Category Archives: Play

Perhaps I'm Still A City Girl

Travel, Work

In which it takes money to make money, and I’m loving not living in the country.

We’ve been here for eleven days now.

We’ve got a gas grill set up, and bought speakers for the laptop so we could enjoy tunes in our room. (The built-in speakers were like listening to iTunes through a telephone handset.) There’s food in the fridge, and we’ve even been to the laundromat.

We’ve been to OfficeMax and Office Depot more times than I can count. We’ve purchased reams of paper and cardstock, pre-scored business card stock, Sharpies, highlighters, notepads, files and hanging file folders, and more. We’ve got a plastic file bin with actual files in it. We’ve got two printers, one color inkjet and the other a B&W toner jobbie, that print, scan, copy, and fax. We’ve got two laptops, mapping software with a GPS receiver, and half a gallon of margaritas in the fridge.

We’ve got an entire little office set up in this hotel room. I am not shitting you. It’s totally legit.

In the Hand of the InevitableLast night Truck and Bowling Jesus came over to our room, and all the guys grilled bratwurst, zucchini with butter, baked beans, and sauerkraut. (As the token vegetarian, I nuked some soup and had a few potato chips.) I put on JTQ‘s In The Hand Of The Inevitable and boogied around. Such a smokin’ album. [Thanks, Jay-rob Jethro! I love this fuckin’ album, bro!] People were eating, drinking, talking, the tunes were smokin’, the weather had cooled off and a storm was rolling in, and I felt great. Happy. Comfortable. This is my scene, man, groovy folk hanging out and talking, food, tunes… At some point I realized that I actually like living here better than I like living in my real life.

It’s a lot like dorm life because people are always popping in and out, and because the space is small and requires one to be extremely tidy and organized. Also, we don’t have that much stuff with us; a week’s worth of clothes, the office equipment, and a few toys like my guitar and the laptop speakers and the gas grill. It’s so clean, pared down, simple. Light.

To compare and contrast, at home people rarely if ever pop in because we’re 13 miles away from town. We don’t own a stereo. (Actually, we do, but Bread plays the TV through it. There’s no antenna on the receiver, and our CD changer died years ago, and I never did buy a cable to connect an iPod to it. Due to the house’s layout you can’t really hear it unless you’re in the living room with it anyway.) The place is huge, which means it’s been filling up with shit since we moved in and it’s not tidy and organized and it’s not clean. And it’s under construction. And it’s out in the country, so my toenails always have dirt under them. (My feet are clean right now, people! Clean. I’m barefoot as always, but it’s all manicured grass lawns and pavement and sidewalk, not actual dirt I’ve been walking on.)

I now realize that I prefer having a small area to manage. Turns out I am still an incredibly organized, tidy person — I just don’t know how to manage more than a thousand square feet. I don’t like accumulating a bunch of shit; I prefer a small amount of functional and/or meaningful stuff to an assload of crap I don’t really care about but which causes me vague anxiety when I realize I don’t even know where most of it is, let alone what it is. (My dad’s been sending me “family” stuff and I haven’t even opened the boxes. They’re stored in a closet somewhere.) I like living in a highly social situation that I need to occasionally escape from instead of an isolated situation that lets me mope and dwell easily.

I’m in total denial, of course, about shit like the overcrowding and pollution and rush hour traffic because I hardly ever leave the hotel. 😉

The Worst Mexican Food Ever

Travel

In which it was just awful!

After a day of popping ibuprofen, sleeping, and listening to my iPod, I got the guys to take me out to dinner. We went to ‘downtown’ Greenwood and chose a Mexican restaurant.

It looked good from the outside, with white stucco and a big gaudy neon sign, but all the staff were gringo. The salsa was… acceptable. The food itself, however, was so mediocre that I can’t even really describe it. They didn’t even use Mexican cheese; it was finely shredded cheddar like Taco Bell uses. The beans were thick and tasteless, the rice was heavily but inexpertly spiced, and their enchilada sauce was more like marinara than anything else.

Since I hadn’t eaten in two days, I was able to fill up on chips and salsa so quickly that I didn’t really need my entree of cheese and onion enchiladas with rice and beans.

