Month: September 2005 (Page 3 of 4)

Oh. My. God.

Training is over.

I actually wrote down, “This is the point at which the cougar would start to chew his paw off.”

People, that was around 11 a.m. I just now finished up with training (with a break for lunch), and the last 35 minutes were the only ones I needed.

I wish I could hide my feelings better. Because right now I look like a mental patient with anger management issues who escaped lockdown, hasn’t had her meds in three days, and is seeking SOMEONE TO PAY FOR HER PAIN.

I love that song.

She wears a long fur coat of mink
Even in the summertime
Everybody knows from the coy little wink
The girl’s got a lot on her mind
She’s got big thoughts, big dreams

doo doo doo doooooo she wants to LEAD the glamorous life she don’ need…… training….

lalalala, and so let’s talk about how NOT glamorous my life is this week. What with the sewing and the schlepping and the running around frantically and then my day tomorrow, which will be spent in training. You guys think it’s all free lunches and private concerts? Ha! Hi. I’m Velvet Jones. And I don’ like no trainin’. I once endured 2 hours of training where the trainer dude said “Are you familiar with….?” every 2 minutes as he opened another application. Finally, with all the tact of a bull moose, I said, “YEAH. WE’RE FAMILIAR.”

I don’t envy trainers, especially if I’m in the room. Not like I’m Ms. Whiz-Bang, I’m just very impatient. I want to know what I need to know, and to get all my questions answered, and then I want to get the fuck out of there and back to the 800 things that are accumulating on my desk in my absence. I had to sit in on a “pre-training” session today, to set expectations & get the trainer started. It’s never a good sign for anybody if I start making notes for my amusement later. But if you use the word “bloomin'” repeatedly, as in “You don’t want to have to see every bloomin’ job number”, and then you insist on using “bloomin'” at least another 6 times in the next 10 minutes, well, then, “bloomin'” gets written down in my notebook. Along with this li’l gem of a malaprop:
“Exactly, it’s like kissing two birds with one kiss.”

Eeeeeeeexactly. Tomorrow morning will be the longest morning of my life. I’ll be the one writing softly and carrying a big stick, so I can whack the bushes and find the kissing birds. And choke the life out of them. AND THEN EAT THEM FOR LUNCH.

doo dooo do do do dooo doo doo the girl’s got a lot on her mind…..

The marvelous Kristin, modeling the Dracula Cape for the TV commercial being filmed this morning. I’m rather proud of it, truth be told. Especially because I violated one of my Craft Rules: No Sewing After 9:30 p.m.! And doesn’t she do scary well? I was scared. You’ve been warned. View at your own risk. People with heart conditions should just move on to the next blog.

(don’t worry – I know the pumpkins are upside-down. But the black cats are right-side up! That’s the beauty of crazy plaid prints from the quilting department. Which, credit should go to JWo for finding the fabric – I had given up by that point.)

Because even on the hardest of days, it’s still a better day than the flat-lining quasi-good days at the last place.

Yes, it’s realtime, 12:20 a.m. I just spent the past 3.5 hours sewing a purposefully hideous dracula cape for a television spot that’s being shot Thursday morning. Because I’m a crafty, creative freak & I feel like Mohammed Ali and I am SO MUCH MORE THAN just one thing, including my job title. If it were snowing, I’d run around in it right this minute, barefoot, catching snowflakes on my tongue.

Reality crashes, I should just go to bed. Perhaps a celebratory swig, and a hug from my dog?

For whatever reason, the more noteworthy characters in my hometown have been rolling around in my head the past couple of weeks. There’s Jack, who had a physical disability that caused his chin to smash down onto his chest. He worked at the gas station and was very animated, which compounded with his permanently hunched/surprised expression, made for a lot to look at. There was Marvin, who was certifiably NUTS, and terrified every kid in the town. Well over six feet tall, he strode around town, yelling at anyone who got near him. It was a big thing to dare one another to run up to his porch. Just so you don’t get any ideas about how brave I am, don’t worry: I never did it. What made Marvin really stand out was his year-round overcoat, on the back of which he’d hand lettered, “If it weren’t for handguns, we’d still be British subjects”. Hand lettered with electrical tape. The pieces that came off left behind shadowed letters, since the sun had lightened the overcoat from years of wear. He was somethin’ else.

