Crappy Day Rant

this is just a buncha bitching and moaning.

i woke up today, after sleeping through the alarm repeatedly, 6 minutes before having to be at lowe's. grumble. i'd been having a nightmare about haden and daycare... but i digress. ok, another morning. where's my crap? clothes, shoes, leftover mussumun curry, purse, keys, shit i'm late, stumble stumble, open door, step out into the world. get to truck to find, oopsie, i got the keys with the truck door key and the extra car keys. no ignition key. no key to get back in the house. well, hell.

call greg's mom, she has an extra key! no answer. damnation. maybe kari is in town or at work, i know she'll pick a chica up. no such luck, sorry for that early morning call. maybe someone at work can take a break and come grab me up. i call and laura's there alone. no go. so i transfer to andi just b/c i like to complain to her about my not so swell actions. she says jason's the mgr... the h.n.i.c., same one i had to call yesterday and report that i wasn't coming in (my left eye was all hivey and i looked like an abuse victimn).. i better him i'm going to be freakin late. i talk to him and feel like a total jackass at this point.

well, should i call my landlord to let me into my house? or should i just climb into the truck and sit there with my thumb up my arse waiting to see what's going to happen? oh, look.. my shirt's on inside out. that's super. lemme fix that right quick like... word. get to work? ...i could walk. it's only, what, an 8 minute drive? that sounds feasible. no. bad idea. no bueno. i'm walking down a curvy ass country road and where my former self woulda stuck out my thumb and made it into town lickity-split, i begin to hear greg's voice of reason in my mind: "what the fuck are you doing? someone could kill you and no one would even hear you scream! people are not all good! you can't just trust everyone, there's some serious psychos out there!" i think of what i have to defend myself with: some leftover tofu & veggie refrigerated thai leftovers. take THAT, psychotic murdering passerby. suddenly i realize the walk is actually about 5 miles. well, it may be a bit less, i don't really know. i happened to be out of bottled water at home and it's already muggy as all get out and i'm already stinking and i've been truckin along what, 8 minutes, maybe? this is ridiculous. this was not a good plan.

ugh, also... i don't feel so hot. i can't breathe outta one side of my nose. oh, wait, haden's sick. fever=contagious. i've been holding and loving on my sick baby for days. but he only had itty bitty baby germs. well, apparently those can make you sick too. ugh. i really don't feel so hot.

greg's mom calls and says she was in the shower and she's coming to bring me keys. sighing and wheezing and sweaty i turn and walk home. i sit for a few minutes, wondering what's wrong with me. kim comes and let's me in the house. i'm so glad we got her those keys made (yeah, in nov/dec i locked my pregnant self out of my truck at a gas station, so great).

ok, nic, i say. let's try this again. this time i rob my son's piggy bank for some change; i need coffee. i leave the house with the right keys. i forget the change. super fantastic. i re-enter the house to get change and lock myself out when i leave again. ok, i didn't lock myself out again, but that woulda been funny shit.

tralala, let's try this again. pull out of the subdivision... oh! a baby raccoon in the street! aw, look at the lil thing, it must be so scared! i stop, in the middle of the road, and get out. it walks up to me all shivery and cold, then realizes i'm a person and starts making scared lil hissy noises. i begin to think about the baby birds i tried to bring home recently and think about greg's voice of reason again, and instead of attempting a rescue, i take a legal pad and scooch him back into the grass where he stumbles off towards a field. good enough for today. i drive to the coffee place, get a blended coffee treat, and proceed to my job. wahoo.

