It's in the stars.

My horoscope today from MSN.com:

 

You could use the day's energy to put some enthusiasm into your current love affair. Indeed, if this area of your life needs revitalizing, you had better do something to whip it into shape. Take your sugar bunches out, pay attention to them, and give them a massage after a wonderful meal. Use your imagination, as you probably have the perfect trick right up your sleeve.

 

Hmm? I’m supposed to be massaging my sugar bunches after I eat? I wonder if I can do that at the table or if I should politely excuse myself and take care of that in private. I don’t know what or where the hell my sugar bunches are and I got no help whatsoever from Google. All I got there was the lyrics to “Sugar Pie Honey Bunch” Which Clay Aiken apparently recently reprised.

I bet Clay Aiken’s sugar bunches aren’t neglected. He probably has his massaged on a regular basis. Ryan Seacrest showed him how.

Who is going to show me?

If anyone out there has any insight into how I can rectify this little problem it would be much appreciated.

Seacrest isn’t returning my calls.

 

Simonds out.

 

 

 

WTF??

~I can’t sleep. I don’t know why it’s happening but it is really starting to piss me off. I am super tired all day and then I crash at like 9 o’clock at night. Fall right out. Then by 11ish I am wide awake and can’t fall back asleep until an hour or two before my alarm clock goes off. WTF? Maybe if I start getting good and drunk every night before bed I will be able to sleep through the night. I’ll start tonight. On my way home from work I will stop and get a gallon of cheap tequila. Chalupa Gold. Instead of a worm its got a Chihuahua in the bottom.

~Email blogging makes the spaces between my paragraphs huge. WTF? It’s not intentional but I don’t know how to make it not happen, so it stays. I know, it annoys me too. Deal with it.

~I am being heavily pursued by a married man. WTF? It’s not the first time in my life that I have been in this situation and I usually just blow him off totally. The problem here is that this dude is hot as fuck. In any other instance I would be all over that. Damn! I really wanna be all over that. By his actions, I can tell that he has stepped out before and probably will again. But I am still not going there. I may be a slut but I’m not a home wrecking slut.

~I can’t write for shit lately. I’m too wound up. I can’t write when I am wound up. When I am busy and anxious and stressed you get stupid posts like this one. WTF?

~I think the little orange kitty is sick. Which pisses me off because now I feel bad for the little guy and I don’t really even like him or want him and now he’s got me feeling sorry for him and sorta regretting beating him with my shoe when he shits on the floor. And now hes all sick and pathetic with one eye half closed and wheezing and snotting. And now I have guilt. And a vet bill. WTF? Stupid cat.

~My lovely Shay just took up the trumpet. Of all instruments my girl picks the trumpet. WTF? Its adorable and funny at the same time. I am excited for her, although not really thrilled at having to buy a damn trumpet. The kid really loves music, she is way into it and even introduced me to some stuff I may never have known I liked. I am a huge Jonas Brothers fan now because of her. Those kids rock. And that Joe Jonas? Oh yea. I would totally hit that. And he is like 20 yrs old so I can say that. And while I realize its still creepy and lecherous to say, its totally legal and I have probably done much worse things. Ahem, back to the trumpet. All I have to say is that I am eternally grateful for my ipod and extra strength Tylenol.

I love it!

This picture kills me. It cracks me the hell up every time I look at it.

I wonder if he slapped the bitch and took his fish back after the picture was taken.

Love it!

On work ...

Being a single mother, I don’t really have the option of being a stay at home mom. I have no idea how I could swing that and even if it did, I’m sure I wouldn’t enjoy standing in those long lines for my government cheese vouchers, and I don’t know if there are any federally sponsored programs that would subsidize the cost of my personal necessities like my cell phone, internet service, and semi-regular coffee stops. And because any sort of child support is a rarity for me, my family very much depends on my paychecks.

