In which two consecutive nights in the bar are probably more than adequate.

I crashed on AmmZon’s couch last night. She says she’s staying home tonight and watching TV. I think that’s where I’ll be too: on AmmZon’s couch watching TV and not out getting hammered.

I’ve been drunk two nights in a row, and while anyone who tries to tell you that getting drunk doesn’t help is totally wrong, I think my liver needs a break.

I didn’t bring a charger when I threw my bag together Wednesday evening, and now my cell phone is dead. If you’re trying to call or text me and I’m ignoring you, that’s why.

In other news, I might be going to the 27th Annual World Sheep & Fiber Arts Festival this weekend with NLW.

Baa-aa-aaa-aa-ah.

“If evil were a lesser breed than justice, after all these years the righteous would have freed the world of sin. The house wins, the house always wins. You don’t have to be alone to be lonely, you might as well give in.”

– The House Wins, OK Go.

In which I’m in school and remembering school.

I’m taking a basic adjusting class this week. During yesterday’s class, I learned a single thing: the definition of the word subrogation.

You may feel that learning a single word should take far less than six hours… I know I certainly do. *bangs head on desk* In other words, this class is teaching me nothing.

Today I have not yet learned anything. I’m taking this class not because I need the training per se, but because in order to do claims for WG I have to have taken it.

The software class was much more fun because it was hands-on; one of the instructors was really sharp; and I’m a geek. In contrast, this is a lecture class… all PowerPoint slides and hand-outs and reading aloud. I feel like I’m in high school taking personal finance all over again.

Speaking of high school, my best friend from those days — and with whom I have not communicated since, oh, 1989 or so — left a comment on yesterday’s post. How freakin’ cool is that? I emailed her immediately. It’ll be neat to catch up with her.

In other news, my aunt and uncle dropped by Sunday, sat and chatted with me for a few hours, and then left again. It was lovely.

In which two people I haven’t seen in at least five years are going to drop by.

Six years ago, my grandfather was dying in the hospital. My mom called and said I needed to go out to Walla Walla and see him one last time. She offered to fly my boyfriend out, too.

So Bread and I rushed to the airport and flew to the west coast, where he was absolutely inundated with my family. They loved him. He loved them. He fit right in.

We got to see grandpa. The next night he died. The night before we left to come back to Iowa, Bread proposed.

That was the last time I saw my uncle Gale.

The following May, we got married and my aunt Kathy came to the wedding and stayed here at the house. That was the last time I saw my aunt Kathy.

This is a brief picture of my aunt Kathy:

Way back when my folks were still married, we were all at the Hall’s for some holiday. Kathy, who works with retarded and autistic people, told a joke with the word ‘retard’ in it. My dad said, “‘Developmentally disabled,’ Kathy, you can’t say ‘retarded’ any more; it’s not PC.”

She cackled and said, “Please. They are retards! They use the word ‘retard’ themselves! They know they’re retarded.”

Kathy’s way cool.

And today they’ll be dropping by! I have no idea what they’re even doing all the way out here, but it’ll be totally exciting to see some relatives! Bread’s out to lunch with his mom, but I imagine they’ll be here soonish. I’d better go tidy up. The house is a stone cold mess, but at least it can be an organized mess.

In which I can’t believe it’s still for sale.

You might be interested in knowing that

COCKONTAP.COM

is still available. Have at it!

*rofl*

In which I observe something.

Last night, I watched The Producers. It was a laff-riot. Two characters signed something during the course of the action, and so I discovered that both Will Ferrell and Matthew Broderic are left-handed.

That is all.

In which I lament the lack of good content here on the ‘box.

All I ever do anymore is bitch. Gone are my scathingly funny posts about the quirks of life in rural BFE and my amusing observations about my favorite subject, me. Remember when I used to post about tanning (“If you’re gonna be fat, you might as well be tanned!”), and my amazing manicures? Those were the days! I bet you loved me then. I know I did.

Heh. Ahem.

Well, lately nearly my entire awareness is on the negative. I’m broke, I’m bummed, my dogs have fleas, I got pulled over last night because my car’s so dirty from driving on gravel that my license plate light is totally obscured, and my cat is a full-on kitchen murderer.

