I am seriously feeling the panic. Part of it is because many things are still undefined, and I’m a planner. I think we’re going to figure out the bulk of it tonight, so that’s good. And we’ll be a-wrappin’ presents tonight, too. There is much! to! be! done! I need to mail things, too. Whups. And write people back. And remember the funny things I wanted to blog about. And do laundry. Oh lordy, the laundry. I discovered a shirt today that I had forgotten about and it was like a beacon from heaven, saving me from myself. Yay! Clean shirt!

It’s good this time of year to appreciate the little things. Like a clean shirt. And breathing. That’s like, the best invention ever. So repetitive. I need to do a little more. :)

Oh, one funny thing today – James was trying to tell me Jason Lee was playing Alvin in the new Chipmunks movie, and I finally had to say really loudly, “Alvin IS a chipmunk, James.” (and everyone around me was laughing, at me.) And because there has been a lot of hype about these Chipmunks, I keep getting that song stuck in my head, the one I only know one line to, “I hope I get a HUUUUULA hooop”, but enough of the melody to hear it over and over and over. So you know, as I pound my head towards madness, I’ll at least have a theme song.

Him: “So I hope you aren’t going to be pissed with what I bought.”

Me: “Why? What did you buy? You didn’t buy the chain link?”

Him: “I bought… the kind of fence they use to keep goats in.”

Me: “Goats. Why? Was it cheaper or something?”

Him: “It was the same price. It seems really badass. It’s not welded, it’s twisted. It’s huge. And really heavy.”

(more discussion about goats. Nevermind we don’t have goats. Polly and Tripper are goat-sized. Perhaps we’re getting those fainting goats for Christmas. Nothing says Yuletide Greetings like a passel of goats.)

Him: “And I bought you razor wire.”

Me: “Oh my god, you totally know the way to my heart. And that I’ll forgive everything else for a roll of razor wire.”

(I have an unnatural love of razor wire, combined with an unwavering naiveté that doesn’t understand why it’s not legal to just have razor wire everywhere you want to put it. The fact I can’t actually have it only makes me want it MORE. Deep down, a small part of me believes that if I could have razor wire, nothing bad could ever happen again.)

So, it’s been a lovely, four-day weekend, and actually, you might say, “Jennifer! You’re so lucky, you have tomorrow off, too!” But then I’d point out I’m getting a root canal at 9 a.m. and your face would sort of melt into “OH NO” sympathy. Frankly, I could give a rip about the procedure at this point, I’ve had multiple rounds since June with this tooth, and the crown covering the crack, and I’ve finally had to “bite the bullet” and accept the toothy truth, that only a root canal will stop the pain from cold, or serious chewing. (I’ve simply GOT to stop borrowing the dogs’ nylabones!) What really gets my goat about the whole procedure is that all my “dental insurance” got used up on the crown, so I’m paying for this gem out-of-pocket. I could get a KitchenAid 6 mixer, have dinner at Em Chamas, get Tripper neutered, and probably still have a good chunk of change leftover to party all week with that kind of coin.

That aside, the weekend, to this point, has been pretty good – though I must say, I think I’m done with Black Friday. There really weren’t any deals that I needed, and let me just run through my morning to illustrate how true this is:
Awaken at 4:15 a.m. Proceed to try to talk myself out of going altogether. This almost works, but at the last minute I rally and push myself to get dressed & go.
Arrive at Gordmans, approximately 5:05 a.m. They had a deal where you got 25% off your entire purchase, if you were one of the first 300 people in the store. I neglected to notice the fine print, which said, “Everything you can fit into this BAG”, and since I was going to buy a dog bed, that blew that right out the window. So I got JWo two pairs of socks & a new rug for the kitchen in front of the sink. Yeah.

But wait! Then I go over to Linens-n-Things, where I discover the “Doorbusters” are exempt from the 20% off coupon. There go the things on my list, right out the window. With the memory still fresh of peeling 8# of potatoes, I decide I’m worth it. Yep. I bought an $8.00 vegetable peeler. With my coupon. And asked myself as I left the store why in hell I was doing this.

Because then it was on to Target, my love, how I adore the Target, and usually, on Black Friday, I’m running late & I miss most of the crowded throng and just sail right on in. However, because I am not buying much at these other stores, I’m there before it opens. So I go to get in line. Oh. Mah. God. The line wrapped around the corner and halfway the length of the store. The very thing I said I would not do. And once the doors opened, it was pandelerium. People were after cameras and tvs. I reassured myself that my coveted item (a 500GB external hard drive for $87) was probably not THE ITEM everyone was waiting for…. though by the time I steered through the crowd (and the 5 people snatching up some sort of iPod docking system), there weren’t but 6-7 of the hard drives left on the shelf. Phew. My geekdom, preserved. Most of the other stuff I bought was not Christmasey. Light switch covers. Hair color. A couple of games to donate to St. Vincent’s Operation Breakthrough. Baking soda. I even had coupons. The most cheerful woman in the universe checked me out & marveled at the items in my cart. What can I say, lady. My season is a little weirder than yours.

