These Pretzels Are Making Me Thirsty

Am back. What a trip. ( Cut for length and no-one-cares )

Walter did well at the boarding section of vet, though I immediately noticed he's got a bare spot on his tushie from chewing on it. He was a good boy, but not unstressed. The cats did okay with stranger coming in, except Pickle who melted down. When I came home she was huddled at the back of a closet and in the spare room - as Roy was eating her food, I advised the sitter to keep Pickle in that room with food, water and box. Not ideal, but that was the only way to guarantee she would get her food and not Piggy McPiggerson.

We are all back to usual, snuggling on sofa. I need to clean house and get laundry done, but due to the delays in travel I didn't get home till 3 AM and somehow awakened at 7:15. I am punchdrunk and not super inclined to move. Still, better have done with it.

December photos to come. This was all too much to dump in that post.

so why should it be, you and I should get along so awfully?

Earlier in the week, walking Walter. He paused to sniff a tree in someone's side yard. We were there maybe 20 seconds when the lady of the house runs out and shouts, "You need to keep that dog moving!!"

Uh. Okay. Because usually when I am walking we linger on people's lawns for ten minutes at a time.

Yesterday, walking Walter, came across a guy walking his dog. Guy was glued to his phone, paying no mind to dog and letting dog poop everywhere without even attempting to pick up and dispose. I genuinely do not understand why people think that it's okay to leave their giant dogs' giant poops on other people's property. Or public domain.

At work, we are supposed to retain a client and complete their intake start to finish if they are requesting a particular type of program. Colleague not only didn't do this and had the appointment rescheduled to me when she could not reach the contact person, she also didn't even try to call the client directly - why? Because the screening said to call the care facility. This is annoying because no one at the care facility will be able to answer the questions we need to ask, only the client can. So why not try calling them?? Employ a little (very little) ingenuity and think outside the box. Yes. I got the appointment, called the client and boom. Done. No foisting it off on someone else. It's not that difficult to not be a dick about things. Her excuse: I just don't know what the process is anymore, it changes so much. (This process has not changed for six months. She is, frankly, a bit of an idiot who is bad at her job but kisses up to management to get special treatment.)

That all said, on this anniversary - I am grateful for all that I have, etc. And thoughts for my nephew who was deployed to the middle east specifically for the evacuation. Twenty years, wow. I personally cannot watch anything related to the events of that day, after seeing nothing but for a solid week after it all happened and feeling, like the rest of the nation, vulnerable in ways people in other countries had lived with for decades. Just can't.

Actually, it wasn't terrible. It started out, though, with an email from a former client - a bipolar gentleman who is extremely smart but his brain, it's broken - who used to travel between here and Colorado, always applying in each State until I finally said, "Look man, pick one place and stick the landing." He landed in CO. Anyway, the email:

"Hi SBG. I still love you..."

LOL, literally, folks, I am single because every guy I have dated has turned out to have some mental illness. I attract them like I am honey and they are flies. It makes me too gunshy to even try*, and now I'm old, so. Destined to be alone, for my OWN sanity. Haha.

Anyway, his email made me laugh.

Our office got reconfigured and it's as I suspected - it is now an echo chamber in there. Everyone's voices are going to just bounce around like crazy because there is so much empty space. Ah well, no one listens to the little guy. And management have offices with doors they can shut when it's loud...let them sit out in a cubicle to experience it, I say.

And on Wednesday I came home an heard a ruckus from outside the door as I was putting the key in the lock. Opened the door and was greeted by an extremely wiggly dog, my house was all catawampus and yep - Mr. Walter chewed through the plastic bits of the gate which keep it in place and busted out of his room.

Why do I keep him in a room, you ask? He's a major stressor for the cats and the cats are my true loves. I don't think he often intentionally bothers them, mind you. It's his energy. It's also the terrier in him - they are not cat-loving dogs. If they run, he will at least initially give chase. So, for everyone's peace, he stays in his room during the day.

Alas, with the broken gate, that wasn't possible. I did put the gate at the bottom of the stairs so that he couldn't get up there to 1) make a nest in my bed, 2) eat cat poop and 3) so the cats could have some safe space. I'd hoped that would be enough, because I fear now that he's had this freedom, it will be a bitch keeping him in his room ever again.

