9/28/02 - 9/28/07 Five years of heaven - and counting

Let me not to the marriage of true mind admit impediments

Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove

O, no! It is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken

It is the star to every wandering bark
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
within his bending sickle's compass come

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom

If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

***

Shakespeare, Sonnet CXVI

One more, for the Joan

This one's for Joan, of Walk This Way, who professes a yearning for men with really deep singing voices. This particular song really showcases Steele's bass-er qualities (I just love to sink my teeth into a good pun!).

A note for all you bad little ghouls...

It's autumn again, my favorite season of all. And with the pumpkins, dead leaves, and full moon nights comes that yearning for the deep, dark, sensuous sounds of my all-time favorite band, Type O Negative. This video is of the first song I ever heard by them, and I was hooked.



And now for the song Peter Steele wrote about me... To protect the guilty, he titled it "Black No. 1" - after the hair dye of the same name. Heh heh heh...



If, like me, you just can't get enough of these goth gods, take a little psychedelic trip down the to the tongue-in-cheek-a-go-go that is "My Girlfriend's Girlfriend"! I suppose there's no pun intended, but in order to copy and pasted these vids, you have to click next to the word "embed"......

A Homecoming

I am very excited, because yesterday our Big Red Sofa came back from its extended hospital stay... and it's SO much better now!

Bear and I have been sitting in these for nearly two months...



... but even with the old couch cushions stuffed on top for some sort of comfort factor, the side bar thingies cut into the thighs a bit, and the worst part was not being able to snuggle up against each other while watching movies.

But yesterday, all that came to a screeching halt. First, the reupholsterer came to our house with our darling in the back of his extremely l-o-o-o-o-o-ng SUV.



Then, Bear and the "artiste du reupholsterie" had to negotiate the Wicked Climbing Roses and the Doorway of Dangerous Narrowness in order to get the sofa inside without damaging the new fabric.



I told them they'd have to upend it and put it through/around the doorframe with the back of the sofa leading the way, which of course meant that they tried to do it legs-first, had to stop and pull it back out, and do it the way I said before the sofa would fit. *SIGH*.... men!

The upholstery guy really did a bang-up job on this sofa, let me tell you. He took lots of extra pains with the details, including shining up the brass claw feet, and sanding and refinishing the woodwork...



And where there used to be just one roll, or "bead" of cloth at the point of joining to the wood, now there are two. Not only prettier, but stronger as well!



And finally, the sofa was installed, and the lovely brand-new custom made down-filled cushion was added, and the throw pillows, and.... VOILA!!!



I am inordinately pleased, and doing the happy dance every time I enter the living room. Which is as it should be, considering that I just emptied the bank account to pay for it.

***NOTE: I have been charged to make a correction to the above-stated. My husband did, in fact, mention to the upholstery dude that it should go in the way I suggested, and upholstery dude did not listen. I hereby amend this document to so reflect the change. Amen.

Have you ever?

HAVE YOU EVER FELT
BOXED-IN?

HAVE YOU EVER JUST NEEDED
SOMEONE IN YOUR CORNER?

MAYBE THAT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE
JUST A BIG BABY!

TO SEE MORE OF THIS ARTISTIC IN-FREAKIN-SANITY,
JUST GOOGLE "RON MUECK" OR
CLICK THIS LINK.

Going to the dogs

Well, I thought I made it clear when my new tenants moved in that dogs were not allowed in the apartment. So when I heard a yapping sound coming from the first floor apartment a few months ago, I was sure I was dreaming it. Then, upon returning home from work, I saw one of the tenants walking a small dog in the front yard. Upon inquiry, I was told it was her "mother's dog, only staying here for a few days." I said that was fine, but I would appreciate being asked or at least notified before a dog was brought into the apartment.

And all was well.

Until the other night, just after midnight. I was woken from a sound sleep by the sound of a small dog yapping. The sound didn't seem to be coming from very far away - it seemed to be coming from the front house. Luckily, the barkfest was brief and I dropped back off to sleep.