But the real talk of the town was the Garbage Lady. Cecilia Something. She and her husband lived in a trailer, in the more questionable trailer park in town. (There were two.) I don’t think they really had jobs? I would see her, as the school bus drove into town, rooting in the trash barrels in front of the grocery store. She filled a large black trash bag with her discoveries, and she also didn’t have much to do with kids, beyond yelling. Looking back, I’m sure she was horribly taunted and villified by older kids, but to me, she was just plain scary. She smelled something awful, and her face, forgive me, but the only way to describe it was rather troll-like. Long, unwashed graying hair framed her face. Her lower jaw jutted up and out, pushing her lower lip higher and gave her a comical look. She wore old cat-eye glasses, and, unfortunately, she had whiskers. There it is: whiskers. There weren’t many occasions I was close enough to see them, maybe two or three, but boy, those whiskers sure were vivid. Made an impression on MY young mind, you could say.

One of those whisker-viewing times came on a Saturday in October, when a small group of us were trick-or-treating for UNICEF. After much deliberation, we decided to try her trailer. It was curiousity, really, and we were feeling brazen. She let us in, and we saw that every horizontal surface in her home was covered in trash. COV-ERED. I don’t really remember if she gave us anything, maybe pennies, small change – I know she gave us a lecture on how she didn’t have much, but she also didn’t stop talking to us and we eventually started to feel trapped. I mostly remember thinking we shouldn’t be taking anything at all from her, because she obviously needed it. Around the same time, I remember attending a Democratic Party meeting with my parents, in the basement of the Farmer’s Mutual building in town, it was 1976, and Jimmy Carter was running against Gerald Ford. Those meetings were a blur to me, being 8 years old; I mostly recall animated voices & the smell of strong coffee. But Cecilia came to one, and had a long conversation with my dad, in which she (oddly) informed him of her CB handle: White Dove. I know later we laughed, because goooood lordy, those truckers had no idea from her handle who they were talking to.

And that’s really it, isn’t it, that missing piece that keeps us from understanding people? Not knowing or being able to fathom their needs, motivations, etc.? I still don’t understand her world, how someone could live a complete life in a town of 700 people, with no visible means of support, where going through the trash every day is your routine. Yelled at by teenagers, an icon of fear to children, yet, there she went, every day – rummaging through the trash, waddling back home to her husband and apparently, onto the airwaves with a moniker that allowed her to connect with other people, if at a distance.

It’s funny, because when I lived there, I absolutely hated my hometown and its smallness and simpleness, yet it is so rich, in its colloquial-ness and oddities, like a small handmade marble that, as you turn it, catches the light and flashes color in a new way you didn’t see before. Don’t worry: I’m not going back (they don’t have cable modems, for pete’s sake), but I do like to indulge in the memories of some of the more colorful incidents & characters that populated that little speck of land in Iowa. I remember a mixture of admiration and mostly embarassment, watching my dad spending time talking to the Garbage Lady. I know now, he was being kind. His is the bar I hold for myself, in trying to be good, in trying to be kind to others.

Ahhh, White Dove. I hope she was happy.

….And these are the earrings I’m wearing.

Fitting indeed.

So, I have this cold. And today finds me in an exceptionally whiney place. Charming, eh? Reminds me of this book I had as a teenager, full of advice & whatnot, probably an attempt at keeping the average outcast 15-year-old from killing him/herself with sage advice and homespun wisdom. Mmmmm, yeah. Because 15-year olds really LISTEN. Anyway, it had this line in it, “When you’re bored, you’re boring to be with!” I would like to find the fucker who wrote that and beat him about the ears. I know I’m boring & whiney right now. I am betting all of my savings that when you’re whiney, you’re a PAIN IN THE ASS to be with. Go chirp platitudes somewhere else, we’re cranky.

Thank goodness JWo is spared the dubious pleasure of my company today, since he’s off helping build a duck blind. The dogs are content with pets and pee breaks, so it’s just me here to inflict self-torture with my incessant INNER WHINING. WAH wah. Woe is me. Then I get this reminder from the intellectual gnome, who is buried under the cold virus, so he doesn’t surface too quickly, reminding me that there are people in the world and our country who are having a much tougher go of it, and I should be grateful I’m merely trying to distract myself by playing “Bejeweled”. Unfortunately for Intellectual Gnome, the Whiners are running as a pack today, and they promptly stuffed a sock in his piehole & shoved him in the closet. Perhaps he is the thumping I feel at the base of my neck? Or is just MORE PAIN from this BLASTED COLD??????

There better be some Netflix movies in the mailbox today. Do you hear me, Mr. Man? THERE BETTER BE. That is all I’m saying. You’d be wise to just steer clear this weekend. I fling myself on the couch with all the angst of a 15-year old. Who is boring. And extremely adept at rolling one’s eyes.