Neither of the guys ate more than half of their entrees either.

I realized as we were leaving that we should have known it was gonna suck: it didn’t smell right outside. Mexican restaurants usually smell a certain way, know what I mean?

The Wireless Here Sucks, and my Uterus is Trying To Kill Me

Travel

In which there are two things. Maybe three.

MeI haven’t updated in two days because I couldn’t get online. The hotel’s free wireless has been down. And not just kinda down, either, but totally not even showing up in the Wireless Network Connection panel at all. The manager says they’re re-replacing all the parts again and that it should be back up soon. So I’m on T-mobile again. Which costs money. Grr.

My period started yesterday. At first, it was easy, and I thought maybe I’d get to have a normal one. But then… Jesus. I had cramps that were so painful they made me puke.

Twice.

I’ve only once in my life been in so much pain that my body reacted by throwing up. I do not dig it. And that Pamprin Cramp stuff? Doesn’t work for shit. Fuck acetaominiphen. It doesn’t work. Give me ibuprofen any day of the week. I told Bread this morning I’ve got to get to a gyno; this shit keeps getting worse and worse and I need help managing it. At the very least a decent painkiller. I never slept more than two hours in a row last night because the pain kept waking me up. I’d wake up rocking and crying… in a hotel room. With two other people. I hope I didn’t keep them up.

BoSe bought me some ibuprofen at Wal-Mart this morning and after I popped one I was finally able to sleep. The guys went out to see one of the roofing crews and flyer a neighborhood or two and I haven’t seen them since. Of course, I was asleep, so they could have come and gone.

Anyway, I have to go edit a bid and email it to the insurance agent, and then I’ll be ready to lie back down again, I think. I love you, my babies.

Wireless is Less Cool than I'd suspected

Travel, Work

In which I’m startin’ to miss good ol’ CAT-5.

cat5The wireless here at home sweet hotel has been sketchy. Er, maybe not ‘sketchy’ so much as ‘completely down’ for the past day and a half.

It’s back up now. FINALLY.

I have to go sketch two roofs in Xactimate now, and then finish the door hangar layout that BoSe started this morning.

But first, an update! Bread bought a tank of LP yesterday, so last night we BBQ’d. I went to the store and bought stuff for baked potatoes and a big salad, along with steaks for the boys and some salmon for PatKa and me to share. BoSe and I called everyone in the hotel we know and invited them to bring something to grill.

When I got back from the store, the room was full of men. The whole crew was here. Some had brought burgers, others beer. We cooked and ate and talked and drank and it was really fun! The guys who have been here the longest — and eating three meals a day at restaurants — were really excited to hear we’d leave the grill in the ‘yard’ outside our room and that they were free to use it at their leisure.

Anyway, off to work. Ciao, babies!

T Plus 3 Days

Travel, Work

In which I’ve been busy, but not too busy to blog — except I couldn’t ’cause the wireless is crap.

Hotel 3Our home sweet hotel seems to have a limited number of AP’s, so I haven’t been able to get on the Internet since I rebooted Saturday night after installing a Delorme mapping program. This makes me sad. I hate being denied the Internet.

Our sweet suite is still sweet. I live with two men, so I clean it twice day but it’s so small I don’t even notice I’m doing it. I spend most of my time hanging out here with the door open to the little yard area, computing and printing and talking on the phone. It’s way laid back and fun; it’s just like an office job except I’m drinking a mudslide! (Oh, and not getting paid for it. Yet. But whatever.)

Saturday Bread and BoSe went along on a roof sale with our team leader guy, GR. I stayed here and did office stuff. They came back all juiced because while they were there estimating the roof and meeting with the client, the guy across the street came over and asked to have his roof done, too.

State Farm estimates that the hail storms in April were the most damaging in U.S. history. The local building supplier estimates that 300,000 homes were damaged and they have a gigantic warehouse lot stuffed full of roofing supplies to meet the demand. My guys drove by there the other day and told me that same company is in the process of ‘dozing another lot to store even more materials. (Apparently big supply companies have spotters & estimators on their staffs, people who go out after weather events and determine how much of which type of materials will be needed to meet the construction demand. Who knew?)