[Meaning he does murder IN the kitchen, not that he does murder ON the kitchen. I’m not certain that you could kill a kitchen. They’ve got lots of sharp, blunt, and nasty implements in them and might beat you at your own game.]

The cop didn’t believe me when I said the light probably wasn’t out, but was just dirty. He took my license back to write me a fix-it ticket, and actually checked. Yes, the light’s there, it’s just that the cover is a quarter inch thick with gravel dust so the light doesn’t shine out. I got pulled over a year ago for the same reason, I explained. He bid me have a good night. Nice boy… for a cop. I mean, I guess I don’t generally mind them as individuals, but as a group they get sketchy and do shit like eat donuts and kill people.

Now, where the hell was I? Oh, yeah: I just balanced my fucking checkbook:

Hubby has the debit card and used it once too often; I forgot to cancel the damned TMobile Hotspot account so they just charged me $39.99 I don’t have; the vet clinic is going to want another ~$200 when I go to pick Stella up this afternoon; and I just realized I forgot to make the truck payment this month. Paying the truck payment, combined with whatever pittance I give the vet, will leave me with… nothing. Even though friends and family gave me $300 in the past few days.

If there was any order in the universe I’d be flush.

Oh, AND our latest cell phone bill was astro-fucking-nomical. I called Cingular, and it turns out that not only did we go crazy bad way over on our minutes, but they’d been charging all three lines for services like “roadside assistance” and “*08 voice,” none of which we ordered. The CSR removed these services from the account, but wouldn’t refund me the amount already billed.

I told BoSe, and he got all up on the phone about it with the store where we bought our phones, and now apparently I, as the account holder, have to call customer service back and request to speak with a manager and demand they give us our money back. My phone just died, though, so I have to go get the charger…

Hey now. Lest all this whining should give you the idea I’m a big fat complainer, you should know that I’m actually a card-carrying glass-is-half-full person. Really. I am. But I’ve never been this broke in my life and it’s really beginning to freak me the fuck OUT. I checked on my UI benefits an hour ago and the automated system still reports zero benefits — which means they haven’t corrected the severance pay error yet — thus no check in the mail for moi this week! Argh!

The cell phone company rep nicely agreed to credit the charges back to the account, so now we only owe… $265.03. Christ. And yes, before you suggest it, I did increase our plan to the next level to avoid this kind of utter bullshit next month. Christ! How could we all have forgotten to check our minutes?!

*bangs head on desk*

Good thing I’ve an indominitable spirit… and that my superhero power is the blessed oblivion of napping. A power I may just go indulge in right now, because one has no problems when she’s asleep.

In which I don’t know who it is!

Some sweet soul used Paypal to send me a few bucks, but I don’t know who it is. I mean, the notification has a name, of course, but it’s a real name, and apparently I only know his online name! Ack! Thank you, PF!

Oh, and my mommy said she sent me an early Christmas check. I think I’m gonna cry a little. Then I’m gonna go down to the mailbox and see what Netflix has sent me to watch!

Update: I figured out who it is. Whew!

In which some things are just a plain ol’ Pain. In. The. ASS.

Yesterday I called Iowa Workforce Development’s convenient toll-free number to file my second weekly unemployment claim. When I was done pressing 1 for yes and 9 for no, I checked on the status of my benefits payment.

And the automated system politely informed me I that had no benefits pending for the week ending August 5th.

Well, fuck me running.

Today I went into the office and talked to the nice bird-eyed lady. She was hell bent on explaining to me, in great and gory detail, the delicate inner workings of unemployment benefits. After much falsely-eager nodding and even some vehement sentence-finishing (I actually know a lot about this stuff because I used to work in the industry, thank you very much), I finally got her to say that, yes, in fact, my claim is fucked up and that what I needed was a letter from my prior employer — on company letterhead! — to unfuck it.

I jumped in the jeep and buzzed over to the Jade building on fumes and found CZ, the payroll dude. I explained that I needed a letter containing certain details on company letterhead, yada yada yada, and he kindly complied. It only took, oh, about 40 minutes for him to provide me with my three-sentence letter… and then he kept me longer interviewing me on my freelance web authoring skillset. I finally busted ass back over to job service… but the lady was gone. Of course. So I sat there and surfed the Ottumwa job listings until she got back, and triumphantly presented her with my prize.

