Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Whimper, No Bang

It's long past time I called it quits here at The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Person. This blog gave up the ghost 4 years ago, and it's been limping along ever since.

So have I with its maintenance, and it shows.

It's been a slice, but it's really enough.

I wish there were more to say on the subject, but there isn't. You know where to find me if you want.

Cheers, all.

Posted by Special K @ 2:16 AM
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Saturday, May 10, 2008

Fools of Us All

Last Sunday as I was with Raisin Doug™ and Delicious Mr. Pete™ doing the New York Times Sunday Crossword puzzle, it occurred to me that the day, May 4, marked my 17th anniversary of having arrived in Alberta.

Seventeenth anniversary. What? I so don't feel old enough to be able to say that. How far away and long ago does 1991 feel to you, Gentle Readers? It feels about 5 years ago to me. But it's 17 years ago away.

Seventeen years. It seems so much longer when you see the word 'seventeen' written down than when you see '17', doesn't it? Maybe it's the number of Es, who knows. Maybe it's just me, and my confusion of time and space, my disbelief that all of the past seventeen years have happened so fast, and that I've been so much asleep.

All this time.

Remember all the drama with Mr. Preiss? Next month will mark his 4th anniversary of leaving this place. It happened four years ago. I can hardly believe it. Four years ago. Really?

What?

All this time, and it feels like no time ago.

I turn 37-years old tomorrow, and I'm not stressed out about it. I don't have that anxiety that a lot of people who are in my position might have. I'm not stressed about being single; I don't feel the baby clock ticking; I don't feel I should be 'farther ahead' than I am, whatever that means.

I just wonder how I got here so soon.

Posted by Special K @ 9:35 AM
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Monday, May 05, 2008

Deliciousness

I was so incredibly impressed with the dish that I made this past week that I thought I'd share it with you.

If you don't like sauerkraut, don't pain yourself with reading any further.

Pork Rib Luvvins ala Captain BiteyPants

Wet ingredients:

3-4 pounds pork side ribs, membranes removed, cut into 3 or 4 rib portions
2 onions, cut into 0.5-inch thick rings
2 parsnips, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
2 carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
2 stalks celery, cut into 1-inch pieces

Dijon mustard (have a jar handy)
1 one-litre jar sauerkraut, drained and rinsed
1/2 litre beef, chicken or vegetable stock
1 bottle of beer (a dark beer is preferable, but it really doesn't matter)

Dry ingredients:

1/4 cup smoked paprika
3 tbsp sweet paprika
3 tbsp garlic powder
3 tbsp kosher salt
3 tbsp cracked black pepper
2 cayenne pepper
1 cup brown sugar (very loose)

Instructions:

Mix together the dry ingredients; work the spices into the sugar, you'll feel it happen because it gets good and smelly.

Get some olive oil hot in a Dutch oven, and while you're doing that, smear the ribs liberally with Dijon mustard on both sides, and then spread the spice/sugar mix all over the Dijon. Brown the ribs on each side in the hot pan; set aside.

Add the onions, celery, parsnips, carrots, and sweat the pan at high heat. Deglaze the pan with some of the beer. Put down some of the ribs on top of the vegetables. Put some sauerkraut on top of the ribs. Put some more ribs on top; place some sauerkraut on top. Continue until there is no more pork left to be covered by sauerkraut.

Top with beer and stock, then put a lid on it.

Bring to a boil, reduce to simmer, and leave it that way for 6 hours. Sprinkle with caraway seeds half-way through, if you wish.

Eat that bad boy with rye bread or some buttered noodles, sprinkled with poppyseeds.

Ta da! Perfect summer dish.*

*sarcasm

Posted by Special K @ 1:37 AM
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Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Stuff and Nonsense

It's very likely the reason I find my work days so tolerable now that I'm working at home is because I can smoke during the course of my shifts. I smoke like it's a cure for cancer, people, and Lilac Office Room™ smells like an opium den on most days. I'm not yet entirely convinced I'm an addicted smoker, per se. I can go for quite a few days without wanting a cigarette, but when I do want one? For your own sake I don't suggest you try and stop me, I'm just saying.

When I was in the office proper all the time, it wasn't so much wanting the smoke as wanting to get the fuck away from my desk and do something else that was really what I wanted. Now that I can do something else while at my desk simplifies life a great deal.

I'm sure I had a point here somewhere.

Oh, yeah! Smoking!

Anyway, I smoke a little more than I used to than I did before working from home, and given that I infrequently leave the house, I typically stock up for the week whenever I do leave the house. Last week, I'd underestimated the fuckishness of people I'd be dealing with the following week, or I would have bought two cartons instead of one.

As such, I found myself at a loose end last night after my shift, and went to the corner shop.

I don't know about where you live, but where I live it's harder for anyone under the age of 18 to buy tobacco than it is for them to buy crack or meth. Seriously. The legal age to buy cigarettes is 18, and every store that sells tobacco has to abide by a protocol where they put up a sign that states they will ask for anyone who looks under a certain age to produce I.D.

Fair enough. (Though I remember when I was a kid going to a corner shop for my uncle with a permission slip so I could get his cigarettes for him. I also remember the Chinese corner shop on our block would sell loosies to kids for a nickel apiece, but that's another story.)

About ten years ago, anyone who looked under 18 was asked for I.D. A year later, anyone who looked under the age of 25 was asked for I.D., and there was a supporting sign posted behind the counter to which the clerk would point churlishly if he got any guff from someone who couldn't produce I.D.

A few years later, anyone who looked under the age of 30 was asked for I.D. When on my last birthday I sought to buy a carton and a clerk asked me for I.D., I told her she was moments away from being kissed on the lips. For a few seconds, I could have sworn I thought I saw her hand linger beneath the counter to hit the security button.

Tonight when I went to my local corner shop, the clerk asked me to produce some I.D. As I wrestled my wallet out of Mr Schleppy™ I told her I was thrilled she thought I looked so young! She then pointed to a sign above and behind her that said: WE WILL I.D. ANYONE WHO LOOKS UNDER 40.

Suddenly, I was less thrilled.

OK, folks, I still win for vanity, but come on. I could see how someone under the age of 20 could be mistaken for being under 18. I could even see how someone in his late 20s could look too questionably young. But are you telling me that unless you're 40 you're too easily taken for a teenager?

Bitch, please.

And in case anyone needs reminding: THIS IS A LEGAL SUBSTANCE. Fuck off with the baby-sitting! Christ!

What next? Am I going to have to ask my friend Raisin Doug™ to boot for smokes for me if I don't happen to have I.D.? Will he get in trouble if he does? It seems pretty likely.

I'm not going to write about this any more because it just pisses me off unaccountably. I'll instead show you Bitey's new Slutty Room:



It so needs a disco ball.

And a smoke machine.

Posted by Special K @ 4:03 AM
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Saturday, April 19, 2008

Suck on THAT, Harry Potter!



Bitey's hoping this will improve hims chances of getting into Hogwarts.

Posted by Special K @ 1:04 AM
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Thursday, April 17, 2008

Bitey's a Dork

Which is why hims demanded a spaceship-themed room:



And I've still got nearly 18,000 Kinzbuckz to spend.

Posted by Special K @ 10:54 PM
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Tuesday, April 15, 2008

I Know I'm Late, Shush

Hey there!

Sorry it's taken me a couple of days to write; I was busier than a three-peckered goat over the weekend, and this is the first occasion I've been inclined to sit at the computer unless required to do so by Big Dumb Job™.

I had stupidly decided to get into the sauce a bit on Saturday because I was off work. I say "stupidly" because I'd planned for Delicious Mr. Pete, Raisin Doug, and Bus Buddy Jared to come to Casa K for brunchie-munchie the next day, which left me little for time to accomplish a freakish amount of work, including making puff pastry from scratch (it's been a long time since I last made puff pastry, time enough for me to forget just how time-consuming a pain in the ass it is; I won't be doing that again -- ever!).

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

At around 6pm I threw on a bra and jumped on a bus bound for Safeway and a liquor store. I hauled too many pounds of stuff back on a bus and up the 3 flights of stairs to my place before cleaning the living Jesus out of my kitchen that I might not poison any of my brunch guests the next day.

Because I'm a mountain of efficient industry when under the gun, even if under the influence, I did most of the puff-pastry work for the sausage rolls, made regular pastry for the crab and spinach quiches, prepped the quiche filling, prepped the sausage filling, got all my cranberry-and-orange oatmeal muffin ingredients organized, and cleaned my house for all but the vacuuming. I can be an inconsiderate ass a lot of the time, but I suspected none of my neighbours would appreciate me running the vacuum at 3am, because I'm smart like that.

