Tim called me today, after leaving messages that he was "worried" about me. Finally I answered the phone, and he informed me that Mikey, one of the cats, died yesterday, and that Sosa, his brother, will probably be gone within a few days.
These are the same cats who, not two months ago, were living here and THRIVING. You can see in the pictures--they were big, sleek, healthy cats. They leave here, and two months later one is dead and the other is dying.
He says Mikey got "depressed" from living in an attic apartment, and that Sosa is "all yellow like Tiger was". (Tiger was my tabby, who died of liver cancer when Tim and CR and I were roomies.) He also said that they were "covered in soot" from living in that apartment (what the HELL kind of "apartment" IS this?) and that their eyes were infected (a problem which they'd had here, but which was never really serious.) So basically, no one was taking care of these cats AT ALL, is what I'm hearing here. And Tim PAID the person they were staying with, which is more than he did for me.
I know these cats were not my responsibility. I KNOW they weren't. I know I did way more than anyone else would have done, and took much better care of them than anyone else would have. But I feel so, so bad about this. They were sweet kitties. I didn't want anything bad to happen to them--that's why I refused to take them to a shelter, because I was afraid of what might happen. Now I'm thinking that would have been a more humane way for them to go, than spending two months in god-knows-what conditions and going through whatever brought them to this state.
I know it's not my fault. But I feel guilty--guilty, and sad, and angry as hell. People suck. They suck, they suck, they suck. It's just not fair.
I hugged Whitey and Snickers about a hundred times, after I got off the phone. Snickers tried to chew my nose off, and Whitey let out a "brrrt?" and shed about three pounds of fur on me--I'm pretty sure they didn't get the point of all that hugging.
God, I love these cats.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Will You Still Love Me...
...if I tell you something filthy?
(Those of you who immediately thought "I might love you MORE if you tell me something filthy"...keep it in yer pants, pervo. It's not THAT kind of filthy.)
Several weeks ago, we had a barbecue here at the Catastrophe. It was Thug Central Station for many, many hours, and though I spent the last half of it watching "West Side Story" and napping in the bedroom far away from the sound and fury, I did make three small contributions: a pan of mac-and-cheese, a pan of brownies, and a great big pot of spaghetti.
After the party, having at the very least a sense of justice, LJ cleaned up the mess. And so, when I saw all the dishes arrayed on the "clean" side of the counter, I was very pleased. There was the casserole dish, the tongs, the various implements and colanders and pans that had been used during the day...and the big spaghetti pot, with the lid sitting on it, right in the middle of it all.
We don't always put dishes away, here at the Catastrophe; we generally just pick them out of the dish drainer as we need them. It's a domestic sin, I know, but a small one. And the big spaghetti pot doesn't get used very often--generally only for tall food like corn or, well, spaghetti. So it sat there for a good long while, and I didn't really think about it, or look too closely at it...until a couple of weeks ago, when I noticed condensation on the inside of the glass lid. I looked closer...not only was there condensation, but there was also something that looked like...fur, sticking to the inside of the lid.
I looked even closer. Apparently a few bites of spaghetti had been left in the bottom of the pot after everyone was done. And rather than throwing them away, like any average person, LJ...just left them there. And put the lid on the pot, and moved it over to the "clean" counter.
Okay. That's scary enough. Here's what's worse:
That was a couple of weeks ago. And I haven't done a thing about it. I haven't lifted the lid, though I did move the pot, because it was in the way...but as far as actually attacking the problem? Not at all.
Yes, I know that's gross. I TOLD you it was gonna be filthy. But the fact of the matter is, I'm scared of this thing. I'm scared to open it, scared of having to deal with the contents. This is reminiscent of the times that ex-hubby #1 would drink half a glass of milk, then put the half-empty glass behind the computer monitor where no one could see it. I'd only find it a few days later when I smelled it. This is worse, though---worse by far.
If I suddenly stop posting, you'll know that I have been devoured by the Creature That Used to Be Spaghetti. (Firefly, I'm leaving you the kitties.) Because I'm going to tackle it...
...tomorrow.
(Those of you who immediately thought "I might love you MORE if you tell me something filthy"...keep it in yer pants, pervo. It's not THAT kind of filthy.)
Several weeks ago, we had a barbecue here at the Catastrophe. It was Thug Central Station for many, many hours, and though I spent the last half of it watching "West Side Story" and napping in the bedroom far away from the sound and fury, I did make three small contributions: a pan of mac-and-cheese, a pan of brownies, and a great big pot of spaghetti.
