Epitravelogue

Well, I made it home. Still not dead! No thanks to the ravens. My diversionary tactics worked perfectly. I sailed through security, sans corkscrew, and even had time to suck down some hooch at the airport bar. My second glass of crappy but overpriced merlot was so loaded up that I dumped it into an empty water bottle so I could take it on board and introduce it to the mile high club.

It seemed like pure absolute zero torture at the time but now as I look back on it through the haze of retrospect, maybe it wasn't so bad. Isn't that always the way?? I learned some stuff, for one thing, and I always appreciate that. I was so sick one day that I turned on the TV. My energy gave out just as I clicked on 'Extreme Cheapskates'; have you seen this show? They had this woman on, she looked totally normal, but then she cooked a lasagna in the dishwasher WHILE IT WAS WASHING DISHES.  It might not be so weird if she was just cooking, BUT THE SOAP!!!!!! And the lasagna was for a party; a party at which the guests had to use a candle to find the bathroom because she wouldn't let them turn the lights on. I mean, my party guests always hate me, too, but it's only because I live in a swamp. I know better than to be stingy, too.  I actually don't think cooking in the dishwasher is all that strange, but maybe I come by it naturally.  My dad doesn't have a dishwasher, so he recently tried to cook some sausage, noodles and broccoli in his coffee maker. I don't think it's because he's a tightwad, though. If he was he wouldn't buy clothes for statues and food. Disappointingly, the coffee maker meal was not a success, but I think he might just need a new model. So, that's one lesson: my family is not NEARLY as strange as I thought they were.

Here's another one: you can make a candle out of used motor oil, steel wool, and an empty beer can. I would totally do it, too, if I could force myself to drink beer out of a can. That one comes courtesy of a mechanic who lives in his shop. He just sleeps in cars people bring in and bathes himself in his car wash bucket. The candles were for a blind date. Lucky for him, too; if she could see she'd know he lives in an auto shop and be out of there like a shot.

And here's a little silver lining: I was too weak to buy neither a single pair of boots nor nary a touristy trinket. Not that the local wares are all that appealing, but the locals do push a certain kind of specialized knife. It comes with a DVD, or so the sales pitch goes. I don't know about you guys, but none of my friends or family members need a sharp implement that requires an instructional video.  That adds up to tons of extra Christmas thrifting cash for me; I think my dad could use some new kitchen appliances. If I don't have to spend it all on antibiotics, I mean. And those stupid fines to the Department of Fish and Wildlife. Who knew ravens were so valuable?

Ravens of Doom

Maybe you've been wondering what's become of me. Or maybe not. Whichever, I don't care. As it happens, though, I have been working out of town. WAY out of town. And since I have been traveling I thought it would be a good idea to do some travel writing. What is that called? Travelogues? Something like that; watch out Rick Steves!  So, hmmmmm, where to start? A good beginning is so important when it comes to good travel writing. Otherwise it would be super boring: I got on an airplane and the seat was too small, then I went to this place, and saw some stuff and ate some food. Snoresville, am I right?  In fact I should probably just admit right here I have never read one single word of any travel writing, ever, because it is so deadly dull, and therefore have not even the slightest idea how to do it. Oh well, that never stopped me before! I'm just gonna jump right in, how bad can it be?

First of all, the stupid TSA confiscated my corkscrew. And they didn't just take it quickly so I could be on my way. No, it was a whole ordeal.  See, somehow,  I have NO clue how, it had found its way into the backpack I use to tote my computer back and forth from work.  The backpack had to go through the scanner TWICE, then they searched it by hand, STOLE my corkscrew, and then ran it through AGAIN.  In the meantime, I was forced to stand there with my collection of two computers, iPad, and multiple phone/devices. It was very depressing to confront the fact that I should have been able to launch an array of satellites or at least hack into the FoxNews website to endorse gay marriage across the land but instead my efforts will produce nothing but a prodigious stack of questionable paperwork.  And me without a corkscrew, sigh.

Finally, my spirit adequately squashed, I was allowed to continue on my journey. In an airplane seat that was too small. Now, the purpose of this particular journey was to assess some disaster damage in a bunch of freezing cold and remote places.  Places that you have to get to in teeny tiny airplanes that are wired together with walrus guts and polar bear spit. If you don't die in an icy fiery crash first, of course.  Because I am opposed to dying in such an undignified fashion, I put the kibosh on the wings of deadly carnage and instead we evaluated damages remotely.  From a toasty warm office that was apparently riddled with bacterial pneumonia spores. It was a really tough choice, deciding whether to plunge into the frozen tundra at high velocity or hack up blood. I went with door number two, which has worked out relatively well for me so far. I weaseled out of a boring meeting because germs! And one of my coworkers brought me salami and orange juice and kleenex because I can't leave my hotel room, because the blood will freeze in the air on the way down because it's like 12 below, and then I might slip on it and hurt myself. Also, every time I leave the room there are ravens following me. Ravens of doom. They are waiting for me to die so they can devour my bloody flesh and peck my eyes out.  Actually, they might not even wait. Especially the big shiny one. He talks to me. Caw! Caw! Caw!