I love this fountain:

OK, so the Access Hollywood bus was in town, but Billy Bush wasn’t on it. I KNOW! He’s the cute one! He had to jet off to Miami to interview Paul McCartney. :tsk tsk: The life of these celebrities, I tell ya.

So it was 90 degrees, which I guess it’s going to be until Christmas, heaven forbid it cool down here. We stood around for a long time, waiting. The setup was a little overblown, and random people, including homeless people, all sorta fell in to the area around the J.C. Nichols fountain, some people there for the meet-n-greet, other people just wandering through. We had a nice time chatting with our reps, and they served Gates BBQ, which we did not partake in, though we did watch one of our reps actually eat an entire plate of sauced food while wearing a crisp collarless white dress shirt – and not get a spot on himself. Now that, my friends, is a true celebrity in my world.

We ended up leaving and skipping the autograph section – I mean, I’m not going to grab Nancy O’Dell and say something pithy and meaningful, because unlike those celebrities that have gone before her (Martha Stewart & Brian Adams), I really had no connection or interest. Plus, I have a head cold. I’m about as intriguing, peppy and exciting as a vanilla wafer. It was interesting to see just how much she got touched by other people. I think it would drive me nuts.

So, here, for your viewing pleasure, are my shots of the whole shebang:

Here’s a pic of the mega buses they were driving, as taken from the shaded, slightly cooler side of the fountain:

The little short dude was just everywhere, running around, getting things set up. My gaydar had him at “hello”. Therefore, I instantly had an affinity for him. Swishes, honey!

So, finally, Nancy has made her way over to where they’re making the shots & she’s doing her AH bit. I took the first picture without any adjustments (circling Nancy), and then thought it would be fun to try out the zoom. I felt very paparazzi-esque – not bad for a li’l Kodak 10x zoom!

Kristin & I blew the pop stand, grabbed some Wendy’s & went back to work. I eventually left & came home, falling into a blurred, cold-medicine-induced coma. I did, however, get a lovely shot of the fountain, homeless people got a really good meal of barbecue, and my picture taken with Eric Chaloux, a morning reporter on KCTV5. He is an entire blog entry on his own, but it’s a long running, funny thing, both at home and at work. Stay tuned, as they say! ;)

Ugh. James got a cold earlier this week & now I have it – and it SUCKS! I thought, for a couple days there, that I was escaping it, but of course, I should have realized it would hit me in time to be in full-blown awfulness just in time for the weekend. I feel like I’m underwater & my sinuses & ear canals feel like they’ve been pumped full-to-exploding for the Poseidon Cold Adventure.

I’m not sure how long I’m going to last at work, which also sucks, because I have a ton of things to do & I was also supposed to go to a meet & greet with the Access Hollywood people (Nancy O’Dell & Billy Bush), which sounds way more exciting and glamorous than my life really is, mind you. Especially with the clogged schnozz. It’s hard to be glamorous when you’re honking like a goose defending its turf.

The only upswing I’ve thought of? I probably won’t say anything really, really STUPID, because I’m in such a stupor! Otherwise, god only knows what I’d be confiding in those people. Probably a discussion about my phlegm and how I really like the night & day packs of cold medicine from Costco.

I talked to my dad on my drive in to work & told him I’d done some writing about Frank & Carly; he told me that he’d gotten a copy of the article that was written about them, oh so many years ago. He’s going to send it to me – he’d gotten it from the doctor who bought their land as a getaway acreage. In our chat, I reminded him about the lemon meringue pie & he reminded me of the dogs’ names – it was like uncorking a bottle of champagne, the memories just flooded around us.

How on earth I could have forgotten those dogs’ names: Toots and Casper. Toots ruled the roost, was the yellowy-lab sort of mix, and Casper was just some flotsam-jetsam mix of something that had a lot of hair. For some reason I’d made Casper into a hound, in my memory twists, but indeed, he was an explosion of fur and not exactly placeable. And Frank – lordy. Dad reminded me of how he’d imitate Toots defending her food, like a maraca rattling in the back of his throat, lips curled up, exposing his teeth.

Dogs. For those of us who love them, we sure can connect easily with others who do, too. The photos from New Orleans shred my heart, especially those of lost animals & then even the happy photos, of people reunited with their pets. (I should note it’s pretty easy to get me weepy.) Maybe because I love our own doggies so much, I can’t imagine being without the comfort & joy they give us.

Suzy & Polly: lovable lummoxes!