A mere three hours later I was up again to finish up the puff pastry (I AM SERIOUSLY NEVER DOING THAT AGAIN), vacuum, bake the mini quiches, sausage rolls and muffins, and assemble the bagels with cream cheese, lox and capers. Then I had to clean the kitchen again, wash the floor again, and make myself presentable, which was no small task for being covered in butter, flour, muffin batter and sausage-meat grease. (I am of course referring to both the kitchen floor and myself. I may be efficient, but I'm messy.) It was a pretty close call, but I got 'er done -- and with 8 minutes to spare! This was time enough for me to take a breath and decompress a tad so that I didn't greet my gentleman callers like a raddled harridan, and could instead come the gracious chatelaine.

Whew!

Doug was gallant enough to bring me a bottle of wine and a dozen peach-coloured roses ("The florist said yellow is for friendship, but I thought you'd like the peach ones better," he said. "Peach stands for appreciation, sincerity and gratitude...which fits!" Seriously, HOW ADORABLE IS HE?) Peter brought a bottle each of Frangelico, Kahlua, and Bailey's to jazz up our coffees. Jared, God bless him, brought more lox, just in case.

The four of us had a really enjoyable visit for the next few hours; Peter had to leave to catch his usual Sunday poker tournament, Doug left with him to get a lift home, but Jared and I hung out drinking wine and snacking until it was very nearly midnight. As he was motioning to leave, the phone rang: it was my buddy Rich calling to let me know he was in town for the weekend, and could we visit as he was leaving on Tuesday?

Actually, because he was as drunk as a fiddler's bitch, he didn't ask so much as he insisted. And he actually insisted I come to the bar from where he was calling, but I managed to convince him to come to my place instead. I walked Jared home part of the way so I could make a booze run, and got back home only a couple of minutes before Rich was at my door-step.

"Hey, you old bitch!" he chimed loudly. "Gimme a hug!"

He's such a charmer.

We hung out and drank, talked, listened to music, gave each other foot massages, and likely pissed off my downstairs neighbour with one of our predictable attempts at swing dancing to Joe Jackson's "Jumpin' Jive", though it was surprising we didn't break anything this time.

He left at 8am Monday morning.

Given I'd only had 3 hours' sleep on Saturday night and was then awake for the next 26 hours while boozing it up for 16 of those hours, it was only to be expected I should crash and not wake until 6pm on Monday evening, my bedding practically undisturbed for having slept like I was two snores short of a coma. After waking, I spent about 3 hours snacking while slowly dealing with the shitpile of dishes, glassware, empties and cigarette ashes left in the wake of entertaining all day previous. I fell asleep a little after 9pm while watching a rerun of Law & Order, and woke up on my couch at noon on Tuesday.

I thank Jesus for being scheduled 1-9 this week.

You know? It just occurred to me that it's not every woman in the world who can spend the better part of 24 hours with 4 different men in her house without getting laid, never mind that one of them is gay and another an octagenarian. I'm some kind of prodigy!

Having reread that last bit it sounds like I'm complaining, but I'm not really. I've no cause for complaint: I'm lucky enough to have a lot of great men in my life who appreciate me, enjoy being in my company, and don't expect anything from me other than to spend time with me every so often.

And sometimes they give me flowers! Or wine! Or smoked fish!

?

So, what did you do this weekend?

Posted by Special K @ 10:15 PM
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Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Finally!

I know it's not Sunday, but I was testing whether this would post. I present to you Chez Bitey:

I've already said I know it needs a jukebox and a deep-fryer. I don't want to hear any guff.

Posted by Special K @ 2:49 AM
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Sunday, April 06, 2008

Here's a Let-Down if You're Looking for One

I'm expecting Luscious Miz Rosie® for dinner this evening, and because it's been such a lovely and warm Spring*, I'm making a pot roast with roasted root vegetables, which I haven't yet started to prepare.

I need to get on things right-chicken-louie, and will try to update you on the non-events of the past week before it hits midnight, but I wouldn't count on it if I were you. Given how much Rosie and I talk and talk and talk in each other's company, we likely won't STFU until well after midnight.

I'll do my best to keep you posted until she's set to arrive at 4:30, and I hope to post something reasonably significant after she leaves, assuming I haven't consumed a paralytic amount of wine.

*suject to change

2:58pm
I have the radio on in the background to keep me company while I chop veggies and such. I wasn't paying much attention until the DJ just announced the song that had moments before finished playing was called "Crazy Mary".

Ha ha!

3:12pm
Have you ever noticed how good your hands smell after you've cut up a bunch of carrots, celery and parsnips? One of these days, cosmetics/lotion manufacturers will wake up and dispense with creating baby-powder-scented anything because it's creepy, and use my idea instead.

(Seriously, why do grown women want to smell like babies? God.)

3:14pm
Parsnips are a seriously underrated vegetable.

3:54
The roast is quietly simmering in the oven, the vegetables are roasting, and I'm opening my second bottle of wine.

Shaddap. Some of the wine went into the roasting pan.

4:28pm
Rosie just called to let me know she's running late.

I'm shocked, people. Shocked.

5:03pm
Still no Rosie, and that's OK. In the meantime I'm having some wine and diggin' the shit out of a Best of Ray Charles CD I accidentally shoplifted from the corner store a couple of weeks ago.

Man, but that guy wrote a lot of songs about booty calls.
1:23am
I'm pretty hammered. I can barely type!

Seriously>

Posted by Special K @ 2:38 PM
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Wednesday, April 02, 2008

If You Can be Arsed

A couple of weeks ago, I made an ill-considered decision to turn on the dining room lights above where this computer sits. The keyboard is one that was likely made in the late 80s or early 90s, with its beige colour and grainy surfaces, and was thrown into stark relief: It was one of the filthiest things I've ever seen, and I've seen my share of homeless people.

I decided not to touch the keyboard again until it was clean, so I took it apart key by key, gently vacuuming out the crumbs remaining, and soaping the Jesus out of the removed keys. I let them soak for a couple of hours, and devoted myself in the meantime to scrubbing the surfaces of the keyboard gently with a toothbrush bearing almost no water on its bristles.

After I scrubbed the keys and let them dry for a couple of days, double-checking for moisture with a tea towel (key by key again), I put the keyboard back together. I plugged it into the computer, and...beans. It would appear that the only thing holding that thing together was the crumbs, cigarette ashes, and chicken fat.

But I digress.

I have 3 other keyboards reposing in my storage closet, so I thought I'd try one of them. No love. I tried another. No love. And yet another. No love, people.

Beans!

Yes, I have another computer in the house, my work computer, and that's from where I composed my last post. But I really didn't feel OK with doing so on there, mostly because even when work systems are off, Big Brother can still monitor my usage. I felt uneasy doing so. And while I really don't give a crap what Smell Us™ may think of what I may say about my job, I really didn't want to shit in my dish by being supposedly insubordinate for using the work computer for personal reasons, and risk the possibility of having my at-home gig yanked from me.

It wasn't until today that I was able to get another keyboard, and now that I've done so, I've decided I'll only now be posting once per week, and on Sundays.

Catch me then.

I'm still trying to coax Blogger into posting a shot of Captain BiteyPants's diner (I like to call it Chez Bitey), but no love.

It's all about getting no love, folks.

Posted by Special K @ 11:58 PM
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Monday, March 24, 2008

Coping Mechanisms

I’m not exactly a moody person most of the time. What I mean by that is that I’m not moody in the sense of my moods being mercurial — they don’t switch rapidly from euphoria to melancholy just like that, though what happens during the Princess Time is the exception to the rule. I’d like nothing better than to be predictable in this sense all the time, and not for anyone else’s benefit than my own. Anyone who might complain I’m difficult to deal with for 10-17 days out of a possible 30 is really getting off easy compared to what is going on in my head 24/7, so shut up.

Anyhoodle.

Something I have to do to pull myself out of a shitty mood is have a laugh. Whether this laugh comes from a movie or a re-watching of Trailer Park Boys on DVD, I don’t much care as long as I get a cleansing bit of ha-ha out of the deal.

I no longer find myself trapped on transit commutes and therefore away from a TV or DVD or a movie-house where I might reasonably meet with some ha-has to take the edge off the commute, but should I find myself enduring an evil commute, I can always fall back on what I like to refer to as The Bank.

The Bank is simply a cache of funny stories and experiences I’ve either been told first-hand, or experienced first hand, from which I can draw whenever my Spiritual Chequing Account runs a bit low. After 37 years of a pretty goofy life, The Bank has accrued a significant balance, for which I’m grateful. The best part about The Bank is that no matter how many withdrawals I make from it, the balance stays stable. In fact, the withdrawals seem to push up the interest payments, quite contrary to the usual laws of interest.

This isn’t a perfect analogy.

Anyhoodle.

One of the more recent deposits made to The Bank involve one of my newer team-mates. To clarify, she’s not new to the company; she’s been with Smell Us™ for about 12 years, and in my department for the past 6. She’s only a new team-mate of mine now because she and I have been put on the team housing the at-home staff.

To give you some background, she’s in her late 40s or early 50s, and is known about the office as Crazy Mary. The first time I ever encountered her I was still in training; one of my training peeps was in the Smoking Shed with me, and Training Peep was telling me about some of the difficulty she was having with one of her roommates, who was completely and irredeemably cuckoo.