After the party, having at the very least a sense of justice, LJ cleaned up the mess. And so, when I saw all the dishes arrayed on the "clean" side of the counter, I was very pleased. There was the casserole dish, the tongs, the various implements and colanders and pans that had been used during the day...and the big spaghetti pot, with the lid sitting on it, right in the middle of it all.
We don't always put dishes away, here at the Catastrophe; we generally just pick them out of the dish drainer as we need them. It's a domestic sin, I know, but a small one. And the big spaghetti pot doesn't get used very often--generally only for tall food like corn or, well, spaghetti. So it sat there for a good long while, and I didn't really think about it, or look too closely at it...until a couple of weeks ago, when I noticed condensation on the inside of the glass lid. I looked closer...not only was there condensation, but there was also something that looked like...fur, sticking to the inside of the lid.
I looked even closer. Apparently a few bites of spaghetti had been left in the bottom of the pot after everyone was done. And rather than throwing them away, like any average person, LJ...just left them there. And put the lid on the pot, and moved it over to the "clean" counter.
Okay. That's scary enough. Here's what's worse:
That was a couple of weeks ago. And I haven't done a thing about it. I haven't lifted the lid, though I did move the pot, because it was in the way...but as far as actually attacking the problem? Not at all.
Yes, I know that's gross. I TOLD you it was gonna be filthy. But the fact of the matter is, I'm scared of this thing. I'm scared to open it, scared of having to deal with the contents. This is reminiscent of the times that ex-hubby #1 would drink half a glass of milk, then put the half-empty glass behind the computer monitor where no one could see it. I'd only find it a few days later when I smelled it. This is worse, though---worse by far.
If I suddenly stop posting, you'll know that I have been devoured by the Creature That Used to Be Spaghetti. (Firefly, I'm leaving you the kitties.) Because I'm going to tackle it...
...tomorrow.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Happy Birthday To Me
Today I am 36 years old. There's no denying it anymore; I am officially middle-aged. Which is fine, I guess, though I certainly don't FEEL middle-aged; I guess no one ever does.
I took three days off work, in an effort to compensate for that long week of moving, and so I spent my birthday catnapping with Snickers and watching PBS cartoon shows. LJ is out of town--fine and dandy with me!--and so I took myself to dinner at Leona's.
Some of you might be saying "What a crappy birthday!" And by most people's standards, I guess it is. But I was happy with it--a long day of lounging in my pajamas, a purring kitten in one ear, comfort-food on the television...I can live with that, you know?
I think about the other birthdays I've had, trying to remember them all.
My 18th birthday, my boyfriend gave me roses.
My 19th birthday, he picked up our favorite Mexican food, just in time for me to eat before leaving for my night-shift factory job.
I don't remember 20.
My 21st birthday, I was away at summer school, trying to pick up my elusive last few credit hours before student teaching. Firefly was my roomie at the time, and two of our friends came down for the weekend. We went to the bars and they decorated my car, but I remember being sad that my fiance couldn't make it down to Champaign.
I don't remember 22. I remember that everything had changed; that in the space of that last year, I'd broken off my engagement, fallen in love with someone else, moved in with him, pissed off Carol--my roommate at the time--and then stood by aghast while she hooked up with Darius, who (as she knew) I secretly loved. She moved out not long after. I remember it was a lonely birthday.
I don't remember 23, though I do remember that David--who I'd married a couple of months before--didn't get me anything for my birthday. That was a lonely birthday too.
24 was an angry birthday. I wanted to spend it with JP--we had admitted that we were in love with each other, but we hadn't yet done anything irrevocable--but David wanted me to go with him to some pizza place in Zion that a "business associate" of his owned. I remember watching "John Larroquette" on the bar TV and wishing I could do what I wanted, instead of what David wanted.
I don't remember details of my 25th birthday. I remember I was with JP, and we had money, so we had food; and I know that because we had money, we got high. But I don't remember details. Maybe if I'd known what was coming, I would have remembered more carefully.
The night before my 26th birthday, I'd dragged Sophia out of a drunken fight with two guys, and so the next morning I went with her bright and early to retrieve the purse she'd dropped as she left. That was a few months after JP's death, and it was also the day my mother told me that on the morning of the day he'd died, she'd prayed for a "miracle" to bring me home. I was packing for North Carolina when she told me this; otherwise I don't know what I would have done in response to that information. I left the next morning.
