was spent with her pretty much veering between my faking illness or dying of something with 50 syllables, so I tend to roll my eyes a lot. Add to that, mom is Virgo and has a tendency to look for the negative and I think you can see why I did. In this case, mamasan was right and I was acting like a peg. Pass me some salt for my crow, kthx.

Kiddobean aka Dangermouse is home with her dad again today and is not allowed to be up and around excepting bathroom trips. She has an appointment with the Bone Clinic Monday over at the pediatric hospital and they will hard cast her. The fracture is too close to the growth plate for them to feel happy about the air cast.

Such drama! All this the same week that Intel is doing their huge lay off. The ex (husband variety) escaped the axe, but it was a tense time for all. Bad day to have to call in sick with your kid. Survivor guilt is hitting hard over there. I didn't think there was much of a chance of him getting "redeployed" as they call it. He has his faults, but the he is like the Rainman of computers. Freaky good.

So kiddobean is off school through her appointment on Monday. Her dad is out of town again starting Sunday. We have decided to just skip my taking her to dinner or having her Friday in favor of her staying at her dad's until I get her Saturday afternoon. Tomorrow I am going to do a split shift here at work and go hang out with her in the afternoon at his house so she is not alone. Saturday I am going to hit the Greek Festival and get loukoumades for Mia and then go pick her up. Must remember to bring Tupperware. Sunday, I have tentatively scheduled my nervous exhaustion breakdown. That is only partially a joke.

And now I return you to your regularly scheduled program as my lunch hour is over and work awaits. Oh, the joy!

She Told Me To Walk This Way

OMG. I get am having a rare treat of a day.

My usual day consists of:

Get up at 5:30 to have half an hour of quiet time and coffee

Get kiddobean up and ready if I have her that day

Go to work after dropping small child off at school if I have her that day. Start time varies, 7:30-8:15 depending on kiddo.

Working until my lunch at 1:45.

Taking my 1 hour lunch to drive out and pick small child up at school and then drop her off at my house every single day.

Drive back to work and work until 6ish.

Drive home (every other Wednesday, pick small child up for dinner then drop off at her dads)

Cook,Clean, Curse at growing dirty/clean laundry pile, etc etc etc

Bed

Rinse Repeat

Thanks to my darling child's usual lack of grace I am now off the hook for after school pick up and Wednesday night dinner. She was dancing in her dad's living room last night, and with our usual familial daintiness fell on her butt and sprained her ankle. She is couch bound for the entire day. No school and dinner is postponed until tomorrow night.

Now I am probably coming off like Mommy Dearest here, but I swear I have no problems with wire hangers. Just talked to the kiddobean and she says she is fine as long as she doesn't stand on it or try to rotate it. I am not a heartless mommy and would hate it if she were in pain so I was happy to hear it is not hurting her and she is spending the day watching bad horror movies. I think she is enjoying the day off, truth be told since I think today was geography. Not her favorite.

Of course, her dad will probably not follow my (excellent) advice and take her to an urgent care to get the ankle wrapped and x-rayed. That means tomorrow I will have to take her in after school. But for today I get to actually go to work, stay here, and then go straight home! I have chills of joy.

Working For The Clampdown!

Had a question from Belle on my last post comments. I am feeling long winded and have decided WTF make a post out of my answers. Lazy, I know.

Belle - I work for an healthcare system in their insurance sales department. I am kind of a tiny island all to myself in that I am the only one who does what I do. Which is kill a lot of trees to create the legal contract document for our group coverage for all of our groups. Glorified paper pusher! Seriously I am poster child for not living up to my potential. And I like it that way.

The plus side of my job is that I have a ton of flexibilty with my hours and I can pretty much work as much overtime as I want. The down side is I have to work at least 15 hours per payperiod of OT just to meet my standards.

Vacationing with the parentals is always a risk but if you go into the experience expecting my dad to screw something up and my mom to freak out about it, well then you can just "Serenity Now!" your way through it. We have gone to Hawaii with my parents for kiddos birthday twice now. It went pretty darn good all in all.

Funny thing is, when we were waiting for the condo to be built, right after the ex boyfriend variety was shipped back home to his mama, Kiddo and I moved in with my parents for 9 months. The first month was living hell, but after that it was actually kinda fun! Hella nice to have someone else cook for you!

Thinker - Stung on the lip?! I think I would be in a padded room just from having the damn thing that close to my face. I am shuddering right now thinking about it. Eeek.

Now, I need fried greasy food and some coffee to put a smile on my face. Over and out till later.

Girl, Get Me Out Of This Hell Hole

I fear vacation/relaxation time. Seriously. Every time I don't work on a weekend something ends up making wish to God I had. Remember my last post about the bucolic house in the mountains weekend? Try Amityville Horror instead.

As is usual, any trip with my parents is bound to include, at some point in the venture, a huge screaming match wherein Dad gets to keep his nuts by an incredibly slight margin. In this case, we had the showdown at high noon just to get it out of the way (or on the way) right from the get go.

The house has a lockbox. In the box is the key. After an hour and a half drive, naturally we are all more than ready to get inside the house. Dad had assured mom the day before that of course he had the code. And there was a hide-a-key. Unfortunately for Dad, he did NOT get the code and the key was not where it should have been. In addition he had not charged his cell phone and they had to use mine. Mom was PISSED. Mind you, she had just had an epidural injection of the lower spine the day before for her herniated disk, and was supposed to be laying down flat. She was in pain, and on cortisone. Cortisone is a lovely drug, but it brings out the psycho killer in everyone. Very short fuse on the old rage bomb.

I told kiddobean to just keep circling the property and never ever look the grandma in the eye. She was stomping through bushes like Bigfoot on a bad hair day. It was a truly impressive freak-out even for her, and she has had some doozies.

We finally find the hidden key and are gratefully headed indoors. Where we are greeted by a HUGE contingent of black flies. Like 50+. Nasty right? It got better when we looked around and noticed the dead ones all over the floor. Some of them appeared quite big. Hello friends and neighbors those biggie sized ones are not flies they are big black wasps!

Look up in the windows! It's a bird. It's a plane. It's 25+ living big black wasps.

They landed on my head and I reached up and brushed them off without thinking about it. Then I had a tiny baby shit attack. Small child insisted she was going to sleep in the car.

We ended killing a bunch of the wasp and then spending the weekend hiding out down in the basement rec room area. It was like being in a cave. Mom was so pissed she marched out on the porch, plucked my cigarette out of my mouth and took a good 3 puffs off it. She is a hard core reformed smoker. The very act of smoking in front of her grandchild and her husband should have been a sign to all and sundry that you were just NOT to fuck with this woman. Dad didn't get it of course, and it is a minor miracle he is still alive.

The no energy use house (it produces and sells to the grid more than it uses) was nice and all. But it had no microwave. It also had a restaurant coffee pot system that had to be primed with multiple pots of water before it could even make a pot. And it only made a full pot of coffee. And they didn't have the right sized filter. I had a killer caffeine withdrawal headache by 3 in the morning. I was awake, kiddo was awake, and mom was awake. Dad was snoring on the best bed in the house. I ended up boiling water and coffee on the stove and straining it through a dishtowel just to get rid of the headache. It was just delightful. And to think I could have stayed in town, and been paid 300+ bucks for 16 hours of work and been way less miserable.

We got back on Sunday and kiddo and made it home for a shower. She was so cute trying to be upbeat about the weekend. The pretty drive, the breakfast in Hood River, etc etc.

After a hot shower and the realization that the weekend was over, she looked at me and said, "That sucked."

Like a Hoover Vacuum.