don't worry, cricket's okay.

To: comm-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@craiglist.org
Re: I am moving and my black cat needs a new home

(5/18/2006)

Are you still looking for a home for your kitty?

I am a 33 y.o. hairdresser living in a nice-sized studio, and I'm a total homebody, so if I'm not at work, I'm at home.

I can definitely afford to get a cat regular medical care if needed, good toys, a cat condo, and quality foodstuffs. I've even been seen giving a cat water from the Brita pitcher.

The last cat I have had was very hands-off, and spent a lot of time skulking and hiding, and was only affectionate on her terms.

Someone lovey would be a nice change of pace.

Please let me know -- you can email me here, or you can call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx.

Thanks

pixie

Hi pixie,
He's still available for adoption. He's really sweet and playful. And LOVES attention. If you are interested, I will also provide you with all of his supplies (i.e. litterbox and food dishes). I've attached photos of him. Let me know what you think.... THanks!
S.

I am still definitely interested. And I'd love to meet him!

Great! You are more than welcome to come over and meet him. I work a regular 9 to 5 but, I am available in the evenings. I live in Wicker Park.
What works for you?

I could even meet him today, as I have the day off, or I could meet him sometime tomorrow after 7pm. Otherwise it'd have to be next week sometime.

Well, you are more than welcome to come over tonight if you like. Please call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx. Thanks!

Just to let you know,

We made it home okay, and Max's first official act was to bite through my nail, acrylic and all (just deep enough to bleed a bunch, but no real trauma), and then go hide under my bed, where he remains.

He finally stopped growling, so that's good sign.

I'm just gonna leave him be, and let him work it out on his own, until he wants my involvement.

I think we'll both survive, so no worries.

pixie

Hi pixie,
Thanks for the update.... yeah, give him some time. It took him a little
bit to warm up to me.
But he should be okay by the weekend.
Take care!
S.
..........

(6/3/06)

Hi pixie,
How are things going with Max? Let me know when you get a chance... thanks!

S.

(6/4/06)

S.,

After Max bit me and went to hide under the bed, he proceeded to growl, hiss, spit, and make some of the ugliest noises I've ever heard come out of a cat.

Later he came out and growled at me in person, hissing and swatting at me, while I was watching television, unprovokedly from several yards away.

He pretty much scared the crap out of me, and considering the damage he did to my finger, I was even more terrified when he leapt upon me in the middle of the night and started growling, hissing, swatting and spitting at me, before racing back under the bed, where he proceeded to growl and make very angry cat noises any time he heard the slightest noise, or seemed to think he'd heard a noise. I pretty much didn't get any sleep at all.

Friday morning, greeted by more growls, noises, and hissing, I decided it was a good time to start carrying around a yard stick, just in case he decided to take another bite out of me.

I left food and water, went to work, forced to wear a vinyl glove on my left hand all day because the bite wound would not stop bleeding. It also felt like I was being stabbed by a thousand needles every time the finger touched or bumped something. I did quite a bit of hair that day, so I went through about a dozen or so bandaids and a couple of gloves, before I noted the red streak tracing up the side of my finger.

A couple of hours later, it had creeped up the back of my hand to my wrist bone, when I decided it was in my best interest to cancel my last appointment and go to the hospital to have my hand looked at by a doctor.

I ended up staying in the hospital for a little over 25 hours, hooked up to an IV, woken and/or bothered every 2-3 hours to have my temperature and blood pressure taken, sharing a room with an insane, surly, screeching old woman, my only entertainment being Saturday afternoon television, which pretty uniformly sucks, and watching the catheter bag attached to the side of her bed drip urine on the floor.

I had to call work and have them cancel or reschedule all of my appointments for Saturday, which is my busiest day -- and I was booked solid the entire day, telling everyone that I was in the hospital being pumped full of antibiotics for a vicious cat bite.

Saturday afternoon, after the line widened and crept up to my elbow in a painful stripe of red, a team of doctors decided that after 3 horrible hospital meals, no sleep courtesy of the old lady snoring like a lumberjack during her frequent bouts of snoozing, and my constant begging and pleading to be allowed to stop being in the hospital, despite them wanting to keep me another day, it was safe for me to go home, as long as I promised to return if any complications should arise.

The concensus of the medical staff was also that I should return Max to you first thing on Monday, which I agreed with wholeheartedly.

I was then given a prescription for 10 days worth of ridiculously strong antibiotics, and eventually released back into the wild.

I don't know if you've seen Pet Sematary, but Max continued to bear a striking resemblance to Church, post-resurrection from the evil Indian burial ground.

My warm welcome home was snarls and growls and whatnot from under the bed.

I checked on the food and water situation, and then went to bed, yard stick at my side, cocooned in a protective layer of pillows, hopefully to make up some of the last couple of days worth of lost sleep.

Bright and early Sunday morning, I got up, yard stick in hand, and went to go use the facilities. As I started to flush, I noticed a large, bristling ball of angry in the hallway, immediately between me and freedom.

I carefully washed my hands, dried them on a towel, and as I turned to face the hallway, Max continued his noisy antics before hurling himself sideways into the closet door, popping it open.

He proceeded to knock over most of the stacked crates of clothing, as well as tear down some of the hanging ones, before jumping back out into the middle of the hallway, ears back, fur bristling even more menacingly, as he slowly advanced towards me, yowling angrily, pausing every couple of nanoseconds to spit and swat at the air between us.

Not quite sure exactly what to do, I decided to snag a pair of pants off of the floor and flip them over him, holding them in place with the stick while I ran the other direction. Which worked, and seemed to make Max even angier.

I guess that he was angrier only because the noises he was making as he shot past me and under the bed were at least twice as horrifying as the ones he made the first night, which until that point had been the scariest cat noises I'd heard.

We're talking trapped and caged wild big cat angry. Times at least 2.

I called my mom for advice, and she suggested getting the cat out of the house then and there, to which I reluctantly agreed.

I put on several layers of clothing and some gloves, and tried poking at Max to get him to flee the bed, but ended up having to climb under the bed after him, because he was out of the reach of my yard stick.

When I finally touched him with one hand, he made a noise that most closely resembled a person screaming bloody murder, at a volume that I am sure suprised the neighbors for several units above, below, and around me.

He then shot out from under the bed and ran into the kitchen, where I thought I had him cornered.

