The sister

I suppose she got her card. I half expected that she would call and thank me for the card as she had called and thanked me for my birthday call to her last year. I am curious about the high drama that I know had to be going on and I feel so sorry for her sons. But then, I'm sure she pities my sons as well.

Doubts

I'm not sure that I'm cracked up to be 'She Who Answers THe Phone And Womanns the Office'. Its depressing as hell to have complete strangers break down on the phone when they talk about losing their home. I wanted to reach out and hug the sobbing woman today. I wanted to pullher close and tell her that everything will be ok. I couldn't and so I listened and it brought up all the fears I live with every single day. She was sad and angry and terrified. The part she hated the most was the terrified part. Then she slid into a panic attack and I tried to talk her through it. She decided to go take a half of one of her dog's valium so that she could calm down and stop her compulsive vomiting.
Somehow I managed to help her a bit, she didn't sound so rocky once we hung up. She's not even a client and probably won't become one. It's that stupid need of mine that drives me to help everyone I run across. I buy candy bars for grocery clerks and stifle my impatience when I'm stuck behind a senior citizen cart leaner, all the while feeling inside that I'm held together by cheap dollar store tape that will yellow and crack at any moment. I'm not doing myself any good so why can't I stop?
So then comes these people who are losing their homes and are emotional wrecks. Then comes the days with no calls at all and no income. Is it any wonder that I am losing my hair? Oh not my head hair... that would be too normal. It's my body hair. I haven't had to shave under my arms since my last physical in July of 2005. That propbably means something, this new hairlesness of mine but I don't care enough to go to the doctor. I don't have to shave, that in itself would be a reason to let things be. Only my hair doesn't grow either and I would love to know what it would be like to have hair long enough to actually style. But then I guess I would pnly pull it out when I failed to help someone again.
I swear my mind feels like a mouse running on an endless wheel.

ok so I'm not so nice

I made my estranged sister a birthday card. Awwwww how sweeet I hear those syrupy voices say. Uh huh. Well. Not quite.
My sister nearly lost her mind when she turned 30. Tomorrow she's 50 and I can just imagine her reactions. I figure she'll be down on her knees, beating her fists against the ground screaming for sweet jesus to save her. It's the way she hadn;es most criseses. So of course, I'm certain her husband and sons will be tiptoeing around her.
But onto my card.
A sweet hearty balloon kinda background with happy birthdy stamped on yellow card stock and a nice little cake with a single candle on it. No black no gloom or doom. Sweet and lovely. Awwwww..... Except inside I wrote. Aren't you glad I didn't mention the big five-oh.
Oh sweet Jesus I am a bad girl. But at least I sent her a card, more than what she did for me.

Aren't I clever

The gel like nose guard thing that's on my glasses dissolved last night leaving the right one to dig into my nose with every inhale. So this morning I took my tush up to Rite Aid to look for nose replacement things. All I found were those sticky pads that you are supposed to use when you have the nose thing. I bought it anyway and tried sticking it to the post. Of course it fell off and then I tried sticking the pad to my face but that only looked stupid. So then I hit the Super Fresh and the WalGreens. They all had repair kits but none had the part I wanted. Now I've replaced these once before so I know that it can be bought only not by me. I ended up in a dollar stor looking at yet another repair kit and as I was paying it hit me!! There on the counter were those dollar glasses people buy when they need a bit of help but not enough to get real glasses. Dollar glasses with the nose things I needed. So I bought the dollar glasses and switched the nose props from the cheap glasses to the ones I can actually see through. And then, I popped the lenses out of the dollar ones and figure I can use them in some craft. ANd those little pads I got that I didn't need but the thing was only 79 cents so what the heck.... I figure I can use them to apply ink to paper or whatever. Waste not want not.

