Maybe It's Just Me

So, I've been checking out photography books from the library. The two I just finished flipping through were Modern Luxury Residences & Couture Wedding Gowns.

I don't get it. It's a good thing I'm not a rich celebrity who is supposed to care about this stuff. High fashion is wasted on me. I thought the wedding gown book would be fun, and it sort of was, but most of what I saw was hideous & the fun came from laughing at it. I look at Fashion Week photos online and wonder exactly who these designers think they're going to be dressing, because most of that "clothing" has no place in the real world.

Don't get me wrong- I like pretty clothes, but if it comes down to comfort & function or appearance & style, I'm going for comfort. You can't convince me that the girl with half a strip of fabric over her nipples, a skirt that restricts her ability to walk, and a headpiece that looks like a spittoon is comfortable.

And the Residence book...again, good thing I'm not rich. I don't want to live in an austere, sterile home. They're all beautifully designed, but they seem made to look at not live in. I like soft furnishings, pops of color, and spaces that make you want to stay in them. While I understand & appreciate a need for natural light, up to a point, I don't need massive windows in every flipping room. Especially when the window treatments (god forbid you call them curtains) are fussy and/or not designed to actually cover the damned things.

That said, I DO like quite a few of the designer bathrooms. I'd love to have some of the tubs I saw. Heated towel rails are lovely, and so are free standing showers. The toilets make me a little nervous- so many of them look like giant lidded cups. I'm used to traditional American loos with cisterns- you look at those and know what they're meant for.


Anyway, just felt like sharing those observations. The new cats are settling in, BTW. They're both venturing out of their hiding places and giving me drive by headbutts. Nightshade hasn't gone near them- they hiss and growl when they see her, poor girl- but I think they'll eventually warm up to each other.

Also, I dug out the Chat Noir cross stitch piece that I had started & abandoned in the fall. I'm almost done stitching the cat! Will try to post an updated picture of that next time.

Random thoughts from my brain

So, I've lost just enough weight (again) that my current underwear is too big, but the next size down is too small. I firmly believe that underwear - actually, all clothing - should come in half sizes, just like shoes!

I like the daily planner that I bought last year, so I thought I'd save money this year and just buy a refill for it. After going to three bookstores & two office supply stores, I *FINALLY* found one at Office Depot... and it cost just as much as buying a new planner would have. Actually more, because I would have at least gotten a 10% discount and B&N if I bought a planner there. I bought it anyway, but it really irked me. I mean, shouldn't there be some sort of eco-discount for reusing something & buying a refill for it rather than adding more junk to the landfill?!? On the other hand, the cashier was a cute little tattooed boy who lit up when he saw my Doctor Who inspired shirt. We had a good chat about our favorite Doctors and tattoos.

Here's a pic of the design on my shirt:

Tom Hiddleston & Michael Fassbender are trying to kill me. They both have several movies coming out that I desperately want to see. I may actually have to break down and set foot in a movie theater.

Nightshade is getting possessive. I think she knows I'd adopt all the feral cats if I could and she's making sure that they know I'm *HER* human and she's not sharing. Some of them have gotten brave enough to let me touch them - just for a second - before they run away. Or they'll brush against my leg when I'm filling their food bowl. Anyway, now there's an adorable little black kitten in the bunch. She looks like an even smaller version of my Shady-girl, right down to the white spot on her chest! I don't care what Shady thinks; if I can catch that little one, she's living inside with us. Period. In the meantime, Shady comes and stands by my feet while I talk to the outside kitties and hisses if they start to come over.

Tune in later for another installment of Random Thoughts...

How I feel at work most nights

Geeky Confessions

I'd say it's safe to consider myself somewhat of a geek. I don't rabidly follow fandoms, but I sort of belong to a couple. I tend to like fantasy novels, comic book based movies (Avengers- Loki rules!), science fiction movies, fantasy & sci fi TV shows, etc. That said, I don't participate in everything, so here are my confessions to that effect:

1. I don't Cosplay.

Costumes are great. People are really creative with quite a lot of them. I am not one of them. I don't have the time/patience/money to fool around with creating a costume, nor do I have the figure for most of the ones I would like to do. That doesn't stop all cosplayers, but it's a deterrent for me.


2. Tolkien bores me to tears.

This one shocks all my die-hard geek friends. I'm sorry, but the books were overblown (how many times can you read "I am so-and-so, son of so-and-so, son of so-and-so" and not want to scream?) and I've tried reading them at various stages in my life with no luck. The movies were way longer than they needed to be, but they did beat hell out of reading the books.


3. I no longer enjoy RPG's.

Not table-top or live-action. I've been in some groups that were really good, and I've been in some groups that went straight to hell because none of the players could agree on what kind of campaign we were in. Hack & Slash is fine if that's what EVERYONE wants to play, but I'm one of those players who likes character development & interaction. The last group I was in devolved into giant whine-fests and just totally turned me off gaming forever.