Last, but not least, I went over to Michael’s, because they also had a coupon for 25% off your entire purchase, and that didn’t have to fit in a bag. Too bad they don’t have dog beds. Anyway, I got a bunch of baskets, for gifting our canned goodies, and various and sundry small things for my secret pal. I didn’t have the strength to go to JoAnn’s at that point, and I just went home & collapsed. My euphoria comes from the deal & the steal, and really, anymore, those things are going to be the day after Christmas. I did go to Bath & Body Works on Saturday, and just about got caught in a race war between a customer and a sales clerk, which let me tell you, was enough to whack me out of my daze, because holy crap! The (black) customer asked if the African-American woman (the only other visible sales associate) could help her with the return, after the (white) sales clerk had just told her she was waiting for her manager to complete the return, and the clerk replied with “It’s not that I can’t do it because I’m Caucasian….” and I didn’t really hear the rest, because holy crap! Nobody really needed to be identifying each other by race, but the sales clerk should have let it go and just re-explained the need for the manager’s involvement. The customer was turning to me, and the lady in front of me, for solidarity and shared shock, and I just kept a very surprised-I-am-not-getting-involved look on my face, because, holy crap! Merry Christmas Shopping! Let’s talk about race, baby! Let’s talk about you & me! Let’s talk about all the lotions and the soaps that we see! I was tired, I just wanted to buy my four anti-bacterial hand soaps and various other products, use my coupons, and get home. But I did think about the exchange quite a bit, and concluded that even had the roles been reversed, responsibility still fell to the sales clerk to handle it appropriately. (And she realized what she’d done, and apologized about 70 times, and talked about how stressful the day had been, to the point I just wanted to say, “Lady, let it go. You’re now making it worse.”) Though it was strange to call out the other associate as being the same race as her, like somehow she might get better/necessary service. (Perhaps because this whole thing had happened on Grey’s Anatomy this week, it felt more pointed!) I think, in the end, you just have to rise above and do the right thing. It’s not a bad mantra, and it has usefulness in lots of situations. (So easy to say it, so difficult to do when you’re stressed!)

Anyhoo, my weekend concluded with many hours spent tearing out the garden, smelling rotten tomatoes (and errantly squishing some in my hands) and slimy okra stems and decaying peppers. The worst part of it wasn’t the rotten veggies, but was the blasted sticker bushes that had grown up in some of the peppers, and by the end of my work I looked like that fucker from Hellraiser, on the right half of my body. That took a good 15 minutes to pick out all the burrs, and every time I do, of course, I think of the dude who invented Velcro, and I also think of my dad. He’d have me pick the burrs out of his clothes and boots, post-hunting. (They clung to his bootlaces like crazy) I think that’s where some of my Task/Project/Accomplishment/Perfection streak comes from, because those were all things you never. ever. did half-assed. Otherwise you got to do it again, and what made the second time worse, besides having to keep doing it, was knowing that you’d disappointed. I could have done more in the garden, but I was starting to tire, and I still had to scrape the paint from the windows I’d painted a week ago. Suffice it to say, my right shoulder’s barking at me tonight. Tomorrow, it’ll be my left jaw, and yeah, this part of getting older sucks, the elasticity of youth isn’t there to help you bounce back and feel like a spring chicken – even the same day. But JWo spent the morning with the NYTimes reporter, and the article should appear in a couple of weeks or so. He’s already in bed, and I’m heading there shortly. Much as I want to stay up and watch Dexter, it’s a show we watch together, so I’ll save it for tomorrow night – a nice distraction from any discomfort, methinks. (I should make some jell-o tomorrow. Yeah.)
Hope everyone else had a lovely holiday weekend, and if you did go out and shop, you got the deals you wanted! Now, I’ll just hope that I get offered the chance to buy a KitchenAid 6 mixer from Amazon for $69 on Wednesday. THAT would make my day!