Then, today, as I was watering the mums in the planters in the front yard, I heard the yapping again - from the side of the house this time. I walked toward the noise, and there, spread out on the windowsill of one of the ground floor bedrooms, was one of these:



Cute, yes. But still a dog, for all that. In the apartment. With not a tenant to be seen. No tenant vehicles were parked outside the house, so I am assuming the wee critter was left to his own devices. My new boss has one of these things traipsing around the office, and it regularly uses the carpet as a litter box.

So now I am faced with a decision. I can either bite the bullet, say nothing, and keep collecting those rent checks. If the carpet is stained with dog pee when they leave, they don't get their deposit back. OR, I can bring up the no dog rule yet again.

Thing is, they haven't listened to me yet, so why would they start now? I suppose what really cheeses me off is that I'm just being summarily ignored, and they're going on doing whatever they want no matter what rules I've laid out for my own damn house.

I wish I'd have had a spray gun of indelible dye on hand this afternoon. I'd have spray-painted that dog green through the window screen, and let them come complaining. Couldn't have happened, I'd say, since I don't allow dogs in the apartment!

Stuff like this really chaps my ass.

Flowerz Be IN DA HOUSE!

Reunited, and it feels so good

I am SO excited!

When my mom was up for a visit last week, she mentioned a long-lost love of hers from Italy. She had met him through a pen-pal service, and they had written to each other and fallen in love. This man could have been my father - or father of half of me, or however that genetic crap works... you get my drift. He asked my mom to marry him. She wanted to say yes, but in order to marry him, she had to convert to Catholicism. She tried - she took the catechism. But it didn't take. She just wasn't able to convert with a clear conscience. Apparently, his family would completely have freaked if he left the Catholic church to marry my mom, so they decided to call off the romance, but remain friends.

As it turns out, my mom married my dad, and her Italian huomo married someone else. However. They kept in touch and, in a bizarre twist, my mom and dad went to Italy and the four of them toured the mountains of Italy and Switzerland together! Not only that, my mom was five months pregnant with me at the time - so I was in on this little journey of the heart. I don't remember much. The view was pretty crappy.

Well, after the trip was over, my folks came back to the good old US of A, and settled down. My mom kept in touch with her old beau over the years through infrequent letters, and the last thing she heard from him was that he was going to the Middle East on some super secret business. She never heard from him again. She was afraid that he had been deep-sixed, especially after she contacted his older brother, who answered all the questions she had about the family - except what had happened to his brother. After a while, she gave up and quit trying.

Being the romantic at heart that I am, and having the bloodhound instinct to boot, I started in earnest to try and find this guy. And, today - SUCCESS!!!!!

I had been using his name and the names of his family to try and locate information - however, their surname in Italy was the equivalent of "Smith" here in the states. It just wasn't getting me anywhere.

I finally decided to attack from a different perspective. I took the name of the small town in which my mother had said he had built a house. I went to the main website of the town, which gave the city hall information, and off to the side was a White Pages search bar. I thought - why not? I put in his name, and came up with bupkus.

And then - I typed in his wife's name, and one listing was found. Not only did it list her married name, but it also listed her maiden name, and it matched the name my mother had told me! Miracle of miracles, it not only showed a street address (with maps!) but it also had an email address link. I clicked the link, and the email address that came up was his name at whatever dot whatever! BINGO!!!

I was so excited, I quickly wrote down all the information from the website, then I made screen captures of the site and the maps. Then I called my mom. She nearly squealed - I think she would have, except that she had company over, and it would have been weird.

She said, "He has just been on my mind for the past couple of weeks so strongly. And tomorrow is his birthday!"

How cool is that? Long lost friends, and she finds him in time to say "Happy Birthday! Why the hell haven't I heard from you in almost forty years, you bastard?"

Isn't it romantic?

Whew!