In theory, it should work. In practice, I have seen immediate and extreme retribution peeing by at least one cat. Name starts with P. Irony. Anyway, five known instances of peeing outside the box already. She is virtually shouting at me about this, and I agree with her. I find it rather bothersome to come home to a war zone daily. Stuff tossed everywhere, couch and chair covers tossed, guest room bed tossed, pee everywhere. It's just not terribly pleasant, you know? But at the same time, I now feel horrible thinking of confining him because he's just enjoying himself so dang much. :(


^Look at that stupid happy face and his wiggly butt. What a turkey.

Ended the week with a pretty ferocious hormone headache which kept me from planting garden before the rain. Good times! I did sleep for like 14 hours, though, and it helped a bit. Now it only hurts when I move. Haha.

I've also decided to be more mindful of my food consumption, after wearing a pair of jeans yesterday that still fit but in which my stomach does a little bit of bloop over the edge. I have developed some bad habits, like "second breakfast" on my non-fast days, and also having no off valve on my fast days. Meaning, I just keep munching though I am not actually hungry. Probably a mild binge disorder would best describe it. I can and should control it better, only eat when I am actually hungry. Little things like that can make a big difference in how I feel, it's not just about my waistline.

*This is not to say those with major mental health issues are not worthy of my, or anyone's time. I am not equipped to handle it, or am too selfish to.

I'm not your mama.

Colleague at work is having a crisis. I honestly do not blame her, to some extent. Her training was truncated and I do not believe she was really grasping things when the world shifted and her trainer started working from home.

I said immediately that I didn't understand why that was allowed to happen. I stayed in office because I remember being new to the position. There are a LOT of moving parts and things that take a long time to get one's brain around, and I didn't see how it would be possible for a newly hired person to survive without someone there to act as a support. An untrained support (meaning, it's not my role to train people), but at least a live being...

Anyway, we've been limping along okay for the most part. But Thursday, she ended up in my cube in absolute hysterics over not knowing what to do about a new client she was trying to set up. The boss was, of course, absent. The problem is: what she was hysterical about was one of the easiest concepts to grasp, it was almost identical to another case she had worked on the day prior and she simply isn't connecting the dots. Like, if I had a scenario almost identical to one I'd already done, I would be able to intuit what to do with the new one based on what I learned previously.

I hear her all the time saying how she's never been told X, Y or Z... when in fact she has, multiple times. By me. Soooo, the information is being given, it's not being retained. She openly admitted to me that when we have meetings, she doesn't understand 95% of what is discussed. She NEVER says anything.

It's gotten to the point that my frustration is bleeding through and edging out the sympathy. There's only so many times you can listen to someone claim they don't have the knowledge when you yourself have imparted it to them repeatedly, and you know others have as well.

The other issue is: I feel like she doesn't actually listen. She asks a question, I provide guidance. She continues to spin her wheels on the same thing, pulls in other people annnnnnnd finally, after hours (actual hours), she finally realizes that she should go with what I told her originally. That can't help with retaining info, to quintuple guess everything to death.

Related to that, after the Thursday meltdown, I suggested she speak to the boss, explain that she is not comfortable with This Part of the job and ask if for now she can focus on That Part and also receive some additional training for This Part. Sounds reasonable, yes? Her response: It's fine, I'm just stupid, I guess.

(I am NOT getting sucked into THAT manipulation - tell me that's not someone just waiting for the, "Oh, no, you're not stupid." assurances.)

She also chronically gets offended at how other people communicate with her. EVERYone is offensive. Literally everyone is just rude to her and then she twists it all around to be all Eeyore, "I don't know what it is about me and why I can't communicate..."

I just. I'm over it, y'all.

Thank you. That is all.

Again, have to learn to lower expectations. I made a cookie that takes time, then decided to pretty it up. I didn't have to do this. That's what I need to remember. But when I make these and get those chocolate oatmeal no-bake cookies in exchange... Come on now.

In the middle of the holiday party, boss comes in and announces that other offices piggybacked their holiday parties (2 hours designated party time where we don't have to work) on their whole-office meeting days, meaning that we have to count the time in meeting AS party time. This isn't that big of a deal, but 1) in no way does it make sense and 2) it really killed the mood. People were chatting and eating, having a good time and then some bizarro "haha, just kidding, you really only get an hour and a half party time instead of two!" thing happened and people deflated.

