Things that bug me

I think I mentioned a while back that my oven went kaput a couple of weeks ago. I called a company listed in the phonebook only because they were in my city and advertised that they work on Dacor stoves.

I think I made a mistake.

Before he came out- the broiler and the convection oven worked. The regular oven didn't work.

So the first time 'annoying little man' and sidekick (I'm assuming is his son who looks to be about 14) comes to my house, I get an earful about how he could have warned me before I bought a dacor. "They're nothing but trouble."

Dude! I didn't know you when I bought this house, and in summing you up, not sure I'd ever ask you for your opinion.

Anyhoocares, he said it was the heating element. He also said that he'd have to replace that with a kit because Dacor recalled the original parts or something like that. He also had to replace all my burners because none of them would light without me using a lighter. All of this to the tune of $850.00. Yeah.

OK, I justified it because basically I was getting a brand new stove and oven and the thing is worth almost 5,000.00 new.

Annoying little man came back today with the parts and proceeds to take apart my oven. While he's working on this, sidekick decides that it's OK to mess around with my refrigerator. You see, it has a little tiny door in the middle of it so you can just grab milk and not open the whole fridge (I rarely use it). As he opened it and looked inside, I thought to myself, "who does this?" Then he asked what the little door was for, so I told him.

What does he do next? Opens the big refrigerator door and looks inside. Again, who does this?

Annoying little man then closes everything back up and turns on the breaker. He proceeds to show me how great my new burners are (yay!) and then tries to head up the new oven.

It's dead. Oh, and so is the convection oven now. AND the broiler. All of it DEAD.

Annoying little man scratches his head. "Hmmm, I don't know why it's doing this. Maybe it shorted out." "Or maybe your wiring went bad."

I'm thinking to myself, "or maybe you're an idiot?"

He then says that he needs to go order more parts. If it's what he thinks it is, it'll be another 400.00. But it might be (can't remember what he said it might be). Then went on to say, "Gee, I hope you're not hosting Thanksgiving".

"Guess what? I am", I said.

His reply? "Wow, that sucks". "Well, I'll give you a call when I figure this out", and then hightailed it out the door leaving all my old oven parts sitting in the middle of the floor.

I dunno, but I have a feeeeeelllllling that I'm not going to hear from him again.

I planned to bake cookies this weekend to celebrate my new oven. Guess not.

I also guess that I'm not baking pies or rolls for Thanksgiving. Thank goodness I have a roaster for the turkey.

Am I upset? Of course not. I immediately called my sister and laughed hysterically over the phone. I mean really, in the grand scheme of things- this is hilarious because of the timing of it all.

All I can do is laugh. I'm still laughing.

(do you think that means that I've gone insane?)

Two nights in a row, I've had HORRIBLE nightmares. In fact, last night's nightmare was a continuation of the nightmare I had the night before. Now really, who does that? Wanna be grossed out? Sure you do.

Tuesday night I dreamed that I went outside to do some yard work and came across a big hole. Looked to be about 1.5 feet wide, so I went to investigate. Inside I found (yech) live rats and live snakes and puppies and kittens. Some dead, some alive. There was blood and slime everywhere. I wanted so badly to save the puppies and kittens but the rats had big teeth and the snakes were rattlesnakes. I decided to just bury all of it, so shoveled dirt into the hole and cried.

Last night, I dreamed that my girls (Kathy and Jess) came for an overnighter- just us girls. I told them about the hole with the kittens, puppies, snakes and rats and they wanted to see. So, we went out to my garden, and there was that huge hole again with the same stuff as I'd dreamed the night before. The dream went a little further and even more disturbing when this little kid (not related) came running into the room where we were watching movies (SATC if you must know), and said, a cat had kittens in a frying pan on top of your stove. We wanted to wait to go look until after the movie so it was a good 1/2 hour or so. Unfortunately, the kid decided to turn on the stove to keep the kittens warm and by the time I found them, they were all dead.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know what these dreams mean. To me, it's just my mind working through all the things I like 'dying' around me. Maybe now that I've written it all down, the gory dreams will stop.

On one hand, I'm glad I was blessed with imagination and creativity; however I think this same blessing is a curse because that imagination and creativity does not end when I go to sleep.

Welcome to my circus. Or should I say funeral home?