Life has been ho hum

A good thing for me, not so good for my blog and my journal. The Husband was away working on his properties for three days last week. He took the postage stamps with him so younger son couldn't mail out the mailings that he does for the Husband. I womanned the office for those days and if we got 10 calls a day it was a lot. I may, however, gotten us a paying client. It would be my first. Can't shine too much don't want the Husband up to his mean tricks again.
So what did I do in the office alone? Enjoyed it for one. At times I feel as if I am never alone. I put on a cd and went to work. I cleaned out my desk and noticed that more drawers are full of my toys than offical work stuff. I made seven pairs of earrings, watercolored designs, worked on beading that damned doll that will be the death of me and then un beaded her. I made a couple of pendants to slip over a chain so I can have a variety of necklaces and only need one chain. I cut up some more magazines, worked on my yellow book, decorated a few pages in my written journal, and finished two books. (read them I mean, not wrote them) Oh and I started two letters.
I also had time to consider making and sending my estranged, or maybe just strange will suffice, sister a birthday card and STILL haven't come up with a decision. Oh I had real work to do but I tend to do it so quickly it's only a blip in my day of fun. I'm not even crafted out and spent most of yesterday playing with polymer clay and making canes. Today the Husband and I are going to AC Moore because I need small embroidery hoops for an idea I have and then back to more clay.
We did go grocery shopping yesterday and I found a real deal on beef. When we dragged the groceries in I told older son, the cook, about it and he actually took the package downstairs to show his friends...they all get together to cook. I got five thick steaks, a reasonable sized roast and a roast bigger than Rocco's head all for $20. Some kids praise the stuff their parents buy, my kids praise how much money I DON'T spend. Gotta love a cheapskate.
Maybe I should start to post pictures here. When cable shut our internet off because we couldn't pay the bill and then we ransomed it back, cable thought we were new customers and sent us this itty bitty camera with 900 pages of downloadable instructions. It's the kind you can use as a web cam, not that I would, the world doesn't need to see my cockatoo hairstyle first thing in the morning or the husband wandering around the house without a shirt. At least HIS old man titties don't bounce. I suppose I could attach it to its clip... the camera and not the Husband's titties and carry it with me for when I see those wierd misspelled signs and those wandering apostrophes. But first I'd have to read those 900pages of insturctions and somehow that just seems like work. Something I do my best to avoid. By the way... I just let Rocco in for the 7th time this morning and I've only been up for an hour and a half. Maybe I shoudl just give him his own key.

To Blog or Not to Blog

I found out today that younger son has a girlfriend...four years older than he. I hope this is just what he needs... a mature girlfriend and not one given to high drama and tears. I haven't met her yet. Didn't even know he had a girlfriend until the husband told me today. Younger son told him on Friday but I didn't learn of it until today. Men.
The husband is going back to the investment houses again this week. He hates every moment of this manly acts of fixing up. The light switch is still missing from the bathroom at home and will be until I finally get tired of it and replace it myself. I never should have put that floor lamp in there, instead allowing the men to sit there in the dark or with a flashlight but I like having a bth before bed and that's when I do my best reading so there the lamp stands.
The business could use a few new clients. I have groceries to get. It's not that we don't have food, we do. Just not any that anyone feels like eating.
Rice pudding. I have this thing for rice pudding all of a sudden and now I have a craving for pancakes, when older son made a big pot of chili for dinner.
I bought new undies the other day. The package said full figure and my figure is aboust as filled as it can get, even spilling over a bit. Anyhow I opened the package today and unrolled the panties and stood there goggling. They were the biggest pair of panties I ever had.... I put them on and thankfully they were big. Not overly large fall down over my bottom and over my knees and puddle around my ankles big, but roomy big and if I don't wear a skirt I should be ok. Still big though. I wonder when that happened.

Rocco charms the beast

Once upon a time we adopted 3 rescued kittens. Two were litter mates and the third was just fostered with them. I thought since they had all been together they would be tightly bonded but I have never been so wrong. The boy was our Pip who we had put to sleep last year because of fatal liver problems. Isabella was the fostered kitten so small that she fit in the palm of my hand. She's still small but has never had anything to do with her brother and sisters or little dog Ollie but loved our Mutley. (heart problems died at home, broke my heart) Now she's the craft room cat coming out only to poop and to eat. But not at the same time, thank goodness. And then there is Chloe aka The Bitch. She likes no one, sits in no ones lap and will hiss at the dogs and the other cats just as soon as look at them. Except with the big galoot puppy we have, Rocco. Chloe actually likes Rocco and lets him get away with things she wouldn't allow with anyone else. Right now, she's sprawled on the couch with Rocco's nose burried in her belly. He's snorting into her skin and she's purring like mad, legs extended, claws appearing and disappearing as she kneads the air but is so very careful to keep those claws away from Rocco. AS for Rocco, Chloe actually seems a calming influence on him. Something I am eternally grateful for. Rocco got one of my shoes AGAIN last night. I bought and identical pair to replace the one shoe he chewed about a month ago. The right shoe. Need I say which shoe he chewed this time? Two bad I don't know anyone with ttwo left feet.
Wait... I do. It's me. At least by the Husband's opinion. Of course I haven't danced with him in years, ever since he told his adulterous girlfriend that I danced funny and then came home and told me the same thing. I don't know what was worse, him doing that, or calling me from his girlfriends house one day and asking me to give her my recipe for the rice he liked so much. For all I know I could now be a ballerina, though I'm not too certain about the tutu. For me it'd have to be a three three or maybe even a four four.