While we were talking about this nutbar, Crazy Mary, who was unknown to us both, came in and sat on one of the benches. Since the 3 of us were the only people in the shed, it would have been impossible to not overhear anything being said; so when Abby (Training Peep in question) was about to conclude her anecdote, this new woman piped up and carried on at some length about a past experience she’d had with a roommate who’d robbed her, denuded her of the security deposit, and otherwise made her life such a misery for some months later that she had to have a restraining order put in place against her.

Abby and I listened sympathetically, but this woman was so persistent in getting the entire history of this wrong-doing out of her system that it took a couple of tries for the two of us, with conspicuous looks to Abby’s phone to check the time, to politely get away.

As Abby and I made our way back to the building from The Shed, we muttered to each other as quietly as we could from the corners of our mouths, “What the hell was that? Is she in our department? I hope not.”

And then I never gave her a second thought; I’d see her periodically in the office, but as her team’s area was far-removed from mine, I never had occasion to interact with her again, and I was OK with that.

Since she's become one of my team-mates, I'm getting to experience Crazy Mary both more frequently and immediately. I also learned the appellation “Crazy Mary” isn’t one that people use only behind her back. They say it right to her face, and she responds quite casually without rancour.

“Hey, Crazy Mary, how are you doing?” said my co-worker, Leanne.

“Ah, you know,” she said, “I’m a bit piss’ off wi’ dat stupid coffee machine?”

I should mention that Crazy Mary is Quebecois by extraction. To be perfectly fair, all Quebecois are a bit left of centre (sorry, La Tuque, but it’s true) but she’s a little moreseo.

She’s a very smart woman; she’s married to a Polish man who speaks Russian, German, Czech, Slovak and English in addition to his native Polish, and Mary learned these languages from him in the past 30 years of their married life. I remembered having heard her say so to someone while I was getting a coffee one day, and I frankly didn’t believe her during for what sounded like a boast.

Then, one day, there was a desperate email sent to the floor: “Does anyone speak Ukrainian? I have a client on the line who speaks no English, and a Ukrainian-speaking rep is needed!!!!!!!!!!”

Crazy Mary stepped up to the plate, and since her desk isn’t far from mine, I could hear every word. I don’t know Ukrainian worth a shit apart from being able to recognize words that are cognate in Croatian, but I could get the gist of what she was saying since her voice is like a clarion. After a short bit, it was obvious that the “only-Ukrainian-speaking lady” understood English perfectly, because I could hear Crazy Mary’s voice clearly say to her: “IT’S LIKE WHEN YOU BUY ANY ELECTRONICS. DEY ‘AVE DE MANUFACTURER WARRANTY—YOU CAN BUY DE SAME WHIRLPOOL WASHER AND DRYER FROM SEARS, OR FROM DE FUTURE SHOP, IT DON’T MATTER. DE WARRANTY IS DE SAME. DON’T BLAME DE STORE IF YOU’RE UNHAPPY, YOU BLAME THE MANUFACTURER.”

About 4 weeks ago, my team manager sought to hold a team meeting on a day when all at-home agents could be accommodated to attend on the same day. This was very thoughtful of her, no question.

Because there’s been a marked downturn in morale in the office the last while, one of my other team mates, who’s taken upon herself the role of Morale Officer, sought for us to have a Silly Hat Day. She and another team-mate of ours went to some length at their own expense to buy a bunch of cheap hats at Dollarama, a stinkpile of baubles, glue, and other necessities to effect the Silly Hat Day.

Let’s just say that I was pretty bitter for having to show up for work at all, since my at-home agent stuff hadn’t yet been brought to fore; and no shit I’d be a bit maggoty and irritated for Silly Hat Day, since it seemed like an extension of the same kind of Spirit Day bullshit in high school for which I hadn’t any use back then.

Frig the fuck off, I thought.

The 18 of us sat in the nice board room waiting for the meeting to start. Most of my team were wearing goofy-ass hats. My TM came in (wearing a goofyass hat), and she was carrying a cake (shocker), which was to celebrate one of our team members’ five-year anniversary with the company. It was a big cake, and everyone grabbed a bigass slice, though I (uncharacteristically) declined. As everyone was busily licking icing from their knuckles, our TM tried to get down to business.

I don’t know if it was because of the goofy hats, or because our TM fed us a lot of refined sugar, but she had a helluva time reining us in. Because I’d abstained from delicious cake icing, I know I was a bit shirty, and I know for a fact I’d audibly shushed at least 6 of my fellow co-workers so we could get on with the goddamned meeting.

The main point of the meeting was an area of concern that had been plaguing our department and others by extension: namely, when clients would start lipping off and throwing down F-bombs, reps in my department would disconnect the call. I know I’d done it, and I knew I could better tolerate Bad Language than most others, and the only reason I'd done so was because I knew the people around me did routinely. I thought it was stupid of me to put up with someone's retarded nonsense when no one else around me would, so I'd disconnect. Some of the time I wouldn't even warn the disaffected cocksucker in question.

I have a very long and wet fuse, but it's still a fuse. Yada yada.

My TM, who used to be a front-line rep, said, and quite rightly, “You have to know that when these clients call in that they’re frustrated. They’re not swearing at YOU. They’re swearing because they’re mad. So you have to keep that in mind. It’s not acceptable for you to disconnect the call, because all that means is that they’ll call back in and a lot madder than they were, and then one of your co-workers has to deal with a much angrier person. Remember this: it’s not personal.”

Crazy Mary, who by this time was wearing a pink baseball cap with fluffy rabbit ears pinned to it, piped up and said, “I REMEMBER DIS ONE GUY 5 YEAR AGO, I WILL NEVER FORGET HIM….”

The rest of us, who had maybe been a bit rowdy and mutinous only moments before thanks to the cake and the stupid hats, were suddenly silent in the wake of Crazy Mary’s lecture. We didn’t know what else to do other than let her continue. We also didn't know that she habitually yells as a means of getting her point across.

“I WILL NEVER FORGET DIS. I ANSWER THE PHONE IN MY EAR AND I SAY TO ‘IM : ‘YOU ‘AVE REACHED MARY, ‘OW MAY I ‘ELP YOU?’ AND
‘E SAID, ‘’OW MUCH DO DEY PAY YOU TO STICK A TAMPON IN YOUR ASS’OLE?’ ARE YOU TELLING ME I ‘AVE TO PUT UP WIT’ DAT KIND OF BULLSHIT TO WORK ‘ERE?' She stuffed her mouth with a big forkful of cake before saying: " IF DAT WHAT I 'AVE TO DO? I WILL QUIT. [sotto voce] I will quit, I don’t care, I will quit."

Then she looked at me over her eyeglasses, as though I'd be someone who’d back her up. And I might have backed her up, except she was wearing this stupidass bunny-eared baseball cap.

To say that this comment threw us for a loop would be an understatement.

All of us were so stunned at first that it took us all a good 15 seconds to absorb it; then we started laughing. And over our laughter, you could still hear Crazy Mary saying, “But no, really! Do I ‘ave to put up wi’ dat bullshit? Dat is bullshit.”

Even my TM was having a hard time holding together, since it’s not every day that someone in a team meeting drops mention of a tampon, to say nothing of its being stuffed in ‘er ass’ole. TM Tina kept desperately kept trying the meeting back to its agenda, to very little avail. We were so hyper for the cake and the tampon talk that we were pretty freaking useless.

And the hats kinda go without saying.

So, this is one but memory I pull out of The Bank. Do you have a Bank of your own? If not, what do you do to keep yourself a relatively happy person, one who doesn’t stab people in the face while in public?

It’s just a question. I'd like some tips, if you've got 'em to offer.

Dish!

Sorry about the removal of the smoking rant; it exists on my Facebook page, not because I don't trust that anyone here would understand what I mean, but more because that type of rant doesn't belong on my page anymore. I'm not sure it that came out right, but there it is.

Posted by Special K @ 9:28 PM
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Monday, March 17, 2008

Only Hookers Make this Much Money Without Wearing a Bra...Even with a Diner

You'd think now that I'm working from home I'd have a lot more available time to keep you posted about what's going on in Big Dumb Life™, and that's true. I certainly have more time at the ready, but there's precious little to write about now that Big Evil Commute™ is no longer a daily, head-eating occurrence, and I'm not surrounded by co-workers driving me batshit. In fact, even Big Dumb Job doesn't eat my head like it used to. It's so relaxed an atmosphere in Lilac Office Room that the days fly by. Also, putting in overtime isn't so onerous when you can raid your own fridge, and even the most obnoxious clients are a helluva lot more manageable when you don't have to wear a bra.

All in all, it's working out beautifully.

