In which I’m totally not dead or anything.
I haven’t read comments yet, but I see that there are quite a few and I imagine you’re all wondering where the hell I am. I’m here! Sitting at my desk in my office at home, listening to my three miserable dogs squinch themselves endlessly because the fleas this year are FROM HELL. I’ve dipped them, washed them, sprinkled flea powder all over every soft surface in the house, vaccuumed like a demon, washed all the rugs and blankets, and they’re still infested. It fucking sucks and I feel like the worst dog mom ever.
Thursday I went to karaoke at Gorgeous’s insistence. I hate karaoke. I’m a professional singer, and listening to drunk amateurs ‘sing’ hurts my ears. I ended up staying until the end, though, because I got a little drunk and wasn’t willing to drive home in that condition. Gorgeous conferred with the karaoke guy and made me sing the last song of the night. The six people who were left danced while I did so. I can no longer say I’ve never sung karaoke, and to tell you the truth it rather irritates me. I liked being a karaoke snob, damn it.
Friday morning at eight I took Stella to the vet again. She’d developed a second hemotoma in her other ear, and had to have a second surgery. I went grocery shopping and ran a few errands and returned home, where I napped. I picked Stella up just before five and took her home. I stayed in Friday night. (I’d texted some girls to see if they wanted to come out, but no one responded.)
Saturday morning Gorgeous had a total meltdown — she and Rockstar broke up last month and it had finally hit her that It Was Over, and she was sitting in her car drinking a 40 and chain smoking at 10:30 in the morning — Mother and I became a sort of tag team emergency crew and got her into her house, fed, and snuggled in for a nap. Then I returned to the farm, dipped Shiva again, did more laundry, and napped.
I’m all about the napping.
Saturday night I went to Iowa City with the whole crew to check out the new sushi restaurant. It sucked. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. The service was polite but awful, the miso was served luke warm and with way too much seaweed in it, the drinks were excruciatingly slow in coming, and the sushi was average at best. After dinner, we went to The Summit for a few hours. I haven’t been to a dance club in a really, really, really long time and the experience made me feel old and fat, but the boy-watching was pretty good considering we were still in the Midwest. I drank pretty heavily: two Jaeger shots and four vodka-cranberries. We left around one o’clock. Gorgeous fell asleep in my lap on the drive home, and I crashed at her place because she didn’t want to sleep alone. She’s a fiery blonde Italian and her resting body temperature is about one hundred and ten. She’d be great to sleep with in the wintertime.
Sunday I went home and — you guessed it — took a nap, then got up and went to band practice. After band practice I sat in PK’s yard and had a nice long chat with him. He offered to lend me cash if I need any, which was incredibly sweet. I said I was good for now, but he said it can help to know there are options, which is true. Love that guy.
I haven’t gotten any calls from any of the jobs I’ve applied to through Workforce Development, but Bread and BoSe are trying to fly me out to Indy to teach a day course on Xactimate to the MR ROOF sales team. I’m going to have to build an outline and see how much I could cover in one 8-hour day, and then figure out how much to charge for it.
Gorgeous has decided to go to Hawai’i for awhile and urges me to come along with her. I’ve never been; it sounds divine. I promised her I’d consider it, but honestly I’m so deep in debt I can’t see it actually happening… the idea sure sounds amazing, though. After the total shit that has been the past couple months of my life — marital issues galore, financial problems, the stress of travel, dog health, jeeps without tires, borrowing money, losing my job, etc. — a month on a tropical island, stressing the fuck down for awhile, sounds almost too good to be true.
Today I’ve eaten a mango and a handful of cranberry-chocolate chip trail mix. I have not gotten dressed. I have watched Amadeus and done laundry and given Stella her pill. I’d better go call and make my Target VISA payment before they send me to collections. Ciao, babies.
Update: So I called Target to make payment arrangements because my account was 113 days past due. This lovely boy called Brandon lowered my interest rate, took a reasonable payment today and set up a 6-month $25-a-month payment schedule until I’m, as he put it, ‘back on my feet.’ He also encouraged me to apply for work at Target, and sent me to jobsinminneapolis.com to check out all the Target openings. Isn’t that cute?!
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
heh…that’s one way of making sure that your target bill gets paid. if you have the audacity to pay the mortgage instead, they can garnish your wages…or can they? garnish wages, you know, that never sounds as nice as it really is.
hope you’re doing well. oh, i’m on gmail now if’n you wanna chat…i’m dykewife there 🙂
damn, i wish my brain worked..it should be it’s never as nice as it sounds. gadz!
glad to hear you are still doing well. my dog mattie was always getting hematomas and the vet finally told me that they would heal themselves if you just left them alone. of course, she would lose her smoothe showdog ears, but would be happy just the same.
sorry the job search situation is so tough. hope you find something good really soon.
gregg
target visa was the death of me. it was the only place in colorado who would give a canadian girl some credit (i.e. being international with no credit in america, I needed $700 just to OPEN a phone line), and they kept upping my limit and, well, the rest i’m still trying to pay off. I’m glad to hear that they offered a payment plan, I got swallowed up and spit out, 18% interest raining in my face.
hopefully you’ll hear on a job soon…
i’m glad you’re not totally dead or anything.
i *heart* karaoke … but not the kind here in the States. I’m the King of the Japanese Karaoke Box!
*smooch*
I’ve been missing you, hon. I’m glad you’re still hanging in there. Chat me up sometime!
Just think how much those guys you train will have the potential to earn. Then price yourself accordingly.
Or, $15 each. Whatever.
I am glad you are alive and it sounds like you are living it up. I too believe in naps–especially lately. Naps are goooood.
naomi ~ Garnishing is most assuredly NOT nice.
Gregg ~ my vet acts like they need to be drained or they’ll just get HUGER.
moi ~ I. HATE. CREDIT. CARDS.
Vuboq ~ I *heart* you.
Brad ~ Yes! Gtalk! Gtalk! Gtalk!
Jim @ HiTek ~ More like $75-$90 a head, actually. You didn’t raise no slouches!
Lynn ~ Naps. Good. So good.
I often used to wonder how much to charge for training. Then I devised a cunning plan I still use today for pricing all sorts of project offers. I call a local recruitment company and say something like “Hi! I’m from [made-up-company-name] and I need to train [x] people in [whatever it is] – Could you tell me if you have someone available to perform that, and if so, what are the costs involved?” And then, knowing the company requesting the training have probably performed a similar exercise I simply undercut the agency. Works for me 🙂
I’ve even honed this technique. Now, when the agency calls me back with a price I say “I’m sorry, I’ve already found a guy to do it, and he’s cheaper than that. He’s freelance, so perhaps you’d like to speak to him about future requests you receive?” They generally say they would (they love people on their books) and I give them my email address. They then contact me with any similar work in future. My plans are so cunning you could name them Basil and people would think they were foxes….
Good luck with your search for work, the training, killing the fleas, etc!
You have some shit going on, but –damn– you’re still partying and having fun. I really need a night out on the town. All that drinking and dancing and singing is giving me a mad craving.
glad you’re not dead. glad you’re taking plenty of naps–there are few things that don’t seem better after a nap. unless you’re getting depressed, in which case, naps make it worse and i recommend a walk or meditation instead.
did you try putting that oil on the dogs? advantix or frontline or one of those? that should work… i’ll send you some if you need it, email me your address.
why would you want to go to hawaii when you can go to Iowa City? silly girl. (total sarcasm there)
can’t think of any magic words to make your life better, but, kisses and hang in there.
xoxo
birdfarm
Kisses always help the bestest. -m