Fortunately for me I really enjoy my job, it is challenging and personally satisfying. But it isn’t without its drawbacks. I work incredibly long hours which means that a large portion of my pay goes towards childcare, which, when you think about it, doesn’t really make much sense. I am in the business of construction management which has traditionally been a mans game. And all of the men I work with who have children also have wives at home to help in the parenting. It is much easier for them to put in the long hours and that leaves me looking like a slacker when I am only able to work 10 or 11 hours on most days. Lucky for them, they can miss a soccer game here or there because mom will be there to cheer the kids on and shuttle them to and from. They don’t have to leave work when the school nurse calls or take a day off when their child is ill. It is perfectly normal and acceptable for them to come home late to find the kids fed, freshly bathed, and ready for bed. That kind of stuff can’t happen in my world. When I come home from a long days work, I still have my real job to do. There is no one at home taking care of the laundry or the kids while I am working. It will all be waiting there for me when I get home. What is the one thing that these men have that I don’t? No. Not that. That is not useful to me at all. The one thing that gives them a great advantage? A wife. Yeah. A wife. I need to get me one of those.

From what I understand a wife is a very handy thing to have around. And from what I remember of my experience, having a husband wasn’t all that helpful. Seemed to me like that whole situation was a lot more trouble than it was worth. But a wife is someone who takes care of things. Wives get stuff done. They are effective and invaluable for important and constructive things like running a home, making and keeping appointments, and staying organized. Picking up slack and tying loose ends. Having some help in those areas is exactly what I need. Sounds like a perfect solution. So where can I get me one of those wives? California?

All kidding aside, in reality necessity dictates that I have to get up every morning and go to work to support my family. And because I work with men who’s at home obligations are largely being covered by someone else, I have to work harder than would normally be necessary to compete with people who are able to give more than I am. I will admit that I feel that I am very fortunate to really love the job that keeps me away from my kids for so long, and allows us to live fairly comfortably on just my income. I just hope that someday my hard work and diligence will have paid off and I will have advanced in my field in such a way that I will be paid enough to employ some outside help. I think I will start researching Manny services now.

Yes, Jackass, it IS your fault.

I get this phone call from my ex-husband and he is singing the blues about domestic relations being all over him for child support. He is telling me that when he works 40 hrs a week after his wages are garnished his paycheck is only $130.

 

Boo frikkin hoo.

 

I am perfectly amazed that this man cannot grasp the understanding that it is entirely his fault that he makes $9 an hour at 38 years old. Seriously. In his fucked up head his circumstances are the result of shitty luck and life never giving him a break. Did his mother fuck him up good, or what?? Never once did it occur to him that having an employment history that consists of a string of zero skill, entry level, barely above minimum wage jobs could possibly be a factor. He probably averages 4 or 5 different jobs every year. Or could it possibly be his lengthy rap sheet that includes all sorts of drug offenses and drunken disorderly and DUI arrests that is hindering is employment options?

 

Hmm? I suppose the concept of staying at a job long enough to advance and working hard to get ahead is just completely foreign to him. No comprende.

 

And he also believes that I somehow achieved my success through “luck”. Of course! That must be it! Luck! It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I have remained steadily employed since our divorce. And that when I am at work I bust my ass and sometimes even willingly eat shit by the spoonful and pretend to like it because my boss is the one feeding it to me. It has nothing to do with the overtime and the Saturday hours. Nothing at all to do with bringing work home with me when I have an important deadline, or showing up every single day on time and prepared. Nope. It was all just a lucky break. Well he should be thankful that I am so lucky. Because this luck of mine has kept his children fed, clothed, housed, and insured for the past 6 years without ANY help from him. Good thing I am so lucky huh??

 

 

 

 

Hysterical!!

The following conversation occurred in my car just yesterday on the way home from soccer practice:

Jared: Playing with his wrestling action figure. “Girls don’t like wrestling, they only like shopping”

Shay: rolling her eyes “There are lots of girl wrestlers Jared.”

