Category: fate

These are a few of my perturbing things

No raindrops on roses or whiskers on kittens.

No, I’m all kinds of cranky today and need to, you know, just vent.

You know how it goes, you have other friends like me. You are having a perfectly nice day, then they come along and dump their misery. They feel great and you feel bad.

That’s me today.

Here we go.

I’m not cranky about anything in particular, just all the little things are wearing down my last nerve until it’s just a slick spot. I have, what The Good Man calls “bent whiskers.”

So here we go, a few of my most annoying things.

    


  • People who pour the top couple fingers of coffee out into the trash can at the local coffee place. Yes, I know they need room for cream, and there is nowhere else to deposit the excess java, but for some reason this seriously bugs me. I always think “that will melt the can liner and *can’t* be fun for the employee that has to come clean that out.” I dunno, maybe my former S’bucks friend (that’s you, Nat) can assure me this is not such a bad thing?
  • People who drive itty bitty cars and STILL can’t manage to make it between the white lines in the parking lot. Especially when they are using up a full sized space (versus a compact spot). I always want to door ding the %$#@ out of them, but refrain because…
  • …I also really hate people who door ding other cars. Are you NOT in command of your own car door?
  • Microsoft Excel. It’s totally user error, but like most folks, I choose to point the finger outward for my own personal inadequacies. : shrug :

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  • That my manicure lasted less than a week. Grr. I want the heavy-duty shellac put on there! The kind they lay on thick like on a basketball court, with all the gleam. It should be super nuclear attached to my nails! One week!!?!?
  • That my frappin’ iPhone can’t seem to hold a battery charge for more than a day. Remember when mobile phones were only used for making calls? I could make a battery charge last a week on those things. Now with phone, text, email, twitter, web surfing, etc, etc, I wear out that stupid battery in the blink of an eye. Damn you Apple for bringing all of my life onto one tiny energy sucking device!!!!
  • That they only buy the cheapest possible pens at work, but will spring for $400 worth of food for a lunchtime meeting, leaving scads of leftovers. Money down the drain as I scribble with a crap pen. Whatever.
  • That I’m turning forty in a week.

Ok, that last one may be the main perturber…not sure. Either way, I’m massively cranky….

Yanking. My. Chain.

(Written last night, posted today)

The universe is yanking my chain. Messing with my head. Freaking me out, man.

Because tonight, I might actually kinda sorta believe in the goodness of humanity.

That’s so not me. No, I think people are mean, and mean people suck. But tonight…I have a softer spot in my heart for the world.

I was on my way to the grocery store to pick up something for dinner. I waited in a left turn bay for the light to go my way. Out of the corner of my eye in the rearview mirror, I saw a small white pickup stomp to a halt at an odd diagonal to the left turn bay. Then the driver was out of the car and weaving around on foot in the opposite-side lane.

“Oh crap,” I thought, eyeing him in my rearview, “this guy’s messed up.” I immediately reached for my phone to call the police, and as I did I turned to look out my window to see what the guy was doing. Was he going to hurt himself?

Then I realized why he was making a weaving wavy line in the oncoming lane. Leading the parade was a Mama Duck and three little chicks tailing her every move, the guy madly following behind, making classic herding motions with his hands.

Obviously, the duck and young ‘uns had wandered into traffic and this guy was chasing them, trying to get them to safety, and waving off oncoming traffic at the same time.

Finally, Mama D got over to the curb and she hopped up. Three babies hopped and jumped in vain, unable to make the distance. The guy reached down, cupped his hands, and gently scooped up each baby and placed them on the sidewalk. When all were safe, he trotted to his truck and jumped back in.

This wasn’t a Teva wearing, hola granola, tree hugging guy, either. He was a tradesman, driving a worktruck and clearly had put in a hard day’s work on a freaking hot day.

And at the end of that day, he saved four lives.

I was stunned, and my heart felt warmth.

Then, while in the grocery, I went over to the bakery to pick up a few of my favorite cookies. They are baked on site and tantalize behind a glass case. A bakery employee has to help you get to the good stuff.

I stood by the glass and waited. The bakery employee was alone back there, on the phone, taking an intricate cake order. No worry, I got time. I can wait for delicious almond horns.

So I waited. I didn’t even feel impatient. It allowed me the chance to oogle all the other tasty cookies on display.

Finally, she hung up the phone and turned to me. She said, “Thank you so much for waiting, I’m so sorry!”

“No problem,” I said and ordered the horns.

She put a couple in a box then added one more. “One extra for having to wait,” she said, smiled, and sealed up the box.

I was stunned. I got rewarded for patience? Me, the least patient person I know?

Then on the way home, I arrived at a four way stop at the same time as another car. I was the car on the right, and thus supposed to be the first to go. That never happens according to the law in California, so as usual, I paused. The other driver, a teenage girl, gave me the wave. I smiled and waved back and turned left through the intersection.

At the next intersection, I arrived the same time as a huge SUV. I was on the left this time. I paid it forward, gave him the wave, got a smile and wave in return.

With a goofy grin on my face, I then made my way the final few blocks to home.

Sure, it’s a Monday, hotter than the hinges of hell, The Good Man is violently sick (Norovirus is the main suspect), Mom-in-Law got roughed up at her doctor, and the cat is hot and lethargic. By all accounts, it’s a sad day where I live.

But right now I feel…dare I say…optimistic about my fellow man.

When reality reaches up and grabs you by the throat

I have a milestone birthday coming up in May. It is an age I’m not sure I’m happy about being.

Ok, fine, I have to get old. Everyone does it (barring the alternative, of course). I’m ok with it.

Until I’m reminded clearly and plainly how old and out of it I am.