4. I'm not a fan of video games either.

I play things like Candy Crush & Cookie Jam because they're simple, mindless, and designed for solo players. I don't like fiddling around with controllers and buttons and all the faff you have to do to make a character take two steps and fire a bow or what-have-you.


5. I don't like Cons.

This is mostly attributed to my social anxiety disorder/dislike of crowds. I've been to several and enjoyed aspects of them, but was just to uncomfortable to really enjoy myself. Also, while I would love to meet more of my favorite actors/authors/whoever, I can't stand in those lines and I'm not paying that kind of money to meet anyone!


6. Blood & Gore? No thanks.

I admit to liking certain horror movie franchises, despite the gore content, but overall I can live quite nicely without it. I had to stop reading vampire novels because so many authors went over the top in graphic details. Ditto for shifters. And I loathe zombie stories.


7. I LOVE LOKI.

Well, Tom Hiddleston's version, anyway. I've always had a thing for bad boys (Michael Fassbender's Magneto is another one I would happily molest given a chance) and he hits all the right notes.

Thought for the Day

Found in Michelle Tea's "How to Grow Up":

Never regret money spent on books or flowers

I heartily agree with this.

File Under Things I Will Never Try Again

1. Mikesells Smoked Bacon flavored potato chips
They smell like bacon. They vaguely taste like bacon & fake mesquite. Then the salt from the first 5 you eat hits and you drink a gallon of water in 15 seconds.


2. Angry Orchard Hard Apple Cider
I'm not much of a drinker anyway, especially now with my assorted cocktail of medications. But I do like soft cider and have had one or two hard ciders that I thought were tasty. This was not one of them. Now I have 4 bottles left in my fridge and no clue what to do with them. The 6 pack was too expensive to just pour them down the drain. I may try adding some to homemade applesauce or something.


3. Knitting
I suck so badly at it that even one of the hand loom things can't help me.


4. Dating anyone more than 5 years younger than me. Unless it's Tom Hiddleston.
Nothing kills a mood faster than hearing a song you loved in high school on the radio and hearing your date say "I think I was 3 when that came out." (Not a recent experience, but I'm still traumatized by it)


5. Streaking
My ex-college roommate/partner in crime & I streaked around the bell tower at UNC our freshman year. Only the friends we were with saw us, thankfully, and it was an unique experience, but NOT one I will ever repeat. Especially with my 40-something body. Things jiggle a bit more.


6. Almond Oolong Tea
Got to pick a free sample with my last Teavana order. I like almonds, so I thought maybe it would be good. It wasn't. I'm guess I'm just not a flavored tea person.

3 Things

3 things I didn't think I would EVER do:

1. Live past 30

2. Own/be owned by cats

3. Work for the police



3 things I can't believe I do:

1. Eat spinach and like it

2. Still fangirl over Duran Duran & Rick Springfield

3. Have worse acne now than I ever did as a teenager



3 things I'll probably never do:

1. Find someone to love who genuinely loves me back

2. Go to Tahiti

3. Have enough shelves for all my books & movies

Random Fandom **now updated with visible photos!**

In case the picture doesn't show up, it's supposed to be actor Tom Hiddleston, best known to American audiences as Loki from the Marvel movies.

I have fallen in utter lust with this man. He's beautiful, British, a VERY versatile and talented actor, and by all accounts a genuine sweetheart.

I am so desperately ga-ga over this man that I found myself doing something I never thought I would do- I joined the fandom community. I've found a few groups on Facebook where I go online and babble incoherently about Tom. I got lucky- on my first try, I joined a group that is full of women (and possibly a few men- I'm never sure) that are actually able to type coherently and have intelligent, if rather dirty, conversation about Tom, what we like about Tom, what we'd like to do WITH Tom, and what we'd do if we actually met him. (general consensus is blush furiously, babble incoherently if we can speak at all, and possibly faint)

That group led me to two more...which led me to a deliciously dirty Tumblr site that I'm not sharing (EVIL LOL)

Anyway, I'm having a good time with it so far. I don't plan on becoming one of those people who lets fandom consume their life. I have resisted the odd urge to wrote my own stories, dirty or otherwise, and I'm certainly not going to write them on my work computer!

Ok, I'll stop now.

First "Dear Officer" post of the year!

Not that I haven't had plenty of fodder for one sooner than this, but I'm doing batches of disposals again and coming across the same stupid spelling errors. I realize that our officers have a LOT of stuff that they're supposed to try to remember, but basic spelling should NOT be a problem. Also, some of my coworkers may be to blame, but we'll just blame the kids in blue for now.