And speaking of working out, quite contrary to all the laws of the universe pertaining to telecommuting, I've lost 7lbs in the past week. I haven't been doing anything drastically different, apart from eating sensibly at regular intervals and putting in a 30-minute workout every day. And nothing terribly rigorous, either. I'm so not into rigour. A bit of yoga, a bit of this, a bit of that.

For the sake of clarity, I'm not on a mission to improve the state of my health, which is ridiculously robust given my habits; it's entirely about vanity, people. I have a week's holiday booked in August, which I will spend in Winnipeg. When I informed my mother, she said, "Oh good, pumpkin! I hev det veek aff too! Vee ken tek et easy end go to de beach or vhatever."

I'd completely forgotten that going to the beach is something people do in Winnipeg in the summer. Calgary has exactly two lakes within an hour's drive of the city, one of which is little more than a slough, and nothing you'd call a beach in the entire province. Manitoba has more than 100,000 lakes, plenty of which are surrounded by white sand, especially around the southern parts of Lake Winnipeg. I know! White sand in the middle of the Canadian shield — crazy. At Grand Beach, for example, you can walk into the lake for miles thanks to the sandbars, and never get submerged higher than your neck. This is good because my mother swims, in her words, "like an axe."

So, my reshaping of habits, to say nothing of my ass, has nothing to do with maintaining my healthy constitution, but has everything to do with not looking obnoxious in a bathing suit. I'll be damned if I'll wear that navy-blue granny get-up I wore in Costa Rica with Delicious Mr. Pete®.

I'm going to be in the 'Peg in early August, which is pretty well-timed since it falls in the middle of a lot of family birthdays. My niece Leah's birthday is July 9, my sister-in-law Cheryl has a birthday on the 13th of July, my father's is on August 4, my mother's is on September 5, and my nephew Joshua's is on September 11. This will be a good way to kinda hit 'em all and throw about a few prezzies without having to deal with Canada Post. I think I'll make a bigass barbecue dinner for everyone on the weekend of the 4th, and I'm so taking my sister-in-law for a spa day and some sushi (which I probably want more than she does), because I'm considerate like that.

Also, my visit coincides with the first week of Folklorama! Folklorama is a 2-week long ethnic festival in Winnipeg, and it's a blast. There are dozens of different ethnic groups in Winnipeg, and during Folklorama each one sets up a pavilion, either in their own community centres (if they have them, and a lot do) or in venues big enough to hold hundreds of people, like high schools. Each pavilion displays their costumes, sells their food and drink, and has dance performances! I intend to hit the Hungarian, Ukrainian, Caribbean, Croatian, and Irish pavilions first, and whatever else may grab my fancy later on.

As for how I've otherwise been occupying myself, that's easily summed up:
  • effing around on WebKinz
  • playing Scrabulous (a Scrabble rip-off on Facebook)
  • playing Scramble (a Boggle rip-off on Facebook)
I'd been effing around on WebKinz so assiduously that I actually accrued more than $20,000 in KinzCash, people. Those of you who have a WebKinz, or know someone who has, realize how many hours you have to squander to earn that kind of dough.

So what to do with it? I already had 7 rooms, and I would regularly send my nephews and my co-worker Webkinz presents, but the cash kept stacking up because my current game addiction on the site is Wacky's Bullseye Batter, where you slam this masochist named Wacky at a target with a bat. There are five allowed strikes per round, so you can go indefinitely depending on how good your aim is. I once hit that little freak 75 times in one go, which is nothing short of amazing if you ask me.

Anyhoodle.

So, because Captain BiteyPants can only spend so much time swimming in hims above-ground pool (that's for you, Dantallion), or tending hims veggie garden, or gambling, or answering trivia questions, or playing games, or shopping for food, or sending presents, hims decided to open a diner. Check it out:

OK, nevermind, you can't check it out. Blogger is being uncooperative about uploading pictures, and I can't rightly remember how to thumbnail and link shit right now. You'll just have to believe me that it's righteous, and that it also needs a jukebox and a deep-fryer.

In other news, my skin is clearing up! It's still shitty, but it's becoming progressively less shitty, thanks to not having to wear make-up every freaking day of my life.

However, I have to go into the office tomorrow. Our V.P. is holding her quarterly front-line meeting, and my team manager was thoughtful enough to schedule my monthly one-on-one for the same day so I wouldn't have to make two trips to the office this month, God bless her. Despite having to be in the office for 9am after having had a few weeks of late shifts, it should be a pretty easy day, what with having time off the call queue for the meetings.

Actually, even if I weren't required to attend the quarterly meeting, I'd make the trip to the office anyway. I totally dig our V.P. She always holds a meeting that's inspirational, which is no mean feat given how jaded and snippy I and everyone else in my department can get about the job. She's Indian by heritage and was raised in India, and it's obvious she was educated in very good schools, because her use of English is so elegant and beautiful. It's not everyone you meet who casually uses the word "rogues" or "bamboozle" in a sentence, and that tickles the dammit out of me. And really, even if she were a dumbass, it would be easy to sit through a meeting with her because she's so physically attractive. Lovely dark skin, big liquid eyes surrounded by long lashes, and shiny black hair bearing not a hint of dye. If I were to guess, I'd say she's maybe 10 years older than I am, but it's hard to tell with Indian women. Once they hit 40, they continue to look that way until they hit 90, at which point they look 120. Then they stay looking that way for the next 250 years until they die.

Anyway, I'm gonna close this off and log in a couple of hours' overtime. Because it's my regularly scheduled day off, I get paid double-time! Ha ha! I so love that I can do this without having to get dressed and brave the streets now that some snow has fallen. It's frigging beautiful.

And you can bet your ass I'm not putting on a bra.

Posted by Special K @ 6:34 PM
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Monday, March 10, 2008

Thanks be to Jesus

I don’t know if it’s because that a-hole Mercury stopped being retrograde or what, but I finally got things up and running at home, and let me tell you something folks: This is just as awesome as I thought it would be.

I’m not going to get into the rigmarole of what went down at Casa K on Friday that this might be enabled, but it involved a lot of emailing, a lot of time on hold with different people, and riding the clock while effing around on Webkinz.

All in all, a pretty good day, though it was a little stressful because there loomed the possibility that things couldn’t get resolved and if there were more than 2 hours remaining in my shift, I’d have to come to the office.

Matters weren’t fully resolved until the next day, and I worked the remaining 6 hours of my shift from home – it hardly felt like work at all. I even put in some overtime!

I just finished my second full shift, and it was just as relaxed and fabulous as the first one. I have a portable DVD player on my desk (it’s the cutest thing you’ve ever seen in your life), so I was watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Golden Girls DVDs between calls. Believe me, this is far better than having truncated conversations with my co-workers, as usually happens while in the office.

It was so nice to get up at 1pm today, have some toast and get logged in at 1:30. It was great to be able to forage in my fridge for lunch and chow chicken off the bone like an animal while wearing a fuzzy robe and the fugliest bedhead you ever did see. And I certainly didn’t mind getting trapped on a call for half an hour after my shift. It’s not like I had to run and catch a train, or had someone willing to give me a ride home waiting for me to hurry up, so who gives a shit?

Tomorrow, I’ll get up whenever, and if I feel like doing a couple of hours of overtime before my shift, I will. If not, whatever. I like having me some options.

Woohoo!

Posted by Special K @ 10:56 PM
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Monday, March 03, 2008

I Apologize in Advance to the Dial-Up Peeps

But this 68-second video is worth the wait.



Man, that's so funny to me — and I don't even do treadmills.*

*This is for very good reason.

Posted by Special K @ 9:24 PM
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Saturday, March 01, 2008

Nothing to Say

I'm still not working from home, more than 3 weeks after the "final" installation. There's no reasonable clue as to why my stuff doesn't work. There are only guesses, but the best guess is that the business phone line that's necessary to connect shit isn't working, and there's no estimated time of resolution for when someone may come to even check if that's the real problem.

I just finished another week of 2pm-10pm shifts, which ostensibly should occur once in the rotation only every 6-8 weeks.

This was my 3rd set inside 5 weeks. What. The. Fuck.

I'm weary, people.

It's nice outside and feels like Spring. I've also got PMS, so I feel like scrubbing the motherfuck out of everything in my sight. I bought a shitpile of cleaning supplies yesterday, and they were murder to schlep up 3 flights of stairs in a single go, particularly since I was also carrying a 15-pack of beer.

I have a 3-day weekend, and I intend to make the most of it.

In addition to a good ridding of superfluities and scrubbing of what's left, I'll also be giving my legs a good shave, give myself a pedicure, and I'll polish the living Jesus out of my resume.

I'm fucking done.

Posted by Special K @ 5:11 AM
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Friday, February 22, 2008

I Told You I'd be Effing with that Yard

Like anyone gives a shit, but I reworked Bitey's pool area. Check it out:



Now hims has a hedge maze!

If you're wondering what's on Bitey's head, that's a gift my nephew Noah saw fit to give me for Valentine's Day. In addition to the Tutti-Frutti Turban (Webkinz's appellation, not mine), he also sent me a box of choccies and some cinnamon hearts.