Me: “That’s right, as a matter of fact, when I was a kid I wanted to be either a lady wrestler or a bus driver when I grew up”

Shay: “Did you want to be a school bus driver?”
Me: “No. I wanted to be a city bus driver, you know, the busses with the big steering wheels?”  still thinking it would be pretty cool to drive one of those things…

Shay: “Good. I don’t think you would make a very good school bus driver. You would probably yell at the kids to shut the eff up and get fired.”

Does my girl know me or what??  I am still laughing about that one!

 

 

 

There is an up side.

I found an up side to the wretched mood I was in yesterday.

It sure gave me some fire to fuel a grueling workout.

I can barely lift a pencil today, but I sure as hell feel less angry and stressed.

 

And I still haven’t smoked!

 

Go me!

 

Today, I'm a bitch.

 

I am in the ugliest mood today. I am a raving, wildly irrational, BITCH.

 

Reasons why I just might kill someone today:

 

~NICOTINE WITHDRAWL. Enough said.

 

~PMS. Again, needs no further explanation.

 

~I am being treated like a motherfucking MULE at work. Why do managers think it is good practice to bleed their people dry? I cannot imagine that helping the bottom line by forcing your employees to do the jobs of more than one person is a good strategy for project success. That just leaves you with tired, overworked, underappreciated, and disgruntled people. Is that how you wanna run your ship? Let me tell you something Mr. Project Manager, if this ship was sinking, going down in flames, there is not one person here that would do a damn thing to help save your ass. It all comes down to respect and support. If we don’t get that from you, you are fucking crazy to expect to get that from us.

 

~This job starts at 7 am. There is a chick that I work with that strolls in anywhere from 8:15 to 9:00 Every fucking day. WTF?? What kind of world are you living in that that is acceptable? By 8:00 people are already needing shit from you, needing you to do your job. You know? The one you ARE GETTING PAID TO DO?!?!? And the really fucked up thing is that it is being allowed to continue. I don’t know if anyone said anything to her. Other than me, of course. You’d better believe I told her that I am damn sick of people coming in my office at 8:30 in the morning asking me where she was. Fuck this. If she can come in 2 hrs late every day, then maybe I will start leaving two hrs early every day. I wonder how they would feel about that?

 

~Sweet-n-Low. Yep. You read that right. Sweet-n-Low has got me homicidal right now. We have a fucking coffee service that is supposed to provide all of the coffee related accessories. Why is there never enough Sweet-n-Low? Are these cheap ass motherfuckers stealing the shit?  I wouldn’t put it past these assholes.

 

~Child Support. Probably my biggest hot button. If he somehow “accidentally” died, my kids and I would get social security checks reliably every month. Hmmm?

 

I’ll take potpourri for $600 Alex.

pot·pour·ri

Pronunciation: \ˌpō-pu̇-ˈrē\

Function: noun

1 : a mixture of flowers, herbs, and spices that is usually kept in a jar and used for scent

2 : a miscellaneous collection  

 

Definition courtesy of Merriam-Webster.com.

 

I, of course mean the second definition of the word, as they do on Jeopardy (hence the post title). I just have some random shit floating around that I want to throw out there.

 

First and foremost: GO ME!! I quit smoking! I am very happy and very proud of myself. I still have some difficult times, especially in the car on the way to work in the morning. I have to talk myself out of stopping at every single gas station I pass. But on the whole, it is going very well for me. I don't wanna be a smoker anymore. And to reinforce one of the main reasons I am quitting (that would, of course, be my health) I have started regularly running again. Damn I missed that! I had completely forgotten just how much I loved to run. There is nothing more therapeutic in the world for me then my feet pounding the pavement and feeling the wind through my hair. And I can really feel my lung capacity returning to me quickly. I seem to be getting stronger every day. And my hair smells nicer! That's a plus!