“Yes!” she enthused, looking over my letter. “This is exactly the thing! It even has your social security number on it!” (That had been my own brainchild; she hadn’t specified it earlier.)

“Will you be able to correct my claim now, so I can start receiving benefits?” I asked.

“Oh, no,” she said. “I can’t do it here. I’ll just give this to the other guy, and he’ll fax this to Des Moines! Probably not today, though. It’s nearly four, you know.”

“Okay, but then they’ll fix my claim?”

“Oh, yes, dear. It won’t be fast, though,” she beamed. “You know how these things are!”

I had foolishly been expecting my first check this week. After all, it’s well past the 15th. It wouldn’t be much, of course, but it would be something.

Now I’ll have to make due with the pittance in my checking account. After I buy milk and cat food, I’ll probably have enough left over for three gallons of gas and maybe even a few packages of ramen!

Whoo. Hoo. Can I get a hell yeah. *rolleyes*

I’m seriously considering applying for foodstamps. Just for a week or two. I’m broke enough that they might even give me emergency benefits, which means they hand over some tickets before you even walk out the door. That would be so cool! Because then? THEN I could go irresponsibly buy a whole cartful of TV dinners, soda pop, and sugary breakfast cereals! Hah!

I was briefly on foodstamps once before. I only needed them for a couple of weeks. Getting them cancelled, though, was another ball of wax entirely. I went in to the office, I called, I even sent them a letter, but they kept sending me booklets — with a note in each one explaining that accepting assistance you didn’t qualify for was fraud and punishable by law — until my benefits ran out. I think I started giving them to my little brother because they kept coming and I couldn’t get them to stop.

Anyway, I have an interview on Monday at perfectpitch.com for a position labelled “Office Assistant/Warehouse Manager.” I was supposed to go in Wednesday morning at 10:30, but when I called for directions to the office they rescheduled me. This either means that they really need help, or that they’re woefully disorganized and it would drive me apeshit to work there. I’m afraid they’ll love me and will offer me, like, seven bucks an hour and I’ll have to agonize over refusing the position. I can refuse and still keep my benefits because that’s considerably lower than my most recently hourly wage, but with the job market the way it is? I don’t know if refusing anything at this point — even if it pays total shit — would be wise.

Compare & Contrast

I loved college. Loved it. Would be a professional student fo’ evah if I could find me a sugar daddy to foot the bill. And now, in a fit of excess free time, I’m doing a little writing exercise for our mutual edification:

• Good: None of the dogs needed to have ear surgery this week!
• Bad: All of the dogs have fleas again. So does the couch. And both of the futons. Which means I’ll be a flea powdering, laundering, vaccuuming monster tomorrow. Go, me.
• Good: AmmZon fed me dinner twice this week, Monday and Thursday, bless her tall blonde heart. The first night, she grated zucchinni and sauteed it in garlic and butter, and served a bed of it topped with a medley of perfectly seasoned stir fried veggies! OMFG, people, seriously. And the salad she served with this amazing entree was a mouth-watering cucumber/tomato thing with vinegrette and feta. The meal was amazingly good and fresh and delicious and filling, and she’d actually grown half of the produce her very own self.
• Bad: As I drove to her place for dinner that first night, however, I passed a cat that had just been hit by a car and which obviously had a broken spine. There was a woman crouched next to it, crooning while it thrashed in an attempt to walk. As I inched past, I said, “Did someone hit it?” “Yeah,” she replied, “and they just drove off!” “Damn, that’s awful,” I said, and continued past. I hope she got help with it. That scene bugged me for hours.
• Good: A friend has a little accounting-oriented side project he wants to pay me $15 an hour to handle for him. It sounds like an only mildly tedious piece of cake.
• Bad: I’ve called him twice to hook up with him, but he hasn’t gotten the paperwork together yet.
• Good: I’ve been getting a lot of sleep lately.
• Bad: I’ve somehow gotten on to this weird split-shift schedule, where I do half my sleeping in the middle of the night, and the other half during the middle of the day.

If I were truly clever, I’d’ve written little mini essays, but I’m not so I didn’t.