This all means that they’ll be selling roofs until the cows come home, basically.

I did my first estimate data entry project yesterday. It took me two hours and I made a couple of mistakes. In my own defense, the damn shed had a gambrel roof and the scope notes they gave me didn’t have all the necessary measurements! But still. Something of a steep learning curve on this software – it took half an hour to figure out which heading “R&R vinyl dryer vents” was under. HVAC? Appliances? Siding?

After accidentally deleting my template, I got it rebuilt and I think after learning most of the line item codes I’ll be cranking out estimates by the pound.

THERE IS A BUCA DI BEPPO HERE!!! Saturday night, we rounded up Truck and Bowling Jesus and PK and went there for dinner. It was expensive, but oh so very worth it. We drank 3 litres of the house red wine, we had garlic bread and calamari and bruschetta appetizers. We ordered and shared pork, eggplant parmesan, manicotti, mashed potatoes, and green beans for dinner. We laughed and talked and all the guys fell in love with the waitress. It was delicious and so much fun. I love that restaurant.

Sunday and today I’m office maven. I’ve designed and printed business cards. I’ve edited marketing copy and printed 200 flyers (Bread, BoSe, Truck, and Bowling Jesus are all out canvassing right now.) I made them appointment sheets, too, and made sure they had all the appropriate tools and paperwork on the off chance that they actually sell a roof by accident while they’re postering. They all think I’m a genius.

I’m the only person from the office planet here so they all pop in and out all day. It’s pretty fun, actually. They’re all using my business card template now.

Anyway. Today’s Monday. The hotel’s wireless is still down so I called T Mobile for a free day pass. I have to remember to cancel it before this time tomorrow or they’ll charge me $40 for the month. Hopefully the hotel’s geek will show the fuck up and install those APs ASAP ’cause I’m fuckin’ dying here.

The night before last there was a big storm. Briefly the wind blew so hard that a table, two chairs, and an ashtray all ended up in the hotel’s pool. They took the furniture out, but the pool’s closed until they can get it cleaned out. Which means no swimming for the Mushlette today.

Today I had breakfast at a Waffle House. Yum. Also the TV just told me to expect 60 MPH winds and dime-sized hail in downtown Indianapolis within the next five mintes. I called the boys and encouraged them to park their rig under something so the windows don’t break if the hail actually hits. Here in Greenwood, though (a suburb SE of Indy), the day’s still lovely.

Departure

Travel, Work

In which we blow this popsicle stand.

We’re leaving this afternoon.

Gonna drive six hours, then check in at a Red Roof Inn. Tomorrow could consist of hanging out doing nothing, or it could be a crash course in Xactimate. Dunno yet. Depends on Dee’s (the team leader’s) schedule.

Yesterday we heard it was all off, that the company had pulled out of the contract. We had slight heart attacks. Then it turned out that wasn’t true. We were skeptical. Then SF came over for a social call, we told him what we’d heard, and he whipped out his cell phone. It was all a big mistake.

Ugh. Sounds organized, eh? *rolleyes* Fucking sales.

The important thing is that there’s a pool at the hotel. No one can talk to me if I’m under water, right?

In other news, I leave a window open in my office here at the farm so the cat, Buz McFuz, can come and go as he pleases. There’s no screen in it, obviously. I was sitting here writing notes for TrBu (the guy who will be house- and dog-sitting for us) and heard a loud, insistent buzzing. I asked Bindu if she was making that noise. She looked at me, which I interpreted as a, “Uh, no. I’m a dog. We don’t buzz.” So I got up, walked toward the sound. Looked up.

And there was a wasp! Building a nest on the damned ceiling! In my fucking house! I returned to my desk and watched it. It buzzed for awhile, doing its nest-building thing, then it flew out the window. A couple minutes later it was back. More nest building. Then it flew out the window again… and I promptly closed it.