 

Our bathrooms are out of commission right now in our office. I have to go use a porta john that is on a construction site. That means that it is used dozens of times a day by construction workers. And let me tell you. Your typical construction worker looks NOTHING like the guy in the diet coke commercials. Most of them super dirty and have hairy ass cracks sticking out at all times. And yes, let us not forget that it is March in Pennsylvania. It is cold out there. I am just so grossed out and pissed off at the whole thing.

 

April is really hairy for me. Soccer and Basketball overlap for one month. Its nuts. I will be running to and from practice or games almost every singe day of the week – for one or both kids.  Im tired already and it hasn't even started yet.

 

That's about all the updating I have time for right now. If I get a free minute I might post some more. Either that or I will actually write something entertaining for a change.

 

 

Yeah Baby!!

Baseball Season is Starting!!!
My favorite time of the year!

Go Sawx!!

The story of Izzy and the Colonel.

Izzy is almost 2 yrs old. When we got him at the shelter they told us he was a male domestic shorthair. After we got him home, we took a peek under his tail and what I saw looked like girl to me. Now, I am no doctor of veterinary medicine, but I thought I would be able to recognize male genetalia when I saw it. We named her Isabel. She was a gift for Shay for her 7th birthday. But she quickly became my baby. She developed an upper respiratory infection (which is quite common among shelter cats) and we had to take frequent trips to the vets for medicine and check ups. On about the third trip the doc was taking the kitty’s temp in the poop hole when he says "Uh Miss? This cat is a boy" He pushes on just the right spot and a little red worm like thing pops out."See? That’s his penis" Oops. Apparently kitten testicles don’t drop and become visable until they are a little older. My bad. Uh, I guess we will call him Izzy.

The little critter quickly became a huge part of our lives. Its hard not to love this cat. He is just the sweetest little loverboy ever. One day, while in the car, Shay says "Mom, I’m a little sad that Izzy really isn’t a girl because now she cant have kittens" I explain to her that although having kittens around the house might be nice, we wouldn’t be able to keep them, and finding homes for all of them and giving them away would be a hard thing to do. "Besides" I added "I plan on getting Izzy fixed very soon" Jared piped up from out of nowhere "Does that mean you are going to turn him back into a girl"?? LOL funny kid.

Fast forward to about a year later. This little orange kitty started hanging around our front porch. He was just a kitten and very friendly. I would sit on the bench on my front porch and hold the little guy while he would purr and fall asleep. He was so sweet. We started feeding him and we named him Fenway. He was coming around all the time and we were growing attached to him. When the weather started to get cooler, I decided that I was gonna take him to the vet, get him cleaned up and vaccinated and bring him in to our home. The moment I made that decision, we never saw Fenway again. I don’t know what happened to the poor little guy but I can only assume the worst. The kids, of course, were devastated. We talked a lot and went back and forth and finally decided to answer an ad in the paper for free kittens. We were in luck! They had one left!

This begins the story of The Colonel:

I get directions from some guy on the phone to go and see the kitty. We pull up to this place and the first thing we see is a little naked kid standing in the window. We knock on the door and Ed Norton’s character from American History X answered. Skinny little prick in a wife beater, covered in tattoos, cigarette hanging out of his mouth and an overflowing ashtray in his hand. We go in through the doorway and step right into white trash world. Naked kids, garbage, and mangy cats all over the place. My children stood right inside the doorway, frozen in horror. The "lady" of the house apparently didn’t consider our company significant enough to bother putting on a bra or even taking any simple personal hygienic steps most would consider a common courtesy. This looker shrieked for the cat thinking (I guess) that he would come running to the sound of a dying bird?? She finally chases the cat down and hands him to me. He is flea infested, dirty, and has an apparent mental disability. (ever see a cat with downs syndrome?) But I could not leave that poor creature in that house. I thanked the nice couple and brought the kitty home with us. He was wormed and de-loused and vaccinated and cleaned up and brought into our home. His official name is Stewie. But I call him the Colonel. He looks a lot like Col. Sanders to me with that kick ass goatee. He is also affectionately called Kentucky Fried Kitty. It took a little bit before Izzy was comfortable with him but now they are the best of buds. They are so cute when they play together.
At his first vet visit, the doc looked into the Colonels ears and apparently missed the beginnings of an earmite infestation. A few months later I had Izzy at the docs for a check up and some booster shots and Dr. Zhoni found a whole colony of those nasty little critters. So now I have to treat both kitties. Poor little guys. I have to hold them down twice a day and give them drops in their ears. They absolutely HATE it. I am all scratched up from this. I just wish I could explain to them that its for their own good. They have no idea why momma is torturing them like this. They aren’t used to getting anything but love from me.
I wonder what the little one is going to do when I get him fixed next week?