In other news, my aunt and uncle will be stopping by on Sunday the 27th. My aunt’s been here before because she came to our wedding, but my uncle’s never been here. I haven’t seen her in five years; him in six. It’ll be cool to catch up on all the family news — this aunt is the geneologist so she’s always got interesting stories. Sadly, the farm looks pretty poorly because it hasn’t been mowed in months and this is Iowa so it’s about four feet deep in weeds and locusts. Maybe I’ll grow some farmer balls next week and figure the tractor out. I mean, I once did my own valve lash adjustment, so how hard can it be to drive a tractor? They only go six miles an hour!

Except I don’t know how to make the mower thing work. I’m guessing there’s some PTO-type situation involved there. Plus: gas. I can barely keep gas in my jeep. Well, we’ll see.

Oh, and It’s Coming. The curse. The courses. The stuck-pig bleed-a-thon. The week of evil. And my fucking boobs hurt like hell.

And finally, as a reward for reading this inane dribble, a dumb joke:

Q. What did the gay midget insurance adjuster {insert any occupation here} do?
A. He came out of the cupboard.

In which there’s breakfast.

Bread tried to wake me up at the asscrack of dawn today, because he’s a morning person. *shudder* I ignored him and slept ’til 11:30 like any self-respecting and hung-over night person.

When I got up, he and BoSe had gone to Kroeger’s and Bread was cooking. I had a cup of coffee, a cheese & tomato omelet, hash browns, veggie sausage, and rye toast handed to me the very moment I emerged from the bedroom! And if all that weren’t enough, there was cheese danish too.

Last night we went to Broad Ripple and had dinner at the Broad Ripple Brew Pub. I had mediocre falafel with chips, and a sublime raspberry mead. We had appetizers and salads. Bread had a gorgonzola-stuffed steak with fried jalapenos, mashed potatoes, and vegetables. SF had the shepherd’s pie, and BoSe had the pork medallions. It was delicious and fun, and I ate more at that one meal than I’ve eaten all day for the past couple of weeks. (I’ve been eating like a girl since Bread’s been gone, and probably lost five pounds or so by now.) My stomach hurt for about three hours after we left the restaurant. Soo. Damn. Full.

After eating, we walked around the neighborhood. It was packed and very New York-like. The Midwest Music Summit was going on, too, and there were bands everywhere — in every bar, club, and parking lot. (It’s so hard to build a band with that certain something. I didn’t hear anything that made me think, “Oh, there’s a comer!” or “that’s a unique sound!” It’s really hard to build That Sound, but it’s pretty easy to be in a band that sounds like everything else you’ve ever heard.)

Anyway, we ran into a couple of guys we knew from the previous roofing company and stepped into a bar for a few rounds, then rolled back to the apartment around midnight. I kept Bread up until past three talking his fucking head off about what I want and need to save our marriage.

Speaking of the apartment, I just did the dishes (because I’m a guest and someone else cooked and that’s what you do).

Three observations:

1. I love a small kitchen because you can clean the fuck out of one in minutes.
2. I love dishwashers!
3. I love garbage disposals!

At home I have a giant kitchen with no dishwasher and no garbage disposal. It’s got WAY MORE COUNTER SPACE, of course, but damn I miss those modern conveniences. I haven’t had a dishwasher or a garbage disposal in at least eight years. They’re so fucking HANDY!

SF is off having his meeting/s, and wants to roll back to Iowa tonight. I’ll probably get home around midnight-thirty. Such a whirlwind tour!

In which I suddenly take off.

Bread called yesterday, said, “SF’s driving out this weekend. You could catch a ride with him if you wanted.”

So I did. I parked the jeep in front of BoSe’s house at ten this morning, collected his wireless router, jumped in SF’s Mercedes, and we sped on over to Indy. Now I’ve just configured BoSe’s router so both guys can be on the Internet at the same time, and am blogging. Of course.

SF’s has a meeting tonight, and is driving back to Fairfield tomorrow. Bread’s mom is doing dog food duty tonight and tomorrow morning. Crazy, eh? I hope we eat something delicious somewhere tonight.

Bread & BoSe’s apartment is fully furnished (there are even framed pictures of children above the kitchen sink, and dishes, and linens) and smells exactly like a hotel.