On the morning of my 27th birthday I left again; this time to come back to Chicago. I hadn't realized how homesick I would become. This time I left with Lou, JP's and my old roommate, who had come to Charlotte to drive back with me--and who, in the space of only a few days staying with us, had managed to piss off our conservative, family-oriented minority neighbors by asking around as to where he might locate some crack. Lou was stupid, sometimes, but that didn't stop me from sleeping with him.
My 28th birthday was spent getting home from downstate Illinois; Sophia had enlisted me to ride along with her to the family's ranch in Texas, but we had stopped over for the night at her grandmother's house, and sometime during the night I decided that it was more important to go back to the city and score. And so I did.
The night of my 29th birthday, Tim showed up on my front doorstep with his only surviving cat--the other had perished in a hot car as he returned from Arizona--and walked in the door with the following sentence: "It wasn't my idea; I had nothing to do with it, it was his decision." I didn't know what he meant, but I knew that CR was supposed to be with him, and wasn't, and so it was easy to fill in the blanks and figure out that he'd gone back to his old girlfriend, instead of me.
My 30th birthday was right around the time CR was coming back into my life, but I don't remember the details.
My 31st birthday, I worked--because I didn't want to think about what was happening at home that night. That was the night that the 400-Pound Woman moved in with us.
My 32nd birthday was a few weeks after CR had left me for good. My mother took me out to dinner (at Leona's, now that I think about it!), but that was all I did for that birthday. Except cry--I know I cried. (And when I think about that now, I wonder what the hell for? I was SO much better off without him.)
My 33rd birthday, LJ stayed over at my apartment and I was completely happy.
My 34th birthday--the first one in the new house--I took myself to see "Shrek 2", since LJ had completely forgotten it was my birthday. So much for romance!
And my birthday last year--number 35--was spent in the hospital, having my pancreas suctioned, and thus ranks as the Worst Birthday Ever. In fact, barring even WORSE medical shit happening on some future birthday, I'm thinking 35 is going to take the prize permanently.
So to spend 36 at home, quiet and peaceful, napping with an adorable fluffy kitten on my shoulder--hey, that's bliss. Of course I'd RATHER be in the arms of some beautiful, brilliant, passionate man whom I adore and who can't keep his hands off me...but hey, we can't have everything. This will do just fine.
Tomorrow, off to Mom's for the night. She's having an angiogram Thursday morning, and she's understandably worried; it might be nothing, and then again it might not. Since I was on vacation anyway, she asked me to take her for the angiogram; I think she needs moral support. We're both expecting a not-so-good result. She's had too many unexplained symptoms for too long. We'll see what happens.
She turned 77 the other day. She could live another 25 years...or not. And then I will really be alone, which is not something I like to contemplate. But she's conscientious about her health, and she has good doctors. Hopefully everything will turn out all right. Everyone important in my life is having medical issues of one sort or another--Mom's heart problems, Firefly's calcifications-that-might-be-something-more; even Debbi has heel spurs and can't walk well. I've suddenly reached an age where even my friends are vulnerable--that's the part of middle-age I'm not prepared for. I've been so lucky, and I know it.
Is it possible to be lonely and happy at the same time? Because if it is, I am. A little more lonely than I'd rather be, but I'm counting my blessings. And if that passionate, beautiful man isn't among those blessings right now...well, that can change. And his absence, no matter how long it lasts, doesn't make the other good things any less.
(But he COULD speed it up a bit, if he's out there...)
I took three days off work, in an effort to compensate for that long week of moving, and so I spent my birthday catnapping with Snickers and watching PBS cartoon shows. LJ is out of town--fine and dandy with me!--and so I took myself to dinner at Leona's.
Some of you might be saying "What a crappy birthday!" And by most people's standards, I guess it is. But I was happy with it--a long day of lounging in my pajamas, a purring kitten in one ear, comfort-food on the television...I can live with that, you know?
I think about the other birthdays I've had, trying to remember them all.
My 18th birthday, my boyfriend gave me roses.
My 19th birthday, he picked up our favorite Mexican food, just in time for me to eat before leaving for my night-shift factory job.
I don't remember 20.
My 21st birthday, I was away at summer school, trying to pick up my elusive last few credit hours before student teaching. Firefly was my roomie at the time, and two of our friends came down for the weekend. We went to the bars and they decorated my car, but I remember being sad that my fiance couldn't make it down to Champaign.
I don't remember 22. I remember that everything had changed; that in the space of that last year, I'd broken off my engagement, fallen in love with someone else, moved in with him, pissed off Carol--my roommate at the time--and then stood by aghast while she hooked up with Darius, who (as she knew) I secretly loved. She moved out not long after. I remember it was a lonely birthday.