My original intent was to shoo him back into the carrier, but he didn't feel agreeable enough to assist me in that venture, so I followed him slowly into the kitchen.

When he saw me, he shot up straight into the air, landed in the sink, spun around, and launched himself at me, managing to hook one claw about a quarter inch below my lower lip, just a little to the left of center, the tip of when exited my lip just at the lip line, where the flesh starts to turn pink.

I managed to pin him against my torso, facing away from me, with my right arm, as I tried to carefully unhook his claw from my face, which took a couple of minutes. In the meantime, he scratched the hell out of both of my cheeks, clawed me so hard in some places that he left bruises along with scrapes, and sliced up my wrists between sleeves and gloves.

I somehow managed to wrangle him across the room and into the carrier, closing the door, and going into the bathroom to see what damage Max had wrought.

Most of the facial scratches were extremely bloody, but superficial, and I think that only one of the wrist wounds will scar significantly, but the claw through the lip left an oozing slit in my face that isl definitely healing into visible scar, with a small lump of scar tissue on the interior. It's gross and tactile.

When I came out of the bathroom, the carrier was shaking violently, much like the velociraptor crate and the beginning of Jurassic Park, to use another cinematic reference.

I decided that before I would go to the ER again to have my face patched up, I would get Max out of the apartment, and I didn't want to leave him in the car, because what if they wanted me to stay another night?

I initially took him to Anti-Cruelty, but was turned away because they wouldn't take a biter. I was instead referred to Animal Control, somewhere in the 27th block of South Western.

With much regret and many tears, I decided that it was best to take him to Animal Control, and let them deal with him.

After filling out all of the paperwork, and sadly telling him goodbye, I cried for10 minutes, waiting for the man that took him away to return with the carrier.

When he did, he asked me how long I'd had the cat, and when asked why, told me that he'd worked there a long time, and that in his experience, Max was the most vicious cat that he'd ever handled. He said it took TWO grown adult professional men to subdue him enough to get him from carrier to cage. And he said that I was extremely lucky that a few scrapes and a couple of future scars are the only thing I got out of it.

That Sunday, he was put on a ten-day rabies watch, after which he would most likely be humanely euthanised.

Which would have happened during the middle of this last week.

Let me say at this time, that I never in all of this blamed Max for the circumstances. I'm pretty sure that being given away to a stranger and taken to a new environment just snapped whatever final string of sanity in his adorable head that was holding him all together in one piece. Clearly, there was something fundamentally wrong there to start with, and I'm not sure exactly who is to blame for that, whether it was nature or nurture.

I made a very poor value judgement in agreeing to take him, considering that he was much larger of a cat than I really wanted, and that he was so particularly standoffish to me in the first place. I've never met a cat that didn't like me, and I suppose that like you, I just thought that he'd get used to me, and while never a lovey lap cat, he'd at least make a reliable companion.

And you made a very poor value judgement in giving him to me. You had to have some gut instinct that Max wasn't going to do well with a new owner, and you should have followed that instinct.

Never once in this entire experience did I ever witness your description of him as "He's really sweet and playful. And LOVES attention." to be at all accurate. Not even when I was at your apartment in the first place.

At first I didn't contact you to let you know what was going on because I was angry, and there was nothing you could have done to save him.

Max was broken. Maybe not all the way at first, but I think in retrospect, that somewhere between Wicker Park and Edgewater Beach, he snapped.

I didn't tell you at first because I was angry, but then I eventually decided it would be easier not to tell you, because that way you could continue to believe in your heart that he was okay. That he got to my house, settled in splendidly, and after I'm done typing this note to let you know that everything's great, we're going to go play with some wonderful new cat toy I got at Petsmart. Then you could enjoy your move to Seattle, and not worry about past things.

But I also decided that if you asked, I would tell you the truth.

The truth is, at the end of things, he was all wide-eyed and cowed, a circle of white completely surrounding his irises. He was mewling and butting his head against the carrier and I was scratching him on the side of his head, telling him he was a good boy, and that I was sorry it had to be this way. I scritched him under his chin, and I gave him away to a man I don't know, while I blubbered and snuffled like an idiot.

Then I drove to the ER and got patched up again.

The truth is, we're both sad, but I'm the one with the $1k in deductibles and co-pays that my insurance won't cover.

pixie

why the canadian girl deserved to lose.

Whilst channel surfing tonight, I stumbled across ABC's live broadcast of the Scripps Spelling Bee.

It was down to two girls, a girl named Katherine Close, from New Jersey, and a girl from Canada, whose name I never caught. Or maybe I did, but it wasn't mainstream enough for me to remember.

The rules are such that if you miss your word, not only must the remaining participant spell her word correctly, but she must then spell the word in the next round correctly.

In round 18, the Canadian girl was given the word, Welschmertz, which basically means "ironic pessimism," and is German in origin.

Okay, I've never heard of the damned word before, nor would I probably have gotten the spelling completely correct, but I definitely wouldn't have spelled it Velschmertz.

Because after saying the word over and over, asking a zillion times to have it repeated, and some furious hand scribbling, that's how she spelled it.

Even I know that in German, words that start with w are often pronounced v. Vagner didn't write the Ring Cycle. The Veimar days never happened.

Then Katharine Close got her two words correct, the last being Ursprache, which is "protolanguage: a language that is the recorded or hypothetical ancestor of another language or group of languages." Ursprache is also clearly Germanic in origin.

Go teen USA!

As an aside, I would also like to point out that kundalini is a pretty pussy word to have in a spelling bee. Yoga's pretty fucking popular these days, and that there's yoga terminology.

musings not about my hair.

Monday, as I was driving home from work, I realized that I had somehow moved from bright sunny daytime, to moody foggy dark daytime, all in the course of about 3 blocks.

Looking back in the mirror, I could see the sunshine beaming down upon the earth behind me, bright pools of light.

I looked east to the lake, and realized that I could only see a narrow band of beach, breakers, and a bank of white nothingness.

Above and west of me, tall buildings were engulfed by fog, looking half-consumed, and reminding me of a Stuart Davis song, "...chow down, chow down the buildings..."

Once, someone told me that she lived high enough in a building facing the lake that often times her view was of empty quiet nothingness.

Eerie blank whiteness wielding the primitive powers that makes stories like the original version of "The Fog" stick in your memory.