I’ve had two conversations that have amused me in the past day – last night, while we were driving to meet Momma Linda at Em Chamas (really, they should just drop the “E” and make it “MMMM Chamas”, it’s that tasty. Meat! On Swords!), JWo and I were talking about the upcoming NYTimes reporter’s visit, and how exciting and cool it all was:

JWo: “I mean, I’m just an average guy.”
Me: “I’m not average.”
JWo (still in his train of thought): “I’m just ordinary!”
Me: “I’m not ordinary. I’m SPECIAL.”
JWo: “I’m – wow – I’m just ….”
Me: “I would never say I’m ordinary. I’m unique! And Special.”
JWo: “And humble!”
Me: “Oh, not so much.”

Now, I’m not trying to finagle an interview for myself, in fact, I’m so proud and excited for him, I’m blinded by love and excitement. I even said that a fraction of 1% of me even has room to feel envious, and who cares! Global warming hasn’t affected knitting. Or has it? (Waggles eyebrows) It certainly doesn’t get cold enough anymore to wear heavy sweaters! Global warming, it’s robbing me of my god-given right to wear bulky hand knits! How do the sheep feel about global warming?! Do they slow wool production, or are they simply grateful to be sheared? (OK, Tangent, go sit down.)

Then, this morning, I had a rep meeting with someone I’ve known for a long time, and she’s recently taken a job with a business that will be a challenge for her. I believe I even told her, in my special blunt way, that I know she’ll either turn things around or she’ll quit before the end of next year. It’s the truth, and she knows it, too. We were talking about a previous meeting I’d had with another salesperson, and she started laughing, and said, “And I thought :I: was the most passive-aggressive person I knew!” Well, my head tilted all “Baroo?” style, because huh? Was she talking about me? Turns out, no, she wasn’t, and (in relief) I responded, “Phew! I mean, I just think of myself as plain ole AGGRESSIVE.”

Be Aggressive! Be Be Aggressive! And Special! And Give Give Give Thanks! Or I’ll pop pop pop ya in the nose! Because I’m Specially Aggressive! In the name of the Globally Warmed Sheep!

(Hi, I cannot leave for the weekend fast enough. My brain is in rapid-fire mode!)

Last night was something of a humdinger. At one point, I actually wondered if one of those Electro-Magnetic-Pulse-thingies had gone off in the vicinity. (You know, Jack Bauer had to deal with one of those once, and how crazy is it that I actually thought of him amidst the chaos that was Last Night’s Electronics Disaster?!)

So, I got home, and JWo and I had some de-lish takeout Vietnamese, and we watched Weeds. I noticed that the DVR (yes, THAT DVR, the DVR of Discontent) showed a bright red “RECORD” and yet when I hit the controls, it showed that it was recording … nothing. And it was whirring a bit. It’s been whirring lately, and I just let it. Whir, little friend. If you explode, we will blame Corporate Time Warner, because well, I already do. I’ve saved you so much on therapy bills! Anyway, James said it had been doing that since he got home, and since the recording log said it was now 100% full, I wisely panicked, because that could only mean one thing was coming: automatic deletion of shows for no reason. So I did what I’d been told last week, unplugged & re-plugged, and let it re-boot. It seemed to do the trick! I felt quite satisfied.

Later, I was watching tv & checking email on James’ laptop, and playing a little “Poppit”, when suddenly his computer froze. Not just the game, the whole kit & caboodle. I turned it off, and rebooted, and began what has become a very tiresome long dance with the devil, because it will. not. reboot. Not in safe mode, not from the recovery CD, it freezes at a certain line of code when you reboot in safe mode with command prompts, I have updated the BIOS, (yes, my network administrator slip is showing), and I have searched the internets for solutions, and so far have been unsuccessful. We have a dead computer, unless I figure out what the magical resuscitation clue is. (It won’t even power on if it’s not plugged in.) So as I was wrangling with that, my cell phone rings.

It’s James. Who is wondering what is going on, and I am thinking, holy moses, does he have a nanny cam on me? No, he’d just been trying to call the house phone, which would ring and ring and ring and ring and ring, with no answering machine. Or, I should point out, any RINGING on my end. Sure enough, the phone is dead.
WELL! We’ve been here before! I know what to do! So I begin. Racing around, upstairs, downstairs, jump up jump up and git down, unplugging power sources and phone cords. But. The corded phones don’t work, either. Hrm. I go to the basement and unplug and plug in the alarm, to make sure it’s not messing with the lines. I test the alarm system, twice. It works, but it also starts beeping at me. Because the landline phone lines aren’t working. (We have layers on the alarm system. I swear, try what you like, asshats, but that alarm is going OFF. With outdoor siren.) So, I call the phone company and immediately explain I have already attempted their foolproof plug-unplug-replug system, and so out to the box we go, in our jammies, at 11 pm, mind you, with a corded phone, a screwdriver, and my cell phone. Nope. None of the lines work.

