Category: drama

East bound and down…

…loaded up and truckin’

Yes, I just quoted the theme from “Smokey and the Bandit” and I’m not sorry.

Ok, maybe a little sorry. But I’d do it again.

I’m in kind-of-panicked but mostly excited mode because I have some travel coming up next week.

In the many long years I’ve worked at The Company, I’ve only traveled a scant three times. This will be my fourth trip on the company dime.

I get to go to Northern Florida. For a conference.

There’s not a lot going on in the Northern half of Florida. But that’s ok. I got that “anywhere but here” thing going. I haven’t traveled in a REALLY long time and I’m anxious to get going. I do love to go places.

There are some downsides.

1) It’s Florida. And still Spring Break season. I may have to pimp slap some drunk college kids. I’ll do it too.

2) I’m not going for fun. I’m going to work. True, a conference isn’t exactly *work*, but it involves sitting indoors, eating conference chicken and being over air conditioned to within an inch of my life.

3) It is one long ass plane ride to get from the left coast to the right one. Yeah, shaddup all you “oh, but to fly to Australia is WAY longer” or whatever. I’m just saying… Mama gets restless on a plane. Five hours plus three time zones is just long enough to piss me off, not long enough to get anywhere really good…like London or something.

4) Disney. God I hate Disney. And there is little else to do BUT freakin’ Disney where I’m going. Gaaaaah! I Googled “fun non-Disney things to do” and found…well, not much.

Oh well. It’s a trip. That I’m not paying for. It will be warm. I won’t have to sit at my desk. And the Atlantic is warm.

So there you have it.

I keep thinking “oh, I should pack goggles” then remind myself “WORK! This is work!”

I am taking the camera tho…I’ll share any interesting shots. (nod to Avelino on this)

Bouncy, bouncy, bouncy…

No, I’m not doing an Easter bunny impression. Tho Easter is nigh…can you JUST believe it? Easter already. To where do the months evaporate?

Meanwhile, back to my anticipatory restlessness.

I have truly become an internet consumer. I ordered something *really cool* online last week. They said it would ship the next day. It did not. My expectation was one day ship. I demand one day ship!

Yesterday I navigated an awful call tree at Big Conglomerate (and I work for a different Big Conglomerate and procure call trees as part of my job, so I know from which I speak) and when I finally got a real person on the line, I screwed up my righteous indignation and demanded to know where my not inexpensive product was.

I was told, “huh…we can’t figure out why it didn’t ship. I need to contact the warehouse. It will take 24 to 48 business hours to get back to you.”

Business hours? Ok, where I come from “business day” is eight hours. I’m no good at math, but 24 divided by 8 is THREE DAYS.

To which I replied, “I am NOT happy with that estimate”.

They said that was just to protect in case of a weekend, but they really meant one to two days.

One day has elapsed. No response.

Back on the phone. In an endless hold queue.

How ’bout this to ponder. Why does on hold music universally SUCK? It is the soundtrack to my insanity. It really is.

Meanwhile, my leg is bouncing.

I reeeeeally want this item I’ve ordered. It’s not like air or food or something. I just have internet buyer lust.

Plus, by buying something, I’m, like, helping the economy, maaahn!

*sigh*

“Please continue to hold and your call will be answered in the order it was received.”

: hostile :

Peculiarity

You know, at this point in my life, I should no longer be shaken by oddity in the world. I mean, in my few years on the planet, I’ve seen a lot of weird sh*t.

But still, life can wallop me with a new one.

This weekend, The Good Man and I were out and about, coming home from an early dinner when we turned a corner on a quiet street near the county hospital. As we crested a small hill in our mild suburban neighborhood, we saw a man walking determinedly up the street wearing a hospital gown with ill fitting tighty-whities hanging out the back (thank god he was wearing them). His plastic hospital bracelet was flapping in the breeze and he was padding along in white tube socks, despite the chilly drizzling rain.

Now this disturbed me. Not just because I’m usually loath to view the tighty-whities of a stranger, but when I say this man was “walking determinedly”, I mean…WITH A PURPOSE. What purpose, I cannot speculate, but when you see someone walking with that kind of purpose, you figure they are up to something, possibly no good. Add to that visage the hospital gown, aforementioned tighty-whities and the darkening night and you have a freak out factor straight out of all those g’damn horror movies I like to watch.

The Good Man and I had a moment of the “what do we do” conversation. We decided calling 911 was probably too much. So we looped back to the hospital and went inside to tell them one had escaped. They said they were aware of it and really, unless the guy was being held for a 5150, there was little they could do.

