Gross

Ok. So Ms. O'brien has posted a story about a drinking a beer with a milk floatie in it. I aim to top that story in grossness. I have several. . . which to choose. . . which to choose . . . should I choose rotten cat? prolapsed uterus? being shat on? I believe that I will start out with the tamest and, if need be, work up from there.

Let me preface. I grew up on a dairy farm in northern Wisconsin. I also returned to the dairy farm as an adult and worked there. I loved that life (with the exception of not getting any time off), but when dealing with cows and other animals, well, lets just say that things can happen.

One day, I was hauling chopped straw into the barn for bedding for the cows. I was using a wheel barrow. I had just brought in a load and was headed out to get another (I needed six and I think I was on load four). The walk of the barn is about eight feet wide with gutters on each side and when you walk down the walk, you are faced with the asses of 71 large black and white bovines.

I don't remember who was feeding the cows on that particular day, but as I was headed back out to get the next load of straw, the feed cart was nearing the end of the manger and was making its way back to the silo for more feed. I looked and saw it coming and thought that I didn't want to wait for it to go by (I was impatient to get out of the barn and go about my own business). So, rather than wait for the feed cart to pass, I tried to duck behind the last cow and in front of the feed cart.

One other thing that I might add is that cows, especially dairy cows, with their diet rich in fiber, have a tendency to be shitters. And a milking dairy cow will probably drink seven to ten gallons of water a day, so they are also pissers. Dairy cows also tend to be nervous shitters and pissers and when someone that they don't know walks into the barn, they will all stand up and salute them with raised tails and showers of urine and feces.

So, back to my story. As you might imagine, just as I ducked to beat the feed cart, the cow on the end decided to relieve herself . . . O N M E. Warm, brown, shit flowed on my hair, in and behind my ear, on my shoulder and down my back, front and arm. I was covered. At that point, whether I was done hauling straw or not, I was finished. I walked into the milk house, where my mother was (and yes, she was laughing histerically) and she turned the hose on me to get the bulk of the shit off me. I then went to the house, stripped my clothes off in the garage and went in and took a REALLY LONG SHOWER.

Saturday AM Coffee

On a regular basis, my partner and I go to the local organic grocery/deli/coffee house, Strawberry Fields, and meet up with friends for coffee, conversation and KILLER white chocolate, raspberry scones. This originally started out as just Julie and I going there and waking up with a cup of coffee, a scone and the morning paper. It has grown into a weekly social outlet where we discuss anything from the purchase of a new IBook to issues that have perplexed us throughout the week. We look forward to it so much that we actually get out of bed earlier on Saturdays than we do the rest of the week.

Today we were having grand conversations about my experience at a local, mom-and-pop bike shop in town in comparison to our experience at Target (bad and great respectively), a dinner party in Amish Arthur, the difference between the IBook G4 and an IMac, the issues with assholes at work and just general mayhem that involves lots of laughing, swearing and heated discussion.

Often, there is live music on Saturday mornings. Most often it is blue-grass style music that is a very nice complement to the environment. Sometimes it is a local Yiddish combo which is a lot of fun. Other times there have been solo artists that have been very good. Today was not one of those days . . . just thinking back gives me the dry heaves! I saw on Friday when we stopped for coffee before work, that today was going to be the "musical stylings" of some young white kid from Peoria. Now, I know that young and white does not necessarily mean bad, but "musical stylings" tends to mean that this is someone who should be booted off American Idol in the first round. Think: tone deaf Barry Manilow. He started setting up and did a sound check and we got a glimpse of what we were in for. The electronic keyboard with the electronic drums was a dead give away. He also set up a video camera directly behind our table. I saw it, but no one else did.

We proceeded to BASH this kid to pieces because he was so bad and this was not the setting for 80's roller rink, couples skate music. He just did not fit in. . . he even had a small color changing ball on the table. About 15 minutes into his set, one of us realized that EVERYTHING we said was probably being picked up on the camera. This kid would have our commentary for the rest of his life. I was discussing how I thought that hell would be much hotter and smellier and there would be more stalagtites and stalagmites. We probably ruined this kid's career for him. That was our community service for the week.

Oh, by the way, the coffee and scone was GREAT!

Not Myself (or Why I really Still DO Need my Antidepressant)

Yes, Stephanie, I am still alive.

My absence from posting has been twofold.

The first reason is that I (actually we) have been very busy; Remodeling, working, riding bike, holding the couch down, etc.

We are actually done with the remodel and have been enjoying it for about three weeks now. The next room to be done is close on the horizon. We have the bug and will not be able to stop until the entire house has been transformed from that of an 80 year old woman (complete with long beige draperies and paneling) to OURS.