Dear Officer,


Let's play a spelling game!

Steroids come in:

A. a vial
b. a vile
c. a veil
d. a viel

You inject them with:

A. a needle
b. a neddle
c. a needel
d. a neidle

Those lovely little pills that are often abused but are supposed to tranquilize your mood are called:

A. Xanax
b. zanax
c. zanix
d. xannix

Security camera footage is also known as:

A. surveillance
b. survailance
c. survellance
d. surveylance


That illicitly traded pain killer is called:

A. Lortab
b. loratab
c. loritab
d. luratab

Another word for money is:

A. Currency
b. curenncy
c. cureincy
d. currincy


If you answered anything other than A to any of these questions, please report to the nearest elementary school for Basic Spelling classes. Thank you.

The Dear Officer Files

Dear Officer:

I see it's time to remind some of you morons of the following:

1. YES, you need a report number for anything you deposit with us. It is not our fault if you are not smart enough to tell Dispatch that you need a number for found or personal property, it doesn't get marked, and Reports harrasses you for the next six months.

2. DO NOT attempt to hand me a needle that is not in a safety tube. Should you manage to do it without sticking me, I will still break a foot off in your ass.

3. PLEASE tell us if ANYTHING you are handing us is sticky/has blood on it/anything you would not want your sister/wife/daughter touching with their bare hands. It is not funny to us and watching you laugh at our disgusted/panicked reactions when we've been exposed to god-knows-what is not going to help the situation.

4. DO NOT bring in something oversized/heavy and think you're going to waltz out without helping us move it to a storage location.

5. If you are a repeat offender for any of the things above or other issues named in previous "Dear Officer" letters, don't ask us why we're never happy when you come in. We'll tell you.


Disgustedly,

The Angry Amazon

A further dose of randomness...or... Still Life With Slugs

Having trouble of thinking of something worth writing about. Having trouble with a lot of things these days. My body is waiting for my brain to get the message that it just doesn't want to work anymore. The road trip was 2 weeks ago and I'm still worn out. Damn CFS.

Had discussions with 2 different friends and then on Pioneer Woman's blog about music of the 70's-80's. While I still listen to a lot of different things, including quite a bit of current stuff  (Halestorm rocks, BTW), I still like the music from those years. And because I spent a LOT of time listening to the radio & watching MTV, I can identify a shitload of songs by title and/or artist within the first few seconds. Even worse- I often know the words and often have to stop myself from caterwauling singing along in public. My former bookstore coworker, Scott, and I had quite the discussion about how kids today (now I feel old) don't know the thrill of browsing through record stores after waiting impatiently for an artist's new album to come out.

Switching gears for a minute- I seriously dislike insects, arachnids, and slithery reptiles. One of the things I hate about summer, besides the heat, is the amount of bugs that find their way into my house. I've been inundated with ants; the fleas that I made such effort to get rid of are popping up here & there (and being assasinated with extreme predjudice); and grossest of all are the kaza-flatching slugs. Every night I come home, walk into my bathroom, and there are slugs on my shower wall and in my bathtub. UGH. On the other hand, my tub hasn't been this clean in years, because I bleach the hell out of it daily now that those things are in it. Last night was the worst- I was pleased to only see one small slug clinging to the wall....until I looked down at the tub drain and saw a gordian knot of the digusting things around the trap.  ICK ICK ICK.

So I sounded the critter call (AIEEEEEEEEEEE! for those of you who were wondering), which was the cue for my cats to flee to my bed. After a few more shrieks, I remembered that I live alone and nobody was going to come get the icky things for me. Also, my neighbors might call the cops if I don't knock off the screaming and I don't think the code red responders would appreciate me asking them to get slugs out of my drain once they arrived. I debated the following options:

1. lay a trail of salt across the doorway, close the bathroom door and hope the disgusting things were gone in the morning (I was strongly leaning toward this one)

2. hermetically seal my arm/hand in cling film & tissue, pluck the nasty things out of the drain, and flush them down the toilet (nixed that one- hate the feel of squirming bags of snot in my hand)

3. pour an entire box of salt down the drain followed by boiling water, baking soda, & vinegar.

DING DING DING DING...WE HAVE A WINNER! Normally I wouldn't pour salt on them (time honored slug killing method that it is) because the resulting gooey mess grosses me out more than the live slugs, but this would go down the drain! I wouldn't have to touch anything! Yay! So I ran to the kitchen, put the kettle on, grabbed the salt and headed back to the bathroom. There may have been some evil chortling involved- don't judge me. Poured the salt into the drain and did the heebie-jeebie dance of grossed-outedness, and went back to wait 5 or so minutes for the kettle.