I have to go home tomorrow, though. In an airplane seat that is too small. So I'm working on a strategy.  I'm going to save all the hacked-up blood and use it to fashion what appears to be a bloody corpse out of pillows. This room has at least eight giant ones, they won't miss a couple. Then, when I get outside, I'm going to throw them at the ravens and make a break for it. Wish me luck! I'm leaving my new corkscrew for the maid, along with all my dirty clothes and a few books. I can't have that stuff slowing me down. If you never hear from me again, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Well, dammit

My head hurts. I think it might be because I brushed my teeth with beer this morning. About ninety times. What? You don't brush your teeth with beer? You probably don't live in a swamp, then. That's why. You probably live in some kind of fancy ass house where water, glorious municipality-provided chlorinated fluid of the gods, flows out of the taps. See, it's freezing here in the swamp. The pipes in the well house froze up WHILE I was in the shower this morning. I had barely gotten last night's beer rinsed off and had just soaked my head and squeezed some shampoo into my hand when the pounding hot liquid fruits of my swamp-well slowed to a trickle, then stopped completely. I twisted the knob this way and that, and looked disbelievingly at the sticky clump of Neutrogena in my hand for at least thirty seconds before I figured it out. Guess how you solve this problem? After you brush your teeth with beer for a long time, I mean- yep, you hike out into the arctic morning with a soaking wet head toting some sort of warming device FOR THE WELL HOUSE. I felt like freaking Ma Kettle, or Ma Ingalls, or Ma Joad, or whichever Ma had the most agonizing collection of suffering combined with a demoralizing lack of sufficient beer and bad hair.

Then I had to go to work like that. Luckily I have been using this awesome deodorant made out of approximately equal parts coconut oil and baking soda mixed with a few drops of tea tree oil so I didn't stink too bad. My armpits, anyway. I'm not so sure about the rest of me, but that worked out well for our late afternoon staff meeting to develop performance goals and metrics. We don't have any right now so some people peak out with making it to work on time a couple of times a week.  Well, that's not quite true. We HAVE some metrics but they are (U) unsatisfactory, (S) satisfactory and (E) exceptional and everyone just gets S's because if you get a U or E someone has to do extra administrative work and no one is on board for that. So now, we get to write our own, and there needs to be two levels, 'meets expectations' and 'exceeds expectations', or something like that. I wasn't really paying attention. So, for example, 'meets expectations' could be 'responds to customer inquiry' and 'exceeds expectations' could be 'gives customer correct answer 90% of the time'.  These are not actual examples from today's meeting (these are totally actual examples from today's meeting).  Properly executed, this could work out well for me. The bar should be low enough that I can handily outperform the special snowflakes that are tardy all the time. I'm thinking of a 'meets expectations' goal of 'comes to work sufficiently hygienic when temperatures are above freezing'. Brilliant, right? Well, gotta go- I'm off to lay out tomorrow morning's beer!

Hello, my friends!

Look! I'm posting again! I always feel so virtuous when I put up a post. It's like having my vitamins, or shaving my legs, or getting the last stray sock off the laundry chair.  Let's see- what's going on around here? Thanksgiving is coming soon and there's apparently been some interfamilial debate over whether squirrel is appropriate  holiday fare or not.  I come down pretty firmly on the 'not' side, having once eaten squirrel.  I know I've written about squirrel eating before but the truth is I only did it once, a really long time ago. And I didn't inhale, I swear!  Anyway, I'm not sure how that's going to play out but I'll eat anything if I have enough wine, that's my motto!  The weather has gotten very chilly lately, it is definitely boot weather.  I have recently discovered that it's also the season for purchasing larger than normal sized stretchy cords.  I found this out the hard way and I don't want to talk about it anymore, thank you very much.  I might have to travel to an even colder place for work sometime soon, too. To a place where I hear that people routinely wear cleats to keep from slipping on the ice. I'm not sure how well that's going to work out for me. Cleats, really? I mean, sure, those are great for clawing your way to the top of the heap, if you have a pile of coworkers in your way all the time like I do and you don't want blood on your good boots. But just for walking down the street? I don't think so.