I so hate cinnamon hearts, but Bitey likes them well enough. And hims loves the shit out of that turban.

When I first got Bitey, I thought it was a girl and decided to refer to it with female pronouns. Now I know hims a boy — just a gay one. I don't judge hims.

One of my co-workers recently got 3 Webkinz pets from her nieces (a frog, a kangaroo and a Himalayan kittay) and yet somehow blames me for her addiction to the site. She's checked out Bitey's 6 rooms (well, 3 rooms and 3 yards) and when I yesterday told her that a certain game was paying out 40% more cash for the day, she totally got on the site as soon as she got home and played the mofo for 7 solid hours. I guess she feels the need to get some appliances. I don't know.

That's it on this end, kids. I get to work tomorrow, and in case you were wondering, nope I'm still not set up to work from home. I'm so not saying anything about that.

Posted by Special K @ 10:12 PM
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Thursday, February 21, 2008

I'm So Glad I Don't Have Someone Like Me Working for Me

It's also a good thing I don't blog for a living or I'd be so fired.

There's very little going on that's noteworthy. I'm still waiting to get things sorted at Casa K so I can start working from home; the word is the matter has been escalated, and I believe it. Of the 9 people who were approved to work from home, only 2 had successful installations, and my Team Manager assures me almost daily that Smell Us™ is on it. I believe she's doing everything she can to get all this nonsense off her plate because the number of smokes she's cadging off me these days indicates she's right fucking tired of me and the other 7 reps left in the cold.

We grouse continually.

I never mentioned it before, but my current Team Manager used to be a co-worker of mine at Red Lobster for about 6 months back in the latter part of 1998 spanning into 1999, slinging seafood, sides, salads and libations at the Great Unwashed sometimes shoulder to shoulder. We almost never worked the same shifts, and I barely knew her back then, but she and I shared some of the same friends in the network that linked the 3 Red Lobster locations in Calgary, so now we keep up with the different arms of that "family tree" through occasional conversations. Otherwise, we don't have a lot to say to each other. She's not my cup of tea, and I'm not hers.

Anyhoodle.

So I can avoid getting dooced, I'm going to refer to my current Team Manager as Tina.

At the time we worked together waiting tables, Tina had a roommate named Kirsten, who also worked with us. I was a transplant to the restaurant where the two of them had been working together for at least a year, from a Red Lobster location where I was friendly with a guy named Jake.

Trust me, all of this is relevant.

I worked for Red Lobster for nearly 5 years, and during that time, Kirsten and Jake hooked up. They didn't get engaged to be married for quite a lot of years thereafter, but the whole time they were dating, they never moved in together: Kirsten comes from a Mennonite background, and her parents would have freaked if they lived in Sin.

Fair enough.

So, Jake and Kirsten played the My Place/Your Place game for at least 4 years before they finally agreed to get married in 2005.

I've lost touch with them myself in the past few years (sorry, but married people are boring as fuck to me), but I know they now have a baby girl and they've moved out of Calgary.

Tina is still in touch with them; one day as I was trying to keep the conversation going, I asked her if she'd heard from Kirsten and Jake. She told me they were both well, and yada yada. It was the usual patter.

I said to her, "I really wish them both well, but you know?"

"What?" she asked

"They'd always bickered so much whenever I saw them!"

"Oh," she said, waving her cigarette dismissively, "they still do that."

In the absence of anything else to talk about, I told her of the story Kirsten had once told me, of how Jake had shat his pants at the grocery store. Jake and Kirsten were doing the weekly food shopping, and Kirsten was checking the prices on roasts. The next thing Kirsten knew, as she held a rump roast in one hand and a chuck roast in the other, Jake was scurrying away from her at light speed, his gait oddly knock-kneed.

So you know, Jake wasn't afflicted with a stomach flu or something. He was just a bit gassy and shitty. The whole time Kirsten was examing cuts of beef, Jake was trying to squeak out a surreptitious fart. And wouldn't you know it? The urge for farting held a little more behind it than just gas.

He took a gamble. And lost.

For some reason, that this happened in a meat aisle makes it that much funnier to me.

Team Manager Tina laughed her ass off, and then she told me a Jake Story of her own:

A few years ago Jake had stayed over at hers and Kirsten's place one night, as was pretty often back then. In the morning he showered and got himself together, getting dressed with the clothing he brought for work in anticipation of the sleepover. According to later reports from Jake, he knew it would do him some good to have a morning poop, but despite his having done the sleepover dozens of times, he still didn't feel comfortable having a crap in Tina's and Kirtsen's bathroom. He put on his shoes, kissed Kirsten good-bye, then walked to the bus stop, and planned to have a dump once he got to work 40 minutes later.

He felt a roiling gurgle in his intestines during the 2-block stroll to the bus stop. He tried to ignore it, and kept walking. The feeling became more persistent, and he thought to relieve some of the burgeoning discomfort in his belly by cutting a fart.

He rolled the dice and came up craps.

Back to the house to clean up.

He went to the bathroom, cleaned up, but didn't have a second pair of underpants with him. Not wanting to go commando, he borrowed a pair of Kirsten's(!).

He then made his way back to the bus stop, felt the urge to fart again, humoured that urge, and shat his pants again.

Only this time he shat his girlfriend's panties.

Ha!

HAHAHA!

Honest to God, by the time Tina was done telling the story, we were both laughing so hard we could hardly breathe, and could barely continue with the usual monthly one-on-one meeting for at least 20 minutes. That's a LOT of idle time in Smell Us™ World where every minute needs to be accounted for in some way.

Nowadays, if I see Tina looking a bit beleaguered, I seek to ameliorate my almost constant bitching somehow. Today, for example, after my break and while visiting the coffee machine right by her office, I noticed by her posture that she seemed a bit downtrodden. I adopted a very serious tone of voice and said, "Tina?"

She stopped rubbing her forhead long enough to turn from her desk and say, "Yes?"

"On my break just now?"

"Yes?" she said, with her her fingers tapping her temple.

"I nearly pulled a Jake. Seriously."

And we bust a gut for a couple of minutes. After I could stand upright again and she'd lifted her head from her desk I said, "Just so you know, it's your fault I'm late coming off my break. Please code it appropriately, will ya?"

See what I mean?

Posted by Special K @ 1:54 AM
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Sunday, February 17, 2008

But That's Enough About Me

I'm not going to get into the semi-successful, but mostly unsuccessful, installation of Friday past. I'm not. I swear I'm not getting into it.

Instead I thought I'd let you know how my Webkinz, Captain BiteyPants, is doing. Bitey has a few new rooms, and wouldn't mind showing them off.

Because Bitey isn't above cliches, there's a new yard, with a pool:



I thinking I'm going to change the flowers on the trellises; when it was snowy, the red flowers looked great. Now? Not so much.

Because Bitey is sometimes inclined to be a pretentious douchebag, Bitey has a swanky studio kitchen/dining area:



Bitey is also thinking he is going to have the clock and the piccie trade places and see how that looks.

And check out what's in the fridge:


But Bitey is also mindful of how important it is to have fun, so there's a righteous playroom:



Bitey's vegetable garden looks far more perky now that Webkinz has decided it's not so snowy out:



Though I have to say this is my favourite yard, right here:



Yes, Bitey likes ponds. Shush.

I have to get the heck to bed.

Posted by Special K @ 5:52 AM
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Thursday, February 14, 2008

FAQs

1. No, I haven't a clue about what's going on with Leslie. If I did, I would certainly let all concerned parties know, within the boundaries of those proscribed by Leslie and Carl.

I have my dark suspicions, but I've done all I'm prepared to do about contacting them. I've left more than a dozen voicemails in the past year and a bit, but haven't emailed them. As much as I'd like to be an obtrusive ass to get some answers, I'm having to content myself with being as much in the dark as you.

And it sucks. I'm sure you know that.

2. No, I've not yet started working from home. The correct modem was delivered to me on Friday, February 8 — yay, courier guy! — but I now have to wait for another scheduled time so the tech can come by Casa K and install the appropriate software applications the previous tech couldn't access because I had the wrong modem, yada yada.

