B

I usually have my phone with me all the time. I want it near in case my kids text me. I feel a little naked because my phone is somewhere downstairs. Probably under a bucket or a box or a blanket. Or something else starting with the letter B. I’m upstairs. In Bed. Also brought to you by the letter B. It’s most likely dead, since I forgot to bring it up here last night to charge it. Right after I barfed. Also, the letter B.

Yesterday was lovely and I’ll tell you all about it. Probably tomorrow. Sometime soon. After I get out of bed.

ps. I got a bird! And no, it is not the Avian Flu.

Look, It's a Survey

Over there on the right side column at the very top you’ll see a survey. If you have ten minutes of your life that you weren’t using for anything important it would be awesome if you would click that link and answer some questions. In the long run, it helps the ads on this site be more relevant. In the short run, it could keep you from doing the dishes or folding socks or finishing that TPS report.

And by way of complete honesty, if you don’t do it, I totally understand because I probably wouldn’t do it on your site, either. But because I totally appreciate Blogads and how they hook me up, I thought I’d ask.

Yes, I am not much of a salesperson.

Phone, Again

Remember my funny, funny phone? Oh my gosh, has it just been a ton of laughs. At some point, when the people were fiddling with it over and over and insisting that pressing just ONE MORE combination of buttons would fix everything (hint – not.), someone placed the wrong number inside a deep code that sends out my phone’s signature to the heavens. Now, normally, going incognito wouldn’t bother me. I mean, who cares if your vacuum wants to pretend to be a toilet paper holder for a few days? Wouldn’t you? My side table is always masquerading as the trash and I know it likes it that way sometimes. Like a dirrrty vacation. Heck, sometimes I pretend to be a functioning human being.

So, there’s my phone, blipping out its signature to The System, and it’s off by just one number. Not too much, you might think, but enough to be The Wrong Number. Enter Trish. Hello, Trish. We spent many a long day together. You fending off calls and text messages that were meant for me and me trying not to flip my top because my voice mails and texting wouldn’t work? Good Times.

I had thought we were equal in our frustrations. I called Sprint. You called Nextel. We both yelled and cried and pulled our hair out. You got a new phone. And mine was on the way. Phew. Odd that your sister-in-law is named Leah and my kid’s step-mom is named Trish.

But, that was before you got rude with my daughter, who called me but got you through the system screw-up, and thinking it was me, started pouring out her heart about school stuff only to be sternly spoken to. She entered the Twilight Zone for a second and it left her a little off all day. I have to say that if your child, although I doubt very much you are a mother, called me, I would not have yelled and made her feel terrible because she is a KID who started the conversation with Hey MOM no matter how frustrated I was. Can I get an amen?

Anyhoo, I got my new phone. This new phone has no static. It also doesn’t have some of the same ring tones and alert sounds, which I don’t understand since supposedly it is the same phone. This has created an environment where I do not understand and cannot relate to my phone. I don’t recognize it, even after programming it as close to the old one as possible. I’m not even as competent as the penguins that find their children months later by listening to their cries. I hear blipping and bleeping and odd trailing whoo-de-dooing and I look around, blaming the remote or the camera or a stray sock.

My new phone also does not call Trish anymore when I call my voice mail. Nope. On the way home from the very inconvenient and very far away official technical phone fixing office, I checked my voice mail. I just wanted to be sure. I hit the 1 and enter and it promptly called Jeff. Hi Jeff.

Zero Boxes

If you call me right now – and you should! Call me right now! – then I’d hear, ‘Lea-KKSSHHHHH-tha-KKSSHHHHH-on-KKSSHHHHH-righ-KKSSHHHHH.’ Because for some reason, which no one can ascertain, on incoming calls, there is hella amounts of static which makes it impossible for me to hear all the nice things you are saying about my hair. You, on the other hand, would hear only my melodious voice asking and then yelling, ‘Huh? What was that? WHAT?? I’ll call you right back. Hang on.’ And let me tell you, that does NOT get old. This does not apply to outgoing calls where the static is down by 2/3rds and I can, in fact, hear you compliment my hiney in these jeans with just a few KKSSHHHHHs mixed in.

