Irritable
That describes me over the past two days. Not for all of the past two days, but for enough of it for it to be on my mind. First on my list of irritants: my commute. Yesterday the freeway was so jammed that I didn't even bother with it -- so I slugged it out with the traffic lights going across town to try and avoid it. I was over half an hour late for work, and nearly out of gas. I stopped on my way in to work, even though I was late, just to get gas. I had just been to get gas two days earlier, but I put only $15 in my tank because it was $2.69 a gallon and I thought I was getting reamed because this particular gas station is sort of an island -- I thought I'd get gas closer to home and not pay so much. Wrong. I don't pay that much attention to gas prices from day to day so I didn't realize that that's just what the price was no matter where you go. So two days later I'm needing gas again, but we're feeling a little on the broke side so I only put $20 in -- at $2.70 a gallon and climbing.
Then I get to work. I'm late, great. I boot up the PC and start working, and in the midst of it it just reboots itself. All I was doing at the time was printing out some e-mails -- nothing complicated. Well, apparently that was too taxing for the PC, even though it's new, and it decided it needed a fresh start. I got some error message saying it had just corrected some kind of "serious error." Haven't seen THAT before. Called the IS Department to find out what was up -- they didn't know either. I have a knack for bringing them issues they've never come across before. Yay me. The IS dude tells me I had a massive memory dump. When I hear dump, I think toilet -- so I am grossed out.
Anyway, I get up and running again and the phone is ringing off the fucking hook -- everyone has a fire that needs to be put out. Whatever. I keep working. I hate everything on my desk right now, and I'm wrestling with a massive paper tiger constantly. If the paper tiger had claws, I'd be shredded by now. The paper tiger is formidable -- but I persist.
As the day wears on, I get a call from the husband's ex -- she says he's not answering his phone or responding to her messages or whatever -- wants to figure out how we're handling the child this weekend because it's the child's birthday and we each have plans w/her plus everyone has stuff going on and no one knows who's doing what, who's on first, etc. By the time I am done talking to her I still don't know what the hell is going on -- but I think I have some idea.
So I think we have it all figured out, but then she calls the husband again and plans are shifted. Whatever -- it works out. But I'm pissy because things are just not flowing and I just want to get home and get dinner cooked and be done with it. Of course, I have to go to the grocery store first because we need a few things. So I go. I meet the husband there. I don't know why he decided to meet me there to do the shopping together, but I don't argue it. We get the shopping done and he leaves to buy even more gas (we're spending about $500/mo. on it right now w/our commutes) and pick up the child. I leave w/the groceries to go home and get started on dinner.
I forget that the road leading directly from the grocery store to our house is under construction and is down to one lane. So I sit through a few light changes and finally veer off and go through the neighborhood to get home. I have to pee like a race horse and I just want to get fricking home. When I get there, I head straight for a brownie, before I even go to the bathroom. It's good. On my way to the bathroom, I see the cat has horked up a fur ball and a little something extra. Fuck me, fuck that, I gotta pee. So I pee.
Flash forward to today.
I get up, get ready, get the child up, get her over to her mother's place, and take off for work. People drive like assholes whether there are 10 people on the road or 10,000. I switch from missiles to guns and slug it out. I get to the parking garage, what we affectionately refer to as "premium parking," about 2 blocks from the office, and have my parking pass out and ready. All you have to do is hold it up to this box by the entrance and the bar lifts up and you drive in. But today the lights to the entrances are not on. No red light, no green light, nothing indicating which ones are working or whatever. I just pick one. Yep, picked the wrong one. I put my card up to the box, and then I realize the bar or arm or whatever the fucking thing is called is up -- I don't think it went up in response to me using my card, so I hesitate to enter because I did that once and got stuck in the garage because since they didn't register me using the card to get in, it wouldn't let me out. I go in anyway and figure I'm just going to have to take my chances because for all I know, it registered that I put the card up and if I don't go in, I may have fucked up the sequence anyway.