I was half tempted to write down some sort of epic poem to the strange weather in this city, but the ennui won out, and I instead watched television.

..........

Watching Aninal Planet lately has served to implant the idea that kittens need rescued from bad situations, and places like the pound. They need homes filled with love.

It has also made me more aware of Cricket's behaviors. She's always been strange, but she's gotten so clingy and meow-y lately, I wonder if she's in need of companionship -- someone to burn off her excess energy, wear her out, and keep her from being lonely when I'm not here.

I am stricken with kitten fever.

Not the tiny mewling baby kitten kind, but the gangly litterbox-trained adolescent version.

I want to get Cricket a kitty of her own.

Cricket could lord it over her kitten until it got bigger than she is, and then she could get the well-deserved smackdown that she has earned many times over by then.

But I have concerns as well.

I am afraid that Cricket might hurt the kitty when I am not here.

Or they could create so much collateral damage from fighting that I'd need to pack away anything breakable forever.

Or worse, that she would just hide and skulk around to avoid the kitty, and probably start acting out more, making the sink peeing, the bathtub whizzing, and the front door marking the least of my worries.

Cricket is a strange one -- she has the capacity to get used to things and warm up to them, eventually accepting them. Case in point, she now attacks and sleeps upon the Flokati rug I got at IKEA, where before she avoided it like the plague, scrambling over furniture and making stunningly gymnastic leaps from here to there. And it's a damned big rug.

However, she is also completely capable of carrying a burning hatred that will never be extinguished, deep in her weird little heart. For the first 8 or so months of her life, she was in the same house with Chase the dog, and never once did she accept him. She mostly just ignored him, or gave him the stink eye and a very wide berth. To this day, 3 years later, she still swats and hisses at him.

She still won't accept anyone's touch except those of my family members, and she's truly only affectionate to me and Dad. (I think she pays him attention because he's not really hot on cats, and it's either that she senses a kindred spirit and the sharing of a common bond, or simply the expression of a perverse need to antagonize someone that doesn't like cats, because she is both evil and a cat. And she has to suck up to me or else I might stop feeding her, or possibly introduce her to the hard life of the common alley cat.)

I still want another kitty.

And if N. hadn't had to get back to Chicago so quickly from another pointless management meeting in Wheaton, we just might have stopped off at a PetSmart and picked up a cute black 6-month old kitty that looks just like Cricket except without the random white hairs.

Instead, after dropping N. off at the nail salon, I bought the weasel-bunny a new litter pan.

............

I also want a Yaris.

I don't need one, and other than knowing that they are fairly inexpensive, small, cute, have decent gas mileage, and are made by Toyota, they're completely foreign to me. Ironically, I could get a brand-new, tricked out Yaris now for less than I paid for my gently-used Camry 5 years ago.

almost a trifecta

The other day, I took a Target bag and filled it full of packing materials and old catalogues, with the intention of throwing it away.

As you can imagine, Cricket won't get the hell off of it.

A plastic sack filled with crinkly plastic and crumpled up paper?

The only way it could possibly be better is if it were a Binny's bag inside a Trader Joe's brown paper bag filled with crinkly plastic and crumpled up paper.

muse my hair.

I love my hair short. It is a short, bleach-blonde pixie crop that stays the hell out of my eyes, and takes about 60 seconds to style.

But then I see these pictures, and I decide that I really like how my hair looks at that length.

Oh, and then, I remember that I had to look like this for a while to get to that length.

Which, I have to admit, is kinda scary.

And I'm not sure I'm ready for that kind of committment.

because i'm awesome

Earlier today, some lady called the salon, and immediately addressed me as "Sweetheart."

She sounded like she knew who I was, and I wracked my brain for a name.

I had absolutely no idea who it was, and I felt guilty for not recognizing someone that I know with some familiarity's voice.

I thought and thought, and then quit caring.

She asked if we still had the Mother's Day fragrance GWP, which I did confirm we still had, and then gave her the directions to our store from the Kennedy Expressway.

She also called me sweetheart a couple more times.

I still didn't know who she was, and it wasn't really important enough for me to worry about after I hung up the phone.

Like 5 hours later, she called back, and asked me where there were other stores located in Chicago.

I told her the locations of the other two in Chicago, and she asked me if there was one closer to Norridge.

I told her that there was one in Norridge, and proceeded to tell her exactly where it was, giving very precise and easy to understand directions, even pointing out a couple of stores in the area that would identify the location, in the event that she couldn't see that store's sign from the street.

She thanked me profusely, telling me that she'd talked to around 4 or 5 other stores, and they all wanted to send her to Oakbrook or thereabouts, which is far. She also said that most of the people weren't polite, and that they had acted very put upon when asked for directions.

I apologized for her negative experiences, and she thanked me again, saying that she felt like she should tell someone how great I was.

I laughed, and then she seriously asked me how to go about praising me on the record.

I gave her the number to the Help Desk, told her my name and title, and politely told her thank you, and wished her a good day.

About an hour later, we got an email from Guest Services saying that a woman had called to say what a nice and helpful person I was, that I had gone out of my way to help fully assist her, and that she felt I had singlehandedly turned what was for her a very negative experience dealing with The Company for Whom I Work into a very positive one, and that I deserved a lot of praise.

I printed out the email, and put it in my Work Praise file, which I keep just in case I need some good feedback some time.

Then I told everyone how awesome I was, because I totally am. I may not be the best or the brightest, but I am awesome in every way that I can be awesome.

Big head, you say? Well, not 20 minutes later, a random customer that I had helped a few weeks ago stopped me, thanked me for working with her for so long to find a product that fit her needs, and then shared that she totally LOVED the product I recommended.

I told her that I tried to be helpful every once in a while, and she said that I had been very helpful, and asked for my name.

I thanked her, and wished her a nice day.

I had originally set out to go to the office at the front of the store to submit an order for supplies, so as I walked past the GM to my predetermined destination, I loudly whispered, "Dude, I am still awesome," and then went inside the office.

The customer happened to ring out with the GM at the register right next to the office, so I got to enjoy the woman telling the GM about how great I was, and how I was an asset, and that I was nice and incredibly helpful, and about how I had spent a long time helping her replace a beloved but discontinued volumizer with one she actually liked better, Redken Weightlifter, several weeks earlier.

She raved about the product being fabu for another minute or so, and then went back to praising me.