Took the boiling water into the bath, poured that down the now-mercifully-slug-free drain. Went back for the vinegar & baking soda, poured them in and let the foam settle, and then ran the hot tap for a few minutes. Yeah, it's overkill, but those things REALLY squick me out.

Huh. Guess I had more to say than I thought. Feel free to laugh at me now, if you haven't already done so. :-)

New Year's Resolutions

I don't normally bother making these since they're usually worthless within days, but thought I'd give it one more go. So, for 2013, I resolve:

1. Not to eat pickled beets...

2. ...or pickled herring

3. Not to gain 75 pounds

4. Not to take up smoking

5. Read whenever I get a chance

6. Work on my cross stitch whenever I get a chance

7. To give my cats belly rubs at least once a week

8. To go to Peking City Bistro for meat & veggie dumplings and Mongolian Bacon

9. Not to run a marathon

10. Not to leave the toilet seat up

11. To scream obscenities at other drivers when they annoy me

12. To go to the library

13. To keep making inane blog posts ;-)


Any resolutions from my readers?

Channeling my inner Garfield...

I would prefer to stay in bed until it's no longer Monday, but since my landlord and other assorted creditors expect money for various things, I HAVE to get up and go to work.

Last Monday was one of those days where I really should have stayed home. After a week of 60-70 degree temps, it had dropped to 40 overnight and was dropping even lower as the day progressed. my painfully arthritic knees & back were less than thrilled with this, and my long-suffering sinuses were even less so. I woke up early to go get a new work ID made (my last one had an ugly encounter with the gun vault door), looked into the mirror and decided to go back to bed until I looked slightly more human. Thanks to my inflamed sinuses, my eyes were puffy, swollen, and almost blackened. I looked like a domestic violence victim. Not a look you want to sport on a picture ID. It didn't get much better. By the end of the shift, officers were asking me if I needed help and/or who they needed to shoot.

Still have to finish the holiday shopping. My parents & I agreed not to spend a whole lot of money, but it's still hard to find things I think they'd like. Dad is next to impossible to shop for unless I give him nothing but lottery tickets.

I've been working on stitching Christmas ornaments too. I've been trying to stitch one penguin design for the last 2 years and I STILL can't get the damned thing to come out right, no matter how carefully I count. So I gave up on that one and decided to try a different one. Started that, ripped it out three times, and the 4th attempt is the closest I've come to getting it right. It's still slightly lopsided, but my plan is to tell the person it's for that it has Bell's Palsy like me.

Not much else going on right now...more later....

The Devil In Me Strikes Again

So, I was at Wal-Mart, in line and cranky. There were 3 cashiers, 2 U-scans, and about 75 people divided among the lines. 

1 cashier was running a 20 item or less lane. There were 3 ghetto fabulous witches in her line with a cart overflowing with groceries. The cashier politely explained that she was a limited line and these three bitches started throwing a fit."There's no sign that says that" etc, etc. (There was a sign clearly displayed that they were apparently too illiterate to read) She offered to go ahead & take them if they'd allow her to take the girl behind them (the last person in that line) first as she only had 3 items. Their response was that the bitching got louder and angrier. "We had to wait, why shouldn't she?"

Then they started accusing the poor woman of being racist. At this point, evil Mickey came out to play. I've shopped in that store for years, that cashier has waited on me countless times, and is as sweet as she can be. So I pointed at the bitchiest one and cried out, "That's why you look familiar! You used to have a bright red weave with black streaks, didn't you?" All three of them turned to stare at me, so I kept going. "My sister is a nurse at the free clinic and I was picking her up for lunch. You were there complaining about an oozing rash and a guy that beat you up because he said you gave him crabs. You're Syphilitic Sally, right?"

Everyone around us was cracking up. The bitch and her friends started sputtering that they didn't know me and I was mistaken. I kept laying it on louder and thicker. Then a guy in the next lane joined in. "Hey, you told me that rash was just a reaction to your perfume! And you weren't  worth the $20 I paid you!"

By this time, everyone within earshot was hysterical. The terrible trio stormed out in a rage, leaving their groceries. A manager was coming just then, having been alerted to the trouble brewing at our end. He looked at the 30 or so people laughing hysterically, and began laughing himself. I explained what had happened and the cashier they had been abusing shrieked, "You mean you made that all up?" and started laughing so hard that she had to sit down. 

The guy in the next line admitted that he thought what  I was doing was so funny, he couldn't resist joining in. His wife expressed her gratitude at knowing it was a joke. I apologized for costing the store a big sale, and the manager (who was also laughing at this point) said that they could afford it at this time of year. He helped the still giggling cashier void the sale and took the cart back to the grocery department for restocking. My new buddy on the next aisle and I got high fives from the people around us as we got checked out and left.

So remember-be nice to those tired cashiers, especially at this time of year. Because you never know which of your fellow shoppers might decide they've had enough of your bad behavior and embarrass the hell out of you...