I don't remember 23, though I do remember that David--who I'd married a couple of months before--didn't get me anything for my birthday. That was a lonely birthday too.
24 was an angry birthday. I wanted to spend it with JP--we had admitted that we were in love with each other, but we hadn't yet done anything irrevocable--but David wanted me to go with him to some pizza place in Zion that a "business associate" of his owned. I remember watching "John Larroquette" on the bar TV and wishing I could do what I wanted, instead of what David wanted.
I don't remember details of my 25th birthday. I remember I was with JP, and we had money, so we had food; and I know that because we had money, we got high. But I don't remember details. Maybe if I'd known what was coming, I would have remembered more carefully.
The night before my 26th birthday, I'd dragged Sophia out of a drunken fight with two guys, and so the next morning I went with her bright and early to retrieve the purse she'd dropped as she left. That was a few months after JP's death, and it was also the day my mother told me that on the morning of the day he'd died, she'd prayed for a "miracle" to bring me home. I was packing for North Carolina when she told me this; otherwise I don't know what I would have done in response to that information. I left the next morning.
On the morning of my 27th birthday I left again; this time to come back to Chicago. I hadn't realized how homesick I would become. This time I left with Lou, JP's and my old roommate, who had come to Charlotte to drive back with me--and who, in the space of only a few days staying with us, had managed to piss off our conservative, family-oriented minority neighbors by asking around as to where he might locate some crack. Lou was stupid, sometimes, but that didn't stop me from sleeping with him.
My 28th birthday was spent getting home from downstate Illinois; Sophia had enlisted me to ride along with her to the family's ranch in Texas, but we had stopped over for the night at her grandmother's house, and sometime during the night I decided that it was more important to go back to the city and score. And so I did.
The night of my 29th birthday, Tim showed up on my front doorstep with his only surviving cat--the other had perished in a hot car as he returned from Arizona--and walked in the door with the following sentence: "It wasn't my idea; I had nothing to do with it, it was his decision." I didn't know what he meant, but I knew that CR was supposed to be with him, and wasn't, and so it was easy to fill in the blanks and figure out that he'd gone back to his old girlfriend, instead of me.
My 30th birthday was right around the time CR was coming back into my life, but I don't remember the details.
My 31st birthday, I worked--because I didn't want to think about what was happening at home that night. That was the night that the 400-Pound Woman moved in with us.
My 32nd birthday was a few weeks after CR had left me for good. My mother took me out to dinner (at Leona's, now that I think about it!), but that was all I did for that birthday. Except cry--I know I cried. (And when I think about that now, I wonder what the hell for? I was SO much better off without him.)
My 33rd birthday, LJ stayed over at my apartment and I was completely happy.
My 34th birthday--the first one in the new house--I took myself to see "Shrek 2", since LJ had completely forgotten it was my birthday. So much for romance!
And my birthday last year--number 35--was spent in the hospital, having my pancreas suctioned, and thus ranks as the Worst Birthday Ever. In fact, barring even WORSE medical shit happening on some future birthday, I'm thinking 35 is going to take the prize permanently.
So to spend 36 at home, quiet and peaceful, napping with an adorable fluffy kitten on my shoulder--hey, that's bliss. Of course I'd RATHER be in the arms of some beautiful, brilliant, passionate man whom I adore and who can't keep his hands off me...but hey, we can't have everything. This will do just fine.
Tomorrow, off to Mom's for the night. She's having an angiogram Thursday morning, and she's understandably worried; it might be nothing, and then again it might not. Since I was on vacation anyway, she asked me to take her for the angiogram; I think she needs moral support. We're both expecting a not-so-good result. She's had too many unexplained symptoms for too long. We'll see what happens.
She turned 77 the other day. She could live another 25 years...or not. And then I will really be alone, which is not something I like to contemplate. But she's conscientious about her health, and she has good doctors. Hopefully everything will turn out all right. Everyone important in my life is having medical issues of one sort or another--Mom's heart problems, Firefly's calcifications-that-might-be-something-more; even Debbi has heel spurs and can't walk well. I've suddenly reached an age where even my friends are vulnerable--that's the part of middle-age I'm not prepared for. I've been so lucky, and I know it.
Is it possible to be lonely and happy at the same time? Because if it is, I am. A little more lonely than I'd rather be, but I'm counting my blessings. And if that passionate, beautiful man isn't among those blessings right now...well, that can change. And his absence, no matter how long it lasts, doesn't make the other good things any less.