Thanksgiving, boring! Work, boring! Let's talk about my most brilliant recent discovery! It's only the most awesome zombie/vampire repellant ever!  Like all brilliant discoveries it happened totally by accident. See, I had to clean out the cat box, so I scooped the cat poop into a bag, then I tied the bag shut and put it outside the front door. I kept 'forgetting' to take it to the garbage, which was super annoying, until it got to be about the fourth day and I realized that the entire time that bag had been by the front door was undead-predator free! Not a single vampire or zombie! It worked for about ten days and would probably still be effective, only someone got sick of having a bag of cat poop on the front porch and threw it away. Someone who doesn't realize how valuable it was, no doubt. So now I have to just wait until I can get another bag full. In the meantime, I make the cat sleep with me with his butt pointed towards the bedroom door.  With that problem solved, I need to figure out a way to keep the raccoons away from the chickens.  So far they have gotten three of our chickens. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure they are regular raccoons, not the undead kind, so the cat poop doesn't work.  Let me know if you have any ideas! And Happy Thanksgiving! I'll be sure to keep you posted on the squirrels.

DOGGAMMIT

I didn't want a dog. Seriously, if you'd asked me one second before I saw her if I wanted a dog, I would have said 'HELL, NO!' Then I might have punched you in the face for asking such a stupid question. Then I saw Samantha, and I wanted a dog. Not A dog, THAT dog.  She's a beautiful, glossy gracile black lab, and belongs to a friend of a friend who needs to find a new home for her.  I convinced myself this was a good idea, and then she came over for a sniffing session. She cheerfully and enthusiastically bounded out of the car and within .0063 seconds she had lunged and bitten Lloyd, so we had to pass.  I mean, biting Lloyd is one thing, but we can't have her attacking the neighbor kids. Sure, they might be little assholes but if it was socially acceptable to bite little assholes my mouth would be sore and bloody all the damn time.

Of course, the boys were heartbroken because they were SO excited about getting a dog, and now if you asked me if I wanted a dog I would probably just punch you in the face because I wouldn't know what to say, and I hate it when I don't know what to say. Also I'm a little nuts so displaced anger is one of my go-to strategies. On that note, I joined a gym today; they have a punching bag and I'm pretty excited about displacing my anger onto that. I'm not sure how well it will work but at least I can bash up my fists instead of my mouth for a while. I'll let you know how it goes if I can still type.  I guess if my mouth isn't sore I could use my face, or I could try my toes. Really, I have a lot of body parts that aren't earning their keep on a regular basis.

Anyway, back to this dog thing, because I'm starting to seethe again: I can't decide if I should look for a different dog or if I should just repeatedly punch myself in the face. Undoubtedly, if I look for a dog for long enough, I'll find one. And then I'll convince myself it's a good idea. And then I'll have a dog. And I might have mentioned this before, but I don't want a dog. DOGGAMMIT.

Now it's Monday night and the boys have been cross ALL weekend.  It's Veteran's Day, you know, so it's a LONG weekend, too. And if I wasn't so lazy I'd write an indignant post about how we stiff veterans every damn day so we can give tax breaks to Exxon, but I'm lazy. Did I mention that? So here, have a link to my 2011 Veteran's Day post instead.  Interestingly, as I reread that one, I see that I was about to get some recycled cats. Perhaps I have fall/winter SAD or something that makes me want pets. And by SAD, I mean 'Stupid Ass Decisions'.  It goes nicely with my ADD; what was I talking about? Oh yeah, the severe crossness we've had here ALL this whole LONG INTERMINABLE weekend.  Things are starting to look up, though, as bedtime approaches. Only a few more hours and the boys will have survived by the skin of their teeth. I was going to work at home tomorrow but I'm going to work at the crack of dawn because I don't want to push my luck.  If I'm feeling generous and have a little magically regenerated patience I might even brush my teeth first.  I'd go now but the babysitter doesn't get here until morning. DOGGAMMIT.

Well, toodles! When I start repeatedly taking dog's name in vain it's time to hit the wine. Have a good week, my friends!

Quietly making noise

Quietly making noise; I think that’s a Jimmy Buffett song. I would look it up but I’m writing this from my internet-free vacation. It’s sort of a handicap, this googleless existence.  I can barely even remember how we used to figure things out; do you remember?  You would have to ask someone, or go to the library. Funny, you’d think people would be a fuck of a lot smarter these days now that it’s so easy to look something up, but not so much, hmmmmm? Well, I’m not here to muse about technology and stupidity, at least not today. 

I was out running on the beach, and the song came into my head. Like a lemming! Not the whole song, just the phrase ‘quietly making noise’, and it took me a while to work out where it came from. I’m pretty sure it comes from the album ‘Fruitcakes’.  It’s a catchy little tune; you should check it out. The whole album is good. But I’m not here to muse about Jimmy Buffet’s vast catalog, at least not today. 