Well, three days in the new job, and it's Friday already! To tell the truth, it's kind of a relief. I'm glad that my first week at this place wasn't a full week. It's very "brain intensive", and the fact that every single thing about it is completely new to me (they even use different copiers and scanners than I'm used to) makes it doubly so.

Things I noticed today:

• One of my co-workers only has a left hand - the right is a thalidomide claw. I found it hard to believe that I didn't see this until today, and I am glad I just said hello to him instead of extending my hand for a shake. Not that it bothers me in the slightest, but it would have made him very self-conscious.
• One of my other co-workers (female) is missing a big patch of hair. Dunno what that's about. The rest of her hair is shoulder length, and the patch missing is right on the top of her head.
  
  
• One of my OTHER co-workers (male) stutters. I'm beginning to wonder why they hired me. Maybe because I'm fat? But they've already got that covered, because...
  
  
• One of my supervisors (female) is extremely overweight, in that way that only young people can be fat. It hasn't sagged with age yet, so it sticks straight out in huge round swells. She insists on wearing heeled pumps, but the shoe-heels have swayed inward and look like they're about to mutiny altogether. I can always tell when she's coming through the office, because the partitions shake. She has small boobs, but the huge roll of fat on her stomach props them up so that they stick straight out. The drawback there is that her belly sticks out farther than her boobs do.
  
  
• The veep (female) has a dog that stays in the office all day. And shits and pees on the floor. And no one (including the boss) finds this in any way unusual or inappropriate. The veep is single and told me today that she never intends to get married. Which makes me wonder about her relationship with the boss, who treats the dog like a family pet.
  
  
• The boss told me that the cleaning guy couldn't come to work today because he has a bad back and couldn't walk - but that he (the cleaning guy) has a heart of gold, and is a really good person. Which makes me wonder if he only hires people that he feels are maimed in some way... which brings me back to the question of my being hired...

I also saved my supervisor's considerable ass today. She was ripping through the completion of a file, and sent two emails full of confidential reporting information to the wrong client. Luckily, I happened to notice and I told her in time to "recall" the emails (I've never worked in an office that had THAT capability before) - and saved the day.

***

On a completely different topic, Bear and I are looking forward to our fifth wedding anniversary at the end of this month! Tempus fugit. We've been collectively headbanging, trying to figure out something celebratory to do that's more meaningful than spending a plethora of greenbackery on stuff to pour down our gullets and crap out later. Going to dinner - it's just so overdone. I'd like to do something that we can enjoy for a long time, something that will remind us of this anniversary.

My ideas so far:

• Get tattoos (of course, this brings with it the huge task of deciding what to get, finding a good artist, and etc.)
• Get new front doors put on the house. The current ones are practically falling off the hinges.

Well, that's it. I've run dry. If any of you Dear Readers have any suggestions for Marcheline (who, I might add, has been so generous and forthcoming with her Helpful Household Hints in posts past.... ahem...), please feel free to suggest them in the comments section!

Gracias.

Angie fix #47A

Day One

Boy, it sure is a relief to have gainful employment once again! I can finally breathe easy. The best part about today was getting the employee handbook and finding that they are enough of a "real company" to not only give us the standard holidays off, but we even get the Friday after Thanksgiving - a four day weekend! Pretty decent, if I do say so.

The benefits are pretty cool, and the job is "heavy" - they have drug testing and fingerprinting, background checks, the works. I did notice, though, as I was introduced around the office, that not one of the work cubicles had a single family photo up on the walls. Not one vacation souvenir. Not one postcard from the edge. Nada. Zip. Zero. Zilch.

After I'd been there for a few hours and the other office staff had settled into their workday, I asked the IT guy about the lack of cubicle personalization. Was it an office rule? He looked at me flatly and said, "Nah - nobody stays here that long." Hmmmm. Wonder what that's about?