The whole time I was in the office, with one of the LP Deputies searching for crime to prevent in the store by dividing his time between actual visual observation through the one-way mirror, and watching the monitors with eagle eyes, I kept saying how awesome I am, and even shared the fact that I am HOT in Vegas, which is another story for another time.

Somewhere in the middle of my ego-stroking, the GM shut the door completely (the lady couldn't hear me, but he could sort of make out what I kept saying), and I went back to working on the order.

A little while later, the DM came to pick up some paperwork from our store's office, where I was located, and she proceed to amusedly listen to me talk about how I had been given mad phat props for being so awesome TWICE in one day.

Then she high-fived me.

Because I'm awesome.

that bites.

Okay, as you may recall, I am missing a couple of teeth.

Once upon a time, I had braces.

But before I could get the braces put on, the dentist had to pull the first molars from both sides of my lower jaw -- they were baby teeth, and had no adult teeth below them.

So, thanks to the gaps in my jaw, which I was later informed would cost $1500 each to repair, I have a chunk missing out of my left second molar, and a chip in my right second molar. I also have a badly receded gumline along that area.

In order to protect my teeth from further breakage, and to prevent my gums from disappearing entirely, which they seem currently destined to do, I need to get a crown and an implant.

My cheap-ass insurance is only willing to pay like $750 of the roughly $1750 price, so I am really hoping the dentist's office has a payment plan.

Because pixie needs a new tooth, bitches.

well, that's just swell.

Last night right after I got all comfy and tucked away in bed, I had a sharp stabbing pain directly below the sternum, that radiated into my back below the shoulder blades. It seriously felt like someone had just knifed me.

As I tried to sit up, I started to feel all dizzy and clammy, and thought I might be nauseous, but wasn't entirely sure. I kinda stumble-walked to the bathroom, and hung my head over the toilet, but then decided the bathroom smelled really bad, and I didn't want to be in there.

I climbed back into bed, and tried to find a position that didn't feel like I was dying of something horribly painful, but ended up groaning, "Owwwww-unnnnhhh, that hurts worse," everytime I shifted my weight, which was about 20 times.

I seriously thought about calling Tifling to come and get me because I was dying and clearly needed to go to the hospital, but the phone was really far away from the bed. Plus, I'd have to buzz her into the building, and that would have required standing up clear across the room.

Somehow, I managed to find position that only really hurt, instead of really really really hurting, and passed out.

Today, I still have some pain below the sternum when the flesh is pressed downward, mostly to the right. My back also still hurts, almost in a band across my back. And it kicks Tylenol's sorry ass.

When I got home from work today, I typed in my symptoms and got hits for the following:

Hiatal hernias can cause pain behind the sternum, which can be aching or stabbing. "It sometimes feels like a sharp knife goes in unwarned! That can either be from the diaphragm being too stretched from a hernia, or it can be from a heart condition, since it's in the same vicinity."

Gallbladder issues can create similar symptoms, although generally located to the right of the sternum, in the upper right quadrant.

Aortic dissection, also called aortic aneurysm-dissecting. Symptoms can include sudden, severe, sharp, stabbing, tearing, or ripping chest pain located below the sternum, then radiates under the shoulder blades or to the back, intense anxiety, anguish pallor, rapid pulse, profuse sweating, dry skin/mouth, thirst, nausea and vomiting, dizziness, fainting, excessive yawning, clammy skin.

Okay, I do have a previously diagnosed small hiatal hernia, which could be the culprit, and most likely is.

However, the symptoms described by aortic dissection almost perfectly match everything I experienced last night. And I'm always yawning, seriously. I can't help but yawn. It drives me crazy.

Well, we'll just have to see.

the claws that catch...

God bless Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.

"...No other family has members as disparate and as weird as the claw family."
Courtesy of Animal Planet:

"Long ago, giant, odd-looking creatures roamed the plains and forests of South America. Larger than elephants, these behemoths wielded foot-long, dagger-like claws with their huge, muscular arms. They lived alongside our distant human ancestors, but less than 10,000 years ago they mysteriously disappeared. It seemed that the "fellowship of the claw" had come to an end. Or had it?

Giant ground sloths belonged to the Xenarthra family, an ancient and bizarre group of mammals that evolved shortly after the dinosaurs went extinct. Xenarthrans continue to roam South America today, and though none are as large as their supersized ancestors, they are truly among the strangest creatures on the planet.

Some have long, tube-like mouths with 2-foot-long tongues. Others have prehensile tails, which they use to grasp thin vines and stems. Some spend nearly their entire lives upside down, while others are coated in thick plates of armor. Together, they form the claw family, each sharing the characteristic of long, sharp claws.

Amazon Claws reveals the truth behind these weird and wonderful animals — anteaters, sloths and armadillos — with an intimacy like you've never seen before."

On what other show would the narrator describe a group of animals as being the most different from, and entirely stranger than any other family of animals?

Well, technically they are the Order Xenarthra (edentates), and are then subdivided into four animal families: Family Bradypodidae (three-toed sloths), Family Megalonychidae (two-toed sloths), Family Myrmecophagidae (anteaters), and Family Dasypodidae (armadillo).

And no, I didn't forget aardvarks. They belong to the Order Tubulidentata, and Family Orycteropodidae.

Of course, in true Wild Kingdom style, the armadillo loses her baby in a fire, and the sloth mother and her child fall into the river after a huge flood, where they are quickly swallowed whole by an enormous anaconda.

rambling stock talk.

I don't really dig spam, but sometimes I love the randomness of the spams I get.

I've been getting a lot of them lately regarding RRBK, De Greko, Inc. & HE-5 Resources, Corp.

And it isn't so much that the messages are interesting.

I am just amused by the randomness of the subject lines...

• plenty
• sprinter
• John Doe
• determined
• modern
• effortless hid

• haphazard arcade
• foil
• sweetly
• quash
• petty
• hypnosis botanical
• convict eaves
• king childbearing
• sheet so that
• frightful
• selling point
• bloodstain matron of honor
• gunshot
• correspondingly
• forefinger preemptive
• taxpayer attentively
• rode
• eccentricity
• boundless
• prosperous
• ensconce uproar
• warehouse
• cheefully
• odd Tuesday
• morale
• waterfront
• bottleneck
• demanding innocently
• anyone mummy
• acting
• elite
• load Protestant
• seasonal
• suitcase grocery store
• Insights Newsletter
• aspire satirical
• racetrack
• self-defeating worry
• extravagantly uncover
• wheat
• noticeably
• stockade
• neatly
• shrinkage
• arraign
• agility
• forge
  
• fitness
• frankfurter hundred
  
• 
  

Not that all of them are so entertaining, but I do have to admit that I particularly enjoy "haphazard arcade," "hypnosis botanical," and "bloodstain matron of honor."