Brain: Bad. My neuro put me on a different version of the drugs that help me to not jerk around when I saw her last week. It is a long-acting version, and twice the strength. Go figure, but I've been violently jerking for the past week. She's decided to take me off of that and put me back on the other stuff just in case that's the problem. Of course, it could be that evil S word causing the problem (the word of the day is: STRESS). I've also been having problems with my speech and running into walls (I have to admit, that part is kind of comical). I've worked from home all week this week, mainly out of vanity. I just really don't like people seeing me jerking like that and walking and talking like I've had one too many. It even makes BJ uncomfortable, so I can just imagine how a perfect stranger (or co-worker for that matter) might react. I've already noticed today that I'm jerking less, so either I'm less stressed because I'm working from home, or it was the meds. Either way, yay. I'm sure my manager thinks I've checked out, but truly I haven't. (I'm feeling guilty about working home all week)

Speaking of which- my job status.... who knows? I'm still keeping my head in the game because that's all I can really do. I'm glad I volunteered to be on the transition team because it gives me some sense of being in the know- even though I'm not really. I have NO idea at this point what will happen to my employment, and probably won't know until December. I hope my brain doesn't implode by then. Good Lord, I'd like to take a nice long nap and wake up when this is all over. Seriously.

BJ says that I'm not acting myself these days. Hmmmm.... I wonder why? I haven't been very social with him and I hope that he never takes it personally. He says he doesn't, but I know that I get tired of being around myself when I'm like this. Don't you wish you could hang with me 24/7 right now? What? Nobody? Hmmmph.

I haven't been around the blogosphere since last weekend. I think that might be my norm for a while. Let it all pile up and catch up on the weekend. Deal?

There's more if you're logged in and want to be grossed out. Boys? I suggest you stay out. Trust that.

I have so many letters to write, so thought I'd just do it in one fell swoop.

Dear friends and family,
I'm sorry I've been incommunicado, but I've been busy trying to save my bacon job. Really, one day this will all be behind me (according to Eckhart Tolle who has been a wonderful read before work in the morning.) I can't promise I'll be in touch soon, because I'm horrible about that sort of thing anyway.

Dear favorite blogs,
Read above

Dear guy on the elevator at the bus station this morning,
You've made me even more certain that I need to buy and wear a spy camera so I can take pictures without being noticed. You know those people that I've already written to (see above)? They'll thank me for it.

Dear guy on my floor that thinks he's really important,
Really? Really? Do you have to wear a wireless headset and pace back and forth talking loudly on the phone? Come on- from what I've heard, you're really not THAT important.

Dear temporary project manager that I've written about before,
I swear to all that's holy, if you join in on ONE MORE conversation in which you weren't invited, then well, I can't be responsible for my actions. I have a head injury you know... I can't be held responsible for anything anymore. Seriously, I'm tired of the "prairie dogging" that you do every time someone comes over to my desk to talk to me. You make their visits exponentially less enjoyable. I've heard you tell people that you keep a bowl of candy at your desk so people will come visit. I'm not sure I'd admit that, really.

Dear lady with four toes on the train today,
Wow, I have to give you a high five for having the great self esteem to wear open toed sandals. I'm sorry that I kept looking at your feet, but I was seriously counting over and over again to be sure I didn't miss one. Good for you!

Dear 'Large Marge' that sometimes rides my bus when I'm going to the train station,
Hey, I used to be a Large Marge too, but I never sat my butt on top of someone and then tried to wriggle it in a space that was clearly to small for me. You made me a wee bit uncomfortable. Only my husband is allowed on top of me, if you get my drift.

Dear BJ,
I'm so glad you finally got a camera phone, and even happier that you shared the pictures from your hotel with me. Really, this one had me HOWLING with laughter. Your company really knows how to put you up in a nice hotel, don't they?


And then, your email today describing the rest of the accommodations? Well, I'm sorta sorry for laughing at your situation, but I really did need a good laugh.

There is also the obligatory duct tape around the railing on the stairs up to the room. Plus, in the front lobby the really cool tile they picked out is now shattering when people step on it because they didn’t get the floor underneath smooth before they laid it.

Well, I think that about covers it.

Love (or not, depending on who you are),
Lori aka RG

As I walked out of Starbucks (one block away from my office) I noticed that a major news station had their reporter out, cameras going. It was just barely 7am! I wanted to do something to TOTALLY embarrass my husband in front of one of the cameras, but decided that losing my job wouldn't be worth it. I suspect that the rest of the news channels will be in front of the building regularly at various times of the day. This is my indication to stay indoors. The last time I was interviewed about something (can't even remember what it was about) I looked like a complete idiot. No thank you, I can do that without the entire world watching.

So yeah, we're all laughing and joking here on my floor and calling it "death watch 2008", but I think some of it is nervous laughter. Some are wondering, "what do they know that we don't know?"

I'm going to turn this around though and say, "what do I know that they don't know?". I know that we're going to pull out of this. Yep, I'm Pollyanna, but I truly believe that we will.

So take that, you newsmongers.