"Swanky!" which now translates as.....

Gay.

Who knew?

My best friend Marcia (she of the east-coast, near-Philly, why-haven't-we-transferred-out-there? variety) had a gift certificate to her choice of a list of restaurants. And a BABYSITTER.

So being fearless (and time-constrained) she briefly scanned her choices, and settled on a little bar-restaurant billed as

"Swanky, stylish restaurant & bar scene. Brunch & dinner served"

Really, how far off the mark could this married, middle-aged, parents of 2 actually BE?

.......... ummmmmmm.......... judging by the baskets of 'Trojans' helpfully provided outside of each of the 4 co-ed bathrooms..... pretty damn far off the mark.

And hey, I always thought her husband was kinda hot, apparently I'm not alone.

Well, OK, I'm alone for MY people!

Well anyway, other than the cranking-loud grinding gay bar, they had a lovely time in the tiny but elegant courtyard dining area, and a very lovely meal. And Marcia's husband was CHECKED OUT, a fact he little appreciated.

Marcia says she'd go back for the food... probably WITHOUT her significant other. Too bad I'm all the way out HERE in the midwest.

Because stuff like this almost NEVER happens to us! (well, except for that time I got hit on by a TRULY gorgeous blonde woman IN the ladies locker room of the Chicago Yacht Club, Belmont station.....still shaking my head over that one...

Because face it, I'm kinda hot hot-ish. Or well preserved.

OK, I'm not Marcia's HUSBAND or anything.........

I hate Home %*(@#*&!_#?! Depot

Oh. My. God.

And to think I used to own stock in that place!!!!

Anyone else just LOATHE the self-checkout? I had to run out for stuff, with the kids, and I go there so rarely I forgot what a HUGE PITA it is.

#1 - NO employees are actually around to ask 'where is X'?
#2 - If you DO find someone, they will tell you they don't know where X is anyway, then just WALK AWAY.
#3 - the self checkout (shudder).

Ahh, the self checkout. It never works BY ITSELF (which is the WHOLE POINT, isn't it??). They have a permanent staff of the annoying "help at self-checkout" employee there to help with the 4 self-checkouts that never let you just SELF-CHECKOUT. That outta tell you something.

Apparently, it won't work because my son was just barely leaning against it. When annoying "help at self-checkout" employee arrives, this is what she tells me. So I move #1A.

#1A is pissed off.
#1B takes his place, and won't move. I have to damn near YANK her out of between the checkout and the cart....

...and she starts to MELT DOWN and SHRIEK.

AND I LET HER. Because these HD assholes employees DESERVE to be annoyed too, at this point!

Then I try to pay. I push the buttons. NOTHING happens. Annoying "help at self-checkout" employee arrives AGAIN (she's been avoiding me because of #1B, who is still shrieking and turning purple-ish now) and asks "Did you push the button?"

YES I DID. HOW many times do I need to push it?

So we leave, #1A grumbling, #1B shrieking, and me muttering under my breath IN A VERY LOUD WAY that we are NEVER COMING BACK HERE. There is a Lowe's RIGHT across the street!!!

Deep breath.
Better now.

Is it JUST ME?

Tag, I'm it! The ABC's of Meme Award...

I got a little bloggie award and a tag for a meme!! Ree over at TheHotfessional gave it to me - my first! An award!! Woot!!

I have very little idea what any of it means (and look mom, no rules!) so I'm going to fake it and try to do this anyway!

A. Attached or single? Attached - very, very legally attached ;) Although with the new reorg at work, we'll be in the same 500 square feet. Which will, I'm sure, do wonders for our marriage!
B. Best friend? Marcia (Marcia Marcia). Although everyone else calls her Marci, I KNEW HER WHEN!
C. Cake or pie? CAKE. Unless it is my bourbon pecan pie....
D. Day of choice? Friday. Something about Friday just breathes relief...
E. Essential item? Undereye concealer. Or maybe sunscreen?
F. Favorite color? Red red ruby redrum red.
G. Gummy bears or worms? These are the choices????
H. Hometown? Chardon Ohio, I guess?
I. Indulgence? Pedicures. And professional gray covering haircolor!
J. January or July? July, duh, sailing!
K. Kids? Two. And I will NEVER DO THIS AGAIN (pregnancy and birth, not the kids. Kids are good!)
L. Life isn’t complete without? Wireless internet and rum.
M. Marriage date? 7/5
N. Number of brothers & sisters? 1 sister
O. Oranges or apples? both - while in sangria. Otherwise, forget it.
P. Phobias? The dark!
Q. Quotes? “ A good friend helps you move. A REALLY good friend helps you move a body."~Anonymous
AND
"Measure what is measurable. Make measurable what is not" ~ Galileo Galilei