(But he COULD speed it up a bit, if he's out there...)
Friday, June 9, 2006
Reality TV of a Different Sort
I have a new guilty pleasure.
Tonight I was flipping channels and I came across a show on Animal Planet called "Meerkat Manor". You guys, you have simply GOT to watch this show!! It's the story of an extended family of meerkats living near the Kalahari Desert, their struggles to survive, and the workings of their society. If you'd tried to tell me yesterday that I'd be caught up in the social machinations of a bunch of exotic rodents, I would have looked at you like you'd lost your everlovin' mind--but I seriously can't wait for next week's episode! And it's not even a cute-little-animal thing; they look like vertically-oriented ferrets, really, which does nothing for me. It's just really interesting, what they go through and how they relate to each other.
It's not "Deadwood", but I'm still hooked.
Tonight I was flipping channels and I came across a show on Animal Planet called "Meerkat Manor". You guys, you have simply GOT to watch this show!! It's the story of an extended family of meerkats living near the Kalahari Desert, their struggles to survive, and the workings of their society. If you'd tried to tell me yesterday that I'd be caught up in the social machinations of a bunch of exotic rodents, I would have looked at you like you'd lost your everlovin' mind--but I seriously can't wait for next week's episode! And it's not even a cute-little-animal thing; they look like vertically-oriented ferrets, really, which does nothing for me. It's just really interesting, what they go through and how they relate to each other.
It's not "Deadwood", but I'm still hooked.
Thursday, June 8, 2006
Isn't It Always the Way?
Isn't it just my luck, as always--the day I decide to return from my self-imposed hiatus is the day Blogger decides to turn its little toes up to the sky.
Stoopid Blogger.
Stoopid Blogger.
Wednesday, June 7, 2006
A Serious Breach of Discipline and Other Stories
(I feel sorta guilty posting this, in light of what's going on over at Pisser's place. Everybody go give her a hug.)
As you can see, we here at TSOW are experiencing a serious breakdown of the natural order of things. Or maybe it's actually the natural order of things reasserting itself. That's probably closer to the truth.
Exhibit A:
Mister Personality, on the left, is now known as Snickers, and he is the catalyst for all this newfound chaos. The picture you DON'T see, because it happened too quickly for me to take it, followed this one by about eight seconds, and involved Snickers doing a backflip off the table, through the rungs of the yellow chair at the right, and landing on his feet. He's a regular Carl Edwards, is this one. It was only today, after two weeks of cohabitation, that I caught this little guy actually SLEEPING for the first time. I'm assuming the rest of the time he only sleeps when no one's looking.
I've been lacking quality time with Mr. Kitten for the past ten days or so, however, thanks to The Job.
The Job moved from the south side of Chicago, where it had been for many many years, to a new facility in the west suburbs, near Darien. This coincided with an announcement of a shift in priorities, from manufacturing to marketing. Accordingly, they closed the factory, outsourced the manufacturing, and...
You thought I was going to say "hired more marketing people," didn't you. Because that would be what YOU would do, if you were thinking of taking your moderately-successful company in a more marketing-oriented direction. Which is why you don't work for Place Where I Work, apparently, because what they did was to FIRE, rapidly and entirely without warning, 80% of the marketing staff.
Okay, says I. Whatever. Because frankly, the firing of four people who I didn't really like all that much was, by that point, the least of my worries.
See, out in the factory that was closed? Were a lot of computers, and a lot of printers, and a lot of other technical crap which we needed. And most of it had been there for a long, long time, and was wired behind desks, and under equipment, and through fields of dirt and yuck and mouse-doots and the crumbs of innumerable lunches, and it was partly my responsibility to retrieve the useable computers from this morass, and to move the rest to an elephant’s graveyard of technological relics. In other words: heavy lifting. Lots of it. And it was HOT out there, in case you were wondering.
We were told to expect to work this past weekend—the official weekend of the move. So when Jim, my immediate boss, came to my desk and asked me what my availability for the weekend was, I was a little surprised. “For whatever hours you need me,” I said. “I hadn’t made any plans.”
“Okay, so you’re okay for Friday night late? Like, til midnight?”
I thought he was kidding. He wasn’t.
