Bet You Weren't Expecting Me...

Miss me?  Damn right, you did!

In my hiatus, I have:

• ·         survived my husband’s deployment (I use the term “survived” EXTREMELY liberal, of course.)
• ·         gotten a full time job at a home improvement establishment (currently, I am slinging appliances.)
• ·         stepped down as leader of my daughter’s Girl Scout troop (my baby girl is growing up, *sniffle*.)
• ·         and also, managed to forgive a few people who didn’t deserve my forgiveness (however, I deserved the freedom from the hate stewing inside of me.)

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Now that I got you all caught up, we can proceed to my regularly scheduled shenanigans…

Oh, how I miss the days I was a lady of leisure.  Recently, I was sick with strep throat and remembered (between my fevered bouts of delirium) how much I missed being home.  Today was my first day back to work in nearly a week.  While I enjoy the people I work with and the work that I do, I sometimes want to tell the general public to suck an egg.

Anyone out there that has ever worked with the public, especially in retail, knows EXACTLY what I mean.  Some people can be so awful.  You are probably thinking I am referring to those folks that yell and scream.  While I consider those people to be rather difficult, the breed of customer I loathe the most would have to be the ones who have no regard for a retail worker as a human being…mainly the ones that talk over you.  I HATE that!

Last week, this middle age couple came in.  I hereby dub them Mr. & Mrs. Magoo.  I greeted them like I would any customer and asked if I could help them.  They said they had some questions about a particular dishwasher.  

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Mr. Magoo asked questions about every single possible detail of the appliance.  “Ummm, yeah…are the screws that bolt the handle galvanized stainless steel?  Who invented the first dishwasher?  What is your mother’s maiden name???”  Of course, I knew the answers (and even if I didn’t I can sure as hell make it sound like I do, *wink wink*).  So I proceed to answer and as I get a few words into my response to Mr. Magoo’s extensive shake-down, the ever so lovely Mrs.Magoo interrupts me to ask me her own questions WHICH SHE ALSO ANSWERS!!!  Oh, I’m sorry, Mrs. Magoo, would you like me to go away so you can sell your own appliance to yourself.  Shit people!  Why didn’t you just order it online??

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It’s no secret that I attract crazy people.  I don’t know if I make them feel at ease or maybe they are just attracted to their own kind.  I can deal with crazy.  I find it entertaining but, rude is beyond my scope of tolerance. 

Today, I had the pleasure of dealing with this woman who needed help with a washer.  For the life of me, I cannot understand why someone would ask you a question and then try to convince you that you are wrong.  Standing in front of two washers, she asks me which one has a larger capacity.  I show her which one is bigger (seriously, by .1 cubic foot) and she proceeds to disagree with me.  She says, “Look in here.  This one is bigger.”  I try to contain my annoyance and try to explain to her that it is not even a cubic foot difference.  She continues to insist that I look inside the tub.  At this point, I felt that I needed to humor her in order to move along in the sale so I agree that it looks larger by telling her that that the tub is wider but more shallow.  It seemed logical.

Dealing with her was the least of the problem.  Shortly after, her friend walked up. 

Guys, her friend knew everything about everything!  In hindsight, I should have asked for the secret to universe.  I’m serious!  Anything that the customer would ask me, the friend would chime in with her own two cents.  Once again, I hate to be interrupted but, more so, I hate to be interrupted with inaccurate information.  I just don’t have the patience to deal with the Kanyes of the world today or anyday for that matter.

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This rambling is done for now.  When you are out and about consuming and contributing to the economy, please remember that the guy mixing your paint, the girl behind the cash register, the lady taking your order, and the man working the customer service desk are fucking human beings.  Treat them as such.  If you can’t go into an establishment and show basic common courtesy, do us a favor and stay home and order your shit online.

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You Know It's Time To Blog When...

Do you know how long it has been since I posted here?  Try all summer long.  I know many of you are blaming my children and have probably plotted having them kidnapped.  Believe me it wasn't just having them home for the summer that made blogging difficult.  I have taking on a mission to keep myself busy during my husband's absence.  Here are a few things that I did and/or currently doing:

• I located a house I liked and got my husband's stamp of approval via email.  With my power of attorney in hand, I closed on the house.  So, now when I fill out surveys I get to check "own home" instead of "rent".  That's bad ass! 

• The kids are doing all sorts of activities in addition to scouts.  The boy is enrolled in both gymnastics and kung fu.  His dream of being a professional wrestler is at his fingertips.  My girl child is doing gymnastics and we are getting ready to sign her up for horseback riding as well.

• I have joined a gym.  It is time to get my fat ass moving.  My husband is out there getting his desert sexy on, making me look bad.  We can't have that now, can we?