I was the first one to try and fix my phone. I looked at it. Studied it. Shook it a little from side to side. Turned it off and on. Looked at it really hard AGAIN and remarkably, nothing changed. Then Joe took a stab at it. He actually did things that seemed like they should work and sat on hold and then talked with customer service for 30 minutes while they walked him through all the things they could think of to do. Sadly, noting worked. During that process they had him reset the phone to factory settings which replaced all my rings and alarms and stuff, most of which I didn’t even realize I had customized, so now every time my phone rings I jump or don’t even realize it’s mine. Also? the number that is coded into the phone for auto-dialing my voice mail, yes, that would be my own cell phone number, is wrong. I called someone named Trish in San Diego, twice in 30 seconds, before I realized what was happening. I thought I had just missdialed, uh, hitting the number 1. Twice in a row. GOOD TIMES! (Sorry, Trish.)

When I took the phone into the local Sprint office, they couldn’t help me. They just SELL the phones there, silly. So they gave me directions to the Fix It Store. My guess – Sprint and Nextel combined to create phones that don’t work and office buildings far, far away from me.

I took it out to the Cell Phone Fixin’ store which is neither convenient or inviting and is placed in one of the worst looking abandoned areas I’ve seen since my small stint in Florida a million years ago. I’m not sure why I have to drive 30 miles out of my way to get my phone fixed, the one that I pay extra each month to insure for just this event. I have learned a few things since dropping my old phone in the toilet. But I feel inconvenienced and ornery. And the directions to the building were WRONG. So, that was fun calling and asking why they weren’t where they were supposed to be. The girl on the phone kind of giggled and said, ‘Ya, we need to fix that.’ Well, you don’t say.

In any case, they don’t sell or promote my phone anymore (I WONDER WHY RATHER LOUDLY IN MY HEAD) and they don’t make a newer model but they do have a very large stock pile somewhere sequestered in the US of A with which the are willing to keep replacing my phone for as long as needed. No matter how many times this happens. And they don’t know why it’s making the noises and why it’s worse when someone calls me, but they sure will replace my phone for ever and ever, amen. Only I have to go back out in a few days to get it since they can’t send it to me.

Also, since I know you want to know, there have been zero boxes packed. Yes, that’s right. Zero. And what is worse is that the panic hasn’t set in yet to make me move in a frenetic, buzzing manner and get things started. In my head? The entire house has been packed and moved about 6 times. In real life? Oh, right. The count was at ZERO BOXES.

Does anyone know how to move lovely, full and happy houseplants from one home to another without harming their long trailing vines?

The House

The fridge is slowly dying. First, I noticed that stuff on the door wasn’t cold, the mustard and ketchup were far too fluid. Then came the smell and I noticed that the milk was almost warm. I suppose as someone that likes her milk with tiny ice clusters here and there, normally chilled milk would seem not cold enough, but believe me when I say the cold cereal was colder than the milk. Then, the light stopped working. Now, I realize that the light is probably not connected to whatever mechanism keeps the refrigerator cold, but it is a bit suspicious, no? And now, the things on the freezer door such as the OJ and the 8 Wendy’s cups of leftover Frosty* are barely not frozen. You can squeeze the sides and the stuff inside squishes without a second thought. I’m looking at the meat and the fish and thinking they are destined for the trash, as getting sick to my stomach happens easily enough to me with well-cooked food, let alone slightly bad meat.

This is all in conjunction with the drains upstairs suddenly not working well, the sprinkler system shooting off the tops of some of the sprinkler heads and flooding the neighbor’s yard and the carpet downstairs looking like ass due to our awesome ability to run the rented professional carpet cleaner. The lighter-colored stripe from the front door, through the living room and out to the back door by the kitchen looks like the pelt of a very large skunk. When the commercial tells you that you can just clean the ‘well-trafficked’ area of your home? Be smarter than we were. Clean the entire thing or 2 days later you’ll be very, very sorry.

*I only want 2 bites. Only 2. And then the rest of the Frosty goes in the freezer. I keep thinking one of the kids will eat the rest. But they don’t. I might need to rethink my strategy.

In Like a Lion

This is the time of year when you’ll see a girl in spaghetti straps, her hair swept off her neck and piled high on her head strolling with her boyfriend who’s sporting shorts and sandals right next to the family in coats, hats, scarves and carrying umbrellas.