So all last week we packed, filling orange and black moving crates with the contents of our offices, our data center, and our storage areas. It was a lot of stuff, and that’s after we threw out a bunch of trash and unneeded crap. By Friday, we had all the stuff from the office together, except for the computers and printers which were still in use. All day Thursday, my co-worker Kelly and I hauled equipment out of the factory, unplugging cords, and winding cables thick with grime and schmutz. I think I washed my hands fifty times in the course of eight hours. And—did I mention?—it was hot. About ninety degrees in the factory, and the A/C in the offices was none too robust either.
One of the side effects of methadone—and there are many, none of them much fun—is excessive sweating. If it gets to be much above seventy degrees, I am simply POURING with sweat. I come from a long line of people who run about ten degrees warmer than the rest of the populace just by nature, so put a good dose of methadone on top of that and I’m like a little pink water-fountain. On Thursday? My shirt was soaked through to the waist. Add to this the muck of the factory, which was coating every available inch of skin and clothing, and you can imagine: I was a soggy, grungy, gross and grimy girl.
There are some showers in a woman’s life which eclipse all others. For example, there’s the shower-after-pulling-up-those-godawful-weeds-that-took-over-the-yard.
Then there’s the shower-after-sex-with-that-guy-you-never-would-have-slept-with-had-you-not-been-drunk; or the shower-after-scraping-and-painting-the-entire-garage-in-one-afternoon.
However, I’m here to tell you: the shower-after-collecting-computer-equipment-from-a-moldy-old-factory-in-million-degree-heat? Leaves them all in the dust, so to speak.
By the time we were ready to move on Friday, the total collection included about fifty crates, plus an abundance of monitors and CPUs and ancient printers. And then we started unhooking the office machines. By the time everything was ready to go, it was ten PM, and my affection for Frank, the uber-boss, had been irrevocably damaged.
Around seven that night, you see, a good six hours after lunch, long after the soda machines had been hauled away and the water-fountains disconnected, Jim-my-immediate-boss took a look at his grimy, sweaty, dishevelled crew and decided to go perform an errand of mercy. “I’m going to the gas station down the street to buy drinks for everyone,” he said. “What do you want?” After putting in an order for a tanker-truck sized cup of Pepsi with lots of ice, I went back to work disconnecting computers.
About an hour later, I went into the data center and was surprised to see Jim, working on removing cabling from a server. “I thought you were going for drinks?” I asked him.
“Yeah,” he said, “well…” And he looked at Frank, who was perched on a counter a few feet away, watching the action. Under the noise of the servers and the fans, he said, “He says we can drink when we’re done.”
“Frank?” I said. “Can Jim go get us drinks?”
“Well, the good news is, the pop machines and everything are all filled up at the new building, ready to go,” said Frank. And the bad news, he didn’t say, is that we’ve got a good two or three hours left before we can even THINK of going over to that building. Because apparently, in his book, that wasn’t bad news at all.
When he left, Jim said “You thought I was kidding?” I said “I thought you HAD to be kidding.”
I wasn’t the only one incensed by Frank’s answer; it’s become the most oft-repeated story of our working conditions in this move. It just kills me; no one was asking him to do anything, and it wasn’t as though it would have taken more than ten minutes, or taken more than one person away from work—and it would have been a good managerial gesture, a nice morale-builder, a “thanks”. Not from Frank, though—that wasn’t important to him.
We worked til 12:30 Friday night, and then 10-6 on Saturday and Sunday, and back to work at 8:00 sharp on Monday. And when the rest of the employees showed up Monday morning for the first day in the new digs, ours was the ONLY department who had come through completely; Maintenance had left desks disassembled, and the janitors hadn’t even vacuumed, and the movers were in and out through the whole first day of work. One of the department heads said she would give I.T an A-plus, and Moving, Facilities, and Maintenance a D for this move. Which was a better “thank you” than even a large Pepsi would have been, although on Friday night I would have given up that A-plus without a second thought, even for a Diet Coke.
But it’s over—we’re in the new building—and I’ve got to say I like it better than the old one. We have a bathroom on our floor, for one thing, which we didn’t at the old place; and it’s not on the South Side of Chicago, which is a big plus for any place, ever. (I grew up on the South Side, and it’s not a place I like to frequent. That’s a blog post for another day.)
More kitten stories to come, I’m sure, to say nothing of pictures. This little guy is a constant source of entertainment; I’m beginning to think that everyone should always have a kitten around, just for the sheer joy of them.
As you can see, we here at TSOW are experiencing a serious breakdown of the natural order of things. Or maybe it's actually the natural order of things reasserting itself. That's probably closer to the truth.