I spent most of the afternoon training with the senior admin person, and she pretty much threw as much at me as I could take. I actually got one report written! This is a very detail-oriented job, and I can tell it's going to take all of my brain cells to keep on top of things. Plus, every single phone call has to be logged (whether it's picked up by the recipient or not) and every single detail of every single piece of mail (whether incoming or outgoing) has to be logged as well. Including tracking numbers and case file numbers and the maiden name of the UPS carrier's grandmother. Very, very detailed, these log books.

It was really lovely to have an entire hour off for lunch, especially since the day was sunny and bright and breezy, and the office is very close to several lunch-friendly locations. I had purchased and eaten my lunch, read my employee handbook, and I looked at the clock. Fifteen minutes had gone by. I had a whole 3/4 of an hour to fritter away! I think I'll be bringing a book to work from now on.

In other news, my mom tried to go home yesterday. I took her to the airport, which is, thank the gods, only fifteen minutes or so from my house. The thunderstorms started, and she called me back to come and pick her up, as her flight had been cancelled and there was no chance of her getting home that day. She'd been here since Saturday morning, and we had a really nice visit. One day we went up to Setauket and the Oldfield Lighthouse. The next we went to the Bayard Cutting Arboretum. The weekend was lovely and sunny, and we made the most of it. Monday was overcast, so we went and had lunch with one of her old friends from Long Island. It was fun.

The first night she was here, I introduced her to the wonderful British television series, "As Time Goes By" series, starring Judi Dench. She LOVED it, and so we watched about twenty episodes while she was here. Every evening after whatever the day's adventures brought, we'd settle down in front of the TV and watch four or five episodes in a row. I wanted to give her the rest of the series to take home with her, but she said she had more fun watching it with me than she would at home, so we have plans to finish them up on her next visit. My mom's cool like that.

Bear dropped her off at the airport again this morning, and the poor thing is still stuck in Philadelphia as far as I know... trying to get home to NC! I hope she makes it home tonight. Flying standby can be such a bitch these days - all the flights are oversold, and once one flight is cancelled or late, all the overflow passengers take up whatever empty seats there might have been! It's very exhausting. If I were she, I might just buy a ticket on JetBlue next time...

While Mom was here, I got the predicted phone call telling me my lawnmower was ready, and so I picked it up. It promptly started to rain, so I wasn't able to give it a try-out until this evening when I got home from work. That makes about two weeks' worth of overgrowth just lurking in wait of the freshly sharpened blades. The grass was so long, I had to set the mower up high and stop every five minutes to empty the dang catch-bag. Got it done, though - yee hah!

Well, that's enough excitement for today, I think I'll go and see if I can reach poor Mom on her cell phone.

I was never one to let the grass grow...

So my mom is coming for a visit tomorrow morning. The lawn is eight feet high, the mower is still in for repair.

I stopped by the shop today to find out when it might be ready. The crochety old guy who runs the place had the answer.

"When your phone rings, that'll be us telling you it's ready. Until then, it's not."

Thanks, Gramps. Glad you cleared that one up.

The Artist Formerly Known as "Unemployed"

Okay, so, like, I was on the phone with my sister, and I heard a "bleep bleep" sound, and even though I've never used "call waiting" in my life, because it's basically the rudest invention that ever came down the pike - unless someone has a sick child, is a local drug dealer, or, say, trying to get a job... I thought hey, why not?



I told sis to hang ten, and I hit the send button, and there, on the other line, was the nice lady that I interviewed with yesterday telling me that I HAVE A JOB!!!! Wait, no, she didn't even say it like that. She said, "We'd be thrilled to have you." Thrilled! To have me! Next week!




The job is one that, surprisingly, I haven't done before. It involves lots of things that I love to do - writing, investigating, doing internet research, and stuff like that. They also agreed to pay me my starting salary requirement without batting an eye, which makes me think I should have asked for more - ha!




I suddenly feel ten pounds lighter. And I know that between now and next Wednesday, I will really enjoy my "time off", since it's time off to be followed by income-producing work, rather than time off followed by more time off, followed by poverty and endless meals of ramen noodles.

Whee! I'm employed!!!