"Forefinger preemptive" is also pretty good.

it absolutely figures.

This morning, N. and I drove to Naperville, for Salon Manager training.

We were there to learn the new interviewing methodology, as handed down by Corporate, which was intended to supplement the recruiting methodology that we'd covered 3 weeks earlier.

Despite the fact that the existing recruiting and interviewing standards are pretty fine as they are. But whatever. Not in charge, have no say. Move on.

N. had appropriated her store's "Staffing Binder," since we now take all applications online and have no need to store paper copies anymore.

And I decided that was a great idea, so I wouldn't have several file folders of whatnot about generalized recruiting, and stuff like specific stylists information. Plus. we were given some handouts that really have no home, but would be great in a binder like that.

As everyone touched base on how recruiting was going, I mentioned that I was concerned because no one I'd directed to apply online had done so. It was suggested that I focus on following up with the stylists that I had already spoken to, and go back through my older application and recruiting files to touch base with people that had applied in the last year or so.

I decided I'd get on that first thing when I went in to work this afternoon, and felt all good and motivated to do the part of my job that I like the least.

Imagine my surprise when I took down the "Staffing Binder" from the shelf of binders, only to discover that the Admin had cleaned out the contents, as per an organizational Corporate directive from the prior week.

I can see throwing out the store applications that were like 6 months old, but to go through and toss over 2 years of applications, contact information, notes about stylists, stylist leads, and the like that belonged to the salon, without asking anyone, boggles my mind.

One of my pay stubs from like 2 years ago was recently discovered behind the filing cabinet, and then immediately put in my in/out box, for criminy's sake.

And of course, not only did the trash get taken to the dumpster this morning, but the dumpster was also emptied by a garbage truck shortly thereafter.

Which leaves me in the position of having to start over from scratch, which I suppose is sort of a good thing.

And I get to tell the DM that I couldn't follow up with anyone, because my files have magically disappeared in a fit of spring cleaning.

It would figure that immediately after I finally g0t off my slack ass and bothered to file all my applications, assessments, leads, etc, after having it all sit around for months in a variety of places, and immediately before I got all motivated to actually use all of that information for the powers of good, it got pitched.

Because that's how my life works.

In other news, I also received a letter today from Capitol One, informing me that because of my excellent credit history with their company, I was eligible for some large, extremely high interest loans they were offering customers.

And me? I hate Capitol One with a passion that burns with the fire of ten thousand suns.

fyi:

I will not be around my computer at all Wednesday through Sunday afternoon, so if'n you've got something of great import to tell me about, you'll have to call me.

And if you don't know my number, you probably don't need to call me.

Just make a comment or drop me an email.

Ciao.

dear kenmore, maytag & whirlpool:

Washing machines should have a "mend" cycle.

That way, when you toss an intact dirty shirt into the laundry, should the seams become unravelled on both sides in the same place during the wash cycle, revealing an astoundingly symmetrical lack of structural integrity, and it isn't noticed when you remove the shirt from the dryer, fold it, put it away, and then later wear it, one of your clients won't point out the fact that your shirt is split at the seams on the left side.

Then when you tell this story to one of your cow-orkers, s/he won't also then point out that your shirt seam is split in the exact same place on the right side, but didn't say anything because s/he thought that it was built that way, what with both sides open at the seams in the same place and way and all.

Because, let me tell you, if I was going to design peekaboo side slits into a shirt, I certainly wouldn't choose to expose a random 2 inch section of flank, almost midway between the armpit and navel.

Not that I would really consider designing such an odd feature into any hypothetical item of apparel that I might create, but still.

As an aside, there should obviously be a "leave torn" cycle, so that you don't end up with expensive designer jeans that come replete with cute little patches midthigh or on the knees, or don't have one ass cheek hanging out, as God and the designer intended.

special edition tiny

I went down to Q101 to pick up my special edition RHCP iPod, and got it a little too easily.

I showed up to the studio, told the woman squirreled away behind the reception wall of bulletproof material who I was, she presumably called the promotions department, and some dude showed up to hook me up with my prize.

When I had originally spoken to the lady from the promotions department, she had told me that I needed to provide a photo id and my social security card.

And I brought them along with me.

Oh, so very unnecessarily, it would seem.

The dude looked like he had kicked off happy hour at about 4:20, ahem, and seemed to be a little slow on the uptake.

He asked me what my name was, I told him, he handed me a list of people's names, told me to sign next to mine, and then handed me a small black box and an envelope.

He told me congratulations, and then wandered off back into the mysterious inner depths of "free speech radio."

When I opened up the box later, I was confused, because all I saw was a little black iPod with a silver back. It didn't look particularly magical or RHCP-y, but it was free, so it's all good.

Thursday, I had to go to an early management meeting at work, on my day off mind you, so I skipped on over to Best Buy afterward to get myself a lovely storage and protective case for my new iPod. I had some lovely reward zone gift certificates to cash in from buying my computer, so I figured why not use them for that...

Mind you, this is like a week after I actually picked the thing up from the radio station.

When I was actually trying to figure out which case to buy, removing the cases from their packaging when possible, I happened to turn the iPod over and see what looked like a smudge on the shiny silver back of the thing.

Upon closer inspection, it became clear that what I was seeing was not a smudge, but was in fact a tiny engraved RHCP logo circled by 4 tiny engraved autographs of the individual band members.

Dude, if I were making a special edition iPod for myself, you sure as hell would looking at the front of the thing to see what was special enough about it to require it's own edition.

Me, I'm expecting a red RHCP logo on the center of the click-wheel, or maybe something art-worky all around the face of the iPod that ties in with their new album, Stadium Arcadium.

But, whatever.

It sounds good either way.

words that aren't used enough.

1. gobsmacked
2. gawp
3. lollygag
4. smote
5. twain
   
6. cleave
7. betwixt
8. queue
9. obfuscate
   

A busy day.