Exhibit A:
Mister Personality, on the left, is now known as Snickers, and he is the catalyst for all this newfound chaos. The picture you DON'T see, because it happened too quickly for me to take it, followed this one by about eight seconds, and involved Snickers doing a backflip off the table, through the rungs of the yellow chair at the right, and landing on his feet. He's a regular Carl Edwards, is this one. It was only today, after two weeks of cohabitation, that I caught this little guy actually SLEEPING for the first time. I'm assuming the rest of the time he only sleeps when no one's looking.
I've been lacking quality time with Mr. Kitten for the past ten days or so, however, thanks to The Job.
The Job moved from the south side of Chicago, where it had been for many many years, to a new facility in the west suburbs, near Darien. This coincided with an announcement of a shift in priorities, from manufacturing to marketing. Accordingly, they closed the factory, outsourced the manufacturing, and...
You thought I was going to say "hired more marketing people," didn't you. Because that would be what YOU would do, if you were thinking of taking your moderately-successful company in a more marketing-oriented direction. Which is why you don't work for Place Where I Work, apparently, because what they did was to FIRE, rapidly and entirely without warning, 80% of the marketing staff.
Okay, says I. Whatever. Because frankly, the firing of four people who I didn't really like all that much was, by that point, the least of my worries.
See, out in the factory that was closed? Were a lot of computers, and a lot of printers, and a lot of other technical crap which we needed. And most of it had been there for a long, long time, and was wired behind desks, and under equipment, and through fields of dirt and yuck and mouse-doots and the crumbs of innumerable lunches, and it was partly my responsibility to retrieve the useable computers from this morass, and to move the rest to an elephant’s graveyard of technological relics. In other words: heavy lifting. Lots of it. And it was HOT out there, in case you were wondering.
We were told to expect to work this past weekend—the official weekend of the move. So when Jim, my immediate boss, came to my desk and asked me what my availability for the weekend was, I was a little surprised. “For whatever hours you need me,” I said. “I hadn’t made any plans.”
“Okay, so you’re okay for Friday night late? Like, til midnight?”
I thought he was kidding. He wasn’t.
So all last week we packed, filling orange and black moving crates with the contents of our offices, our data center, and our storage areas. It was a lot of stuff, and that’s after we threw out a bunch of trash and unneeded crap. By Friday, we had all the stuff from the office together, except for the computers and printers which were still in use. All day Thursday, my co-worker Kelly and I hauled equipment out of the factory, unplugging cords, and winding cables thick with grime and schmutz. I think I washed my hands fifty times in the course of eight hours. And—did I mention?—it was hot. About ninety degrees in the factory, and the A/C in the offices was none too robust either.
One of the side effects of methadone—and there are many, none of them much fun—is excessive sweating. If it gets to be much above seventy degrees, I am simply POURING with sweat. I come from a long line of people who run about ten degrees warmer than the rest of the populace just by nature, so put a good dose of methadone on top of that and I’m like a little pink water-fountain. On Thursday? My shirt was soaked through to the waist. Add to this the muck of the factory, which was coating every available inch of skin and clothing, and you can imagine: I was a soggy, grungy, gross and grimy girl.
There are some showers in a woman’s life which eclipse all others. For example, there’s the shower-after-pulling-up-those-godawful-weeds-that-took-over-the-yard.
Then there’s the shower-after-sex-with-that-guy-you-never-would-have-slept-with-had-you-not-been-drunk; or the shower-after-scraping-and-painting-the-entire-garage-in-one-afternoon.
However, I’m here to tell you: the shower-after-collecting-computer-equipment-from-a-moldy-old-factory-in-million-degree-heat? Leaves them all in the dust, so to speak.
By the time we were ready to move on Friday, the total collection included about fifty crates, plus an abundance of monitors and CPUs and ancient printers. And then we started unhooking the office machines. By the time everything was ready to go, it was ten PM, and my affection for Frank, the uber-boss, had been irrevocably damaged.
Around seven that night, you see, a good six hours after lunch, long after the soda machines had been hauled away and the water-fountains disconnected, Jim-my-immediate-boss took a look at his grimy, sweaty, dishevelled crew and decided to go perform an errand of mercy. “I’m going to the gas station down the street to buy drinks for everyone,” he said. “What do you want?” After putting in an order for a tanker-truck sized cup of Pepsi with lots of ice, I went back to work disconnecting computers.
About an hour later, I went into the data center and was surprised to see Jim, working on removing cabling from a server. “I thought you were going for drinks?” I asked him.