Work has been hellish. It's quarter end, you know. It has been busy and ugly and I have a boss that doesn't do much. I have another boss who has been pusing me to apply for a high stress opening dealing with international shipping. So, I submitted a resume and cover letter for this job and then withdrew it because I just didn't want the job. I also have a couple of people that I have to babysit on a nightly basis because they are too immature to handle themselves in a full time work situation. All that makes for one UNHAPPY girl.

I got my tax return from good old Uncle Sam. I also have carpal tunnel. I love to ride my bike, but the carpal tunnel makes it difficult and painful to ride a regular bicycle. So, put one and one together.

Extra moola in hand + sore hands riding an upright bike =
the decision to buy a recumbent.
I found a nice one and bought it a week later. So we have been spending as much time as possible on the bikes.

The second reason for my lack of posting is that for about a week, I forgot to take my anti-depressant. Now, I knew that I needed to take it. I just forgot that I hadn't taken it. It's kind of a strange thing. I suppose that subconsciously, I had decided to get off it for a while to see what happened, but I really hadn't planned that.

The result. I HAVE NOT BEEN ME for the last two weeks. I am not my normal, laid-back self. I am quick to anger at everything (including my partner for no good reason). My pen (that I had not told Julie was one that I wanted exclusively) came up missing. I got angry. Someone didn't give me enough information. I got angry. No one would answer me on the two-way radio at work one night. I got REALLY angry. Fortunately, my love has been very patient with me and sometimes interceeds at work. She knows that when I get really angry I start to cry and she doesn't want that to happen there. She also knows that this is not the real me.

So, I am back on my meds and I am starting to feel more like myself every day. I have also learned that as much as I would like to NOT have to take my meds, I still need them very much. And hopefully, I will be back to regular blogging soon. You still have not met all my kids, and it's about time.

SKUNKED!

Last night when we arrived home from work, we pulled into the garage and before we opened the car doors our noses were accosted by the smell of skunk. We were thinking that maybe there was a skunk nearby. We opened the car doors and the smell was overwhelming. It nauseated me. . . and it takes quite a bit to do that to me.

We got out of the car and headed towards the house. The dogs were excited to see us as always. We both bent down and smelled them. The scent of skunk spray at very close range is much different from the odor that stays in the air. . . so different that we did not realize that they had been sprayed until we got them in the house and the whole house smelled of skunk (the kind that is more familiar).

So we kicked them back out of the house and locked them in their kennel for the night.

We awakened this morning hoping that it was all an ugly nightmare, but opened the door to outside this morning and our hopes were crushed. So for the last couple of hours we have spent time changing the straw bedding in the kennel, airing out the garage and bathing the dogs. We tried vinegar, orange pulp, Sprite, some "miracle" stuff that is supposed to take care of skunk smell and buckets of shampoo (dog and human) and now they are wet and smell like a mix of wet dog and skunk. Alas. We will smell skunk for the next week or so, I am sure.

Walk

Today my love and I took a walk with our dogs. We chose to go to a local park that is very close to a plot of land owned by the University of Illinois that is used by its forestry students. It is open to the public and is mostly fenced in, so the better behaved of our dogs, Emma, is able to be off leash and gets to run and sniff and play.

We had walked in through the gate and had gone to the western most perimeter and were headed south along a plowed field. About a quarter of the way through, I saw a hawk fly up out of the field and land on the fence. We walked a little further and I saw the hawk struggling against the fence and it appeared that he may have been caught. He got himself free and flopped around on the ground for a little while. He looked like he might have been hurt. I took the opportunity to get Emma back on her leash because she was quite interested in what was going on ahead and I didn't want her to hurt the hawk or vice versa.

I handed Emma's leash to Julie and I slowly approached the hawk. He was calming down some as I took careful and measured steps towards him. I got down on one knee and held my hand out. The hawk backed up a little bit, but did not attempt to flee. I got so close to this hawk that I was able to touch it on it's neck. It was amazing. This was not a huge bird, but he was big enough. He had bright golden eyes that showed his intelligence. He had been banded by somone at some point in time. He had a white breast and a light reddish brown back. The white on his breast was ticked with brown. I believe that this was a red tailed hawk, but I can't be certain. I stood close to him for what seemed like about 2 or 3 minutes.

I TOUCHED A WILD HAWK. It was a highlight to my day, my week, my year and my life. I have been close to captive raptors before, but never close to a wild one. It was amazing and I will never forget that moment.