This is just scratching the surface.  I have learned from previous deployments that too much downtime leads to depression.  I have decided instead to keep busy and just embrace my anxiety.

The house alone is keeping me busy.  Since we have moved out to the country, I can read my zombie books in peace knowing that the country folks usually live longer for the simple fact that there are less people to turn into zombies.  See?  Living 30 minutes from the nearest Wal-Mart is a good thing.  Now if we have an outbreak of zombie cows, I'm screwed.

Deviant Art

In the meantime, I'm trying to get into a groove of blogging again and I'm sure I will attain one soon.  After all, the children are back in school but I had to spend the first weeks running around the house naked waving my freedom flag.  It was glorious.

Don't worry though.  I will be back again soon.  I knew it was time to blog again when I started dreaming about it.  Of course, in my dream my ramblings were much more entertaining...and I was skinnier.

Crazy Lazy...Or Just Crazy

To say I’ve been lazy would be an unfair statement. Yes, I’ve been neglecting my blog but I’ve had good reason. Apparently, the school board over planned their extreme weather days for this school year so there are days left over. Instead of letting the kids out of school a few days early they have decided to give them shorter weeks and longer weekends until summer vacation starts. That means that my normal Friday morning posting is interrupted by having to, you know, do parenting stuff.

All and all, May has just been crazy so far and it isn’t over yet that’s for sure. School and scouting are both coming to a close for summer. My daughter has had her weekends jam packed with things to do for scouting. Her troop has been spending their cookie earnings on all sort of different activities for the girls. They were able to go to Nations of Fun which is this Chuck E. Cheese’s sort of place. While the kids played, I ran around snapping pictures as usual.

Later, one mother was telling me about the problem the place used to have with pedophiles. I was like, “Oh great! You tell me this now! I was chasing kids up in the climby-thing with my camera. No wonder I was getting dirty looks.” Of course, it may have to do with the fact that I’m white and the place is run by the Comanche Nation.

Who can really know?

Another place we went was to Build-A-Bear Workshop. I had never been there before and I wish I could have stayed away. Imagine if you will a small store in a mall filled with at least twenty little girls between the ages of 3 and 12…squealing, giggling, whining. My anxiety was on red alert! Visions of Xanax and beer danced in my head.

The concept of the store is clever. You personalize your own little stuffed animal for a retarded amount of money. I wish I’d have come up with that ingenious idea. Each girl received a $50 gift card to spend, compliments of the cookie money profit. My daughter picked out a gray cat. She wanted a black one which she was going to name Darth Vader but since they didn’t have black she got a gray one and named it Elizabeth after her Aunt Liz. I swear one extreme to the next.

The toy was $16 all by itself. That price included the stuffing, a heart to go inside, and a birth certificate. However, the store is filled to the rafters with clothing and accessories for your furry friends.

You could choose to have your “friend” say something. For instance if she wanted hers to purr, there were small sound pouches you would slide into the toy before it was stuffed and when it was squeezed it would make the desired sound. OF course, there was a hefty $10 charge on that. You could also get a beating heart instead of the one that came with the toy…another $5. I managed to talk her out of these by telling her that she wouldn’t have enough money to get the clothes and accessories she wanted. It didn’t take much prodding at all.

Next we moved on to the clothes and such. She ended with this sparkly cotton candy-ish dress, complete with shoes, a crown, and even a septor. After she dressed her toy and ripped off the price tags, she found a Darth Vader costume! She didn’t have enough for it. I must have asked her at least five times, “Are you sure you don’t want to look around the whole store first before you make up your mind?” She decided that since she had already decided to name it Elizabeth she had to dress it like her REAL Aunt Liz.

Then she informed me that we would just have to come back another time so she could create Darth Vader. Oh…of course. Lucky me!

The troop also paid for the girls to attend the science museum in Oklahoma City.

We had gone when my parents visited so I didn’t feel too bad when we left a little early. My son was staying over at a friend’s house and I didn’t want him to outstay his welcome. So we dipped out around 3:30pm. The drive back is like an hour and thirty minutes.

My daughter also received all of her patches she earned for this year. I’m going to have to consider getting her a vest. Her sash cannot hold all of the patches she managed to snag this year.

The girl scouts hooked my son up as well. As a thank you for all of the hard work he did during the cookie sales, they gave him $20 AND a $30 Wal-Mart gift card. I told him next year; maybe he won’t bitch as much.

To reward my daughter and the other western Oklahoma Girl Scouts who sold 600+ boxes of cookies, we were invited to go to a local camp for a day of fun.  Yours truly actually acquired a tan.  That's right!  I am no longer pasty white, of course, you don't want to see my ass but at least my legs aren't glowing anymore.

