Lovely Day

Today is a lovely day. I recommend that you all leave work early and enjoy the afternoon because as with all Memorial Day weekends in Minnesota, it's going to be crappy and rainy. Get out there and check out the sun. While you still can.

I hate lawnmowers

Okay, so my grandmother died in January. And like many northern Minnesotans, my family decided to wait to have a memorial service until May because her friends are snowbirds. One thing to know about my grandma is that she saved everything, like most good depression era people. I used to help her clean out the drawers in the kitchen and we'd find some hardware receipt from 1968 next to last week's TV Guide. It was all there. She also tried to get me to take things from her house. Not the family heirlooms of course, but things that she'd inherited from her dead friends. Furniture, pots and pans, tupperware, muffin mix from 1983, you know, the typical shit that people leave behind when they die. She outlived them all and suffered from some sort of complex that kept her from throwing anything away.

Now what does this have to do with lawnmowers? Well, I'll tell you. When my dad and aunt were going through the house, they asked my brother and I to make a list of what we wanted. I only wanted one thing (which of course I didn't get) and that was an old bookcase full of books from the late 1800s and early 1900s. I used to spend hours as a kid looking through those books. Since I didn't inherit the bookcase, the other thing I asked for was the lawnmower. See I'm cheap. I don't like to spend money on things that I won't really love. While I love having my lawn mowed, it is mostly weeds not grass, so I'm just not that into lawn care. I decide to ask for the Lawn Boy lawnmower, since it won't cost us a thing and it seems better than the other lawnmower that we got for free. It wasn't until I read the owners manual (with receipt and all) that I realized this lawnmower was purchased in 1978. It should've been a clue.

So when we get it home and it doesn't start, I call the lawnmower repair first person in the yellow pages. He seems nice enough. He takes the mower and tells me that the carburetor needs to be replaced. He says it won't be too expensive. $170 later (and two carburetors later), the damn thing still won't start. He's been back to my house 3 times now. Each time he tells us how great this lawnmower is. That if we went out to buy this same lawnmower today, it would cost $600. Funny thing, this old piece of crap lawnmower has cost me $170 and it still doesn't work. So now I'm really screwed because I just paid some guy to do work on a crappy mower when I could've just bought a new one. And the whole thing is making B and I pissed off. Not at each other, but really, we're just pissed and that's no fun.

Stay away from used lawnmowers. They are very very bad.

the "c" word

yeah, i've been on a bender. funny thing. i thought it ended on sunday, but seemingly i'm carrying it into this week too. yeah, i just got back from the bar. where i drank, hm, well, gin and tonics. i must really have a problem because i've been working on plenty of short stories but they all feature gin and tonics and lots of smoking as props.

but honestly. since i found out the little pooch (my sweet little mackenzie dog) has cancer, i've been on this bender. i suppose smoking lots of cigarettes when your dog has cancer doesn't really do much good. i mean, it certainly could give me cancer, but i don't think that the u of mn vet hospital could do much for me. hopefully, they'll be able to help my little doggie out.

she has this weird kind of dog cancer that i don't know much about. and though i love the internet in all of its glory, i'm not really interested in researching dog cancer that i, myself, can't cure. i can't do anything. my hands are tied. we have to wait until june 1 to meet with the oncologist and then we will find out just what is at stake. so for now, i'm just drinking heavily and smoking heavily, knowing that neither of those actions will cure my dog, but dammit, they make me feel better. in a weird sort of way.

until tomorrow...

slackerville

i've been terrible about writing. i suppose i read plenty of blogs that say the same thing, but i honestly haven't had a blog long enough to be this much of a slacker about it. i mean, i should at least be attentive enough to write every day. but enough of that. i got a job interview this week. maybe this won't be the unemployed blog anymore. the thing is, i'm really starting to enjoy the freelance life. i hate being broke all of the time, but it's really not the end of the world. plus, i do get money in spurts. i just need to make sure to save it for the dry times. but we'll see how the interview goes.

i talked to the unemployment people this week when i called to request benefits. they were so nice. they asked me what i'd been doing to apply for jobs for the last two weeks. i listed out all of the jobs i'd applied for (and my job interview) and she was super nice and wished me luck. i go back and forth about collecting unemployment. i'm so glad it is there considering the utter disregard my former employer had for my boss's insanity. i mean really. i was the hardest worker in the department. she dumped on me constantly and i just did more work for her. and my reward? coordinate a dozen projects that she didn't want any part of and when they are done, boom, i'm out the door. i'm out the door as she's telling me that i'm incredibly talented and a great worker. oh right...she just couldn't stand me as a person, that's right. i'd rather not work for a raging republican anyway, so good riddance.

hm....i'll be a better blogger. maybe i need to write it on the blackboard twenty times.

dog day afternoon

today, my dog had surgery. holy crap. i didn't realize how difficult it would be. i mean, when we first got her, we had her fixed and that was surgery and afterwards it was somewhat traumatic, but she was still a puppy. i could pick her up and hold her in my lap. now she's a whopping 72 pounds and holding her on my lap requires her to do as much work as me. and she's recovering from a day of morphine. i can't really even help her up and down the stairs, since i'll be more likely to hurt than help her.

it's amazing how much love i'm feeling for my pooch and how incredibly incompetant i feel because i can't really do much to comfort her. i mean, she can't tell me how much it does or doesn't hurt and she can't ask me for help in english. i keep waiting for her to pipe up with a sentence or two, but so far, only barks and whines. i just wish that i didn't feel so helpless. so i'm going to go curl up next to her and whisper all kinds of happy dog stories in her ear and hope that she feels better really soon.

and then the long two week wait happens. two whole weeks before we know if the lump is nothing or bad. one whole week before the x-rays are definitively examined. at least i can say...i love our vet.

not gone but probably forgotten

it's been so long since i've written anything of substance. but it was time for me to crawl in a cave and thus emerge, dirty and tired. after two months of insomnia and too many hours spent on a family project, my hiatus is over for the moment. my grandma's memorial service was last weekend. i worked on the program for the service and after three excruciating weeks of drafts, edits, and additions, it's done. a one-page pictoral tribute to my grandma spawned a program and thank-you notes before the whole thing was finished. two great things came out of it, one, i hopefully have a credit at paper source which is the best paper store next to one in new york city (kate's paperie). i love it dearly and hope that my family didn't use all of the envelopes i purchased. the other great thing is that it ended up being beautiful (which i can say now). it took a few days passing before i could even look at it with any sort of appreciation at all.

also, in the course of my two-month hiatus, i found my lost long pen pal. i'm so happy about that. i'll call him pH. he found me through findlaw (and my lawyerly husband). and even pH commented on how hot my husband looks on findlaw. i'd have to say i agree. it really is an awesome picture. i'm just lucky that i get to come home to it every night. whoo hoo for me! okay, enough self-indulgence.

things are good. i'm a freelancing consultant. maybe now i'll find more time to write?