I just saw it come back and run into the glass, touch it with its front legs a little, then fly off. If it’s smart enough to go around the house, come in through the open door, and find its nest again I really don’t know what I’ll do. Certainly wouldn’t want to kill someone that smart, even if she is just a bug. But I don’t really want her having babies in here either. There’s all kinds of other lovely places to build nests.

Update: She’s not back yet. Hopefully she’s chosen another location.

Update: She’s back! She found her way around and through the house! Shit! Now I gotta close everything up and it’ll get all hot.

Update the third: Turns out it wasn’t her. It was another bug. The nest is now abandoned. And I’m leaving for Indianapolis in an hour!

Today Is Tuesday

Love & Marriage, Recipes, Travel

In which I fuss for awhile, but then there’s a recipe at the end so it might just be worth your time.

We’re leaving on Thursday.

I slept in this morning because there was no reason not to, and because I sleep a lot when I’m stressed out — it’s my preferred coping mechanism, and I figure it’s better than booze or pot, yeah? This fucking go-to-Indiana-and-sell-roofs gig is stressing me out. Not only in and of itself — I’d never apply for a construction sales position if I saw it in the paper — but in tandem with our fairly fucked up financial situation it’s just got me off my center.

Bread picked at me for sleeping so much, so naturally I picked right back at him about other stupid shit. Before it blossomed into a full-fledged fight, we silently agreed to attack the house instead. Dishes, garbage, sweeping, laundry. It was a frenzy of domestic activity. The dogs couldn’t figure out where to lie down to escape our cleaning wrath and finally went outside to get away from us.

We met on the porch and had a nice talk. He said he’s stressed about money but the whole point is to go and work hard and make some, and that overall he feels good about the gig. I said I hate sales and have no construction experience and am worried about hating the job, or worse, totally sucking at it. He told me I’m personable and smarter than anybody else going. (How cute is that?!) Of course, ‘smart’ isn’t always the necessary ingredient. There’s lots of things I suck at that so-called less intelligent folk excel at. Sales, for instance. *rolleyes*

I once spent a summer canvassing for the Oregon Public Interest Research Group. I showed up at OSPIRG in the morning, attended the daily meeting, got my clipboard, and was dropped off in some nice neighborhood in Portland. I spent the morning knocking on doors, informing citizens of whatever OSPIRG thought they should know, and soliciting donations. Lunch. Then an afternoon of the same.

IT WAS THE WORST FUCKING JOB EVER. Ever. EVER. My feet hurt, my tummy hurt from nervousness, and I never once made quota. I really wanted to like it because it was good work, but I didn’t. I quit in a month. I can stand on stage and sing in front of ten thousand people, but that job? Would have given me an ulcer if I’d made myself keep doing it. I get some weird variant of stage fright knocking on stranger’s doors. I’ll chat your pants off if I meet you in a bar, but I’m chicken to knock on your door and offer you something I believe in or that I know you want and need. It’s just how I’m built.

Anyway.

Bread’s truck is leaking oil and coolant. We can either take it and fill it full of oil and anti-freeze at every gas stop, or we can put tires on the jeep and take it instead. Bread hates the jeep because it’s too small and sitting in it for extended periods aggravates his back, plus it’ll look stupid with ladders bungee’d to the luggage racks and it’s ugly and rusty compared to his nice big late model truck. It gets great gas mileage, though, and the A/C rocks.

His truck is big and attractive and looks professional and he’s already put the ladder rack on it, and it’s much more comfortable and will haul more stuff… but it’s expensive to operate. And it’s leaking like a sieve. And none of the local shops can fix it in time. Plus fixing it would take money we don’t even have. And the A/C needs to be charged.

So I made breakfast at about two o’clock this afternoon. Hash browns, scrambled eggs, veggie sausage, gravy. Kind of a variation on that breakfast casserole people make with real sausage and a can of cheese soup. “God damn!” I said, licking the whisk. “I’m a veggie gravy-makin’ genius!”

Bread said, “You do make good gravy!” And coming from an inveterate meat eater, that’s a high compliment!

So here’s how I make vegetarian gravy, yo. My secret ingredients are paprika, prepared mustard, and soy sauce. I know, I know, it sounds weird but it totally works. Plus my gravy? Never lumpy.