Goverment Stupidity in Action

The former mayor of our fair city couldn't resist a bargain. So when the sewer company offered to sell the city a condemned building for the princely sum of $1, he leapt at the chance. Then, (and this is the good part) SOMEBODY decided that this condemned biohazardous building was the PERFECT place to stick the PD evidence room.

So we've been here for 6 years now. We've all developed health problems, the cockroaches in the basement  constantly challenge us to turf wars (we've ceded them territory, but they want more), and the buliding is all but falling down around our ears, but HEY! We got it for a dollar!

We have begged for a truly functional HVAC system. The current system is all the heat we want in the summer and all the cold we can take in the winter. If they do get the a/c running, it only works at arctic blast levels. If they get the heat running, we work in the KY equivalent of the Sahara desert. It is not uncommon to see us sporting swimsuits and parkas in the same week as we try to cope with the temperature. (sometimes in the same day)

Our parking lot is a wasteland of lumps, bumps, and things that make our tires go flat. Because police officers have no idea how to park intelligently, we have BEGGED for someone to come paint lines on the lot and create actual spaces. Hell, I offered to go do it myself if they'd provide the paint. No dice.

We have broken windows that Facilities tell us they can't fix due to asbestos. If they did what was needed- i.e. rip everything out and install new windows with security grates- they'd have to spend a fortune removing asbestos and we couldn't be in the building for a few weeks. So obviously that can't happen. We now have plastic sheeting duct taped over the windows on one side of the office. Tacky, but effective.

What have we gotten? A federal grant to create a 'green roof' on the top of this broken down dump. They spent something like $1.5 million to resurface the roof (causing the removal of our exterior surveillance cameras which have STILL not been replaced, loss of half the parking lot to the work crews, exposure to all kinds of noise and chemicals, and- GASP-  the loss of the cable tv signal for several days. long term readers know which of these was the biggest issue for my coworkers) and put in a lovely little garden. This is supposed to help keep the building cool, and do some other crap that I can't recall at the moment. Oh, and provde a haven for employees to take a break. Which would be great if the only way to get to it was anything other than 4 flights of stairs that lead to another, uber-steep narrow flight of stairs. NOBODY goes up there.

After the rooftop debacle, they got another Federal grant...for a rain garden. Another million or so went to digging up 1/4 of our parking lot and installing this garden with succulent plants and a bench for employees to sit on. It's supposed to collect water from the roof of the unusable garage next to the main building, thus alleviating the amount running through our dying sewer system and keeping the plants pretty. So if summer 2013 is anything like this year's, we'll have our own little Gobi desert out front. And what employee wouldn't want to go sit on a stone bench in full sunlight surrounded by the aroma of homeless guy urine (did I mention that it has become a public potty?) and car exhaust?

Last, (so far) but not least, we have been blessed with the addition of new solar lights in the parking lot. In the section that was already fairly well lit. Not in the far corners of the lot where we can't tell if that shadow is a transformer or a nutjob waiting to run up and kill us. And then they disconnected the old lights, so all we have are the 2 barely glowing solar lights that might illuminate the 3 cars parked directly under them.

THIS is what my tax dollars are going toward?

Things I Hate About Winter

1. My office maintains an average temp of 50 below and it is not an uncommon sight to see us in parkas & fingerless gloves while we try to handle evidence.

2. The homeless people who get arrested so that they'll have somewhere warm to sleep. I don't begrudge them getting shelter, however misguidedly, but I hate that Corrections won't take their bags so that WE are forced to deal with the (often stinky) mess. And the cranky people that then have to hike 4-5 miles to our office to reclaim their stuff.

3. The cold weather plays hell with my arthritic knees & back.

4. The nasty slushy mess that makes driving in Louisville an even more hazardous task after the first snowfall starts to melt.

5. Every stray cat in the neighborhood comes to roost under my house, often mating under my bedroom floor. Glad they're warm and somewhat safe, wish they weren't homeless to begin with.

6. My little black cat loses her mind and races around the house, often shrieking madly, until I snap and threaten to kill her.

7. My father gets VERY grumpy about the cold weather, making my mother crazy, in turn making me even crazier.

8. Listening to holiday music ad nauseum EVERYWHERE I go.

9. The office holiday party.  Almost nobody ever really wants one, but there's always some gung-ho idiot who just HAS to organzize one. I put my foot down last year- no presents for the jackholes I work with, no special treats, and since I'm not participating, I'm not cleaning it up. Expect a repeat performance this year.

10. The politically correct police who insist  "We should say Happy Holidays so that everyone will feel included!" and those who argue that "Christ is the reason for the season" and "You cain't take Christ out of Christmas!" Here's my take on the issue- SHUT UP, celebrate the way you are comfortable, and don't force your views on the rest of the world. If someone gives you a holiday greeting that's different from your view, just smile, thank them, and be grateful that anyone is speaking to your sorry ass in the first place.