The kids were able to go on a scavenger hunt throught the camp.  The camp pool sprung a leak a few days before so we weren't able to go swimming.  There was a massive lake but the kids were only able to wade about knee deep in it...better than nothing, I guess.

I managed to snag some good nature shots while we were out there too.

Everything hasn't revolved around Girl Scouts.  The kids' school held their annual carnival which happened to be the same day as the girl child's girl scout awards.  I allowed the boy to go with a friend and I'd meet him there.  Upon arriving, I discovered that he was the lucky recipent of a two liter of freaking Mountain Dew. 

I gave him a WTF look and his response was simple, "But I already opened it!" 

How convient!

My daughter played a few games...then she spotted...the...horses.  That was it.  We spent the rest of the carnival riding the My Little Ponies over and over again.

Later that night, I allowed my son's buddy to stay over.  Throughout the night, I found my sleep being interupted by loud video games and such to which I would scream from my bedroom, "GO TO BED!"  In the morning, I found the ENTIRE bottle of Dew was gone!  I'm sure the boys had pinwheels in their eyes for most of the night.

Still to come in a later post…the boy’s crossover ceremony from cub scouts to boy scouts, his promotion ceremony from elementary school to middle school, the last day of school, the beginning of the summer, AND most importantly the rapture…yes, the rapture.  Don't worry.  My little agnostic slice of a blog will still be here on Sunday.  I'll be preparing for the zombie apocalyspe.  I made sure to call my hypo-Christian mother to tell her goodbye.  I've got to get my ducks in a row.

So you read it here first…all of my bullshit excuses for neglecting my blog.  However, lucky for me Scott still loves me and I'm off now to read his zombie post, followed by a pity party for being left out of this.

Oh and just in case Doug wants to be a smart ass again and has any snarky comments about forgetting to post my bowel movements...here you go...

Fantastic Friday Five #11

It’s Friday! Friday! And just so we are clear, Saturday, Saturday is tomorrow and Sunday comes after. Days of the week provided to you by Rebecca Black. “We so excited!” Here’s another Fantastic Friday Five to celebrate this glorious day.

1.) It is official! Both kids are registered for their choice of summer camp. The girl will be attending Girl Scout camp for a week and the boy will be off to NASA’s Space Camp. He’s wanted to go ever since we visited back in October when we took the infamous bus excursion.

2.) Today I attended an assembly at the children’s school. The school earned the Great Expectations Model School Award. I found out that not only are they one of 70 schools in the nation that received this award but this is also the fifth year in a row that they have been presented with it. Oklahoma state representative, Ann Coody, attended to congratulate the students, teachers, and staff.

Hooray for educational funding!!

3.) I got a text this morning from my husband letting me know he is thinking about quitting his job and coming back home. Apparently, they think he’s Superman. I had to remind him that he is.

What seems to be happening is that in his awesomeness, he has showed his higher ups that he is capable of doing the job of three people. So, as most companies would have it they would love for you to do the work of three and be paid for one. He said at every other FOB there are three guys doing what he’s doing. I’m feeling mixed about the thought of him coming home so soon. On one hand I want him to be happy and I’d love for him to be home with us again. On the other hand though, the thought of him coming back to no job scares the hell out of me. I’ve been so focused on paying off debt that I haven’t set anything aside. We do have his 401K to fall back on but it will only last a few months at the most. Deeeeeep breaths…or Xanax…maybe both.

4.) I discovered this week that I SUCK at making meatloaf. Every single time I attempt it I fuck it up. Awhile back when I made it, the meat was still raw in the inside. Yuck! This time I added either too much liquid or not enough bread crumbs and it came out looking like something you’d dump out of a dog food can…just with chopped bell peppers in it.   I tried to fool my kids into thinking it was something good by pairing it with loaded baked potatoes and seasoned broccoli but there was no fooling them.

I suppose we are all entitled to a screw up from time to time. It’s just that cooking is a necessary hobby and I pride myself on getting it right. For things I don’t suck at making, look here.

5.) Knock, knock. Who’s there?

Why, it’s another Jehovah’s Witness at my door to give me this.

Apparently, these people have the answers to our most pressing question AND it’s free. Oh happy day! I wonder if it is BYOB or if there is an open bar. Can anyone explain to me what the picto-diagram of the statue on the reverse side even means?

Or do I need to attend the super FREE convention to find out the mystery??

Happy Mother’s Day to all you mamas out there reading.

To you menfolk, please don’t forget to wish the mamas in your life a super mother’s day as well. Remember it’s the thought that counts…that is, unless your wife is an evil bitch. In that case, you better either file for divorce or buy her something shiny. Depending on the extent of her evilness, a blood sacrifice may be in order as well. I hope you can find a virgin.