Mush’s Kick Ass Vegetarian Gravy

Great over breakfast, or mashed potatoes, or whatever you’d put gravy on.

2 T. butter
2 T. flour
1 c. hot water
1/2 c. milk
1/4 tsp. each: paprika, dill weed, basil, oregano, parsley
1/3 cube Knorr vegetable bullion
1/4 tsp. prepared yellow mustard
dash tamari or soy sauce
salt & pepper to taste

In a medium sauce pan over medium flame, thoroughly whisk the butter and flour together. Let it cook until bubbly and golden.

Mix hot water and milk together (to take the chill off the milk) and add it to the roux along with the bullion cube. Whisk until the gravy comes to a simmer and starts to thicken. Reduce heat slightly.

Add spices and whisk well. Add the mustard and tamari, and salt & pepper to taste.

Serves 2-4.

T Minus a Few Days and Counting

Blurbs, Travel, Work

In which I go to school for software training. God, I love school.

Picture037.jpgToday we had a training meeting for Xactimate, this software we’re using. It was not daunting. It’s complex software, certainly, but not rocket science. What I really want is a finished output document so I know what the goal is.

We watched two short vids about adjusting roof damage; one went into great detail about how to to identify hail damage faked with a ball peen hammer. It was awesome — I’ve seen better acting in pornos — and had all the contractors in the room chuckling.

We got our ‘deployment’ schedule and we (and all our close friends on this gig) are going in the second group. Which is next week. We also got a list of all the tools and equipment we need, and the only thing we’re lacking at this point is an adapter to run the laptop and printer off of a car lighter. That’ll be an easy acquisition at a Best Buy along the way somewhere.

In celebration of our upcoming roadtrip, Bread’s truck started leaking oil rather rapidly and the front passenger wheel is squeaking. He is, as you can guess, extremely aggravated by this development and has been cursing under his breath for hours. My jeep, on the other hand, is still sitting in the driveway on a flat doughnut with a flat tire in the back.

Tonight, the JCGB is playing at the Dead Cock. I might go over and sit in and sing a few, and make an effort not to get shitty drunk.

Right now I’m sitting in BoSe’s living room, on his wireless connection with the laptop, digging some tunes in my iTunes library (which I moved it onto this machine the day it arrived, yo) with earphones, feelin’ groovy. Wireless. Love wireless. Yum.

In other news, the more I learn about this Indiana gig the more I think it’s gonna be perfect for Bread and hell on wheels for yours truly. Hanging out with dudes, doing office support for construction sales? In the cab of a black truck? In the dead of summer? With my husband, who can be a real bear to work for? Aaarrrggghhhh! *bangs head on desk*

Update: Turns out that I might be able to stay in the hotel room and be the computer/paperwork chick, while Bread and BoSe go out and pound the pavement. That? Would be SO SWEET. OMG, please God, please let it be that way. Please please please.

Update: Hotel reservations. Indianapolis cell phone. Pay our current bills at home, pay next month’s too. Worry about whatever work Bread’s truck is wanting. Hope this friend of ours will really agree to stay at our house and feed the animals. This project is exhausting.

T minus two days and counting

Finance, Travel

In which I’m overheated, excited, a little stressed, and realizing how deep my poverty-consciousness goes.

It’s unutterably hot and humid outside. I just had to walk to the bank and back because Bread’s got the big black truck. I’m all sticky. There’s a severe weather alert out for thunderstorms, and at lunchtime it turned dark and rumbly in a hurry but only rained big fat drops for a few minutes and it’s like a really damp oven out there.

A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 530 PM CDT FOR JEFFERSON COUNTY.

AT 443 PM CDT…A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WAS REPORTED CAPABLE OF PRODUCING GOLF BALL SIZE HAIL…AND DAMAGING WINDS IN EXCESS OF 60 MPH. THIS STORM WAS LOCATED NEAR PERLEE…OR ABOUT NEAR NORTHERN FAIRFIELD…MOVING SOUTHEAST AT 15 MPH.