First, I had the yearly girly poke-n-prod at 8am, complete with Doctor Lisa getting to first base (although I think she technically made a home run, what with the speculum and all), and the biennial cholesterol check.

Then I went home and took a nap for an hour.

At 11:30am, I went to the dentist, because I was convinced that my back teeth were riddled with decay, pestilence and cavities.

The dental hygienist took 12 bitewing x-rays, inadvertently creating sore spots in various gumline locations. She said she'd be back in 5 minutes, after the images were developed.

For the next 10 minutes, I listened in horror and amazement at what the dentist was telling the woman in the room next to mine.

No joke, he actually told her that they would clean all of her teeth, but the tartar build-up was the only thing keeping several teeth from falling out, and they'd have to leave those few teeth alone. He also had a lot to say about the rest of the teeth, saying a bunch of them needed removed, that she needed root canals and crowns and bridges and all sorts of other stuff. As he went through each tooth

She asked if all of that was necessary, and he told her the other option was to pull them all and wear dentures.

I wanted to see her teeth so very bad, just because they were unbelievably unhealthy-sounding. But I also didn't want to gawp at her.

When the dentist finally paid me a visit, I asked him how bad the damage was, since I was convinced that my second molars were shite.

Smiling, he told me that from looking at the x-rays, he couldn't find anything wrong with any of my teeth, and that other than a little gum recession around where I am missing a tooth on each side, and some tartar build-up, my teeth were fine.

He also suggested that I consider getting a crown on my second molar and an implanted first molar on the left side this year, and then get the other side done next year, when my dental benefits reset.

Because I am lacking lower first molars, the second molars and the second pre-molars are afforded no protection to their sides, which on the left side has manifested as a significantly absent inside rear corner of my left second molar. (Your teeth are not pliers. If you can't open a bottle of nail polish using your hands after it's had hot water running over it for ten minutes, you probably won't be able to get it open yourself without breaking the bottle. Your teeth are not pliers.)

Fortunately, my right second molar and pre-molar are pretty much intact.

So, I got a cleaning, and the dentist's office is getting my tooth repair preapproved. I hope they have a payment plan, because I'm not going to charge my $750 or so co-pay to a credit card.

Next, I went to the Store for a 2:00pm district-wide conference call to learn how to use the new online application system, called UNICRU. People can apply from any computer, and then at the store we can look at their computerized applications, should they make it past the established criteria quiz, and proceed with interviewing and hiring from there.

Mostly, it means no more paperwork or paper applications. And the Company isn't going to pony up the loot to have a kiosk at each store for people to use to apply, so if you don't have access to a computer with web access, you're boned if you want to work Where I Work. Which will probably be more of a burden than a boon at first.

Here I thought that Washington, IA was tornado alley...

Confirmed F2 Tornado Struck City - Metro
IC suffers at least $3M in damages - Metro

One time, long ago, I had to sit in the dark in a hallway of the Old Capitol Mall with a bunch of other people, because 75+ mile an hour winds were wreaking havoc in the streets of Iowa City and Coralville.

It was pretty scary, but the resultant damage wasn't too bad.

Power was down for about 5 hours, streets were flooded, and the street traffic was being regulated by the Iowa National Guard.

A train crossing the Iowa River on a narrow bridge was about half derailed, dangling cars into the murky nitrate-ridden depths of the river itself.

Limbs blew down everywhere, about a third of the trees on campus turned instantaneously turned into scrap lumber and firewood, but there was very little property damage beyond a few banged up car and some flooding.

Damn, I'm glad that I moved the hell out of there.

We don't really get the whole tornado thing here by the lake.

god bless celexa, for perfect endings.

Last year, when it was annual employee appraisal time, the old GM assigned set of employees to each member of store management, and of course the stylists to me, and told us all to write the evaluations, then give them to him.

He then went through, downgraded almost all of the ratings, and told us to do them over again.

If someone was given an "above target" rating, he most likely changed it to "on target," because everything associates or stylists would do to go above and beyond target would probably be something they were supposed to do as part of their original job descriptions already, and if they were doing their jobs, they were "on target."

Now, he hasn't been at our store since before the holidays, because he got shipped out to another store to run it while the GM of that store was on maternity leave. Then the GM of another store quit, and he was permanently reassigned there.

So, he hasn't worked with me for like 6 months, has no idea what I've been doing with the salon or the staff, and doesn't pay attention while we're all on weekly district-wide conference calls, so even if we were discussing the disposition of the salon, he most likely wouldn't be following along and would thusly be ignorant of our salon achievements and challenges.

He got to write my appraisal, which was fairly sucktastic, which is also what I was expecting from him. And the new GM got to give it to me, as he had gone over it with the old GM a few weeks ago.

I'm completely baffled about a few things I was rated poorly for, but overall, I don't care what he scored me. I still got a raise (Woot, I'm extra rich now!), which at 2.9% isn't the greatest, but is still more money than I made yesterday. (Last year I got a 4.26% raise, with lower sales and productivity, and a different GM rating me...)

So, somehow I guess I find the appropriate ending to this day is that immediately after I went both 1 & 2, the blue toilet tank tablet that was added to my living situation earlier this week by building maintenance decided to deposit itself immediately underneath the stopper in the tank, forcing the toilet to overflow all over my bathroom floor.

And the bottom couple of inches of my pants.

And my slippers.

And the rug.

Etc.

Of course, it wouldn't stop flowing, and the closest scooping device to lower the water level in the bowl enough so that I could use the plunger without worsening the situation, just happened to be my hands.

How appropriate that I finish my day by scooping yellow water out of a toilet bowl and into the bathtub, plunging vigorously, knocking my hairbrush into the toilet tank while I fiddled around with the blue thing and the stopper, and then wound it all up by spending a half hour crouching on the bathroom floor with cleanser, rags and a dustpan, cleaning up a disgusting mess.

On the plus side, my bathroom floor is very clean, and I make 2.9% more now that I did before.

Which just makes it all worthwhile.

And other than being annoyed and a little amused, today was fine. No crying, no whining, no pouting. Better living through legal chemistry rocks.

P.S. Princess Stinkerbell came in to the salon today to get her hair colored and cut, and her eyebrows rescued from whatever evils had been perpetrated upon them by some hack in the recent past. It was a nice surprise, both the getting to see her and hang out, and the getting to do her hair again.

why i rock, sometimes.

