Category: grumptacular

Today: A Fable

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess…we’ll call her…Karenita. This lovely princess was married to the most handsomest prince in the whole land.

But unfortunately for our lovely princess, every weekday, she was required to go and toil away the hours at the Imperial Tower of Doom. Gray clouds swirled overhead while poor Karenita was tormented by her oppressors.

There was one oppressor who was particularly a thorn in the side of our beautiful princess.

See, our lovely girl arrives to work in the morning tired and in need of something for breakfast. The princess keeps some food in the Imperial Tower office ‘fridge, and also likes a spot of hot tea on the cold gray swirly cloud mornings.

Unfortunately for the princess, there lived in the break room a mean and nasty troll.

No really, this lady is like five foot nothing with a bad attitude and a chip the size of Texas on her shoulder.

For some reason, the Evil Break Room Lady can always sense when Karenita the Princess needs to have breakfast, and makes sure to hustle in there first, blocking the egress for our lovely girl to reach the ‘fridge.

While Karenita is there heating up her food, Evil Break Room Lady makes nasty comments about how people don’t clean up after themselves (despite the fact that Karenita scrupulously cleans up after herself) and self-importantly restocks the paper coffee cups (it’s not her job, by the way, she’s a very high paid executive admin) while dropping hairy eyeballs on the princess the whole time.

And then Evil Break Room Lady takes paper towels and cleans the countertops, sometimes pushing Karenita’s bowl out of the way while she does. Karenita finds this to be very rude.

It’s clear that Evil Break Room Lady doesn’t like Karenita, but Karenita doesn’t know why. The princess was raised to be kind and cordial and always says hello and thank you and excuse me.

Karenita believes that Evil Break Room Lady must be very unhappy with her menopausal lot in life, and all the hot flashes must make her cranky. Karenita thinks Evil Break Room Lady envies her still productive ovaries and plentiful estrogen.

The princess tries to be understanding, but it’s kind of hard when someone gives you the equivalent of the finger with her face every morning. Karenita is just trying to make it through the day.

The princess has tried to be nice, to make conversation, to say “yeah, it’s really bad when people leave water everywhere” but none of this works. Evil Break Room Lady has just determined that the princess is a lesser form of life.

And this doesn’t make Karenita feel very nice as she starts each day.

In other news, the nicest person to Karenita in all the Imperial Tower of Doom is the janitor. The janitor thinks Karenita rocks and will make it a point to wave vigorously from across the room and say hi.

Karenita likes Mr. Janitor. He’s a good man with a sucky job and he does it with life and verve and kindness.

So there’s hope. Maybe Karenita knows she’s not such a bad person after all.

And they all lived crankily every after.

For my own good

So in trying to feel better physically and mentally, I’ve made the choice to give up most of the sugar in my diet. Caffeine too, including decaf (it has some caffeine).

I’m ok on the caffeine part. That’s no problem, I’ve never really been able to have that much and when I do, I feel like crap.

Oh but giving up the sugar. It’s killing me.

I hear that quitting cigarettes is about the most difficult thing ever. I’ve never been a smoker, so I can’t compare.

But I can say that Demon Sugar is whispering in my ear right now. “Just one cookie. It won’t hurt. You’ll feel so much better! That headache will go away! You’ll have a little lift! Come on! Just one chocolate bar, what can it do?”

Gad, even this image makes me drool.

I gotsa problem!

The Power of Nothing

“Hey Karen, what are you going to do this weekend?”

“Nothing!”

True conversation held last Friday.

The last two and a half months have been nothing short of a rat race. Every weekend something was brewing.

Every. Weekend. Since May.

Most of the stuff was good. Traveling, dinner with friends and family, visiting newly born godbabies, etc.

Also, both The Good Man and I celebrated birthdays over that time span.

There was also some crap stuff, like moving out of our place for termite tenting.

Every weekend was a blur, non-stop, arriving back at work Monday more tired then when I’d left the previous Friday.

I’m a Taurus, and by nature, a bit of an at-home kind of girl. Bonding with the red couch is my sort of speed.

My Gemini love is more of a “let’s GOOOOO” sort of fellow.

So for us, it is about striking a balance.

Combine my natural tendency to lay about with a couple months of mistreatment at the hands of my employers, and you have Little Johnny Karen on the verge of something not pretty.

All work and no play makes Karen a very, very cranky girl.

And so, for the past two and a half months I have been plotting and planning a weekend that included zero plans with anyone other than me, the husband and the feline.

I had targeted this past weekend for some time and was a little bit cranky in defending it. We had no less than FOUR invitations to do something this weekend. All of which, we turned down.