Julie was attempting to call the U of I wild animal hospital, when the hawk flew up into a tree. Then, as if to prove to us that we were wrong and he was ok, he flew from tree to tree. He faltered a little on the second roost, but seemed to be ok after that.

Native American spirituality says that seeing a hawk or an eagle means that you will encounter good fortune. I touched it. I wonder what that means?

My own personal "L word"

I will preface this post by saying that ALL the names listed here have been changed to protect the innocent . . . or not so innocent, depending on how you view this.

I will also say that when I lived in Sioux Falls, SD, I spent a lot of time in the gay community. I knew that there was a lot of partner swapping had gone on, but was not aware of any that was currently going on. I also knew one of the "players" in town and nearly every woman I met had slept with her at one time or another.

I have an ex-girlfriend that I am fairly good friends with. Her name is "Diane". She lives in a fairly large city in Missouri. She knows people in this town (also of the lesbian bent). There are 2 couples. "Linda and Amber" and "Daisy and Stephanie". Currently Diane is living platonically with Stephanie. Linda and Amber do not live together and Daisy lives by herself. Daisy and Linda have been best friends for about 12 years.

Diane has been sleeping with Linda. . . f**k buddies, if you will. Diane and Stephanie have been talking and Stephanie told Diane that Linda has been hitting on her. Linda and Amber are basically "over" according to Linda, but Linda is afraid to tell Amber. Diane also found out from Stephanie that Amber has been sleeping with someone else on the side. It's all this ugly, convoluted mess.

Linda is actually angry that Amber is cheating on her. She is angry. To me that is very odd. She is angry at her partner for the same thing that she herself is guilty of. . . hmmmmm. And I thought that the L Word was a little over the top.

Out of the Mouths of Strangers

My partner and I have had some wonderful experiences of late with strangers in public places. This has been especially good for Julie who tends to get scared of people in public. It has also shown me the humor in everyday life.

The first instance that we can both laugh about happened in our local Blockbuster on a late Saturday morning. We had made our decisions on what movies we were going to bring home and were on our way through the checkout. There was a man in front of us carousing the bagged candy and sodas that are there to entice us all to make poor diet decisions and cause the people with children to have to say "NO" a zillion times. He had picked out a bag of M&M's and a couple of Dasani flavored waters. We did not hear what ensued, but the man was at the checkout and turned around, walked past us and put the food items back. Whether he did not have the dough to pay for them or he discovered that he owed on late fees for movies, we don't know. However, what he said to us while he was putting the items back was great. He said "I didn't need this stuff anyway. . . thong season is just around the corner".

The next instance happened early this morning (after work) at a grocery store that we frequent. We walked in and saw an abundance of unsold Valentine's day balloons and roses. We went through and got what we had gone in there for and walked up to the checkout. As we were walking up we see a very large (think a mountain of a man) county police officer. The guy was easily 6'2" and probably topped the scale at well over 250. He had in one hand one of the unsold balloons and in the other a bouquet of red roses. I walked up smiling and said to him, "It's too late, Valentines day is over". He responded, "Oh no, I am trying to make up for having to work tonight. I am armed, and I'm scared". He continued on, "She's a little thing, but she'll cut me". We laughed, he paid his bill and as he was leaving he said "These flowers will look good on my gravesite, that's really why I got them".

We laughed all the way home.

Haircut

I got my hair cut yesterday. Not just cut, shaved. It is less than an eighth of an inch long. You can see all manner of bumps and blemishes on my skull.

Brrr. I'm cold!

Mishap

We are in the process of remodeling our living room. We are going to be painting, putting up new window treatments and having bamboo flooring layed. We are currently in the process of deconstruction of the room. We have moved all the furniture out with the exception of my computer, desk and a bookshelf.

I was working on clearing out my desk to get it ready to move, and I decided that I was going to clear out my old paycheck stubs. I pulled them all out and started shredding them. I shredded for a long time. My shredder overheated. I also was thinking that I was going to be extra safe and burn the shredded stubs. One of my former employers had my entire SSN on the check along with my checking account number.

I took the garbage bag out to the neighbor's burn pile and lit it on fire. I also decided that while I was there and had a fire lit, I was going to burn our Christmas tree. So, I went and grabbed the tree and threw it on the flame. I picked up the tree and adjusted it so that it would burn more completely. Just as I picked the flaming tree up, the wind switched. I felt the warmth of the flames lick my face and I thought that I probably singed my eyebrows, but I didn't smell the tell tale odor of burned hair. I finished watching the tree burn and went into the house.

I went immediately to the bathroom and looked at my face. Both eyebrows, my eyelashes on my right eye and some of my hair were singed and curled. Then, I smelled the burned hair. ACKKK. Fortunately, they were not completely singed, but it was enough for me to think about doing that again. And no pictures were taken.