R. Reasons to smile? My sons smile, my daughters giggle, and the fizz from a fresh bottle of tonic...
S. Season of choice? Autum.
T. Tag seven peeps! Tagging and handing out bling-bling below
U. Unknown fact about me? I have exceptional hearing. When I did the DODMERB physical, the Navy guys CRIED that I was a girl and couldn't serve in the submarine fleet. But my hearing is so good outside of the range of the human voice, I can barely make out what anyone is saying due to the background noise. (Someone upstairs has a very very twisted sense of humor...)
V. Vegetable? Sugar snap peas a al Costco
W. Worst habits? Biting my nails.
X. X-ray or ultrasound? Too many of each to count...
Y. Your favorite food? Sushi!
Z. Zodiac sign? Aquarius with Capricorn rising. Apparently, the most likely sign to commit suicide! (who writes this crap, anyway??)

I got this cool award!!


My taggings go to:
Hok over at hokgardner
Barb over at Sothethingis
Andrea over at rickandreawalshfamily
Jill at DaisyBags

Whirrrr, whirrrr, whirrrrrrr..........

But where is the 'clunk, clunk'??

We have a new fridge. Because the dishwasher died. That makes sense, right? Well, it also has to do with the refacing of the kitchen cabinets.....

I'll 'splain here..... the dishwasher died (you know that). So OddJob decides that not only do we have to replace it (duhhh) we have to replace it with stainless.

To match all the other WHITE appliances. (eyeroll, please)

For some reason, I went along with this. Because the dishwasher is on the OPPOSITE side of the kitchen from the fridge and the in-wall ovens.

So not long after, as we are FINALLY REPLACING the gawd-awful pickled oak cabinets that we have both LOATHED for 4 years, the cabinet guy asks "so, replacing the rest of the appliances too?"

And OddJob says "hell YEAH" in the same breath that I say "hell NO".

Guess who won?

The only part that I won was about 2 days before stainless-monstrosity-fridge is due to arrive, when the fridge guy calls saying "Uh, youse guys know that fridge you ordered? Yeah. They like don't make it anymore. But I'se gots a floor model, howse about 200 bucks off if its got no dings or nuttin'?"

Well why not. Sure, knock $200 of this thing. I played no part in its' picking anyway. Anyways?

Whatever.

So here we have a mahhh-velous magnetic-stainless French-door (ooooh la la) fridge with ice and water in the door. And it PLAYS MUSIC!! Oh yes, the kids press a button and it plays a little tune (dading DaaaahDING!) as it switches modes from ice to water to... some other kind of water? Heck if I know.

Aaaaannnnyyyyyway.. here I stand, I've Da-dinged my way to the ice function, and it's whirring away to beat the band.

But no clunk clunk.

This is the LAST TIME that OddJob buys a major appliance unsupervised. All flash. No function.

crap. What does that say about ME????

Rage

Rage. I has it.

Had a LOVELY chat with the Cook County Police Monday morning, about 2 AM. Our mailbox had been destroyed. AGAIN. That's twice in 8 days.

Seriously??

Here's how it went (cue the 'way back when' music).... After I came home seasick , I had a glass (or 2) of wine with OddJob, took a Lunesta and went to bed.

Woke up at about 1:30 AM to the sound of... fireworks? Lifted my head and looked out the window



Where I saw: nothing.

So I went back to sleep (kinda noticing that OddJob wasn't IN bed with me, and I think lights were on in the house?) but totally not caring but too sleepy...

About 20 minutes later, I hear a RACKET.

Look outside window again (OK, like this, but dark like 2 AM)



Only this time, there is a total piece of shit somewhat beatup, ancient silver vehicle that I can ALMOST see in front of our mailbox.



What, you can't see a mailbox? (THANK YOU. Please explain this to the Cops when you see them).




It's right THERE. Behind the tree. Next to where the car was.

Anyyywayyyyy.......... from what I could HEAR, at least one kid was working feverishly, BY HAND, not a baseball bat to be heard, destroying our mailbox and ripping the post out of the ground.



UNDER the streetlamp.

They may be destructive, but at least they're stupid.

I SPRING out of bed and run downstairs (again noting that all the lights are on, the front door is open, and OddJob is busily sawing logs, passed out on the couch, totally oblivious).

