Archives for August 2006

I just ran across’t a post by Lala, written almost two years ago when I moved into the condo. It still makes me laugh. (Scroll to bottom of page.)

Update (annotated).

Well, here we go. I’ve been angsty lately, haven’t I? I’m sitting here at work, and it’s quiet, but my brain is not, so I’ve decided to lay it all on you. All my random thoughts and worries and junk. Seriously, better here on the screen than rattling in my brain. I’m going to list things, since my brain is jumpy anyway.

1. Janine told me the best advice in a comment the other day: Do not have conversations with people who are not in the room. That has saved my brain a few times recently. On Monday, she and Becca and I went out to coffee, and she told me another zen-like statement. I shoulda written it down, but it was SO good I thought I’d remember. I celebrated the wrong birthday this year, so we know my memory’s bad. Janine, what was that?

    1b. What a random way to start a list. With something I don’t remember.

2. Money worries. Niggling worries, made stronger by the fact that Miss Idaho’s surgery today (mammary tumor, think good thoughts, please — she’s home and recovering) set us back the price of my plane ticket to Europe. Of course, that doesn’t really mean anything, since we’ve already bought our tickets, so it’s just money charged, and money charged on pets is always okay by me (ask my three grand cat Digit), but I ask you this: How does ANYONE save money? Do you? And if you do, I don’t want to hear about it. Unless you have a genius-like idea on turning couch cash into gold bars.

    2b. I remember what Janine said! She said, "If you have a problem that can be solved with money, you don’t have a very interesting problem." How much do you LOVE that?

We heart Janine:

and we heart Becca:

I love meeting with these ladies for knitting and coffee and sammiches. I love it a lot.

Wait. I was listing.

3. Writing: I’m thinking about it a lot. And I’m not doing it. I could be writing tonight, but I’m not. I’m stalled at a point where I need to block off some time to sit and read and sort what I’ve done over the last six months, and put it in some order, make notes, and decide where to go from there. Instead of doing that, I write one or two pages while I’m at work, and I pretend the body of work doesn’t exist on my weekend — preferring instead to veg out on the couch. I need to schedule the time, and STICK TO IT.

4. Speaking of being on the couch, I’ve ordered the first season of Project Runway from Netflix, because you all love it so much.

5. Knitting: Fast and furious. New object to show you by next week at the latest if all goes well. And at my new dog park, it’s clean enough that I can knit on the perpetual Sock in Progress. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t require cleanliness to work on a sock. They’re going on feet, after all. But the beach, oh, I couldn’t do it at the beach. I leave the beach coated in sticky damp sand, sand in my ears and in my pockets, sand down my shirt. The SIP lives in the car, so it’s usually full of sand anyway, but at least it’s not wet, sticky sand. There’s a difference, you know.

6. It is suddenly busy here at work. However, I’m only on phones tonight, and I’m sitting in what we call the mush-pot, which is far away from the other three people working. I’m hidden behind a half-cubicle wall, and I don’t have to participate in all the chatter if I don’t want to. I love that. I still do all the same work, I just don’t have to be as highly social. I love the mush-pot.

7. There was so much more rattling in my head. But now I feel better, thanks. Also, oh, yeah, I feel better. I slept all day, for possibly more than seven hours, if I’m doing the math right, and it’s all due to Lala. She got up early and took the poor wee dog to the vet, and then she worked from home and kept the other two dogs quiet all day. Lovely sleep. I plan on getting some more sleep today, too. I like sleep, as often as I can squeeze it into my busy schedule.

8. I need to exercise! I need to run! I have no time until Monday (literally, NO time, not even 15 minutes is unscheduled right now) but then I will run. And write. And budget.

    8b. Excuse me? There is too much to do. Just thought you should know. Again, HOW DO MOTHERS DO IT? Because I think y’all might just be crazy. That might explain it.

9. The End.

I don’t feel so good. I keep thinking it’s outta control allergies, but I’m at work tonight and I’m feeling all squoodgy and shaky, and I’ve been freezing for two days. I never have a chill, and on the few occasions that I do, I normally enjoy them, usually running too hot.

And this is a long week. This isn’t my normal night to work, but working tonight gets me an extra night off for the Europe trip. (YAY! Yay!) But that means five nights in a row, 12 hour shifts, 2 hours of commute time. Not much time at home, none to left over to wash dishes. Lala, reuse your glasses, okay?

The good news is that I found a new, wonderful dog park right close to the house — it’s only 10 minutes up the road in Castro Valley, as opposed to the beach, which is 30 minutes each way in traffic out on the other side of town. (Every afternoon before work, I take the dogs to the park — Clara needs to run with other dogs every. single. day. or she eats things. Like yarn. And magazines on Buddhism. (I hope she needed the dharma more than Lala.))