I have no idea when this will happen. I had my monthly one-on-one meeting with my Team Manager today, and after we'd finished discussing my stats and "areas of opportunity", here's how went the latter part of it:
Me: I hope I don't sound like a dink with what I'm about to say, because I know a lot of things concerning my working at home are largely outside your control.
Team Manager: OK...
Me: This installation's delays are pissing me off in a huge way.
Team Manager: I know, we're trying to—
Me: I know you know. I know you're trying. But really? What's happening here is the equivalent of Santa pushing back Christmas a few days. Twice.
Team Manager: Ha! I see what you mean.
Me: Do you?
Team Manager: Well...are you telling me you're just like a little kid?
Me: In this case, yes.
Team Manager: Because you won't get your way?
Me: This isn't about me not getting something I want that the company can't accomodate. This is about not getting what I've been promised in a timely way. I resent having the expectations set by this company disappointed, when I'd already set my own expectations deliberately low. Deliberately!
Team Manager: I know, I know...
Me: Yuh huh. You lot are on notice.
Team Manager: Hmm? In what sense?
Me: I will respectfully submit my notice of resignation on March 1st if my installation isn't completed, and successfully, by that time.
Team Manager: Are you serious?
Me: I am dead serious.
[pause]
[pause]
Team Manager: You know there's only so much I can do—
Me: — I know. I know you're already pulling all your pull to get this done, and I'm not faulting you personally. I'm only letting you know I'm completely done up, and my patience has a limit. That limit is March 1.
Team Manager: Understood.
I hope it is, because I'd hate for her to call me on my bluff: I can't fit into any of my dress pants right now to go on an interview, and I don't feel like buying any new ones.

Anyway, it was kinda funny to come home and find in my postbox a piece of mail from Smell Us™. I haven't had any services with Smell Us™ since 2005, so what was up with the communique?

I'm being billed $202.98 for the installation of my business line, ADSL, modem, and charges for use of same for 6 weeks of service. FYI, I should never have gotten an invoice. Is it just me, or is it fucking weak for a company whose sole purpose is to provide communications to not have its internal communication on board?

Sigh.

Sometimes I don't drink just for lack of something better to do.

Posted by Special K @ 11:05 PM
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Saturday, February 09, 2008

Quirks

I was tagged some time ago by Radmila to answer the question: What are six quirks of yours?

Have I covered six quirks? I haven't counted; it feels done.

I won't tag anyone else. If you feel like doing it, fill your boots.

Posted by Special K @ 7:52 AM
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Wednesday, February 06, 2008

I Called It...

...so I've only my own self to blame. I was given the wrong fucking modem, and got to go to the office today in the wake of the (expected) failed installation. Of course I was dressed and ready to go in anticipation the error, to the point of already having shoes on in my house, and I almost never have shoes on in my freaking house, people. Once I got to the office I was told by Team Manager that Modem Matter was already escalated and well in hand and would be resolved soon. Soon! The correct modem was being sent by courier to the office proper! Right-chicken-louie!

"M'hm," I said. "Do we have an ETA, or not so much?"

"It's coming!" she said. "By courier !"

I wasn't sure whom to pity first: her for her naivete, or me for my precious hands-on knowledge of courier logistics and knowing for it that I'm a bit fucked unless Jebus intervenes happily in my favour. Let's just say that the more I thought about it, the more my pity squared on Yours Truly.

Ordinarily after work I spend a couple of hours getting used to the idea of winding down: I dink around on WebKinz, make some toast or a sammich, tuck into the couch for an hour and then go to sleep. Today? I arrived home at 10:58pm, hit the shower without food, TV or WebKinz and went to sleep by 11:30pm, sleeping fitfully until now. I'm wide awake, tired as fuck, and mad.

MAD.

Not 'mad' as in "angry", but 'mad' as in FUCKING CUCKOO. I am so ready to snap right the fuck off, Gentle Readers. I've had it with my angry-making schedule since November (if any of us are only supposed to get 2pm-10pm week-long shifts once every 8-week rotation, then can someone explain to me why I've gotten 3 of them IN THE PAST 5 FUCKING WEEKS? Just asking!) and this latest shit-show with the modem? Is not helping. I had a word about my schedule with my Team Manager before I got all messed with the period during the cold walk last week, and all she could tell me was this: "We're working on fixing it."

Fuck me. Whatever.

FINE.*
natalie dee
nataliedee.com

*grrrrr! fuck! grrrr!

Posted by Special K @ 4:34 AM
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Tuesday, February 05, 2008

I Know, I Know

It's been a while. I wish I had a good excuse, but I spent the majority of last week in an almost continuous state of completely irrational anger and it rather precluded my blogging. Well, maybe not entirely precluded it; suffice it to say had I been inclined, your eyes would have met with something on this page reading: "Fuck!" Or perhaps "Fuck THIS!" if I were feeling especially wordy, and I wasn't.

After a one-day weekend, the last thing I needed on Monday was to endure a commute in -49C (that's -56.4F, Murricans) temperature, but that's what I got. Correction: the very last thing I needed was to get my period during the arctic, viciously wind-blown 7-minute walk from the train station to the office, and I got that too.

Thanks a lot, Alaska Clipper! You too, stupid, unnecessarily fertile uterus! Go fuck yourselves!

Anyhoodle.

I thank Bebby Jesus for Luscious Miz Rosie: once she learned we were working the same shifts all week, she offered me rides to and from work from Tuesday on. Had she been willing to suffer it, I would have expressed my gratitude by kissing her full on the lips. To her relief, I instead gave her some money for gas, which was a small price to pay for sparing my sanity, to say nothing of the top 17 layers of my epidermis.

My considerable energy for vexation and undiluted rage was directed at Smell Us™ and the Universe in general: if the former had its head out of its bum, and if the latter weren't such a capricious slut, I could have been working from home already and not had to set my fat ass out of the house at all during such a murderous week of weather, but beans.

Beans!

The weather has warmed up, thank God, because despite the second phase of the At-Home installation being set to take place later today, there exists a good chance that it might not happen and I'll have to make my way to the office proper. Why? Well, it may be that I have the wrong kind of modem, a modem that was not erroneously purchased by Yours Truly, but one brought here (possibly in error) by the guy who installed the telephony and ADSL. I don't know this is necessarily his fault; it could very well be the work order didn't stipulate the type of modem.

*sigh*

I don't know, kids. I've been getting some messages from the Universe that aren't of the capricious slut variety, and I wonder if I should even do this. Not the at-home agency thing, but continuing to work for Smell Us™ because really? The job will be the same, with all its tedium and rancour, only without the commute. Not having the commute is a boon, but in all honesty, it's a palliative one. Even if for working at home I push my productivity to a point where I can enter an area of the company that's supportive instead of front-line, it would only mean I'd then have longer unpaid hours, and have to do the commute again.

Hardly inspiring.

I mention this because Miz Abby, a former co-worker who was in my training class, a few months ago moved to a company that is reasonably well-established, innovative, strongly ambitious and up-and-coming for it, and not in a field that irritates the living shit out of me. She called me this weekend to let me know her department is currently hiring, and it loves to hire Smell Us™ peeps from my department because they know the training program is comprehensive, the work environment demanding, and the people who have lasted at least a year aren't garden variety schmos.

They pay a couple of dollars less per hour, but the benefits are the same and their quarterly bonuses are pretty freaking awesome. All told, I'd be earning 8-12K more annually and certainly wouldn't be working past 6pm or on weekends.

I spent the rest of the weekend mulling.

Seriously mulling.

What I'll likely do is give what I'm about to do one year. If at the end of that I find I can't frigging stand it any longer, which is more than probable, at least I now know there are other options and that I have a transferable skill set that isn't in the same obnoxious line of work I currently find myself. I'm not worried about Other Job vanishing completely: in this city and market, and with the huge ambitions of the company involved, it'll be around later on. And if not? At least I can still work in my jammies doing what I'm doing.

Assuming they hook shit up in the next year.

Posted by Special K @ 12:28 AM
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Sunday, January 27, 2008

Pretty Good for a One-Day Weekend

After having spent nearly 2 weeks sleeping and eating without a schedule, it was murder getting back into the work routine this past week. I'd crash as soon as I got home around nine, find myself wide awake at 5am and unable to get back to sleep until maybe an hour before the alarm sounded. By the time Saturday rolled around, my eyeballs looked like boiled eggs, and at least twice I couldn't stifle heavy yawns while talking to clients.

Yeah, like that wouldn't happen even if I were well rested.

As for the second phase of the At Home Agent installation, I'd been hearing ominous rumblings for the past week or more, rumblings like "it should be done by the end of February...we hope." 'Should'? 'We hope'? This was hardly encouraging, and I was a bit shirty in my commentary on the subject. I think I said something like, "Why don't they just wait until winter's completely over? Better yet, do the install in frigging July, but make sure it's AFTER frigging Stampede! Dinks."

Thus, I was stupendously relieved to get an email on Friday informing me Phase II will happen at Casa K on February 5. Yay! This works out really well: I'm scheduled to work until 10pm that week and was at a loose end for either getting a ride home or having a Transit Buddy. In light of the vicious rape-murder that occurred in this city a little more than a week ago, one that saw the victim's body turn up in the parking lot of a church right by the C-Train station near my place of work, this was a load off my mind. The only thing that sucks is that the weather turned really nasty today and the forecast is shitty for the week to follow. Nice to know things are going to mellow out the very week I don't actually have to leave the house. Awesome.

That all said, I'm so effing happy I can soon work in my jammies and have a 30-second commute. I so won't care what shift I have to work from now on, and you can bet your ass I'll be smoking at my desk. Yeah!