At this point, either the moronic kids were done destructing, or they saw me, but they hopped into their muffler-less piece of crap car and took off.

Oddly, I did NOT get a good description of the vehicle or the kids. Thanks to the great view of our mailbox from the front door.



Which would be like this, only darker at 2 AM.

So I start yelling like a banshee, which only SLIGHTLY rouses OddJob, and I'm yelling things like 911 and COPS and KIDS and MAILBOX...

... and he looks at me as if he was thinking Who ARE you? blearily, doesn't speak, and slowly walks UPSTAIRS. (We will discover later that he had a glass of wine WITH me - then finished the bottle and had 2 more. Way to go there, OddJob! <-- insert eyeroll here).

I'm still fuming and raging and tired and drugged (Lunesta, that's my story and I'm sticking to it) and just RAGING. I dial 911, then hang up thinking "well that's dumb, I'll just google the Cook County Sheriff".. not realizing that if you call 911 and hang up, they call you BACK.

The phone rings, it's 911. Oh crap. So I give them my totally reasonable sounding and completely coherent version of events.

At which point OddJob comes BACK downstairs (he's apparently been upstairs, wandering around, for about 10 minutes) and announces triumphantly:

"The kids aren't in the mailbox! They're in their ROOMS!"

Seriously, I was almost widowed at that point.

Anywayyyyy................. after a conversation with 911, they send over...... easily the most desperately bored police officer I've ever met. This guy wouldn't LEAVE. He took my shut up OddJob, I made way more sense than YOU did totally coherent statement, wrote up an incident report, and left. Finally.

Oh, and they took out the neighbors mailbox too. Only they weren't home. So we took the pieces and left them on their front porch, leading them to believe that the hooligans responsible were at least REMARKABLY polite.

And a week goes by. And nothing.

And then - Monday AM, 1:30, I wake up to see..........a total piece of shit somewhat beatup, ancient silver vehicle behind my tree, and a kid working like the devil to destroy our NEW mailbox, BY HAND.



Literally, there's superglue holding it together.

I am STILL torqued off. Even figured out how to rig up an ancient webcam as a motion sensing detector and got these pics Tuesday night



and this


Yes, I know. They suck.

What I REALLY need is a decent focal length IR video camera connected to a joystick and a gatling gun.

But I'm betting that's illegal. Sigh.

Because you KNOW these idiots will be BACK. (fume, fume).

So if you have any GREAT ideas (that won't injure the mail carrier) now is the time!!

Inner Peas

Things I need: more veggies, and inner peace.

Been a-ragin' lately over various enraging and moronic life thingies. So I will be posting about the raging, once I'm done raging.

Kind of like the classic line from Tootsie "I'll pick you up at 3 and enrage you".

So I'll leave you with a little something from #1a

North Wind: 1, Jolly Roger:0

Seasickness.

Or should that be 'lake sickness'?

North wind: 1 Jolly Roger: 0

The lake gods were against me on Saturday. The boat was finally back from the Race to Mackinac and the 100-miler, and I even brought new rail meat crew with me (very cute guy from work).

However, Zenda was against me. And our goddess-like foredeck crew. And the owners' visiting-from-out-of-town daughter. Because north winds (here) equal BIG WAVES (aka 'chop') which is a godawful somewhat unpleasant sailing experience. So Glinda, good witch of the north, you are officially on notice that you are NOT WELCOME here anymore!

We left the harbor on an absolutely stunningly gorgeous Chicago summer day (and lots of Lollapalooza music) and headed out. As soon as we left the harbor breakwater, the CHOP HIT. Ouch. Since we were motoring, the boat would 'fall' down the face of a wave to a horrific THUUDDDDDDDD! And the crash would cause all these lovely-sounding reverberations through the boat. Nice.

We're about 50% of the way out to to race circle when two of the owners and myself start discussing just HOW MUCH we really want to do this. It's not a 'boat of the year' (BOY) race for us (translation - it doesn't really count), the wind is blowing 20 knots (right at the edge of "white knuckling it" weather), slated to build in intensity, and we have 3 very new and fairly useless crew out of 9.

After a lot of teeth gritting (and myself and foredeck goddess turning even more verdant shades of seasick) we decide to just bag it, head in, and eat.

Which was great, except for the "jolly roger sitting at the rail preparing to heave" for an hour.

Not a lot of eating for me (what it takes to succeed at amy diet... sigh..) But the "newly hot" crew from work LOVED it. Which could be bad. I'm highly susceptible to "hot guy" distraction while sailing!