Sure, that may make me a bad friend, but I have my sanity to consider.

So finally, the delicious weekend of July 18th arrived, and good for my word, I did nothing.

Ok, to be fair, I did a few things. Laundry. Landlord came to make some needed repairs. Ran a few errands.

But I also took a *nap* on both Saturday and Sunday. Oh delicious mouth watering naps.

I also made dinner for me and the cutest boy on Saturday night. Took the time and made a genuine homemade dinner! Imgaine that!

You know what else? I *read* a book. My god, it’s like vacation porn. I actually sat on my tush and READ A BOOK. Ay god. Makes me drool just remembering.

So as it will, Monday has returned to my life, but so far so good. I feel a bit rested, calmer, ready to take on the slings and arrows that will inevitably land my way.

Next weekend, it all begins again. Rev up the big machine and start running. Won’t see another break until September…*sigh*

My new motto: Do nothing. And do it *really* well!

P.S. and all those old fashioned “you must get up early and work hard!” because you think it makes you moral-and-just type of folks. To you, I say BAH!

P.P.S. And BAH! again!

The face of a criminal

Behold the face of the unrepentant criminal!

Last night, after giving kibble to the rabble rouser, I took a glass from the cabinet where we keep dishes, poured some soy milk, and went to the other room to enjoy the cold glass. I suppose I didn’t firmly close the cabinet door…fine.

Several minutes later, I heard some clanking noises from the kitchen and said to The Good Man, “what’s she into now?”

He said, “we didn’t leave any dishes on the counter, so I can’t imagine…”

I got up and went into the kitchen.

The Feline had made her way into the cabinet where the dishes are kept and was prowling around in there. When I barked, “get down!” as I do when she’s somewhere she ought not to be, she wigged out.

And in her haste to comply and quickly extricate her anything-but-lithe form from the shelves, she managed to shove the stack of bowls out of the cabinet and crashing, shattering to the floor.

She then scampered off a good distance, then stopped to lick her paw as though to say, “what?”

I found myself…mad. Really mad. Not kick the cat mad (in no way at all), but mad.

The Good Man rightfully reminded me that she’s a pet, you can’t reason with her like a child, that being mad is fine but really comes to no good end, that this is just what this particular feline does.

Sure. Didn’t help. I was still mad.

Not mad enough I didn’t let her sleep on top of me, like usual, but still, this morning…I’m peeved.

I’m probably more peeved at myself for leaving the door open than anything.

I once had a therapist say that being mad was more about yourself that it is about the person (feline) you are mad at.

So. Breathe in. Breathe out.

*sigh* So I guess this weekend we’ll set out into the world to buy a new set of bowls. Ain’t gonna be no soup in our house for a while!

Using a protractor

I think this whole getting used to being married thing is harder than I anticipated.

I started thinking about this at about 2:00 am last night (this morning?).

That was when I woke up cold and teetering on the edge of my bed.

See, I share my queen-sized with two others, one human, one feline. And somehow, I’m getting the fuzzy end of this lollipop.

I woke up this morning pretty cranky. I tried to tug on the blanket to cover my shivering shoulders, but to no avail, it wouldn’t budge.

So I assessed the situation. Turns out my six feet two inch husband was soundly asleep, and had arranged himself, roughly, into a right angle in our bed.

Yes, full on 90 degrees, the fulcrum of which was well over on my side of the bed. And by fulcrum, of course, I mean his big ol’ bootay shoved over that invisible line that has kept the peace in marriages for centuries.

On my side. Long limbed brotha was taking up a full three quarters of the entire bed.

And then, as if dotting the i, at the apex of the fulcrum rested our fourteen pound feline, limbs akimbo, thus taking up about half of the remaining quarter of the bed I got to inhabit.

I generally try not to disturb people when fast asleep, because I ask the same courtesy, so I tried just to make do. For about five minutes.

Then I got mad. And said aloud, “I’m taking back the night!”

Floppy cat was lifted and relocated. Good. Getting movement from the boy was going to take more thought.

So I went in for the nuzzle. The plan was, I nuzzle, and as he turns to return it, he will shift that bootay back over into the demilitarized zone.

It worked perfectly.

Then, as he turned, I tugged with all I had on the blanket, thus unloosening endless folds of blanket.

Yes. Success!

Happier with the more obtuse angle of the husband and the relocated location of the feline, I wrapped as much blanket around me as possible, dug in firmly in my space, turned my back on everyone, and went back to sleep.

You know…when I was single, I was able to flop like a starfish in the middle of my bed and sleep all night, undeterred.

I never knew a wife has to learn to be so cagy…