Things that piss me off.

In no particular order.

Adults who talk like babies. When conversing with other adults! It is neither cute nor funny. I have no time or patience for you. Get the hell out of my face.

Getting stuck behind a school bus on my commute to work. I am always running late the way it is. They shouldn’t be allowed on major roads.

Having to be at work a 7am. That should be illegal.

Dumbasses with word decals on their vehicles. I was stuck behind a Jeep this morning obviously owned by some jackass named SCOTT who thinks I wouldn’t understand because "It’s a Jeep thing". And get this, this prick even put that stupid Apple sticker that comes with your iPod or any other Mac product on his Jeep. Fuck you Scott. I hate you.

A bad cup of coffee.

SPITTING! Almost every single male I work with chews tobacco and they all spit in the garbage cans. It is frikkin disgusting. They make me want to puke.

Buying Sudafed pisses me off. I love that shit. My sinuses are all fucked up and Sudafed helps me to keep from killing someone because they are stupid (inevitably) and I have had a sinus headache for three days straight. But I hate having to go to the pharmacy and buy one box at a time, sign a stupid piece of paper, provide three forms of identification, only to have the dumbass pharmacy assistant look me up and down and question to herself whether or not I plan to manufacture meth. I don’t even know why people make meth with that shit, it is plenty good the way it is.

Pennsylvania drivers. Pretty much all of them.

Any song that contains the word "Shorty"

My neighbors. They park their cars all over the damn place not giving a shit if anyone else has a place to park near their house. (yea - on street parking pisses me off too) Their stupid cat shits on my back porch all the time and their ugly dog barks constantly. They all suck and I wish they would move.

I feel so violated.

Only me… seriously. I might be the only person in the world that shit like this happens to…

 

 

So the other day, at work, I need to hang up some prints on the wall in our main conference room. I am standing on a chair (its back is against the wall) reaching up to staple the corner (I bet you think you know where this is going…but I’m tellin ya right now, you have NO CLUE) I get one corner down and I step over to another chair to staple the other corner. I go to hop off of the chair that I am on, not noticing that there is another chair right behind me and I land on the corner edge of this straight back chair ramming it RIGHT UP MY ASS!  owww! Hits me square in the butt hole. About how high do you think your standard run of the mill office chair is? I don’t know, but I would guess it’s about, ohh… a foot and a half higher than my ass. Did you get that visual? Ugh! It hurt so bad.

 

And my bung hole wasn’t the only thing injured. If I am going to be anally raped by office furniture, of course I am going to need an audience right? Oh yea. There were about 6 men in the conference room at the time to witness my trauma. They tried to act concerned when they saw me struggling to breathe and in obvious pain but they had a very difficult time maintaining their composure. They were biting their tongues and almost crying trying not to laugh. And to top it all off, I come in my office to a big ass danger sign and caution tape all over my desk chair. My sore ass was quite the source of amusement around here.

 

And now that I have had time to rest and recover from the trauma, I can giggle too. I can see the humor there. Believe me, I am about as mature as a 15 yr old boy. That is some funny shit.