In other news, I braved the inclement weather for Sunday Coffee & Crossword™, which is more than I can say for Delicious Mr. Pete. Given he's an insomniac and keeps sketchy hours for his being a professional poker player, it's never a certainty that he'll be in attendance. Now that I think of it, my attendance hasn't exactly been predictable of late, either. Raisin Doug is the fixed star in the Coffee & Crossword™ firmament, and after we (mostly) finished the puzzle he was pleased as Punch when I presented him with a ticket for the Emily Carr exhibit at the Glenbow Museum. It's the last day it was in town, so we were pushing our luck, indeed. My work/bus buddy Jared joined us for it, and it was a really enjoyable outing. I didn't know that in addition to being a painter and writer, she also worked pottery, made rugs, and drew quite a lot of cartoons and caricatures. She also had a pet monkey! She was one helluva ballsy broad, and not just for her era. Way to go, Miz Em!

The weather grew a lot worse while Jared and I were on the bus, and I thought it would be a good idea to make a pit-stop at the Co-Op on the way home to pick up the fixins for some comfort food — mac 'n' cheese, specifically. I made a wicked 4-cheese alfredo, cooked some pasta shells (most excellent sauce trappers, they are) and topped off the bad-boy with buttered bread crumbs (and more cheese) before bunging it in the oven to happily toast away. As with anything containing Parmesan and Emmenthal, it's making the house smell like vomit, but is going to taste magically delicious.

Radmila tagged me with a meme earlier this week, but I'll oblige her some other time. The mac 'n' cheese is a-callin'.

How was your weekend?

Posted by Special K @ 5:58 PM
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Monday, January 21, 2008

I Wasn't Joking About the Vegetable Garden

Check it out:



Bitey has the right idea. I'm gonna have a post-breakfast nap.

Posted by Special K @ 8:10 AM
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Friday, January 18, 2008

How I've Spent My Not-Really Vacation

I haven't yet officially started working from home. The installation that occurred last Thursday was but the first phase (phone line and ADSL); the next phase involves some good people from Smell Us™ schlepping actual computer hardware up my 3 flights of stairs, hooking it all up and loading the 14 zillion software applications at a date yet to be determined.

Even so, today was the first day I ventured out of the house since January 8, and only because I needed to A) get a doctor's note to explain my absence for 7 work days, and B) get some groceries now that my appetite has grudgingly returned. I bought lots of sensible stuff like fruit and veg and some chicken and fish, but the only thing I've really been interested in eating are the tapioca pudding cups.

Honest to God, today was the first time I've ever bought pudding cups in my whole entire life, and you know what? They're pretty awesome. I don't know that I'll ever buy them again, but for the time being, some nursery-type food is proving magically delicious, so I'm glad I bought two 4-packs.

As for what I've been doing with my time otherwise, I've been watching what can only be called a toxic amount of TV, and effing around on Webkinz.

The latter will require some explanation.

For Christmas, my brother and sister-in-law sent me possibly one of the oddest gifts I've ever received as an adult. Canada Post, demonstrating its legendary timeliness in delivering XpressPost packages, jammed the gift into my teeny-tiny mailbox a mere 6 days after Christmas. As grateful as I was that the package wasn't big enough to merit a trip to Weenie-Roasted Post Office, I could have done without having to rip off a nail and gouge the shit out of my knuckles to get it out of the mailbox before scurrying up the stairs to open it.

Once I'd cut open the 47 yards of packing tape, the box sprang open like a joke can of peanut brittle to reveal a stuffed animal. "What the fuck?" I said, to no one in particular. The accompanying note explained that my nephews both have their own Webkinz, and if I registered my "pet" online, it would be a way for me to interact with the lads since I only tend to see them in person during a leap year. (This may sound like an exaggeration. It's not.)

Incidentally, the stuffed animal is a cat. Har har.

Once I registered Captain BiteyPants at Webkinz, I learned I was given a sum of Webkinz Dollarz (I forget the amount) to buy food, clothes, furnishings, and floor and wall coverings for the bare "room" to ensure Bitey's Health, Happiness and Hunger stats stayed at a salubrious 100%.

People, there's a reason I'm single, have no real pets, and there's only one plant at Casa K. Simply put, I shouldn't be entrusted with the care of another living thing. This might seem an odd thing to say given I worked full-time as a massage therapist for a goodly number of years, but it's true. I'm someone who managed to kill a lucky bamboo for neglect. Do you have any idea how easy those things are to keep alive? They don't even need soil, ferchrissake!

I digress.

After I furnished the room and got Bitey a pair of glasses, I was nearly out of money. How to get more money? Well, you can hit the Employment Office, for starters. There are a number of jobs posted at any given time; for some you need no qualifications whatsoever, and for others you first have to establish skillz by answering trivia questions in certain categories (Language, Math, Science, Social Studies, yada yada). Depending on the job, you can earn between 50 and 350 bucks for a few minutes' "work", but you can only do so every 8 hours.

Webkinz belong to a union, apparently.

How else to get money? You can gamble on the Wheel of Wow or at Bingoz or at the Wishing Well, but you can only do so once per day. One spin, 3 balls, 5 wishes and you're done. You can also mine for gems once a day, and then a cheapass Dawg offers to buy your gem for a shitty price. Or you can opt to keep your gem to achieve the Crown of Wonder (whatever that is). Personally, I find the idea of making a cat work in a mine frigging funny.

Anyhoodle.

Other ways to make cash are by answering trivia questions (there are a range of age groups from 5 to 13+ to what the site labels as Everybody) and playing games. Apart from trivia, you don't make a whole lot of money playing games: we're talking 7 bucks a game in some instances, and a frigging grapefruit will run you 4 bucks. It's crazy.

So, to give you an idea of how often I've been hitting the site, I now have two furnished rooms and a yard. The yard ran me 1000 Webkinz buckz before putting in all the plants and shit, but I still have close to 8000 Dollarz in the bank. This is in light of the fact that the longer you're on the site playing games, the Hungrier your pet gets. In practical terms, this means you usually wind up spending quite a lot of your hard-earned cash on food. Ordinarily I wouldn't be too fussed about it, but I sent my brother an email including a screen shot of Bitey's surroundings to assure him and the little 'uns that I was indeed using their gift because we haven't yet managed to get our Friends Lists going, and the lads were freaked out that Bitey's Hunger stat showed her at 49%. Good lord. I've got the PissyPants Police monitoring me now.

To give you an insight into Bitey's world, here are some pics:

The main room:


Of course Bitey is watching TV. Sha. And note the lucky bamboo plants! Heh.


The yard:


Don't ask me how Bitey keeps things growing with snow on the ground. Either she's a miracle worker, or I haven't yet figured out if there's a way I can change the snow to a lawn. It's anybody's guess.


The obvious place to be:



I think it's funny the cat is naked but for the spectacles. Art really does imitate life sometimes.

All in all, my egregious amount of free time aside, I like the site. It's user-friendly without being boring. I like that it has no pop-ups, and all the "advertisements" in the sidebars say things like "Have you eaten enough Vegetables today?" or "Get a Job!" or "Brushing your teeth keeps you Healthy!" or "Go to the Head of the Class at Webkinz Academy!" I think if kids are going to be on computers and the internet anyway, you might as well have their attention focussed on a creature whose well-being depends on their earning money based on having to set goals by answering questions, budgeting, getting a better job by learning more, and only occasionally gambling.

Of course the site encourages you to "adopt" additional Webkinz by purchasing more stuffed animals with their accompanying Secret Codes; it's a business. But from what I can see it's as responsible a business as I've seen in a long time, and I'm a harsh critic. I honestly recommend it to anyone with kids who constantly eff with computers and want to be part of the innanet experience; they can do it without running the risk of inadvertantly hitting porn sites or a predator; the "chat room" only allows you to exchange scripted lines, for example. And I'm pretty sure none of them say "Are your mommy and daddy home?"

I don't know how much these things cost, but toys have never really been cheap if we think about it.

Anyway, I'd best close off. I'm thinking of starting a vegetable garden.

Posted by Special K @ 6:51 PM
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Sunday, January 13, 2008

It's Hard to Think of Titles After Nearly 5 Years of this Nonsense

At present, Casa K does not have:
It's what I imagine it would be like staying at the Baghdad Hilton, assuming it has had one.

The shower has been a bit dysfunctional for a while; the problem is with that thinger that diverts water to the showerhead. (FYI, that thinger is called a diverter. Crazy!) For a couple of weeks the diverter was doing a half-assed job by only sending part of the water to the showerhead and allowing the rest to stream from the tap. And not just any water, but imperfectly mixed water! What this means in practical terms is that it would take me forever to rinse the shampoo from my head with freezing drizzle while my feet up to the ankles simmered to pinky doneness in the boiling water gushing from the tap.

Awesome.