As the very cordial CSR is setting up the technician call, he sort of explains how surprised he was that I went outside this late to test the line. (Hi. I don’t put “Tenacious Jen” on my bills, but obviously we’ve never met.) I then tell him that we’ve had a whole host of electronics problems this evening, and while I’m not at the point I’m going to start wearing a colander for a hat to keep the aliens out, I AM going just a little bit crazy with it all.

He laughed, I laughed, but I think we both knew I wasn’t lying. About the crazy part.
The colander hat is another matter entirely.

(Oh, update, the phone issue has been identified – there’s some work being done down the street & a crew “Stretched The Cable” causing a “Loss of Dial Tone”. I love the doublespeak for “We Fucked Up and Cut The Cable” resulting in “You Had No Phone.” But it’s fixed now!)

Today may be full of blogs, peeps. The things, they just keep comin’.

I answered the phone, and it was someone looking for Jim. Now, my husband is James, so much so, I do not even think of him when I hear “Jim” but instead, think of my boss. Who is Jim. Anyway, I was all, “WHO? Jim? You got the wrong number” and then they said Jim + his last name, and then oooooh yeah, ok, people do shorten names on their own. So this guy told me who he was, Tim, and that he was involved in James’ organization (MWA) and I thought I recognized the name as someone I’d met a few times, who was a very nice man and someone I knew I could joke around with (you can see where this is going, can’t you?). Tim continued to tell me that he had an interesting proposition for him that he wanted to discuss.

I get all coquettish and say, “So, does this proposition involve him taking his clothes off?”

And Tim goes, “Uh……..” Pause. “Well not at first, anyway.”

And I’m all HAHAHAHAHA I am so funny and “Well, I’m sure he’ll be interested!” and I proceed to take down Tim’s pertinent info and phone numbers.

JWo called five minutes ago & I passed along the info, and said, “Tim’s the banker, right?”

“No. Tim works for the DNR (Dept. of Nat. Resources) and is on our state board.”

“Oh.”

Pause
“Why?”

“I might have told him you were willing to take your clothes off. I thought he was the other Tim.”

Whups. I should just be tranquilized and not allowed near the phone or computer or the public at large, really.

UPDATE: I guess James called him back, and told him he’d heard his wife had maybe gotten a bit salty with him, and he said, “Yeah, I debated on whether or not to tell her this call might be recorded…” Turns out he’s with the Dept. of Natural Resources. So another page for my file. Saucy AND Salty AND Mismatched. It’s a fabulous Friday!

I left the house wearing all black, my Lady Eleanor, and prepared to enjoy my day off, with a pedicure, a little bit of shopping, and then back home to knit & wait for the cable guy while monitoring the siding guys working on the house. (It’s all Fences and Siding and Greenhouse and Home Improvements here at the NuWo household!)

I enjoyed my pedicure, as always, (Russian Navy toes!) and teetered over to a chair afterwards, while Nancy, the greatest technician there, toted my shoes & my wrap. And that’s when I saw my choice of footwear. Same shoe! Same style. (Bina leather mules, Target, they’re sooo comfy). Not the same color. Because I’d loved the black ones so much, and at such a great price, I bought a second pair in brown. And had sailed out the door with one of each color on my feet. I felt horrified. Then I desperately thought, “Maybe? Maybe people with think it’s cool. Like kind of eccentric, but still, like maybe a TREND. Yeah.” None of that helped, btw. And fortunately, the Doc Marten sandals that had killed my feet after two days of non-stop wearing were still in the trunk, so I switched my mismatched footwear for matched (albeit heavy) sandals.

And let this be a lesson for all, to exercise caution while dressing in a darkened room.

Unless you think it’s crazysexycool and are going to carry the trend forward, and then I’d like to claim my spot at the forefront of that trend.

Man, everything I wanna write about is a complaint. I’m glad the weather’s started to change – but it’s still gonna be in the 80’s later this week. (I see they’ve backed down from “86” to the low 80s, that kinda took the wind out of my sails. But don’t worry! I’ll carry on kvetching!)

I was behind a chevy cavalier at the Wendy’s drive-thru at lunch, and I realized JUST how much I profile people based on their driving behavior, their car, and where they’re from. Show me a KC MO resident (at least 10 yrs) who doesn’t see a JOCO sticker on a Kansas plate and make judgments. Well, I’m more guilty of doing it when there’s a “WY” on those KS plates…. Wyandotte, aka, the Dot. Had I not noticed that plate, I’d have sworn these two lovebirds had taken a break from cooking meth in Independence and went for a drive for a Frosty. But no, not just a Frosty. Some sort of specialty tweaker drive-through special that required the longest conversation I have EVER seen, all the while she’s twisting her stringy hair around and around and around while her boyfriend slouched in the front seat, opened the door to spit, and continued to chime in on the ordering process. Let me tell you what. Special orders? They upset US. I was so irritated I ordered a mandarin chicken sandwich. (That doesn’t exist. But it does come as a salad. And is quite tasty!)
And a frosty. Vanilla. Yum.