Petting farm but not

As odd as it may sound, the very best job in the whole world was when I worked at a petting farm. Its a temporary job for only one month a year but I got to be in the pens, hands on with my favorite farm animal, the PIG!! First year I helped at a birthing and had so bonded with the mama pig that I could actually get in the pen with her babies and she was perfectly relaxed. The boar was a big ugly boy, scarey to look at but he had a crush on me and as soon as I came to the pen and spoke his name, he'd get up and lumber over to me and slobber all over my hand. I was advised to NOT get in the pen with him and I didn't but I loved him anyway. I discovered that pigs actually have a sense of humor and can laugh only its more like a cartoon animals heh heh heh than a human laugh. But they do laugh. They also like to play tricks on the humans about and then chuckle to themselves afterwards.
This past year was a little messier. I again assisted at a birth and when one of the little sucker's cords sprung a leak I got well and truly bloodied. So much so that when I went into a grocery store afterwards some lady asked if I was ok because I was all bloody. I had washed my hands and arms but the blood on my clothes was at my waist, a spot I cannot see because of the ledge of bosom I sport. I told the woman I was fine that it was pig's blood. She looked at me as if I would go for her throat and backed away quickly muttering to herself.
I did get bloodied when the boar, a big slow moving gentle guy, decided that he needed a girlfriend and I was it. AS I tried to get out of the pen, he tried to keep me in and ended up grinding his sawn off tuck stump into my leg. He broke the skin but not seriously and it hardly bled. He didn't even tear my pants.
This year's mam pig had a tendency to sit on her baby who would scream bloody murder while the kids around the pen would scream as well. So I'd get in the pen and try to shift her off the baby. First time, Santa Claus jumped in with me and the two of us shifted her. At least the guy looked like Santa. Second time just as a woman started to enter to help me mam pig lunged to her feet and came after me. Holy crap, flashing piggy eyes and gnashing piggy teeth and 800 pounds to back it all up. Mam's head came to my waist so we're not talking cute little piglings here.
Now no one ever thought to tell us what ot do in case of an attack. All I did was place the flat of my hand angainst her forehead and try to keep her at arms length. Now the gates to the pen opened in so I was screwed. The kids and adults around the pen were absolutely silent. They had to be otherwise I never would have heard the woman who yelled, 'I have the gate'. Another voice yelled distract her and I heard the crinkle of plastic and saw a flapping grocery bag out of the corner of my eye. Mama's concentration wavered and in a zip I was out the gate. There I stood trying to catch my breath. The crowd just gaped at me. I took a breath and announced. "And that is why we don't let you in the pens with the mamas." Talk about an understatement.
Anyhow a couple of days later I discovered that I was famous. I was known as the lady to fought off the pig. My exploits had gone around a number of schools and when the second groups from those schools came as a field trip they all wanted to see the pig lady. It's not often when you get a chance to be truely brave.
I got a letter from the farm yesterday asking me to work their spring time show which is called NAtive lands. It's only four days, five if it rains one daym and while there are animlas there are no pens. Instead I discovered, when I called today and told them to sign me up, that I'm going to be doing the face painting and they pick and choose the people they want to work this show instead of sending out a letter to everyone who worked the year before like they do with the farm. I worked for a month and I stood out enough for something creative. I don't know how they knew that either. So today during the boring time at work I made a necklace and a pair of earrings that would fit with the native lands theme. The husband will just have to do without me at the office. I'm glad he's gone these two days. Things were getting tense.
So the pig lady is going to be the face painting lady. Hopefully none of my human canvases will attack. Nor will their mothers sit on them.