“Yeah,” he said, “well…” And he looked at Frank, who was perched on a counter a few feet away, watching the action. Under the noise of the servers and the fans, he said, “He says we can drink when we’re done.”
“Frank?” I said. “Can Jim go get us drinks?”
“Well, the good news is, the pop machines and everything are all filled up at the new building, ready to go,” said Frank. And the bad news, he didn’t say, is that we’ve got a good two or three hours left before we can even THINK of going over to that building. Because apparently, in his book, that wasn’t bad news at all.
When he left, Jim said “You thought I was kidding?” I said “I thought you HAD to be kidding.”
I wasn’t the only one incensed by Frank’s answer; it’s become the most oft-repeated story of our working conditions in this move. It just kills me; no one was asking him to do anything, and it wasn’t as though it would have taken more than ten minutes, or taken more than one person away from work—and it would have been a good managerial gesture, a nice morale-builder, a “thanks”. Not from Frank, though—that wasn’t important to him.
We worked til 12:30 Friday night, and then 10-6 on Saturday and Sunday, and back to work at 8:00 sharp on Monday. And when the rest of the employees showed up Monday morning for the first day in the new digs, ours was the ONLY department who had come through completely; Maintenance had left desks disassembled, and the janitors hadn’t even vacuumed, and the movers were in and out through the whole first day of work. One of the department heads said she would give I.T an A-plus, and Moving, Facilities, and Maintenance a D for this move. Which was a better “thank you” than even a large Pepsi would have been, although on Friday night I would have given up that A-plus without a second thought, even for a Diet Coke.
But it’s over—we’re in the new building—and I’ve got to say I like it better than the old one. We have a bathroom on our floor, for one thing, which we didn’t at the old place; and it’s not on the South Side of Chicago, which is a big plus for any place, ever. (I grew up on the South Side, and it’s not a place I like to frequent. That’s a blog post for another day.)
More kitten stories to come, I’m sure, to say nothing of pictures. This little guy is a constant source of entertainment; I’m beginning to think that everyone should always have a kitten around, just for the sheer joy of them.
Friday, May 26, 2006
Wha, Huh, FUH????
For the first time in a very long time--possibly ever--I am rendered completely speechless.
It's not often I open spam e-mails. Most of them are boring, for one thing; poorly-spelled, deliberately mispunctuated blocks of inanity meant to convince me of the need of enlarging the penis I don't have, or of taking out a mortgage loan even more predatory than the one I've already got.
But this one had an interesting subject line--"Take the gravity out of sex!"--and so I clicked. I was prepared to be disappointed, to find yet-another pitch for V1a*GG*ra or c!&1!S, cHeeP!!!
I was not prepared, however, for this.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: The GRAVITIZER!
Now, my girly-bits are not among the areas of my body upon which I would be willing to inflict a lack of gravity, no matter how temporary. The cleavage? Sure. The booty? Bring it on. But the thought of some magical anti-gravitational force field surrounding my stuff down there...um, no. Especially if the means by which that loss of gravity came about involved something that looks like a cheap rowing machine.
And that doesn't even begin to cover the possible objections from the GUYS. I mean, would any of you willingly put your reproductive organs in the path of a moving object? Can you imagine the possible outcome if something important got caught in the machinery?? I believe the word I'm searching for is "ouch."
Personally? Even though the drought has now reached seven months, I think I'll have to pass on this one.
It's not often I open spam e-mails. Most of them are boring, for one thing; poorly-spelled, deliberately mispunctuated blocks of inanity meant to convince me of the need of enlarging the penis I don't have, or of taking out a mortgage loan even more predatory than the one I've already got.
But this one had an interesting subject line--"Take the gravity out of sex!"--and so I clicked. I was prepared to be disappointed, to find yet-another pitch for V1a*GG*ra or c!&1!S, cHeeP!!!
I was not prepared, however, for this.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: The GRAVITIZER!
Now, my girly-bits are not among the areas of my body upon which I would be willing to inflict a lack of gravity, no matter how temporary. The cleavage? Sure. The booty? Bring it on. But the thought of some magical anti-gravitational force field surrounding my stuff down there...um, no. Especially if the means by which that loss of gravity came about involved something that looks like a cheap rowing machine.
And that doesn't even begin to cover the possible objections from the GUYS. I mean, would any of you willingly put your reproductive organs in the path of a moving object? Can you imagine the possible outcome if something important got caught in the machinery?? I believe the word I'm searching for is "ouch."
Personally? Even though the drought has now reached seven months, I think I'll have to pass on this one.
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