It took me a while to be able to coordinate a time when I might be home for HandyMan Tony to pop 'round, and thanks to the fiendish cold I've had all week with its accompanying time off work, such an opportunity presented itself. He came by on Friday, and I probably should have warned him ahead of time that I had a number of other odd jobs requiring his attention so that he needn't have dashed to his truck 3 separate times in one visit. At the end of it he said he'd have to come back on Monday to finish dealing with the shower. I took this to mean he'd only examined it but hadn't done anything yet.

As it happens, he temporarily fixed the diverter so that it doesn't send water to both the showerhead and the faucet — now the water only comes from the tap, so no showering, only bathing.

People, I fucking hate baths. Hate them. The only time I ever have a soak is when it's time for a righteous scraping, sloughing and shaving, and then I have a shower afterward. As for bathing to get clean? Please. Washing your body with the same water your ass is sitting in has to be the definition of counterproductive.

I think this is HandyMan Tony's revenge for my earlier dipshittery.

On Thursday, the Installation Guys from Smell Us™ were here to put in the ADSL and business phone lines for the home office. They'd had some trouble with it because of the way my current internet/phone provider sets its shit up. Or at least that's what I got out of what they told me. I was on the couch and buried under several cubic feet of blankets and wadded tissues while watching DS9, so my recollections are a bit hazy. I didn't notice anything amiss until the next day when I tried to call in sick (again) and there was no dial tone. On the whole I don't find this problematic; given my weakened state and need for many naps, I would have shut off the ringer anyway. For some reason, however, I'm unable to check my voicemail using my cell phone. I just reach dead air.

Meh, whatever.

As for the lack of food in the place, this also isn't terribly problematic since I haven't any appetite whatsoever. Bleh.

That's it on this end, kids. I've begun to rally a bit, so I think I'd best make an effort to straighten up this dump somewhat; it was a bit ratty before I got sick, and now has a strong whiff of Infirmary mingling uneasily with its previous atmosphere of Bachelor Pad.

Right after I take a bath, that is.

Posted by Special K @ 5:19 PM
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Monday, January 07, 2008

Home Office Update

The chair has been assembled, the desk is together, and all that's left is dealing with the filing cabinet's drawer that simply refuses to cooperate. I did the bulk of the furniture assembly last night, despite my having had 2.5 days previous to start it. It occurred to me yesterday as I was sweating and cursing while wrestling the components out of their respective boxes that I don't merely work well under pressure, I will ONLY work under pressure.

Seriously. Whenever I think about an occasion when I've had to get a lot accomplished and have been vouchsafed a goodly amount of time to git 'er done, I've pissed away the better part of that time and then worked like a Trojan in spans as short as two hours to finish up.

In my defense I'll only say that I never enter a project blind: I've always mapped out in my head what needs doing and then make a fair estimate of how long it will take. It's only happened once that I've been caught up short, and that was because there was a 30-minute power outage in my building. And wouldn't you know it? At the end of it I was exactly 30 minutes behind schedule.

I rule.

If, for example, I'm preparing a dinner party, it fidgets me unbearably if I have too much done ahead of time. Leaving a few hours for myself with nothing to do but wait for guests to arrive tries my patience enormously; the only remedy for it is to apply myself to the dinner wine in quantities sufficient to take the edge off. This then creates a completely different set of complications. I haven't yet set anything on fire, or overdone something to the point of inedibility, but I'll admit there have been a few uncommonly narrow squeaks.

Anyway, my new Team Manager came by Casa K today to check things out, and everything was deemed as being up to snuff, but my God is my back killing me. So are my wrists, especially the right one. Nothing was that hard to put together: the bazillion pieces were clearly labelled and well organized; the illustrated instructions were comprehensible enough, but there were a few points during construction when another pair of hands would have been...erm...handy. At one point, I had the main table-top balanced on my head while I frantically screwed in some of the main support thingies with an Allen key that decided to be a douche for no reason I can yet determine.

At about 10:45pm there was a knock at my door, and it was one of my dink neighbours standing there in her dink jammies asking me to quit "building stuff" because she had to sleep. I stood there sweatily in my own dink jammies, wild hair barely contained by a bandana; I told her as politely as I could that I would desist the minute it hit 11pm, but not a moment sooner. She started to say something else, but I shut the door in her face.

Frig off, asshole. If she were someone who was actually mindful of the noise levels she habitually creates, I would have accomodated her. As it is, she's someone who regularly pisses me off by having her loudass friends over at all hours, no matter the day, so she can suck my balls.

Suck 'em!

My house is now mostly reorganized in the wake of the holiday season, but there's still quite a bit left to do. If I said the only reason I'm not right on it is because my back hurts, that would be an extravagant lie. I know I could push through it if I wanted, but I think to myself, What's the hurry?

Installation of the business internet and phone lines doesn't happen until Thursday. I've got loads of time.

Ha ha!

I don't have a camera that I might photograph my new office space, but here's the catalogue piccie of the desk, scooped from Canadian Tire's website:

It even came with a lamp*! It also has a built-in power bar and USB ports! The sidearm thing is movable, so I can put it in a corner. For $119.99 plus tax, I think it's a wicked deal, particularly since the filing cabinet was included. Now just to get that dinkus drawer working...later.

*bulb not included

Posted by Special K @ 5:40 PM
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Friday, January 04, 2008

This Whole Self-Sufficiency Thing is Over-rated

I've got the next 4 days off work, and hoo BOY have I got a buttload of work ahead of me. Quite apart from the usual household chores (which have mysteriously started to stack up again) the inspection of my home office occurs on Monday, so I've gotta hup hup and make it an actual office. Currently it's housing the empty boxes that held my Christmas decorations, a big fat bag full of post-holiday empties, and my massage table is strewn with air-drying underpants.

Thanks to Luscious Miz Rosie I was able to make a trip to Canadian Tire™ to acquire a desk and chair, both of which require assembly, and let me tell you something: if constructing them proves even half as difficult as it was schlepping them up 3 flights of stairs, I swear I'll sell the shit on Craig's List and give up the idea of working from home altogether, commute be damned.

The chair's box wasn't terribly heavy so I hauled it up by myself, but its size made it ungainly and it offered nothing in the way of grips. I think I may have kicked it down the last few feet of hallway to the apartment door. As for the desk? Well. Rosie and I come from fairly sturdy stock, but we're not exactly at the pinnacle of physical fitness — it only took us 10 minutes to struggle its 49 kilos (that's 107.8 lbs to you Murricans) to my door, but the experience fairly squeezed our tripes into pulp and we were in need of a 30-minute sit-down afterward.

I seriously need a manservant.

Posted by Special K @ 12:41 AM
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Tuesday, January 01, 2008

And so begins another

It's 11:44pm as a I begin writing this, and I'm not sure what to say. I started this blog 6 weeks into 2003, and since then have had something to say, however cursory, as I stood on the cusp of the next year. (Click any December in my archives, and you'll know I'm not kidding.)

Not so much this year, and maybe that's a good thing.

When I look back on the New Year's Eves of 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007, I only remember feeling a lot of wishfulness of a worried kind, and for good reason: things sucked so terribly financially or emotionally that expressing my hopes and wishing for the best in the future was apotropaic — I sought to ward off anything else bad happening by saying I knew everything would be all right.

And things were all right, in the sense that I didn't wind up shitting in a shoebox under an overpass. But they were never all right in the ways that mattered to me. They weren't. I was always so broke and worried about money; I was so heartbroken and frustrated and lonely; I felt like a failure too poignantly.

It's funny, but when I approached 2007, I wasn't all that optimistic, and I stopped caring about being optimistic. I felt trapped and resigned. I'd taken a default job I didn't want, and I spent the next 8 months absolutely hating the job. Hating it.

I still don't like my job, but I've come to terms with it and have become awfully inventive with coping mechanisms.

Anyhoo.

As a result, the better part of the year flew by, and I didn't have time to dwell on whatever I was dwelling before because I was too preoccupied in learning to cope with something I hated. Not to say I don't think about those other things still; I know I need to bring them to some manner of resolution, but my energies are now directed, for good or ill, away from too much navel-gazing and a little more toward action.

I think this year will actually see me balancing things a bit better: work, housekeeping, personal maintenance, diet, exercise, self-discipline. The large part of this resolve has to do with having paid off my debts (YAY!) and soon being able to work at home. Oh, speed the day.

I can't see the future, but I don't feel I'm fingering the same worry-beads I used to when I say: Happy New Year.

I wish the best for you, too, my friends.

Cheers.

Posted by Special K @ 12:03 AM
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Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Merry ChristmaKwanzaaKah!


It's a little late in the day for me to be posting this, but I will say in my defense that I was a bit taken up with placing phone calls to many of my nearest and dearest to write. In retrospect, I probably should have posted this before I hit the phone, but hindsight is always 20/20.

I hope you're enjoying your holiday season and that you're able to enjoy time with family, with deliciously fattening food, and with an irresponsible amount of alcohol. I know I'm mostly all over it.

I raise a glass to you, my bloggy friends!

Cheers!

K.

Posted by Special K @ 3:04 PM
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