Naturally, it was crying out to be turned into a blog post, and I started thinking about why that particular phrase was in my head. It’s because I stopped making noise. I lost my voice. It’s easy to do; I had no idea how easy. And it can be hard to find again, especially if you look in the wrong places.  But my voice is important, and so is yours. So is everyone’s. Well, maybe not exactly EVERYONE. Sadly, I don’t get to pick.  It doesn’t have to be loud, just true to you.  But it’s good if it’s loud, too…..

Man, the olden days must have sucked

The power is out at my house right now, going on about hour four.  It took me precisely 17 seconds to figure out why olden day people whipped their kids with leather straps and two by fours.  It’s freezing and there’s no water because the well pump requires electricity.  Fortuitously, as it turns out, my bathtub has been full of water balloons for the last week and a half, so that’s one problem solved.  If we go more than a few hours around with here without flushing this place makes the Hanoi Hilton look like the Taj Mahal.  Next time, though, I’m going to make the boys fill their balloons with wine.  If I get the right swill for them it will probably clean the toilets on the way down too.

And as luck, wretched bitch that she is, would have it, the boys just got home from a weeklong hunting trip and it looks like the filthiest, bloodiest corners of the old west and Quik-e Mart collaboratively exploded in the living room, kitchen, dining room and mud room. There is a squirrel tail on the dining room table, y’all!

There are sheets of water and chunks of trees raining down from the sky. It’s so bad out there that I had to use the leather strap AND the lumber to get the kids out of the house. Man, the olden days must have been EXHAUSTING. My arms are going to be sore for a week, I swear.

Update, hour six:  the generator readily powers two lamps, the fridge, the television and the phone charger, but I have been unable to configure it to supply wine or muck out the mountain of dirty clothes, food wrappers and squirrel parts. It also appears to not have an autodestruct sequence or an option to spray out chloroform.  Frankly, I’m pretty disappointed in the Honda people. I mean, generator suppliers should be aware of what sufferers of power outages REALLY need; this is just common sense.  No wonder this place is going to hell in a handbasket; corporate America has lost touch with the people.

Update, hour nine: Power restored, generator dented with boot, minions dispatched to wine store. And all is right with the world.

Let there be lemmings

Hey, y’all!  I bet you thought you would NEVER hear from me again. No such luck, sucks to be you!!  I sort of wondered if you would ever hear from me again too; it has been a while since I had any ideas to write about at all. Well, I mean, I had a FEW ideas.  Just piddly little things, really, like the one where I was thinking I could stuff footballs with wine to take to work, because people there like sports and they might not notice someone drinking from a football. Not very practical, because those things taste terrible on the outside, plus I can’t even take full credit- it was a collaboration with some of my more twisted coworkers.  But now I think I might be getting my mojo back for real! See, I took this remote vacation BY MYSELF! There was not even any internet, can you believe such a crazy thing? I couldn’t even text! I know, I wasn’t sure I would survive either, but not only did I not shrivel up into a teeny tiny dried up husk of skin and die, I had at least a jillion brand new ideas! I would go running on the beach and the notions would just cascade into my brain like little suicidal lemmings.  I had to hurry back to my room and write them down before they crushed each other into a big squishy heap of brilliance!

It sounds pretty easy, doesn’t it? This taking a vacation by myself thing. And it would have been, too, if it hadn’t been for those darn meddling chickens. Oh, you didn’t know about the chickens? Right, I guess not, because I haven’t written anything for what feels like a million years.  We have chickens! We started with five, and are sadly down to three, because RACCOONS. So, until we figure out a chicken sleeping solution that is raccoon-proof, they have to be locked in at night and left out in the morning. EVERY night, and EVERY morning. This, as you might suspect, completely negates the advantages to having chickens, and there are many: delicious fresh eggs, high quality poop/compost, and peaceful clucking. Not being willing to abandon the girls to take their chances with prowling predators, I scooped them up into cat carriers and transported them with their accoutrements to Grandpa’s house to get chickensat.  That sounds pretty easy, doesn’t it? HA! You might not know this, but chickens are quite wily. And fast. Really, you have to hold them with both hands.  Which is fine, and not problematic at all, unless you are laying on the mud and chicken poop covered ground because you fell trying to catch one, and now you caught one only you are laying on the ground holding a chicken with both hands. I think I invented a new yoga move; I call it ‘chicken up’. I hope there’s not already one called that. I wouldn’t know because I don’t do yoga. It’s boring. Also, it hurts. If I need exercise I can just go collect chickens.

Finally with chickens satisfactorily collected, we set off for Grandpa’s house.  I mean satisfactorily to me, of course; I’m not sure the chickens would agree. I would ask them but they aren’t talking to me.  My car smelled like a barn for a while, but it aired out in time, and I was off to collect lemmings. The chickens are definitely easier, but the lemmings smell better. To me, I mean; I’m not sure the raccoons would agree.