Okay, so the radio station I listen to in Chicago is Q101, and they label themselves as an "alternative rock" station, which is pretty accurate. Mainly, they play the sort of music that would have only hit the airwaves on college radio, like 15 years ago.

Their big tagline is that they play "everything alternative, now on shuffle." Like an iPod, you know.

Sometimes it's Green Day, sometimes it's System of a Down, sometimes it's Johnny Cash performing "Ring of Fire."

Mostly it's Green Day, System of a Down, Korn & something like Death Cab for Cutie or Interpol, for some indie-type street cred or something.

Either way, they don't play boy bands, either of the Simpson girls, Aerosmith, Eric Clapton or Phil Collins.

Which is fine with me.

The other day, either while I was getting ready for work, or while I was driving to or from work, I heard a radio promotion saying that if you submitted a "my shuffle" including a song by Red Hot Chili Peppers, & they liked it & wanted to play it, you'd win a special-edition RHCP iPod, a $10 gift card to iTunes, & get entered in a drawing to win an iTunes gift card for the entire RHCP song catalogue.

And I didn't really think much about it.

Then, because I'm a 101 Club member, I got the weekly email from Twitch telling the public what promotions they were running, what the concert calendar was playing, & the like.

So, I decided to go over & enter to win Death Cab for Cutie tickets.

And I saw the "my shuffle" RHCP promotion being boldly advertised on their mainpage, so I figured, "Why not?"

What you do is pick 5 songs, give it a title, & write a little blurb as to why you want to have these 5 songs played, then submit it.

So, I called mine the "Lollapalooza 2 Mainstage minus Ministry," & picked a song each by Jesus & Mary Chain, RHCP, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, & Ice Cube.

And submitted the following,

"Once upon a time when I was 20, a friend at work asked me if I wanted to go to Lollapalooza. I asked when, & was told, "Tomorrow."

Living at home for the summer between college sessions, I left a note on the table that said where I was going, packed a bag, & got into a tiny car with a bunch of other people, most of whom I didn't know. Next stop, Cincinatti.

I had my first White Castle, saw The Jim Rose Circus Sideshow for the first time, discovered cheap smokes in Florence, KY, & had a rock ass good time all around the Riverbend Music Center.

I pioneered the "It's too damned hot to wear a shirt so you can just deal with my bra & -- hey, my face is up here" movement (one minute a slutty social pariah, next minute just another bra in a crowd of many), kicked a lot of ass with my steel-toed jump boots, & bought a bootleg t-shirt in the parking lot after the show.

Now that I'm "grown up" & "responsible," I generally don't feel particularly cool or edgy. And sometimes, when I'm feeling my lowest, squarest, lamest, & dead-end-lower-management-iest getting me down, I like to take out the ticket stub from that show that I keep tucked away in my files, look at it, & remember when I was a rebel & a tease, care-free & stupid, a bitch & your best friend, & usually quite happy."

Honestly, I knew right after clicking the submit button, I'd be the proud new owner of a special-edition RHCP iPod & a $10 gc to iTunes.

How you ask?

Why, because a lot of people that work at that station are probably about my age, or at least an age appropriate to my situation, which allows me a window for quality written emotional manipulation. Like the above, well-edited, much thought out, golden ticket to the music factory.

And today, at 12:51pm, Ned from Q101 called me to let me know that they wanted to play my shuffle, that I'd won the iPod & iTunes gc, & that I needed to record some intros for the air.

So, this Sunday, in the 10am time slot, you get to hear my radio-unfriendly voice introducing "Suck My Kiss," by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

And that is why I rock, sometimes.

The end.

an object lesson, and a certain truth.

Cricket peed on the hallway floor again. And on the wall. And on the door.

And it made me mad, not in little part due to the fact that I was sick and it was very late at night.

So I grabbed the little weasel by the scruff of her neck, and smushed her little face into the mess.

Which prompted her to scamper off under the bed and meow piteously.

Giving me the ample opportunity to scrub the rest of the mess from the floor and the wall and the door. Inhaling lots of bleach fumes in the process.

And then, of course by the time I had finished, Cricket forgot that I was mad at her, but was clearly upset about having been traumatized in some fashion or other, and clingily sought succor from yours truly, despite numerous attempts at dislodgement and discouragement.

Teaching me two things in the process...

1) Much like rabbit fur-lined leather gloves and other organic textiles, cats covered in cat fur saturated with cat pee smell like cat pee for a very long time.

and

2) Bleach is neither the friend of the upper respiratorily-issued, nor the polished surface of the hardwoodedly floored.

the nemesis responds.

"March 3, 2006

"Dear pixiemartin:

"We apologize if you were not satisfied with the servicec provided during your interactions with Capitol One. We wish to assure you that our goal is to provide all of our customers with the highest level of quality service during any interactions with our company.

"At your request, we have designated your account to close. Please be sure to cancel any charges that post automatically to your account, as your account will not close unless the balance remains zero.

"The balance on your last monthly statement may not be the final amount due on your account. We suggest your contact our office at 1-800-955-7070 in order to verify the balance prior to making a final payment.

"Please allow 30 to 90 days for the credit bureaus to update the information on your credit file.

"Sincerely,

"Joel D. Amey
Capitol One Bank"

First and foremost, BULLSHIT.

BIG STEAMING PILES OF BULLSHIT.

BIG STINKY, SQUISHY, STEAMING PILES OF BULLSHIT.

Secondly, crazy me, I was already under the impression that my account had been closed on February 12, 2006.

You know, not by the 'na-na-na-I-can't-hear-you-na-na-na' jackass that hung up on me the first time I called that day to close the account, but by the second one, the snotty bitch that told me that she didn't care why I was closing the account, that she was just going to close it. (Except much less politely.)

But no, my account wasn't closed at all. I was lied to about that as well.

See how they also gave me the empty apology there, saying they're sorry if I wasn't satisfied? They're making my perception the issue, rather than their actual behavior.

How dare I want to close my account, much less be treated like a decent human being!

I fucking hate Capitol One.

sunday at a beauty expo

Today was the day I had time to attend the Chicago Midwest Beauty Show, which is running all this weekend and on Monday.

My intent was to get there around 2:30 or so.