Couple this with the ridiculous "you get to leave two hours early one day in December because we appreciate you!" actually is 5.75 hours if you want to work straight through six hours and then leave. Because the law says you need a break. So, people who do that have to supplement their "time off" with their own earned vacation time. For real. The alternative is to work 4-5, take a full hour lunch and then work another hour, then leave. Why is this so complicated? Ugh. It's one day out of the year. I really don't think we're going to get into trouble if people don't get a break on a day they're only working six hours on anyway!

I feel very appreciated. LOL.

Ugh, I am so sick of people over tagging a story. If I'm reading an explicit story, I do not need to know every type of sex the couple in question is going to have.

Sex. Oral Sex. Sexual Content. Explicit Sexual Content. Het. Het and Slash. Heterosexual Sex. Rough Sex. Restraints. Begging. Wall Sex. Outdoor Sex. Shower Sex. Car Sex.

I would say all but the first are complete overkill, except if I'm already aware, by the genre, that I'm reading an E rated story (or rather not, because the tags frankly reduce my interest rather than pique it) involving sex.


That's a mild example the ones that really make me run away are the ones that don't just leave it at nipple play, but have to use fifteen tags regarding nipples. This, too, is mild. Picture that with the word anal.

Stop it. If something is dubious or non con, tag away. Otherwise, narrow it down so that your tag list isn't longer than your damned story.

Abuse of tags on this post is intentional.

3-6AM: J yowls*
6-7AM: R attempt to massage my face
7:45AM: Garbage truck
8:00AM: R back to walk on my face/head, J yowls for attention
8:15AM: Lean over to retrieve water from fridge, corner of paper pinned to fridge manages to slip under my glasses and stabs me in the left eye.
8:30AM: Find cat poop on kitchen floor.

You'd think Mondays sucking would be contingent upon having to go to a job one hates (or likes, but doesn't feel like it today), but apparently this is not the case.

Also, why are bedsheets so freaking expensive?


*A good chunk of this time, they were locked out of my room. It's just J has a bit of that Siamese resonance to her tone. For a small thing, she emits a lot of noise when she wants.

We all have those moments, right, that make us say, What About Me?

Maybe it's when you post about a papercut and no one gives sympathy, but someone else tears a hangnail two minutes later and 40,000 people comment about how awful it is, poor them.

Maybe it's more like We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful, and get lauds and adoration for any little thing they do while we get bupkes.

Maybe it's when you have conversations with people, and no matter what that conversation always ends up revolving around them.

I've felt that way a lot lately. I shouldn't, I know, but sometimes it gets to me.

Take fanfiction. I look at the plain ol' crap that gets feedback and want to wail and gnash my teeth. I find it unfathomable that authors who don't know the difference between waved and waived, your and you're, Wincesters and Winchester's get 600 reviews, when I get, if I'm really lucky, 70. Lordy Lou, I saw a story with a summary that starts, "An bitter arguement..." get over 100 reviews. WTF? Why is stupidity rewarded? I know it's self-centered and pointless to get wounded by that stuff. I don't deserve anything and I do write for myself first and foremost. Yet I can't help but feeling like day old shit sometimes.

What about you all? What sets you off into this kind of moody funk? Here's a chance to bitch and moan all you want, about the silliest little thing. Because it's not silly.

C'mon. Get it off your chest. You know you want to.

ETA: LOL, even when I put out an open call for a bitch session I can't do it right!

Gah. Why do I carry the emergency pager? Any real emergencies are beyond my scope. Like tonight, when a couple just came back from a ski trip to find their key did not work. My key didn't work either, and they were getting pissed off because I didn't have the answers they needed (that they'd be reimbursed if they had to call a locksmith - logically, yes, but Mr. S. is a stingy old goat whose business ethics are SO on the other side of the spectrum from mine). I called my boss. He sounded grumpy at being called. Well, yeah.

He went over to said apartment(in the building next door) and called me back five minutes later asking me if I had been smoking crack because the door opened just fine for him. Seriously. I trudged back over and then my key worked as well. What the...?

Needless to say, the tenants were happy with the result but I still look like an idiot.

Off topic: Burt's Bees regular (peppermint) lip balm not so nice. Burt's Bees new honey lip balm nice. I like.

More off topic still: I'd totally forgotten what a complete brat Sara was about Nick getting the promotion (aka Grissom's recommendation) that never was on CSI. Seriously unprofessional behavior, all that pouting just because her intended sugar daddy didn't favor her. And what an ego for thinking she was so high above Nick that it shouldn't have even been a challenging decision.