In which I hate my period, and the best part about marriage is having to share everything. Plus: grandmas are always right.
(Yesterday I was bitching to BoSe that the worst part of being married is having to share everything: cigarettes, food, cash. The bed. It’s a pain in the ass. But then…)
It’s a damn good thing I’m not a 12-year-old girl, or I’d be dead of embarassment.
In my old age I’m now systematically living through all of those nightmare period horrors you think about when you’re 12 (for my male readers: the fear of being caught bleeding is probably roughly equivalent to being called up to the board sporting a huge boner). For instance, a couple of years ago I bled through onto someone’s couch. During a fucking football game, surrounded by dudes. Yay.
And just last night I bled all over the hotel sheets and mattress. When I woke up this morning I enjoyed roughly 4.2 seconds of drowsy morning comfort, and then I realized I was basically lying in a puddle of blood and I became instantly, horribly, fully awake.
I jumped up, arranged the bedding artfully to hide the giant red splotch, and took myself to the bathroom to deal with my own cleanliness issues. I stripped and showered, and Bread came in.
“What are you doing!” I snapped. God damn it, can’t I have any fucking privacy? EVER?
“Using the bathroom,” he replied, frowning at me.
I twitched the shower curtain closed and completed my rinse. Okay, he’s gotta pee. I’m in the shower. He’s hardly trying to invade my fucking space. In a more reasonable voice, I asked, “You want to use the shower?”
“Yeah, in a minute,” he replied.
“I gotta get out now,” I said.
“Okay,” he said.
I suppose I could have waited 45 more seconds so he could finish up and get in, but I was in a hurry to clean the huge stain off the hotel’s white mattress. I turned the water off and hopped out.
I explained to Bread why I was freaking. “I bled all over everywhere last night,” I told him as I was dressing. “Myself, my clothes, the bedding, the mattress. I bleed like a stuck pig.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. Then: “You’re wearing frog underwear.”
I looked down. Yup. White panties with green frogs all over them. “One can’t take this bleeding-to-death shit seriously,” I told him.
Then I picked up my jammies from the floor, getting ready to leave the bathroom, and the bundle fell open. I sighed and showed Bread the giant stain all over my flannel pants.
“Damn, baby,” he said. “I’m sorry you have to go through all this.”
And there you have it: I showed a boy the blood all over my jammies – the quintessence of embarassment, yeah? – and he not only didn’t make fun of me, he made me feel better.
In other news, I got some detergent and kleenex and a small glass of water, sat down on the mattress, and I did the blot-with-soap-and-then-with-cold-water cleaning thing your grandma taught you about. And it totally worked! Grandmas are geniuses. Thank God I had a container of laundry detergent with me because I don’t know if shampoo would have worked as well.
The moral: I hate my fucking period. And I have every one of these symptoms.
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?
In which there are two things. Maybe three.
I 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.
In which I’m startin’ to miss good ol’ CAT-5.
The 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!
In which we heard a tornado siren and everything.
Bread and BoSe were out this afternoon canvassing but came back to the hotel when water was sheeting over their rig and the hail was marble-sized. We watched the weather on cable until it cleared up, then I went back out with them to finish canvassing their chosen neighborhood.
BoSe spoke with three or four people while Bread and I distributed fliers. We hope to sign three contracts tomorrow!
After we ran out of fliers, we headed back to the hotel. We took obscure back roads because Bread was driving and he’ll take a backroad over an Interstate any day of the week. When we were driving through Wanamaker on our way back to Greenwood, their local tornado siren was going off. We pulled into a parking lot and jumped out looking for a funnel, but didn’t see one.
The clouds looked amazing!
In which I’ve been busy, but not too busy to blog — except I couldn’t ’cause the wireless is crap.
Our 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.
In which I still hate sales.
Since I can’t really unload verbally in the presence of the folks who are actually here, I’m gonna do it in front of the whole damned Internet! Because that’s what goblinbox.com is all about. Me, venting. And you, reading all about it. Because you’re the most superior creatures on the whole network.
Anyway. We stayed up until three local time, and got up at eight. Ouch. By nine we were clean and dressed and in our first meeting, which morphed magically into our second meeting over breakfast at Bob Evans across the parking lot (where there were zero vegetarian options on the menu), and then if you’ll believe me it turned into a third meeting at the team leader’s room. In a row.
Then we went and bought phones. Good God, what a pain in the ass. At least I didn’t have to pay a fucking security deposit. But still, it’s easier to adopt a child than it is to get a phone. I have a stack of paperwork four inches thick from that adventure.