The work day goes more smoothly than yesterday, but I decide to call the city parking people to see if I can deal w/it over the phone. I give her my name, my card number, and she says she fixed it on her computer so I can drive in or out willy nilly. I go to lunch and stop off to buy the child a little bucket of nibblers from Mrs. Fields to go w/her birthday present. I go back to the office and finish out my day, and it's pretty good.
Then I get back to the parking garage.
Of course, the card doesn't work and I can't get out. So I back up and drive down to one of the attended booths and explain the situation. She radios her supervisor. The supervisor seems unaware of the procedures the parking people follow from an administrative standpoint and tells her what I already know -- that I'm gonna have to sit there backing up everyone else trying to get out of the garage while they write me a ticket (an IOU that I have to go clear up w/their administrative office while they fix my card because their fucking facilities were not working correctly). Did I mention I left a half hour early to get a jump on our plans w/the birthday child? Yeah, well I lost 10-15 minutes of it dealing with this.
So I get out of the garage and beam myself home, and as I head for the bathroom what do I see but more kitty vomit. I don't know if it's just too damned hot and she's shedding too much and therefore sucking down a bunch of hair or what -- but she didn't even confine it to one spot today. Three spots that I can see offhand. Vomit vomit vomit. Fuck. And I need to wrap the birthday child's gift because the husband says the ex is supposed to drop the child off between 5 & 6. So I wrap the gift, write out the card, change and start getting ready to take her out to dinner. The phone rings at quarter after 5 and the child says her mom wants to know when we are going to pick her up. Uh, well, her mother said she was going to drop her off so we hadn't planned on picking her up. But either she forgot that or changed her mind and so she has the child call to ask what's up. The phone craps out and when she calls back she says her mom wants to know if we can pick her up. Now, in all honesty it's not a problem -- she lives about 2 miles away -- but it seems like her mind changes w/the breeze whereas when I say I'm going to do something I goddamned do it. If we say we're going to drop her off at 5, we drop her off at 5. If we say we're going somewhere, we go. With this one, she will say I'll be there to pick up/drop off in an hour and she will show up 3 hours later. And I know damned well there would be an international incident if the shoe were on the other foot.
I don't usually talk about this stuff, or write about it, because I don't want to stir things up -- I like not being in court, and we have 7 years to go before we don't have to worry about any of that shit anymore. And though I know it could be a lot worse (a LOT worse), sometimes those little things grate on me because it's just a basic lack of consideration.
Anyway.
To add insult to injury, I am walking from my room past a scrolly iron and glass table in the hall and I feel something tug at my top. This top has a bow on the side with long strings hanging down on the left-hand side, and one of the strings got caught in a scroll and pulled the fuck off my blouse. No more bow. Are you fucking kidding me? Now I gotta sew that thing or live w/out it. And I still have to clean up cat vomit.
I almost forgot the topper: the SMUD (electric) bill came today. Yeah, it was THREE HUNDRED TEN DOLLARS. I thought maybe they hadn't registered our last payment or something. Nope, that's the bill for the last month. Now I know we've had some hot goddamned days, but this is INSANE. Our house is under 1600 square feet. So basically between gasoline and electricity, we're spending more than EIGHT HUNDRED DOLLARS a month. WHAT THE FUCK?! I mean, really.
WHAT
THE
FUCK.
Any one of these things would be no big deal (except the money stuff, which just makes me mad) -- and in all honesty, I'm okay now that I've settled down some and had a very large beer. But one obstacle after another after another makes for a very cranky girl. The past two days have just been a more magnified span of the same old shit. I'm tired of the dishes, tired of the laundry, tired of the bills, tired of the commute, tired of spot cleaning the carpet, tired of the dust, tired of not having enough time or energy to work out, tired of thinking about money, tired of the endless list of to's. Tired, tired, TIRED!