i'm making signage and have both hands not only full, but balancing the nonsell log on my arms, when one of the two department phones in my back pockets rings. and keeps ringing. crap. i have outside lawn and garden, as well as seasonal, both jacketed so i cannot see the label telling my extension. i finally throw the signs and paperwork and clipboard into the coleus, fumble for my ringing and vibrating right butt pocket, and grab the phone. shot in the dark, i answer it "outside lawn and garden, this is nicole, how can i help you?" it's the aforementioned h.n.i.c. first he tells me he called seasonal's phone. embarrassed i repeat my greeting only with seasonal replacing the dept name. my bad sir, i have two phones, i didn't know which was which... then he chastises me for not answering in 5 rings. i explain what i'm doing and he says he coulda been a customer and how could i not get the phone in five rings? that's a lot of rings! the CUSTOMER doesn't care what i'm doing! i have to answer it in 5 RINGS! i want to say, "well shit, i guess next time i'll stop in my damn tracks and drop all that i'm carrying on the ground and do whatever it takes to GET that phone"... but instead i say, "i'm so sorry, you're right, that's my fault!" at this point i am hating everyone. i want to tell whoever to shove it and roll out.

but no. i gotta eat. and pay bills. so i decide to go get water, since i didn't bring in any. aquafina in the break room, mmmm. sold out? wtf? how can we sell out of water? dasani, then, in the other machine. are you fucking KIDDING me we don't have any of that either. nice. fine, that's fine. it's only 80-something degrees and i'm totally needing some h2o. luckily, i found some leftover bottles from the potluck and fill up the cooler. something goes ok.

all of this by 10am. lunch rolls around and i want some freakin unhealthy, scrumptous hot n ready cheese pizza from little caesar's. yeah, there's a great selection of food in mt sterling. is my pizza hot and ready? NO. they don't have any cheese. i say, "ok, i'll wait, how long will it be for my hot n READY?" "7 1/2 minutes". "swell!" when i got it into the truck it seemed worth the wait, but i was hungry. really hungry. so i grab a slice while maneuvering through the parking lot. shit! it may not have been ready, but it's HOT! melty cheese slides off the slice and onto my lap. my bottom lip gets a mean lil burn. that was so intelligent.

ugh. i need to talk to g. he'll tell me it's all going to be ok. where's my cell phone? i know i didn't take my purse in to work... and it wasn't in my pockets when i was outside.. but i thought it was? nah, had to have left it in the purse. so i start digging. uh-oh. i have no idea where that motherfucker is. and i still don't.

it rained on and off repeatedly. just last night i was missing fl so much... but not b/c of the occasional 10 minute downpour (i miss the people i love). why did the stupid rain follow me but not the good people? every time the sun comes back out it gets muggier. at this point the old spice has ceased to work and my pits are noticeably stinky. i can totally smell myself. that's awesome. i fucking hate the dirty south. give me dry heat any day... or better yet, let's go back to wyoming and live happily ever after. my sister said it was snowing when i talked to her one day in june. i can enjoy global warming in my senior years.

the day creeeeeeeeeeeped by. i stayed an hour (ok, two) late. i had to; i have to miss a lot this week for surgery! what a shitty day. my cold is worse. i don't know where greg and haden are but i have seriously lost my cell phone (fuckin baby raccoon prolly has it). i still smell but i had to gripe this one out. it's not a bad day on the grand scheme of things, really. no one i love died; i'm still kickin it too. i didn't get seriously injured...

but i am going to take my congested self to the shower, rinse off, and climb into bed for america's most wanted. maybe i'll help catch a fugitive. big plans, huh? yeah i'm cool like that. nyquil anyone? and vicks? yes please!

My Grandmother

My granny died the day after Mother's Day. It's so weird, sometimes it gets painful and it hurts... and I will find myself crying, but I only squeeze out a few tears before I stop myself. I work with plants every day and when I see old ladies out passing time, just browsing through the garden center to not feel so alone, I make an effort to talk to them, and I always end up choking back tears after they leave. I am curiously protective of impatiens, which were her favorites. I miss her a lot. It's not a tragic end to life, to make it all the way to 87 years, to see 2 great grandkids. It's not a sad story like I know so many of you have to tell about loved ones. I am grateful for knowing her for so long, for having her be such an influence on me. I was thinking about it and these are parts of my life and myself that came directly from her:

- Dr Pepper (I am an addict straight up & remember her sharing them with me when I was a little girl at her duplex on Bowen Avenue).
- Patchwork (I will always love piecing fabrics together to make something beautiful & will never forget the sewing circles I sat through that my Gran hosted).
- Love of Plants (I helped her, year after year, in her garden & sat with her for countless hours on the back porch enjoying Dr P, birds, and flowers; I would water her plants in front of the house & she taught me to propagate houseplants).
- The Golden Girls ("thank you for being a frieeeennnd" ~ I watched it when I would sleep over at Granny's and for years in syndication, and I admit it freely... I love it).
- Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream. (She'd put it in Tupperware bowls; I liked the pink one best. I would wait for it to melt just a bit, and then cut it into pie slices with my spoon. Angel Food brand. I can't find that anymore but I have Edy's Mint Choc Chip lowfat in my freezer now.)
- Recycling. (I rinse it all out just like she did before I throw my recyclables into the bin.)
- My car (the first new car I've ever had, the bills still come in her name b.c she's the co-signer who made it possible).

I miss her. Most days I can just remember her fondly b.c there's not too much I regret. I just hate that I had to move away from her, that her life with me in it passed so quickly by. I'm kind of struggling with it, the whole death thing. I'm not a Christian-related religious person but she was and I hope she's gone where she believed she'd go, but I worry b/c I don't share her beliefs, I won't see her again. I wonder about where she went and hope she's ok. I think about how her life went in the blink of an eye and it makes me nervous and uncomfortable with how quickly my life is going by. I love being alive but I'm always carrying a fear now that my life will end soon. I worry more than I ever did because life is so fragile and complex and can be snatched away anytime. And for some reason when people I've known and loved have passed that were younger, well, I thought about the craziness of it all and about how I would keep getting older, moving forward, and they would not, and I've thought of and missed those people, but they weren't as close to me as my granny was. And I realize more than ever that every single person I know will die... and I am no exception. Sometimes it frightens me that I am only as far from death as any given moment. Sometimes I feel way more depressed about it than I should be. I'm tired of being so worrysome.

I just really also miss my grandmother. It's had me so upset that this is the first time I've tried to put it into words to read back. I hope she knows, wherever she is, that I love her for always and she's always going to be a part of me.

Blogthings

IN 1982 - The Year I Was Born: 

• Ronald Reagan is president of the US
• The space shuttle Columbia completes its first operational flight 
• Actor John Belushi is found dead of a drug overdose in a West Hollywood hotel
• Automobile manufacturer John Delorean is arrested and charged with possession of 59 pounds of cocaine
• The first artificial heart is implanted in American Barney Clark
• The Cable News Network, or CNN, is launched
• 750,000 people rally against nuclear weapons in New York City's Central Park
• Time Magazine's Man of the Year was for the first time given to a non-human, a computer
• The first computer virus, written by Rich Skrenta, escapes into the wild
• Kirsten Dunst and Elisha Cuthbert are born
• St. Louis Cardinals win the World Series
• San Francisco 49ers win Superbowl XVI
• New York Islanders win the Stanley Cup
• E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is the top grossing film
• Ozzy Osbourne bites the head off of a live bat thrown at him during a performance, later hospitalized with rabies
• "I Love Rock 'N Roll" by Joan Jett & The Blackhearts spends the most time at the top of the US charts 
• Cheers, Family Ties, Silver Spoons, and Fame premiere

Your Vocabulary: B+

 You have a zealous love for the English language, and many find your vocabulary edifying.

Don't fret that you didn't get every word right, your vocabulary can be easily ameliorated!

A Baby's Night's Sleep

   My son stayed with his granny last night at her boyf of over 10 yr's house. There was a bad storm & lightning struck the house. A bunch of damage occurred and the house could have burned down. I'm pretty freaked; that's some craziness. The outlets got such a jolt the upstairs caught on fire. All the electrical appliances except 1 t.v. were totally blown. The firemen had to pull apart parts of the house! The fire upstairs went out & they said it's amazing it went out on it's own.
My baby slept through the whole thing.