After phones were accomplished, we drove to the fourth meeting of the day at The Office, which basically is the room where the construction company has all their laptops and copiers. There, we learned that some guys are already selling, that the first roof goes on tomorrow, and that the POS materials are not finished, and there is no official pitch yet scripted, and the software line items need to be adjusted because they’re wrong, and basically just go get ’em, tigers!
It was totally inspirational and utterly uninformative. Plus I was the only bona fide geek in the room so I didn’t understand a tenth of what they said to each other because, honestly, I don’t know soffet from fascia let alone ridge vent from architectural shingles.
When that meeting broke up, we tried to head back to the hotel but got lost for a long while. We finally made it, though, and I’m back on the ‘net where I belong. Yay!
Now! For the part you’ve all been waiting for! The venting!
So. You know how the world is cleverly designed so that different people enjoy and excel at different things, and we all tend to gravitate toward the things we’re good at and specialize in them? Well, I’d be the last person to call that a design flaw. I think it’s utterly brilliant that I can pay someone to wrench on my car rather than do it myself! But it means that members of groups other than my own tend to be incomprehensible and/or annoying to me.
So grok how scary this is: right now I’m totally surrounded by… SALES PEOPLE.
You know salespeople? The way there’s the top dog, the charismatic one, and the rest of them get all cult-of-personality about him? And how they love to talk and talk and talk all the time like a bunch of girls? And the way they’re obscenely gung-ho and cheerful about shit? And how when you ask them a direct question they tend to give you the longest answer possible, rather than just answering the fucking question already?
Well, I’ve been in meetings all day with people from that planet. Hell, not even people, but MEN from that planet. The only females I’ve dealt with were the waitresses at breakfast and the Cingular chick!
I have a fantastic overview of what we’re doing… I have about six fantastic overviews, actually… but virtually zero concrete details. And until we go ahead and manifest those details ourselves, I have the feeling they’re going to continue to not exist.
There’s work here, oh yeah, and money to be made, certainly. But I think someone who wanted to be led through some kind of training before jumping into the deep end would be sorely challenged here.
Luckily, I’m sharing a room with a contractor and a salesman. The two of them already know the vast majority of what they need to go sell roofs. They’re even — and this baffles me utterly — excited to start knocking on doors!
I am from a planet in a completely different galactic arm than theirs! But I’ll tell you this tidbit right now: no one is going to turn in more thorough, organized, and coherent bids than the ones that are gonna come off my laptop. No one.
Now I need to find some food. I haven’t eaten in eight hours, but BoSe and Bread are such hyper-excited girls that their tummies aren’t working properly and they’re making noises about waiting another hour or three before getting some dinner! Fuck that, say I! I’ll freakin’ walk to Taco Bell if I have to! Just watch me!
In other news, if you want my new cell number just call my old one — it’s on the voice mail message.
Update 10:49 pm: One word. Jacuzzi tub! (Unh-huh, babies. Hideous, wasteful use of resources. But mmm.)
In which my ass is asleep.
After sitting on my ass in the big black truck for 6 hours and 40 minutes, I find that my ass is asleep. Mmm, yoga.
But we’re here, and we have a sweet suite with a king-sized bed, a couch bed, and a spa tub. And it’s right next to the pool, and there’s a little ‘yard’ right outside our door where we’ll be grilling because we don’t want to eat drive-thru for a month and Bread brought — I shit you not — a gas fucking grill.
It quite rocks, verily.
So Bread and Bowling Jesus are standing in the doorway. Bread says, “What took you guys so long to get here? We left Mi-T-Mart at five.”
“Well,” Truck answers, “first, we got stuck on a draw bridge…”
Update 2:21 am: There’s a White Castle right at the edge of the parking lot. I’ve heard of them, of course, but never eaten at one in my life. Bread and BoSe walked over and came back with more condiments than God and three bags of Slyders. I had a fish sandwich (I eat fish when I’m starving and there’s no other option. Or if it’s sushi, of course). It was… square. And little. And square. And one and a half sides of fries. And two Beam and Cokes because Truck and Bowling Jesus showed up with cocktails because they’re superior.
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!
In which better late than never.
I watched the season finale of Dr Who last night. I know it’s been on my TiVo for awhile, but whatever. The point is, HOW HOT WAS THAT EPISODE?! “Rose, you were fantastic. And so was I.”
And the new Doctor? Cute!
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4 random books from my Library!