The Fashion Industry is NUTS

So, thanks to health issues and my back & knee problems, my doctor has been really getting after me to lose weight. While I haven't lost as much as he'd like, I HAVE managed to lose 47 lbs in the last year. I'm still a big old heifer, but I'm working on it. Most of my weight loss is due to changes in diet- I don't like exercising, especially when I'm in chronic pain. I think it's a mental block, remembering how mean the other kids were in gym classes back in my younger schooldays, but I digress.

I had established a clothing moratorium for the year a few months ago, when I was trying to start decluttering and realized that most of the clothing piled up in the laundry room & spare room was stuff I either stopped wearing because I had gotten too fat for it, or was stuff I had simply forgotten I owned. There were also a lot of things that were basically duplicates- how many versions of black & purple t-shirts are there, and did I really need to hang on to ALL of them? So a LOT of stuff went to goodwill.

Just for giggles, I tried on a few of the things I had outgrown. Holy cow, they fit again!  Some of them even better than before! I still gave a fair chunk away (mostly things I wore when I worked in retail and/or used for LARP costumes), but kept some of the things I'm still likely to wear.

My current job is techincally clerical, but it's in kind of a warehouse environment. We can, and often do, handle large/dirty items, so jeans are the best clothing choice. Here's where things start getting a little tricky. Because I'm so tall AND fat, appropriately fitting pants of any style are hard to come by. And due to the occasional roughness of my job, I've had to throw away some damaged pairs. Even worse are the pairs I had to toss after my weight gain caused them to explode in ways that could not be repaired. I managed to find some replacements in the larger size- even though I was working on weight loss, I still had to wear something to work.

Well, now I've lost this weight, and my 'fat' jeans are WAAAAAAAAY too big. The pairs of jeans I had outgrown are all either about to fall apart from forcing myself into them even when I was too fat, or are actually slightly too big. *happy dance* So, since a nearby store that carried plus sizes appears to be having a going out of business sale, I thought I'd treat myself to a couple of new pairs of jeans. Not buying anything but jeans- the moratorium on everything else stands until I lose more weight & keep it off.  (Well, maybe a tie-dyed t-shirt or two. I've worn most of mine to bits)

So I went to this store- let's call them Mashin' Mug instead of giving them a plug- and hoped for the best. I've found good things there in the past, but there's also a lot of drek, and their sizes are fairly inconsistent. Also, WHO decides what is stylish? Weird colorblock combinations might pass for ok on a skinny girl, but don't work as well on Ample Annie. Not all fat girls want to wear clothes with sequins & beads, in eye-popping prints/colors that call attention to our figure flaws. NOBODY looks good in Capri pants and I'd give thanks daily if that look went away forever.  AND booty shorts- you know the ones that are so short & tight that they're basically glorified underwear- need to go away. Preferably for everyone, but especially plus sized versions. Just because you CAN make something, doesn't mean you SHOULD. Ditto for wearing it. Remember the eye trauma caused by biker shorts in the 90's? Same thing.

Where was I? Oh yeah, jeans. Nobody makes plain simple jeans any more either. You have to decide between skinny, boot leg, low waisted, wide legged, studded, embroidered, beaded, straight legged (as rare as intelligible lyrics in most rap ditties), acid wash, indigo, stonewashed, button-fly,  decaf, mocha, and whoops, I just took us to $tarbuck$. There are too many choices. Unless you're built like me, in which case you pretty much are stuck choosing whatever goes over your butt and can be zipped over your gut. Bonus points if they're miraculously the right length and/or you can bend over without mooning anyone, the pants exploding, or having a permanent zipper indentation on your stomach.

So, knowing the store's tendency to have erratic sizing, I found several styles of jeans to try on, and managed to get most of them in 3 sizes. My former fat size, the size I'm currently in which is a little loose, and a size down in a rush of optimism. I even managed to score a couple of pairs of Tall plus sizes which is as rare as a drama free day in the life of Lindsay Lohan. The lethargic dressing room attendant looked at the 12-15 pairs of jeans I was lugging and waved me in. So much for 5 items or less.

Anybody want to guess what happened next? No? Well, I'll tell you- NOTHING fit. Not one single frigging pair, not even in a 'not quite right, but I can make do' kind of way. The size down were WAY too small. The size up- aka fat me- were WAY too big. The size I currently wear were either too big or too small depending on the style of the jeans.