Contradiction #2

Now, I don't have a problem with women who don't shave. I also don't have a problem with women who pluck their eyebrows. I love women! I LOVE WOMEN!

Eyebrows plucked to a thin line are not an issue, nor are hairy legs and armpits. Neither of them are what I would choose to do. I am also not turned on by them (women with hairy legs don't do much for me), but that's their thing. Nary a problem for me. I shave (occaisionally in the winter and frequently in the summer) because I have an unusually high level of testosterone and after a month or so, I begin to resemble my brother even more than I currently do. I also pluck a little, just to keep the unibrow gone. My partner does not need to do either, she has no hair on her legs and her eyebrows are so light colored that you can't even tell they are there.

All that said, there is a woman here in town who has her eyebrows plucked to a fine, pencil line. They are so thin that I noticed it immediately, the first time I met her. It was summer and she had shorts on. I also noticed that she did not shave her legs (not sure on her armpits). What's the point? It takes a hell of a lot less time to shave than to pluck, we're talkin 5 minutes in the shower once or twice a week, whereas, plucking to that extent HAS to take much more time than that on a DAILY basis.

So that's the second contradiction that I have observed in my life. . .

What's that about????

Meet the kids #2

This is Gus. Gus is our second youngest. He has a sister named Cleo (you will meet her next). Gus is a big boy. He also thinks that he is a dog. He loves dog treats and will chase them down the basement steps. Like I mentioned, he and Isaac are best buddies. They can often be found sleeping, curled up together on the couch or on one of the dog beds. Gus and Isaac often chase each other around on the cat condo and wrestle with reckless abandon on the floor. Gus has also been known to curl up to the dogs and try and sleep (this usually ends with a growl and the dog moving).

Gus also came from a rescue. I had always wanted an orange tabby (I had had some as a child and thought that they were the coolest cats) and so when my older cats, Smokey, Chick and Spunky died, it was time to get a kitten. I also knew that it was going to be a male and his name would be Gus.

When it was time, we checked out a couple of places like the county humane society and a rescue here in town. We were always overwhelmed by the number of cats and wanted to bring them all home with us, so we could never pick one out that would fit in our household. We then found an ad in the paper that said that they had 6 kittens and had some orange ones. We called and asked about them. This is how we met Jamie. Jamie runs the "Ray of Hope Cat Rescue". Jamie has 20 cats of her own and has made it her mission in life to save as many cats as she can. Well, we went to see these kittens, they were nearly feral when she found them, and were still a bit skittish. Fortunately Gus was what we wanted, but my sweet partner had ideas that Gus shouldn't be alone. So we also ended up with Cleo. This also forged our relationship with Jamie and her rescue operation (and got us hooked up with Isaac).

So that is the story of Gus. He is a source of constant laughs and our most photogenic child.

Meet the kids #1

As my profile mentions, we have an entire menagerie of critters. I thought that you may like to meet them.

This is Isaac. He is our youngest furry child. He is the clown of the house, mostly because he is still a kitten. He is currently 9 months old and is the sweetest little (well, not really little anymore) kitty. Isaac came to our house as a tiny kitten. He came from the rescue that we have got Gus and Cleo from. The woman who runs the rescue knows how to get us. . .just send a picture of a cute little kitten and we will come running. She's no dummy.

Isaac is best buds with Gus (who you will meet later) and thinks that the dogs are just very large cats who are overly protective of their treats. He also thinks that Pogo's tail is his very own animated cat toy.

Finally. . .

Well, after two weeks, I finally have the router up and running, so we can both surf on the laptop and the desktop at the same time. I figure that it took about 10 hours of my time and 2 hours of a friend that is geekier than I am to get it up and going. So, 12 hours of time. Was is worth it? I guess so. Soon we will be cutting off the land phone line and relying solely on the cell phones and cable modem.

I think in the long run we will be saving money, but who knows. . .

PS. Thanks JR! You rock and are the King of the Geeks in my book.

Contradiction #1

I went to my parent's house in Wisconsin during the holiday season. They are dairy farmers. My dad has been a dairy farmer all his life. He has high cholesterol and is on all the various medications for that malady and has had a 5 way bypass. My mom has had angioplasty and is also on cholesterol medication. They are both supposed to be on a "low-fat" diet.

My brother and I were looking through the refrigerator for some "real" (ie: not non-fat) ranch dressing because we both feel that non-fat ranch is just inedible. We asked mom if she had any "real" ranch dressing and she said "No, because your father isn't supposed to have the kind with fat in it". That is very understandable because of the heart issue. HOWEVER, this is the man who still has bacon on buttered toast every morning for breakfast.