 

Embarrassing as hell, but funny nonetheless.

 

I should be able to walk normally soon.

 

 

Wow. Thats deep.

So, recently a friend asked the question “What do you think about when you are alone in your head”? You know, like when you are driving to work or standing in line at the bank or whatever. She was curious as to what other people thought about when they weren’t thinking of anything at all. My answer to the question was “I don’t know… Stuff”

 

Then, for a brief moment on my commute to work this morning, I was aware of my inner thoughts. Stuff that usually just flows in and out stuck around just long enough for me to realize what I was thinking and for the reality to sink in that I just might be a nutjob. Seriously folks, try to pay attention to the random thoughts that go through your head on any given day. There is some pretty weird shit going on in there.

 

So. What was it you ask? What was I thinking about when I suddenly became aware of my thoughts? Well… I was seriously pondering who I would rather be. Oprah Winfrey or Jane Jetson.

 

Yes. Really.

 

It’s not a simple question though. There are a lot of pros and cons to be weighed here. Oprah is Oprah. The queen of all Media. Possibly the most powerful woman on the planet. But even Oprah doesn’t have Rosie the Robot Maid, right? And even though she has more money than she can give away on a years worth of those shows where she is just giving shit away (sorry, I work during the day, I don’t actually watch Oprah), and she can sponsor like 100,000 more kids in Africa for 35 cents a day and still not put a dent in the size of her bank account, Oprah goes home at night to her dogs. I don’t know if that Steadman fellow lives with her or not. But regardless, I’m sure the Winfrey Mansion is nothing like the loving Jetson home. I can just imagine what a day in the life of Jane Jetson is like. We all know that George drops the kids off at school first, and then Jane goes to the mall (with the entire contents of Georges wallet!!) and George just smiles and thinks to himself “That Jane!!” and he is off to another day at Spacely Sprockets. Jane’s first stop at the mall would be to the space age equivalent of Starbucks for a big old non-fat mocha latte. Of course, Jane could get the full fat version because she is forever drawn to be a perfect size two and will neither age nor gain weight. Jane shops leisurely for most of the day, gets her hair done and has a pedicure (ya know, ‘cause its Tuesday). Around lunchtime, she dials up Rosie her robot maid on her little TV transmitter remote watch and tells her that she will be home by noon. “I will have a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup with a nice Caesar salad for lunch. Then I want you to draw me a bath and turn down my bed for a nap.”  By the time she hops in her flying car and arrives home, Rosie has all the preparations made. Ahhh. Sounds nice huh? Now, to be fair, Oprah can have most of these things too. Im sure one phone call to her personal assistant will get her what ever it is her heart desires, but a personal assistant has nothing on a robot maid. I don’t think you have to worry about any jewelry going missing around your robot maid. I don’t think any disgruntled robot maids are gonna sell stories or pictures to the media for their own personal gain. Oprah does have power, but along with that power comes the burden of fame. And it’s a pretty heavy burden. One that I don’t think I would want to bear. So for as much as I love Oprah, I am giving my nod to Jane. Robot maids pretty much trump anything.

 

So, I’m guessing you are feeling a little better about yourself after having read this, huh? Yea, ‘cause I’m sure your thoughts are always all deep and philosophical right?

 

Whatever…

 

 

Jumping back in.

I seem to have lost my words. I don’t know how or where but they left me. I cannot tell you how many times I have started writing something only to delete it in disgust. I noticed that my blog has been getting a lot of hits and I am sure you are all wondering where I’ve been. I am alive, and doing quite well actually. I just don’t seem to be able to write anymore. I hope this isn’t a permanent condition. I am also hoping that just by typing this out and posting something…anything it will kick start my dormant creativity.

I miss writing. Not only did I love writing and posting here, but I used to journal (with a real pen!! Imagine that.) almost daily. And now? Nothing! And I am none too happy about it.

So I’m hitting post in the hopes that I will be back soon.