Do I need to explain how demoralizing that is? I walked into the store feeling good about myself for having lost 47 GADDAMNED POUNDS, and walked out feeling like a circus fat lady. Seriously, I was almost in tears. And the urge to go eat my way through a buffet and then a bakery was strong. Sanity, and sympathy from my mommy prevailed. I did have a bowl of ice cream, but just one, not the size of a soup tureen, and with no garnishes of any sort. 

Then I started thinking about the issue. I am NOT the problem. (not entirely) The fashion industry, who consider anything over a size 4 to be obese, is the problem. So I mentally composed this letter to Mashin Mug:

Dear Jackholes,

Sorry to hear you're going out of business. Actually, I'm not surprised. Your sizes have always been off, no matter what you claim, and you never stocked enough of the larger sizes to make it worth coming in and trying things on. Your failed experiment of mixing the plus sized items in with the juniors a few years ago did nothing to help. In fact, it made me homicidal to see a cute top in a size 2, only to discover the largest size you had in was a 16. It appeared to have that effect on a LOT of women, because that project didn't even last 4 months, did it?

I went in to your store hoping to spend a fair amount of money on some new jeans. What a shame that the same pair of jeans in 3 different sizes didn't fit. None of them were close enough to buy, even with your advertised 30-60% off sale. Oh, and one rack of t-shirts from the 70's marked 60% off isn't fooling anyone.  May I suggest a sign that says "These are crap, but they're cheap, so you know you'll buy some?"

I'm sure I'll run into simliar problems in other stores. But at least I have the satisfaction of knowing I'll never have to deal with YOU again.

Enraged, and decidedly not cordially yours,

The Amazonian Liongoddess 

Dear Officer/Coworker

Ok, so I'm not perfect and make the odd mistake. I can understand that everyone does from time to time. However, here are a few issues that keep cropping up and you might want to start paying attention so that I don't have to start smacking people:

1. If you have drugs in a small tube, it is a V-I-A-L, not V-I-L-E.

2. The damned pills are called LORTABS. Not loritabs, loratabs, loretabs, luratabs, or any other damned spelling variation you come up with. For pity's sake, at least half the time you have the Rx bottle with the correct spelling and you STILL get it wrong.

3. There is no excuse for spelling the name of the drug incorrectly when the computer fills it in for you. (the most common drugs have codes that we enter and it populates the screen for you) There is no such thing as marawana or herion. They are marijuana and heroin. (also, unless you are giving me a romance novel, you do not have h-e-r-i-o-n-e)

4. Believe it or not, we do know the difference between an I-pod and a cell phone. (and the officer that accused me of mistaking one for the other was very sorry that he dragged his Sgt down to our office to watch him open the envelope to prove me wrong...only to discover that HE was the idiot)

5. If you do not sort your evidence prior to shoving it through the window at us/deposit it yourself/check your property slip before you leave the office, it is not advisable to call screaming hours or days later, and tell us we got something wrong and how stupid we are. We are not going to go out of our way to figure out any mistakes and how they might be corrected after you are a jackass.

6. Your case got thrown out of court because you checked evidence out and brought it back without the original packaging and we documented that fact in the chain of custody? That would be YOUR fault, not OURS. Please see your commanding officer for some remedial training...or be prepared to have a foot broken off in your ass if you get in my face again.

7. If you can't read your own handwriting, what the hell makes you think we can decipher your citation?

8. GET OFF YOUR DAMNED CELL PHONE AND PAY ATTENTION WHILE WE PUT YOUR EVIDENCE IN. See reason #5 if you don't understand why. Not to mention, it's rude.

9. The office supplies that the city pays for are crap and we all know it. If you want nice pens, bring your own. Poaching my pens, that I paid for, will get you hurt. And before you try to tell me that it's really YOUR pen and just looks like mine, I mark my pens, in several places, and can clearly see that it IS mine. (and I'm the only one who regularly uses green or purple ink, with the exception of the thieving ho who keeps stealing my pens) Also, there is a reason my stapler has my name written on it IN PERMANENT MARKER and is hidden in my desk drawer. I paid for a quality stapler for my own use. Buy your own or make do with the cheap ones we get.

10. The candy jar ON TOP of my desk is fair game. I keep a fair supply of various hard candies (& occasionally chocolates) out for others to have because I know we all like a treat from time to time. Complaining that I don't have your favorite candy means it's time to buy your own. Oh, and if you're looking for the personal stash that I keep in my drawer? It's now secured in my locker because I got tired of it being eaten for me. You're not welcome. (I'm diabetic & hypoglycemic, so when my blood sugar crashes, I REALLY need that snack to be there)

I hope this helps. Really. For all our sakes.

Monday Musings- Ooops, I lost it again...