Is that a contradiction, or WHAT?!?!?!

Tech Support

Yesterday we got cable modem in stalled. Yes, prior to this, we were still using dial up. The cable modem installed beautifully. The installers arrived on time, and I hooked it up and installed the drivers and it worked. It just worked, how great is that?!?!

I then went to install a wireless router that I had purchased so that we can use the laptop without being connected (the whole point of a laptop). I started the installation around 10 AM and by 2:30 PM I had not yet gotten the router to work properly. I called tech support. I ended up talking to them after being on hold for 20 minutes. Just a side note, all you people who called Gateway between 1999 and 2000 (while I was working tech support there), from noon to midnight on any weekday, I AM TRUELY SORRY FOR YOUR WAIT.

Tech support should love someone like me, for the most part, I know what I am doing and try everything that I know to do several times before calling. Still, they want to start at the beginning. Tech support: "Lets unplug every cable and start over". Me: "Wait a minute. This is what I have done (and I explain all the steps I have taken) and I am at this point in the install and everytime I get here, the installation just freezes up and will not let me go any further". Tech support: "Ok". While he is silent, I can see him looking franticly through his tools to figure out where I am. Might I also interject that I am talking to someone in India, and it is not unlike speaking to Apu on the Simpsons. So we get to a point where this guy doesn't have a clue what to do and he says "Let me verify your phone number and I will have my superwisor call you back". I am on my way out the door for work. The "superwisor" never calls.

So I get home at midnight and call again. No hold time at that time of the day. We get another step further and everything seems to be working and I hang up with the tech. IMMEDIATELY after hanging up, the damn thing locks up again. So I get on the phone one more time. This time I get a female tech, who clearly has no IDEA what she is doing (not a dis on female techs, this woman did not have a clue, but it had nothing to do with her gender). I say to her "I am at this point in the installation, and I have been working on this ALL DAY. I am thinking that there is something wrong with this router." Then I ask her what she thinks. She says to me "If you want to return it, you have 15 days". I respond telling her that I have an entire year to return it because of where I bought it. But she didn't EVEN TRY. Why did I have to go through all these steps with the previous tech's to have her say. . . "sounds like the router is bad"????? Hell, we could have resolved the problem at 11AM this moring instead of screwing around all day!!

So, I am still only connected to broadband on this machine and the laptop is still connecting with dial-up. I have no router because I don't feel like going out this morning and exchanging this one. I will go out and exchange the router on the way to work and HOPEFULLY, I will be up and running by 1AM tomorrow morning. I'll keep you posted.

Back to work

I have been on vacation since December 24th. It has been a wonderful time of relaxation, spending time with family, friends and my partner and just general laziness.

I go back to work today. I am not looking forward to this event. I work in the shipping department of a Fortune 500 company's only US distribution center (the company shall remain nameless because I don't want to become another Heather Armstrong). I used to love my job. I worked in the receiving department. I dealt with people outside the company, I expedited orders, I made a difference. I was forced in October to move to the shipping department. Management wanted to shake things up a bit. . . and shake they did. Among other changes, the guy that worked in shipping is now in the position that I loved in receiving and I am in his spot. While the people that work under me are glad that I am their coordinator, the people that I used to work with outside the company are not very happy with my replacement. The one thing that I will say is that no matter how hard you try, you cannot train someone to have customer service skills, you either have them, or you don't. And he just doesn't have them.

I would prefer to stay here and surf the internet or work on my stained glass hobby or just veg in front of the TV watching shows on HGTV on how to decorate my space, but I WILL return to work today because of the work ethic that I have. This job also pays AMAZINGLY well, so, there is some incentive there.

Back to the old grind. . . fortunately, I work second shift so I don't have to leave until 2:30PM, because it will take me that long to work myself into leaving the house and going back to that place. . . ACKKKKKKKKK!

Me in the Olympic National Forest in Washington. 

A good time was had by all. . .

We had a New Year's Eve party last night. It was fun. We had about a dozen of our friends and one co-worker (that we actually like to hang around with) over. We had good conversation, played euchre, listened to good music and ate homemade pizza and lots and lots of cookies.

The pets were all on their best behavior. This means none of the cats jumped up on the table to check out it's contents (with the exception of the two females, they all hid) and neither of the dogs jumped on anyone.

2006 has arrived. With it has come the promises to myself that I will exercise more and lose some weight, that I will get out of debt and that I will save more money . . . awwww, I'll start that tomorrow. Today, we have party leftovers to eat and football to watch. . .

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!!!