But that hasn’t succeeded in soothing this savage beast. Why? Because it’s raining outside, and while my friends at Weather.com say it’s all of 61 degrees F out there? THE HEAT IS NOW ON in our offices. And Glenn Frey can SUCK IT. And the heat is on what, you asked? Not just a little, to take us up to whatever these hot blooded people like, surely above my comfort zone of 68, but ok, even if it were 70-72? But no. It’s BLASTING. I thought I was getting ill, until I asked my neighbor if she had noticed a definitive warming in the office.

I was eating my lunch and realized my iTunes had rolled through into Phil Collins. Now, no disrespect to the balding buddha of ballads, but dude, the last thing I needed today was your plaintive, earnest tunes about how we’ll just go on li—-ving ….. sep—arate lives. Finally. Something I can control. I’ve switched to rap. Bust’n caps in yo’ asses. (I had to explain to a co-worker yesterday what “NWA” stood for. Gah. My life! Nobody else can live it quite like me, eh?)

I can’t WAIT to see what happens in the next hour.
Signing off,
Comtessa Von CrankyPants

I’m wishing more people at work would take this quiz. I found it absolutely hilarious. And, if I’m being totally honest, there were definitely some parts that were true…… I love nothing more than a mean, sarcastic joke. Well, maybe custard from Sheridan’s, but other than that?

Your Score: Class Clown

You are 42% Rational, 71% Extroverted, 57% Brutal, and 71% Arrogant.

You are the Class Clown. This means you wear grease paint and have a big, red nose…

I really need to stop thinking so literally…

Anyway, I MEANT to say that you are the Class Clown, and this means that you are extroverted, mean, and arrogant. You are not very rational, so you gravitate towards things that produce feelings or emotions over thoughts (like fart jokes or spitballs, for instance). You are also an extrovert and rather full of yourself, so of course you want constant attention for yourself and think you are somehow better than others. (Upon hearing the expression “you are full of yourself”, you probably also slyly feel the need to ask women if they would like to be “full of yourself” too. I am assuming you have a penis. I often make that assumption, being fond of the penis.) You can also be a bit mean-spirited, and like a class clown you wouldn’t hesitate to make a joke at someone else’s expense, no matter how terrible it would make them feel. A lot of people probably find your antics annoying, sophomoric, and desperately histrionic. Like some sort of crack-taking hyperactive monkey, you’d do anything, mock anyone, just to get someone to pay attention to you for five seconds. So your personality defects are that you have to be the center of attention, that you don’t care about others, and that you are rather irrational and motivated by intuitions. Now stop walking around with those books on your head and sit down this instant! Or else I’ll be forced to stand here, hands on my hips, doing nothing once again!

To put it less negatively:

1. You are more INTUITIVE than rational.

2. You are more EXTROVERTED than introverted.

3. You are more BRUTAL than gentle.

4. You are more ARROGANT than humble.

Compatibility:

Your exact opposite is the Robot.

Other personalities you would probably get along with are the Schoolyard Bully, the Smartass, and the Brute.

*

*

If you scored near fifty percent for a certain trait (42%-58%), you could very well go either way. For example, someone with 42% Extroversion is slightly leaning towards being an introvert, but is close enough to being an extrovert to be classified that way as well. Below is a list of the other personality types so that you can determine which other possible categories you may fill if you scored near fifty percent for certain traits.

The other personality types:

The Emo Kid: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Starving Artist: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Bitch-Slap: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Brute: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

The Hippie: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Televangelist: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Schoolyard Bully: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Class Clown: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

The Robot: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Haughty Intellectual: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Spiteful Loner: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Sociopath: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

The Hand-Raiser: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Braggart: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Capitalist Pig: Rational, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Smartass: Rational, Extroverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

Be sure to take my Sublime Philosophical Crap Test if you are interested in taking a slightly more intellectual test that has just as many insane ramblings as this one does!

About Saint_Gasoline

I am a self-proclaimed pseudo-intellectual who loves dashes. I enjoy science, philosophy, and fart jokes and water balloons, not necessarily in that order. I spend 95% of my time online, and the other 5% of my time in the bathroom, longing to get back on the computer. If, God forbid, you somehow find me amusing instead of crass and annoying, be sure to check out my blog and my webcomic at SaintGasoline.com.