So that's my rant. Maybe now that I've got it out I can start fresh tomorrow. Tomorrow I am going to the State Fair with my dad and I'm just not going to worry about any of this shit. Today's a wash. I'm done!
Then I get to work. I'm late, great. I boot up the PC and start working, and in the midst of it it just reboots itself. All I was doing at the time was printing out some e-mails -- nothing complicated. Well, apparently that was too taxing for the PC, even though it's new, and it decided it needed a fresh start. I got some error message saying it had just corrected some kind of "serious error." Haven't seen THAT before. Called the IS Department to find out what was up -- they didn't know either. I have a knack for bringing them issues they've never come across before. Yay me. The IS dude tells me I had a massive memory dump. When I hear dump, I think toilet -- so I am grossed out.
Anyway, I get up and running again and the phone is ringing off the fucking hook -- everyone has a fire that needs to be put out. Whatever. I keep working. I hate everything on my desk right now, and I'm wrestling with a massive paper tiger constantly. If the paper tiger had claws, I'd be shredded by now. The paper tiger is formidable -- but I persist.
As the day wears on, I get a call from the husband's ex -- she says he's not answering his phone or responding to her messages or whatever -- wants to figure out how we're handling the child this weekend because it's the child's birthday and we each have plans w/her plus everyone has stuff going on and no one knows who's doing what, who's on first, etc. By the time I am done talking to her I still don't know what the hell is going on -- but I think I have some idea.
So I think we have it all figured out, but then she calls the husband again and plans are shifted. Whatever -- it works out. But I'm pissy because things are just not flowing and I just want to get home and get dinner cooked and be done with it. Of course, I have to go to the grocery store first because we need a few things. So I go. I meet the husband there. I don't know why he decided to meet me there to do the shopping together, but I don't argue it. We get the shopping done and he leaves to buy even more gas (we're spending about $500/mo. on it right now w/our commutes) and pick up the child. I leave w/the groceries to go home and get started on dinner.
I forget that the road leading directly from the grocery store to our house is under construction and is down to one lane. So I sit through a few light changes and finally veer off and go through the neighborhood to get home. I have to pee like a race horse and I just want to get fricking home. When I get there, I head straight for a brownie, before I even go to the bathroom. It's good. On my way to the bathroom, I see the cat has horked up a fur ball and a little something extra. Fuck me, fuck that, I gotta pee. So I pee.
Flash forward to today.
I get up, get ready, get the child up, get her over to her mother's place, and take off for work. People drive like assholes whether there are 10 people on the road or 10,000. I switch from missiles to guns and slug it out. I get to the parking garage, what we affectionately refer to as "premium parking," about 2 blocks from the office, and have my parking pass out and ready. All you have to do is hold it up to this box by the entrance and the bar lifts up and you drive in. But today the lights to the entrances are not on. No red light, no green light, nothing indicating which ones are working or whatever. I just pick one. Yep, picked the wrong one. I put my card up to the box, and then I realize the bar or arm or whatever the fucking thing is called is up -- I don't think it went up in response to me using my card, so I hesitate to enter because I did that once and got stuck in the garage because since they didn't register me using the card to get in, it wouldn't let me out. I go in anyway and figure I'm just going to have to take my chances because for all I know, it registered that I put the card up and if I don't go in, I may have fucked up the sequence anyway.
The work day goes more smoothly than yesterday, but I decide to call the city parking people to see if I can deal w/it over the phone. I give her my name, my card number, and she says she fixed it on her computer so I can drive in or out willy nilly. I go to lunch and stop off to buy the child a little bucket of nibblers from Mrs. Fields to go w/her birthday present. I go back to the office and finish out my day, and it's pretty good.
Then I get back to the parking garage.