(This is for visitors searching for the Castro Valley Dog Park: Because it is so hidden that it took me over an HOUR to find the dog park near my house, and there exist no directions online to find it, and the address listed is not actually where you need to go,  here you go: exit at Center off 580, head north on Center (NOT as you would think, on Crow Canyon), and go right on Paradise Knolls, the parking lot is all the way at the end. You’re welcome. Enjoy.)

Lala took this at the beach — Clara goes FAST. And the little dog that was chasing her was one of the funniest, bossiest little dogs I’ve ever seen. They had a ball.

And the one-handed dog:

https://rachaelherron.com/i_dont_feel_so_/

Y’all are amazing. If anyone out there has problems with another person (as if), please scroll down to yesterday’s post and hit the comments. I have the best, smartest, nicest, sexiest readers in the land, and I can prove it. So there.

During a conversation with my mother today, I finally figured out how to describe a typical conversation with The Owner Who Drives Me Crazy. It goes something like this:

Me – "Please have some chocolate cake."

Him – "But I want some chocolate cake! You don’t understand, I really want chocolate cake. I want it so much. I wish you would listen to me. No matter what I do, I can’t get any cake. I wish I could have some cake. I really, really want chocolate cake."

Me – "Here’s some chocolate cake. How big a piece do you want?"

Him – "You don’t get it! I want chocolate cake! Can you even understand me? If you stopped trying to interrupt me — no! Don’t you interrupt me when I’m trying to tell you something that is imperative for all of us to understand. I want chocolate cake, and I’m going to do anything I can to get it. You should be aware that perhaps legal counsel is the best way to persuade you to give me chocolate cake. I wish you would just listen to me once in a while."

Me – "Hell, pass the cake to me, if he’s not going to eat it. And buddy, you can have some if you want some. I’ll put it in front of you"

Him – "No, I just wanted chocolate cake. That’s all. But never mind. I see how it’s always going to be."

But really, if you have that person in your life that makes you want to stick a fork in your eyeball just so you get some peace and quiet at the hospital, please go read those comments. Bless y’all and thanks.

I have to yet again express my displeasure with the HOA member who is of the donkey family. I repeat myself, don’t I? I just can’t tell you how much he affects me. I guess we all have one, don’t we? Someone who pushes our buttons and makes us fly right out the window of reason. Bam! We hit the window and then we’re through the glass, just like that.

See, I know that we’re right. I know that. We’re trying to fix the house, and he is blocking us at every turn, even though he’s the one who says he wants his unit fixed first. There are four of us in the HOA, and three of us are reasonable and sane. But him….. He makes me feel crazy, like we’re wrong to insist that we meet, that we reasonably discuss things, that we move expeditiously.

It’s as if he screams at the top of his lungs (figuratively) and is so loud he blocks the rest of us out. We can vote around him on every measure, but we don’t always want to. Dude, we want to get some bids on fixing his damn dry-rot, but he won’t give us a time to enter his unit, just insists that the bid he submitted is good enough. And then he threatens to just fix it himself (no way in hell) because we’re stalling. We’re NOT! Aargh. Then I start worrying he WILL get one of his shady friends (he has a lot of them) to start working on his unit, just like he got them to rip out my back deck. The hole is still there for my tenant to trip over. Removed without permission or authorization. Triple-dipple aargh.

It’s something about his personality. Just being in the same room with him makes my head explode. And getting emails from him in the middle of the night, rambling, illogical emails that go nowhere shoots me right back to slamming into that window. Bam!

We know we should look into legal representation soon, or at least arbitration. Just to shut him up. At least the dues are now paid. That’s an improvement on the last two years. And really, I’m writing not to complain about him (can’t tell, can you?) but to try to figure out how to deal with my reaction to him.

Because really, my reaction is extreme. I obsess. I rehearse conversations with him. I plan emails. I try to guess what he’ll do next, and which tack we should take to meet that imagined move. I lie awake in bed, and I drum my fingers on the steering wheel in traffic. I had almost recovered from Sunday’s meeting, and he spews a stupid email at us tonight that heated me right back up.

He’s bumming me out, yo. I was kind of down all week, and I finally realized that it was because of having to confront him last Sunday. I started to pull up and out of the funk, and then the email lands. I just can’t shake him. Any good suggestions for me? Just telling me not to worry about him, that’s he’s a dummy-head and not worth my time or concern, that’s not going to help. Give me something Buddhist or Taoist, something strong, something loud. I tell myself a million times a day that I’m LUCKY to have this problem. And lord knows I am. I have it so good. I am thankful every day, this is true. But he still drives me up the freakin’ wall. And out the window. Help!

You like? I don’t carry a purse unless I’m going to work and need a ton of things. Otherwise I have a cell phone in one pocket, wallet in a back pocket, dog bickies and keys in another, and lipstick in the fourth. While the camera fits in a pocket, I don’t have one to spare, so I sewed this up based loosely on instructions here.

Stash fabric, and leftover button from godson’s Dylan’s sweater. I’m well chuffed.