It began, this past weekend, with the shopping excursion to procure new jeans (see previous post for my thoughts on that). While out and about, I wandered into a store called Anchor Blue.

I’d seen an article in a trashy gossip magazine last week while at the dentist’s office about “the best jeans.” There was a pair of Anchor Blue jeans featured that looked like I’d be happy with them.

So. Anchor Blue. I’d seen the store but had never actually been inside before.

Well. If you go to the webpage (linked above) you’ll see several fresh, dewey-faced CHILDREN on the splash page, showing you just how cool and beautiful YOU can be if you wear their clothing.

Walking into the store, I practically coughed dust and picked cryptkeeper tendrils from my person as I looked around and the clerks looked at me.

I did, actually, pick out a few pairs of jeans to try on, none of them the fabulous pair I’d seen in the magazine, of course.

So, yes, happily, the jeans I’d picked fit me. Well. Sort of. I mean, I could get them on and button them.

But to look in the mirror, you could see clearly where the jeans ended (below my hipbones) and my (evidently) granny panties continued on.

Now, I don’t wear old lady briefs (yet)…what I wear are respectable cotton bikini chones. But in the spotlight of Logan’s Run (In case you missed that film, everyone is executed at age 30), my respectable bikini yonderwear appear to be practically up to my ribcage (just below what they must believe to be my sagging boobs).

I may as well give over to the white belt and Velcro shoes ferchrissakes!

So I gave up on those jeans, but continued to look around the store. I checked out accessories.

They had quite the assortment of Che Guevara-style caps for the ladies. I want to look like an Argentinean communist revolutionary why again?

I looked at skirts. I have this little cloth that I use to clean my glasses. That cloth is larger than these “skirts.” Even if I could get a lens cloth skirt to fit me…no, it’s too terrible, I can’t even go there.

Fine. Thus ended my shopping trip.

Sunday rolled around and The Good Man and I traveled up to Muir Beach to meet with some friends. “Take a walk,” they said. Oh, sure, yes! A walk on a sunny day would be nice. Maybe even help me work off some calories in hopes of wearing that lens cloth to dinner!

These folks are all about my same age…well, TGM and his best friend are a year younger. And the best friend’s wife is a couple years younger still. Ok, so I’m the matron of the bunch, what of it?

So we walk on the beach a bit and then decide to hike a trail. Fun!

An uphill trail.

What?

So evidently that one-year age difference between TGM’s and me is a huge gap, because all of my friends scampered up the hill while I was in the back gasping for air and feeling my thighs wobbling.

Now, the other lady in our group is in knockout shape, I forgive her. But TGM and his buddy have no excuse. They billy-goated they way up the hill with ease, leaving me with hands on knees feeling like I was going to puke.

I was further insulted when a tiny fourteen year-old dog named Chester paced me, turned and ran halfway back down the hill to greet his people, then turned around and paced me again.

His legs are three inches long!

Damn you Chester!

Now it is Monday and my legs hurt. My lungs still burn a little and I’m faced with my group of fifteen employees, not a ONE of them over the age of 30.

I remember 30. That was a good year. My thirties…yes, a fine decade. *sigh*

Na Na Na Na, Hey, Hey, Hey…

Goodbye.

Ok, not goodbye, but welcome to bankruptcy.

From CNN:

Muzak files for bankruptcy

This story is a couple weeks old, so I don’t know how I missed it.

Ah Muzak. That bastion of elevators and department stores everywhere. Making the artistically fascinating into dreck.

Sure, bastardizing Beatles and Creedence Clearwater tunes is bad, but the first time I heard “Smells Like Teen Spirit” done up Muzac style, I was not only appalled, I was angry.

I fear they will crawl out of debt restructuring like the oily swamp monster that they are, reaching out a webbed hand to assimilate Flo Rida and Beyonce and Lady Ga Ga and all the other Top 40 pop crap, coming soon to a Seven Eleven near you.

Once upon a time, in my former job, I had the opportunity to interact with the beast that is Muzac. They were entrenched as the on-hold music for our busy call center. The telecom team found a supplier they liked better and asked me to pull the ripcord on the termination clause in the contract.

Is it wrong that I giggled the whole time the pages fed through the fax auto-feeder? I stood there giggling like Beavis and Butt Head for the whole time the machine made high pitch squeals, and gladly took the confirmation page from the paper tray, confirmed all pages were sent, and filed that bad boy with satisfaction.

One of those “I love my job” kinda days.

If that kind of glee is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.

Ah well, even oily swamp monsters have to make a living.

They never promised life would be fair

Today was a particularly tough day for me to roll out of bed with the alarm and come to work.

I didn’t sleep well last night due mainly to the crazed feline. I have a friend who has a theory that occasionally the cat brain will release some hormone that is akin to kitty crack, which then is the reason for the dilated eyes and tendency to gallop around the house making crazed movements.

If that is true, then my personal feline got deep into the kitty crack at about 3:30 in the ayem, and is, today, my least favorite person in the world.

Sleepy eyed, I ventured out onto the highway to make my way into my place of employment. I was heartened to see the sun slanting over the hills with the promise of a really warm day. This never fails to cheer me.

But that smile turned into a snarl when I made the merge and found myself rolling behind this.

Click for full size if you can’t make it out. If you can make it out, what you see there is a Forerunner with two surfboards sticking out the back.

Dude driving and his long-haired blond lady in the passenger seat are headed, I assume, to Pacifica for a nice day of surfing.

While I drive to work to sit under florescent lights all day and literally watch my muscles lose their elasticity. In a building located in what is considered one of the most foggy and windy areas of the Bay Area.

And this is fair how?