Now….I’m a Van Halen fan like anyone else. I know what 5150 means! Has to do with but a psych case. Well, ok, so the good news is that the guy was NOT a 5150, right. Ok……

Well, none of this actually made me *feel* any better.

However, as we made our way back home, we turned another corner and AHHHH! There he was again!!

Ok, in truth we saw five police cars and officers standing in the street and what The Good Man and I now dubbed “Underpants Man” standing on the sidewalk holding his gown closed in the back and looking a little wild eyed.

Seeing many of the county’s finest should have made me feel better. But it didn’t. All evening The Good Man and I were peeking out the kitchen window to see if Underpants Man was standing out there, zombie-like. Purpose in mind.

I tend to think of my little neighborhood as quiet and peaceable. And it is, usually. Normally all the folks at county hospital stay there and allow treatment. And I’m fine with that.

I can’t imagine all the things that led up to Underpants Man bolting the hospital.

I hope wherever he is today, he’s got dry socks, fresh tighty-whities and feels safe.

And I give thanks for my own clean, dry socks, chones, and The Good Man to keep me safe.

(You know, I usually end my blog posts with a photo of something relevant…and the most relevant was, of course, tighty-whities. But that didn’t seem, you know, appropriate. So instead, here is a photo of The Feline asleep on my desk to help us wipe that mental image of Underpants Man out of our collective minds, ok? Isn’t she cute?)

Take nothing for granted

I’m sure the young man who planned on mugging 83 year old Bernie Garcia thought it was going to be an easy take. A little old lady pumping gas outside a store in Santa Fe.

But the one thing he didn’t count on was the lady’s tenacity.

As Bernie pumped gas, a whippersnapper leapt out of a car and grabbed at her purse.

From the article:

“With a gas pump nozzle in one hand and her purse in the other, Garcia refused to give in to the male assailant’s effort to yank her purse away— this in spite of her being dragged on her side during the struggle.”

“What happened next was a tug of war between a man in his 20s and an 83-year-old woman who stands 5 feet 4 and weighs 125 pounds.”

“He grabbed my left arm and went for my purse,” Garcia recalled. “He started pulling on it, but couldn’t get it off me because (the strap) was winded twice around my arm.”

She wanted to bop him with the gas nozzle but couldn’t manage it so she sprayed gasoline on him instead.

A bystander pulled up as this was happening and yelled at the kid who he ran off, jumped into a car (that had been stolen in Española earlier that day) and took off.

Police responded quick and the three guys in the car were arrested.

Meanwhile, Ms. Bernie Garcia, my hat is off to you. I don’t know if I could have been that clear headed in the same situation.

“It happened so fast, and I just fought, even though I was scared,” she said. “I just wanted to slap him in the face.”

He deserves at least that.

I always say you gotta watch out for the little ones. Little, but scrappy.

Source: ABQJournal

*coff coff*

You know just the other day while riding the CalTrain, I saw a nice, handsome man giving me “the look”. You know the look. The “I’m checking you out” look. I sat up a little straighter. Blushed appreciatively. Until I realized he was checking out the twenty-something year old blond sitting next to me.

And I thought, “What’s she got that I ain’t got?” Well. Perkier boobs for one, because mine were already in high school before blondie was born.

Oy. And so I gave myself the usual litany of “you are only as old as you feel” and “youth is wasted on the young” and “age is a state of mind”.

It’s true, I don’t actually *feel* any older than the child with the supple, elastic skin seated next to me. In fact, at this age, I feel SO much better about myself. Stronger. More self-aware. About eight million times more confident.

So feeling better about myself I bounced from the train and into my day, deciding that pimply boy wasn’t all that interesting anyway. I’m young. I’m hip. I have an iPhone.

I just got my hair colored again, covering the grays and putting an even deeper tone of red in there. I have a job and an engagement ring. I’m happenin’, man.

Then I read the entertainment section of my local paper and stumbled across this article and felt all the gray hairs sproing up on my head.

Prince is having hip replacement surgery.

That little red Corvette will need to be an automatic cuz my boy can’t work the clutch anymore. Darling Nikki uses Oil of Olay. Purple rain the color of a Prilosec tab.

It happens to the best of us, I suppose.

This on the heels of hearing that the timeless and ageless Omar Vizquel needs knee surgery.

*wheeze*

Time, that unforgiving b*tch, marches on.