Severe Weather Alert

THE SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WILL BE NEAR… BECKWITH AND SALINA BY 455 PM CDT… FOUR CORNERS BY 510 PM CDT…

A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 900 PM CDT TUESDAY EVENING FOR SOUTHEASTERN IOWA AND NORTHWESTERN ILLINOIS AND NORTHEAST MISSOURI.

Golf ball-sized hail, people!

I’m existing in a funny combination of excited and freaked out. On the one hand, it’s a job. I’ve been working since I was 16 and a job’s a job. I’m blasé. On the other hand, I have really only the vaguest idea of what I’m getting into, so I barely even have enough information to properly wig out on.

The sudden exit is going remarkably smooth so far; the money’s been there, I got an LOA rather than having to quit with two days notice after working here for six years, our electronics shipped out on time and will be here in the morning, etc.

But. Then there’s the house, the cat, the dogs… the four people we’ve asked so far can’t take any of those duties for us. I think Nanner will be able to drop by the place every week or so to take the mail in and pet the cat and put food out for him, and Bread’s asking another friend of his to just drive through occasionally to make sure the doors are all closed and such. But this is shit we’ve got to get resolved in the next two days and it’s kinda major.

I’m having some fun observing my own thought patterns about money. This gig is supposed to be quite lucrative, and I have a mental monster who keeps trying to pop up and say bullshit! there’s no way you can make that much that fast! even though I know that people do. Hell, I have friends that do. I seem to have some deep-seated lower-middle-class abundance issues and it’s been interesting to root them out for a look at them. I seem to have a belief that I’m only supposed to have enough, no extra. I’ve noted in myself a feeling of mild relief when I’m back to a check-to-check existence after a spell of abundance simply because it’s familiar.

In other news, a funny ISP tech support story almost worthy of Userfriendly: One of our support techs just wasted three entire calls trying to fix a customer’s DSL. He did all the troubleshooting, even swapped out her DSL modem for her. Finally he called her back to quadruple-check her settings only to hear her say, “Oh, I switched my DSL to another provider. Could that have anything to do with it?”

True story.

Change Is Good: the 'Holy Shit!' Edition

Travel

In which I’ll be in Indianapolis by Friday, for fuck’s sake.

Somehow or another my husband managed to get us both hired to go to Indiana to do this contracting job; it’s basically a variant on insurance adjusting. It sounds like it’ll be ten hour days, six or seven days a week. Outside. In the heat. Doing what amounts to door-to-door sales.

Apparently the reason people do this to themselves is because it’s possible to make an assload of money at it, and God knows we need some healthy cashflow.

Often people do this in teams. In our team, Bread will be the construction & estimating guy, and I’ll be the computer/software/paperwork girl, and then we’ll cross-train each other.

In the next 72 hours we’re getting a loan, buying a laptop and printer, closing up our house, doing something with the pets and plants, packing, and splitting town. Gonna be gone for a month.

Bread’s been in construction his entire life. The idea of selling a bid but not actually having to do the work tickles him half to death. I’ve forgotten more software programs than most people even know, so I feel confident about my part. We’ll be staying in a hotel. Truck and Bowling Jesus will be there. BoSe will be there. A bunch of other people we know will be there.

I have to quit my job or get an LOA… and cancel the barn party… and then I have to tell my band. They’ll freak.

And if this gig works out, I’ll miss Amma in Mount Pleasant and will have to get to Chicago to see Her.

I’m freaked. Utterly, totally, hands-shaking freaked.

On the other hand, I’ll end up with a laptop! This seems like a rather intense method of getting a laptop, but hey — why take ‘er easy when you can take ‘er hard?

In other news, it’s 6/6/6. Happy Rapture, my Xian fiends! (Er, friends!)

Update: Check out my new laptop. Yum.

Update: My employer has just approved my LOA. *huge relief*

Update: Brett got his ladder rack fixed to fit the truck (yay!) but we still haven’t found any dogsitters (boo). Who wants to come live in my house in the country for a month? I’ll even keep paying the DirecTV on for you. Peace and quiet, a million stars at night, swimming in the pond! You can walk around naked out here! Come on!