The weather makes me feel slightly schizophrenic. I’ll start the day in a sweat suit on my way to the gym at 5:30, shivering and hoping not to run over any squirrels or bunny rabbits that I can’t see in the fog. When I get showered and dressed an hour and a half later, I’m pulling on a turtleneck and socks even though out the window I can see the sun shining and the trees positively bursting with blossoms. Oh, you poor trees, completely fooled into thinking the time is right to show how pretty you can be, and flirting with the warmth and the bees. You’ll be twice as dismal when the late freeze comes and takes all your pink and purple away. Sometimes patience is a virtue. I know better and so out comes my zip-up hoodie. And I’m right. Until ten after two and I’m pulling my sweater away from my neck, wondering why I’m so warm.

Last night my daughter calls right before dinner to tell me that she looked everywhere and can’t find the skirt she needs for the assembly. All the other girls found theirs and she’s the only one. She’s going crazy trying to figure out what to do and did I think I could make her one? By lunchtime the next day? I run out, pick her up from the mall and take her to the fabric store that screams GOING OUT OF BUSINESS on every available surface but since everything is at least 50% off, I don’t mind too much. We find a red plaid that will work and I make her a skirt, forgetting about all the work I need to get done. Because I can and she needs it. And because the one I made is two inches longer than the one’s the other girls are wearing and covers up a little more leg.

Somehow, I feel like I won something.

plaid

Stop It

Apparently, the early presidents of the United States want me to buy cars, furniture and clothing. Lots of it. And all on Monday. Why are they hounding me? Why are they so materialistic? And here I thought it was all about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Oral Compulsion

I think I figured out why crocheting for hours while in the car, watching TV or hanging out with friends works so well for me. It’s smoking. My hands are busy, I’m laughing and talking and drinking and my hands are doing something. I’m just not actually inhaling dark death into my lungs. Everybody wins. It’s the same reason I eat sunflower seeds at every game we go watch the kids play.

And here I thought I had quit.

Anyone want to buy a hat?

Two Things*

Since I’m spending a whole lot of unsupervised time feeling like the identical twin of a large lumpy splat of mashed potatoes, I’m sending you to two other sites that talk about doctors and body image.

1. Jen linked to Meg Fowler yesterday. The post is long but oh, so worth it.

2. Did you say crappy doctor? Yes, Mimi did.

*Bonus: here is a phrase my son said last night. I’m going to keep it totally out of context because it’s much better that way. “You know, Mom, I’m just not comfortable yelling vagina the same way I do penis.”

Things Family and Friends Have Said To Me (Or About Me) That Suggest They Think I Might Be Crazy (Or Dumb)

“Mom, if we keep driving around like this forever and we get lost and can’t get home, I wouldn’t eat you even if I was starving. I don’t want to get Mad Mom disease.”

“I think you should stop looking at me. But if you must keep looking at me, do it from over there. On the other side of the door.”

“Oh, thanks for answering the phone! I was worried you’d never pick it up again after our conversation the other night about brain harvesting and emus. Have you slept yet?”

To my husband (a year and a half after we were married): “Are you sure you don’t want to look at other marriage options?”

“Can you tell me what colors you mix together to make orange? You can pick from red, yellow and blue.”

“You know when someone tells you ‘You’re so crazy!’ but they’re kidding? This is not one of those times! I need my shirt back. And the fire extinguisher.”

“I did tell you, but you were mumbling something about erasers so you might not have heard me.”

“That is so….pretty the way you organized the thumbtacks into 20 different containers by color shade and size.”

“But did you ever ask yourself why most people /don’t/ carry a raw potato in their purse with them everyday?”

“Do you always keep your phonebook in the fridge?”

“Rubber bands are not really evil. The devil is evil. Rubber bands are useful tools for people to keep papers bound together. Do you see the difference?”

“Is it ok if the green beans are touching your fruit salad or would like you like me to built a mini-fort with the mashed potatoes to protect them?”

“No, I don’t go up and talk to whoever is there even if I think they look interesting. Normal people don’t do that. They just go there to do their laundry.”

“Please stop singing. And if you don’t wash the paint off your hands before we leave I’m going to make you wear my ski gloves to dinner.”

“When I look at you, I feel a little bit better about myself. And I feel so much smarter.”