Of course, the card doesn't work and I can't get out. So I back up and drive down to one of the attended booths and explain the situation. She radios her supervisor. The supervisor seems unaware of the procedures the parking people follow from an administrative standpoint and tells her what I already know -- that I'm gonna have to sit there backing up everyone else trying to get out of the garage while they write me a ticket (an IOU that I have to go clear up w/their administrative office while they fix my card because their fucking facilities were not working correctly). Did I mention I left a half hour early to get a jump on our plans w/the birthday child? Yeah, well I lost 10-15 minutes of it dealing with this.
So I get out of the garage and beam myself home, and as I head for the bathroom what do I see but more kitty vomit. I don't know if it's just too damned hot and she's shedding too much and therefore sucking down a bunch of hair or what -- but she didn't even confine it to one spot today. Three spots that I can see offhand. Vomit vomit vomit. Fuck. And I need to wrap the birthday child's gift because the husband says the ex is supposed to drop the child off between 5 & 6. So I wrap the gift, write out the card, change and start getting ready to take her out to dinner. The phone rings at quarter after 5 and the child says her mom wants to know when we are going to pick her up. Uh, well, her mother said she was going to drop her off so we hadn't planned on picking her up. But either she forgot that or changed her mind and so she has the child call to ask what's up. The phone craps out and when she calls back she says her mom wants to know if we can pick her up. Now, in all honesty it's not a problem -- she lives about 2 miles away -- but it seems like her mind changes w/the breeze whereas when I say I'm going to do something I goddamned do it. If we say we're going to drop her off at 5, we drop her off at 5. If we say we're going somewhere, we go. With this one, she will say I'll be there to pick up/drop off in an hour and she will show up 3 hours later. And I know damned well there would be an international incident if the shoe were on the other foot.
I don't usually talk about this stuff, or write about it, because I don't want to stir things up -- I like not being in court, and we have 7 years to go before we don't have to worry about any of that shit anymore. And though I know it could be a lot worse (a LOT worse), sometimes those little things grate on me because it's just a basic lack of consideration.
Anyway.
To add insult to injury, I am walking from my room past a scrolly iron and glass table in the hall and I feel something tug at my top. This top has a bow on the side with long strings hanging down on the left-hand side, and one of the strings got caught in a scroll and pulled the fuck off my blouse. No more bow. Are you fucking kidding me? Now I gotta sew that thing or live w/out it. And I still have to clean up cat vomit.
I almost forgot the topper: the SMUD (electric) bill came today. Yeah, it was THREE HUNDRED TEN DOLLARS. I thought maybe they hadn't registered our last payment or something. Nope, that's the bill for the last month. Now I know we've had some hot goddamned days, but this is INSANE. Our house is under 1600 square feet. So basically between gasoline and electricity, we're spending more than EIGHT HUNDRED DOLLARS a month. WHAT THE FUCK?! I mean, really.
WHAT
THE
FUCK.
Any one of these things would be no big deal (except the money stuff, which just makes me mad) -- and in all honesty, I'm okay now that I've settled down some and had a very large beer. But one obstacle after another after another makes for a very cranky girl. The past two days have just been a more magnified span of the same old shit. I'm tired of the dishes, tired of the laundry, tired of the bills, tired of the commute, tired of spot cleaning the carpet, tired of the dust, tired of not having enough time or energy to work out, tired of thinking about money, tired of the endless list of to's. Tired, tired, TIRED!
So that's my rant. Maybe now that I've got it out I can start fresh tomorrow. Tomorrow I am going to the State Fair with my dad and I'm just not going to worry about any of this shit. Today's a wash. I'm done!
posted by PlatinumGirl at 9:17 PM
3 Comments:
Wow. That was an excellent rant. Sounds as if the weekend came just in time. Hope you have fun at the fair.
That was an exciting two days. Look on the bright side though, you have a house, electric is ON, you have a car to cart the child here and there, etc..
I hear ya on being tired though. Large beers always help. Hope the fair and next week are much better though.
The cat vomit is gross. I couldn't deal.
Gary: I did, thanks.
Peachy: You are right on all counts. After the news I got today, my rant seems a little self-indulgent.
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