Sunday, April 18, 2010

Crazy Days of Activity and Crankypants




Wow. Been a minute. Haven’t even subjected all y’all to my weekly poetry blogslam in a couple weeks. I have an excuse … a most awesome excuse: some of you were here!!!  Visiting me!!! And I LOVED IT!!!

Now, can we talk about hair? Mine is finally almost all grown out (I’m going for that block-wedge look). After having for the most part very (very) short hair almost my entire life, I find this quite different. Let me just say that the bed head of longer hair is ever so much better than that of short hair, and requires far less work to make presentable.

Longer hair also, I’ve discovered, needs regular conditioning … something I’ve never been too keen on with the shorter hair, but that is perfectly acceptable (even downright necessary) with the longer hair.  Okay, done with the hair talk now.  You gasp with heartfelt joy, I know.

So, multitasking by watching DVR of new Doctor Who (Rah! Rah!) and writing this little postarooni.  Poor little tyke, he told her he’d be back in five minutes, but I bet it’ll be more like five years, seeing as his next companion is currently a child and that will never work. Aaaaand … I am so right. Bet that young officer is Amelia. Bet I’m right. Okay, I’ll stop ‘betting’ and just watch.

Whoa! Fourteen years … didn’t see that long a time coming.

Mom and Dad were here, and can I just say they had me running from sunup to sundown? Those two are energy personified! Human dynamos. Most freaking awesome. Before they ever got here I was commissioned with creating a list of things I needed Dad to fix, and darned if he didn’t blow through said list in about a day and a half. What to do with the rest of the week? I was just making stuff up by the end of their stay. We did so much that I’ve actually forgotten much of it (and by ‘we’ I pretty much mean ‘Dad’) including, but certainly not limited to:
  • Figured out the proper size filter for my furnace, and installed it (can I just say that thing is a bitch and leave it at that?).
  • Installed wire grid and put new screen on the sliding glass door (I’ve had to install a new screen every year because at some point in the summer one, or both, the dogs generally walk right through it … but the grid is white metal, which they can see, so walking through the screen door is now a thing of the past).
  • Hung oak wall cabinet in main bath (bathrooms out here do not have medicine cabinets, but rather giant wall mirrors, making storage a premium).
  • Cleaned out the garage. Cleaned! The garage! Including the hanging of multiple shelves and hooks.
  • Brought furniture up from storage (where it had languished well over a year) into the living room (it. is. beautiful!).
  • Noticed the 50 year old cedar chest had no knobs and used knobs on new furniture to get matching replacements for the chest (why I never thought to replace them I have no idea) … the new ones look lovely!
  • Replaced fluorescent lightbulbs in the kitchen.
  • Fixed the light/fan in the main bath (turns out it never worked because it was installed wrong).
  • Replaced the water valve in the leaking ice-maker.
  • Fielded multiple service calls for estimates on other home repairs.
Plus, that last full day they were here Mom was in the laundry room downstairs while I was showering upstairs, and actually found the elusive leak from said shower, which Dad figured out, then Mom and I spent five hours or so driving 122 miles or so to eight or so hardware/pool/home stores searching in vain for the busted part, which Dad eventually found on the internet.

It came in day before yesterday, and I installed it today and ran the shower while I stood down in the laundry room checking for runoff/waterfall. None!! Hoorah! Yet another problem fixed. Home feels like a house again, as opposed to a broken-down shack.

While they were here Mom and Dad got to meet Duders and Vonnie (e.g., Briggs and Stratton) for the first time, and fell in love. I know this because EVERYBODY loves the boys. They are the least feline cats you’ll ever meet … more like monkeys. Little monkeys that like to climb on people and give hugs. You heard it here first: I have monkeycats. Very friendly monkeycats, who like freaking everybody. Fo’ shizz.

And wonder of wonders, Mom and Dad took my desktop tower home with them, to bring up to Mike’s this week so he can see if there’s anything he can do to with it. I had explained that it was taking 23 minutes to log in, then what seemed like hours to do anything once I was logged in … but those kinds of time delays really need to be experienced to be fully understood.  And believe me, they were indeed experienced! Stupid computer slowing down stupidly. Even Mom, one of the most patient people I know, admitted to a desire to fling it out the office window in frustration. Good thing I’ve got this spare work laptop for the nonce.

Oh! And one night we watched the new(ish) Sam Rockwell flick called ‘Moon’ … I highly recommend it. Some plot points were clearly telegraphed, but some absolutely were not, and the similarities to/differences from ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ just made it that much more fun.

And Dad routed my television audio through my stereo, so now that is aaaah-may-zing! For real … I can actually hear the voices over the soundtrack now. No more having to run the closed captioning and read all the lines for practically everything (excluding the news) that I watch. Pure, unadulterated bliss.

Although its cooled off a bit (I actually ran the heat this morning), we had warm enough weather that it reached 80 degrees F inside the house all last week … I even had some windows open overnight. Right now it is windy as all get-out, and is supposed to remain the same most of the week; so Mom and Dad were here during the nice stuff, yay!

Mom and Dad left Tuesday morning, and I, who am trying to get a promotion into a position over at headquarters, had one interview Wednesday, and a second … almost three hour … interview Friday. I’ll find out this Tuesday or Wednesday if I’ve made the cut, in which case it will be stakeholder interviews. Yeah, not worried, me … the stakeholders are only the VP and a couple Directors. Gulp! But I want the job. As I told my boss, there’s no upward mobility for me at the plant level, so if I want to get anywhere with my career I’ve got to move over to HQ (or another company, but I didn’t tell him that, although I’m sure he’s figured it out). I need money, people; I’ve got all the same bills as everyone else, but only the one income to cover them. Sucks. Much.

This job would be perfect for me, and I perfect for it … so I’m kind of using it as a litmus test. If I get it, then I’ll stick around. If I don’t get it, then I need to look elsewhere, because not getting it is what I’ll perceive as an indication I’m going nowhere with this company. It’ll be good to know … ever so much less stressful finding a job when you’re employed.

So, although it’s been a most awesome couple weeks, it has also been a most stressful couple weeks due to immense lack of sleep. You know how I make up for lost sleep on weekends? Yeah, NOT WHEN THE ‘RENTS ARE HERE!! Can’t sleep in with company! Especially company as important as they are! Add to that the work I had to catch up on due to taking a four day weekend, plus having to get up at 5am Friday morning for the (almost three hour) interview and, well, you know … me so tired.

And cranky. Can’t forget cranky. Lisa very cranky when tired. Much like a toddler. Crankypants.

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