Hello, my name is Mickey, and I suffer from extreme road rage. Seriously. I don't even have to be the one driving- the rare occasions when I'm the passenger will STILL see me screaming at other cars. (Most of my friends find this to be hysterically funny)I've had an ex ask me if I knew I developed Tourette's syndrome when I was behind the wheel of a car, only to be confounded when I screamed at people while HE was driving.  I've been told I should be a NYC cab driver.

George Carlin had a routine about sharing the road, where he mused "Have you ever noticed that anyone driving slower than you is an idiot, while anyone going faster is a maniac?" My addendum to that is "and they're all total asshats!"

I hate slow drivers. I hate drivers who go on for miles with their turn signals blinking forever. (How do you NOT know that? My car sounds an alarm if the signal blinks for more than a few minutes) I really hate the people who are so busy yapping on their cell phones that they forget to pay attention to the fact that they are behind the wheel of a potentially lethal piece of machinery.  (I must confess that I am bad about that sort of thing, which is EXACTLY why I rarely make/take calls while I'm driving) These are the morons who either get so involved in their talk that they don't realize they've slowed down to well below the speed limit/drift over into my lane and then give me a dirty look when I honk & flip them off/realize at the last minute that they're passing their exit and cut me off trying to get to it.

More dislikes: drivers who act as though they don't know people on an entrance ramp will need to be in THAT lane and don't get over (if possible, I realize it isn't always feasible) and/or get so close to my car that they can see the whites of my eyes. (These people also get a good look at my tonsils why I'm screaming curses at them) Drivers who follow the herd instinct and park their car right beside mine, ususally so close that I can barely get in/out. (These are the same kind of people who look at a mostly empty movie theater and then choose to sit directly in front of me) Drivers who think it is THEIR job to enforce the speed limit and try to act as rolling roadblocks to make YOU slow down. (my least-favorite ex, Schmucknuts, would do that- I told him once that if the guy he pulled that on killed him, I'd testify that he had it coming)

Drivers who throw their trash and/or cigarettes out the window while driving. Thanks for obscuring my vision with your burger wrapper, or setting my paint on fire with your cigarette!

Drivers who view driving in inclement weather as a personal challenge. I am a leadfoot. I know this, my friends/family know this, and police officers know this. (Thank heaven I work for the local PD, and most of them are content to let me off with a scolding or I'd have probably lost my license by now. LOL) But even *I* slow down for rain & snow. Especially snow. I grew up at the beach- we rarely had snow there. Despite having lived here for 14 years, I am not comfortable driving in it and admit I become one of the slowpoke drivers I normally hate, but I always stay in the far right lane and try not to impede faster moving traffic. Even so, if the snow is falling so fast that windshield wipers can't keep up, and the roads have clearly not been treated/cleared, SLOW THE F*** DOWN. I can't tell you how many wrecks I've seen as a result of some idiot thinking they're Speed Racer in a blizzard. (I'm only on the road in that kind of weather if I absolutely HAVE to go to/from work) One of the best moments of my life was when I got to witness a police officer from the local 'rich' area (of COURSE they have their own PD) come flying up past me, only to lose control of his car on an on-ramp, and go flying in circles into a semi who had pulled over to wait for better visibility. Why YES, the officer from MY PD & I had a good time filling out the report for that one.

I'm sure there are many other things that irritate me while driving. I could keep going on, but you get the idea. I also realize that I probably irritate the hell out of other people on the road. That's their problem- they can get their own blog.

Heh.

Monday Musings- things not to say to me at work when I'm tired and cranky and my responses to them

1.       You look tired. (No, really? Silly me, I thought I looked bright eyed and bushy tailed)

2.       *coworker, snapping* I don’t need any input from you, I know how to do this. (seconds later) Um, how do I do this? (Kiss my ass, bitch, you said you knew what you were doing) 

3.       Are you having a bad day? (no, I always bite my lip until it bleeds)

4.       *person on phone telling long rambling story that is of no concern to me at all* blah blah, protecting the criminals and not the victims, and you sound like you don’t even care. (you’re right, I don’t)

5.       Did you want to finish your dinner before you start this? (I’d love to finish my dinner instead of entering your stupid search warrant, but I can’t eat with you standing there staring at me AND my coworkers telling me you’re there, as if I don’t see/hear you)

6.       Why don’t you ever look happy? (I work here, idiot, what do you think?)

7.       There’s another officer at the window. (Did I miss your promotion to management? I’m dealing with an idiot phone call, my computer is locked up, and he’s not going anywhere. If you’re that concerned, type your shit in faster and get him yourself)

8.       You’re going to hate me for this….. (Yep)

9.       Are you sure I need a report number for this? (No, I just like to hear you call dispatch- WE ARE GOING INTO YEAR 4 ON THIS SYSTEM, YES YOU NEED A %$*@%*@%&*@#%&* REPORT NUMBER)

10.   Wow, your face is really broken out! (Thanks. Your penis must be really small)