After an hour of frustrated searching for my entrance ticket to the show, which turned into a failed and irritating attempt to get another print out of the ticket from isnow.com or ncacares.org, and a slightly less irritating attempt to find the receipt for the ticket on one of the computers (which also has the ticket information on it), I finally located the physical paper copy of the ticket that I had squirreled away in the last place I thought to look, I rolled out the door.

Tifling called during the mad search, and I was crabby and sucky to her, because I was frustrated and grumpy. Which I am sure also made her day.

I also hadn't eaten anything that day so far, because I forgot to buy milk for my cereal the night before, and everything in my kitchen requires actual cooking, which I had neither the time nor inclination to do.

Dunkin Donuts to the rescue!

I got to the show itself around 3:45 or so, with a couple of hours to spare before the show ended for the day.

After lots and lots of meandering around, I ended up talking to the CEO of Ergo Tools, about how I'd purchased a TGR 3600 dryer from them last year, and was still in love with it. I told him the story of how we'd started selling it in the store a few weeks ago, and how I sold one to a customer, mostly by accident.

A woman had come in looking for a dryer to replace her Conair that had blown up. I asked her how much she was looking to spend, and she told me hopefully under $50. I showed her the mass market dryers (Vidal Sassoon, etc.), and then took her over to the professional dryers, because they are better.

After telling her the virtues of real, professional tools vs. the brands you can pick up at Wal-mart, I showed her a couple of Rusk dryers that were on sale. We discussed the finer points of the one that was $49.99, and then I showed her the Rusk Speed Freak, which was around $20 on sale.

I told her that I used one for the better part of a year, and liked it a whole hell of a lot. I told her that the only reason I wasn't still using it was because I'd gotten a TGR 3600 at CMBS last year, and that I love the new dryer more. I told her we'd just started selling them, and pointed to the two on the shelf above us.

She wanted to know exactly why I liked the newer dryer so much, so I told her that it was not only smaller than most dryers - weighing less than 12 oz, but also that it was more powerful than most other dryers - blowing like 74 mph, was perfectly balanced, had a cord about 14 feet long or so, had low EMF, far-infrared heating technology - which dries the hair from the inside out, creating much less damage that conventional heating technology, leading to healthier, shinier, smoother hair, and that the TGR 3600 was generally a superior product. Plus, it was cute.

To my great surprise, she decided that she wanted one, despite the $169.95 price tag, and said it should even be good for travelling because it was small enough to pack easily.

I told the CEO that essentially I was really happy to be able to sell such a quality product which with I had over a year's personal experience, and hoped to get more of their products in the store in the future.

He told me that he was already friends with one of the people at Corporate that actually has pull, and that he was in regular contact with the buyer for that division. I said I didn't personally know either of them, but that I saw their names a lot in memos and corporate updates.

He then gave me his card, told me some extra stuff about my dryer, showed me their new ceramic/tourmaline round brushes and gave me one of them, which rocks.

I love free stuff.

He told me that ideally, everywhere that retailed their products would have stylists with personal experience, and urged me to contact him with input about how everything worked.

I told him I'd love to, and wandered off.

After much other wandering, I also acquired 5 boxes of Kasho blades (buy 4 get 1 free), a tiny Solano round brush to replace my old tiny round brush that died recently, a transparent dark pink Wahl peanut trimmer/clipper because my green one died a while ago, 3 boxes of Phantom Color Corrector (buy 2 get 1 - the replacement product for Schwarzkopf Igora Modulat color remover), a sparkly pink ankle bracelet, a 4-pack of Cricket Carbon combs, and a pair of Sensei texturizing shears.

I went on a search for the vendor of the most-delicious soft-serve twist cones, as per the previous year, but no dice. And I was even going to have two.

I watched the Nioxin show, which is one of the shows I watched last year as well, and had the same platform artist.

Now, I had been told that no vendors could sell designer knock-off bags and accessories, but I saw at least 4 places that had Prada, Chanel, Coach, Gucci, Dooney & Burke, Christian Dior, Hermes, Louis Vuitton, Burberry, etc. stuff. And they were selling purses for like $75.

Which is of course way too much.

I can get a more convincing Kate Spade downtown on Chicago than anything they had there.

As I was leaving, I ran into Diva and her husband. She gave me a big hug and asked if I'd run into her sister-in-law-that-used-to-work-in-the-salon-but-doesn't-now.

I told her I had, and that I was still a little freaked out about how nice her S-I-L was to me. I mean, her last jab a couple of weeks before she left was essentially trying to either get me fired, or to make my work environment so incredibly unpleasant after she left that things would be super bad for me, costing me my staff or forcing me to quit.

I don't understand people.

And now I'm rambling.

Good night.

grate and smite.

1) Friday evening, immediately after going to the bank to make a deposit, I got the tip of my shoe caught in a crack in the sidewalk on the other side of the parking lot, directly across from where I work, and after flailing helplessly as I plummeted towards the ground with my arms outstretched and my face pulled back and turned away, I managed to catch all my weight on the palms of my hands and on the left side of my left knee, before skidding to a stop several feet later.

I was wearing gloves, which miraculously didn't get damaged, and my hands are fine. They were a little sore in the wrist-area this weekend, but are otherwise unharmed.

And also miraculously, I didn't managed to cheese-grate my pants, which is good because I like those pants a lot, and this event proves their near-indestructability. They got a little dust in one particular spot, but it rubbed right off as though it hadn't been there in the first place. Instead, I managed to skin a quarter-sized area of flesh off of the left side of my knee, right on the bendy bit, and then transfer it in finely-shredded form to the inside of my nearby pant leg.

They say 80% of all house dust is comprised of our own shedded skin cells. Well, I can assure you that the pixie dust I generated was 100% bonafide shredded skin cells.

I also generated a plum-sized lump of bruised flesh directly under and around the open wound in the aforementioned bendy bit, also known as the notorious bad zone of my left knee, which is the source of constantly inadvertent abuse, and will also inevitably end up the spot where knee-replacement surgery will be the most needed.

Today, my knee is still very sore to the touch, a little painful to bend, scabrously scraped up, and a most lovely swirl of purple, brown, green, blue and yellow.

2) Saturday afternoon as I was limping around the salon, doing my best to not bend my left knee, mostly because I don't dig that sorta pain, I found it harder than I expected to do the most basic of tasks.

Like, when I needed to open the laundry bin door underneath the shampoo backbar area, I had to twist around and stick my left leg straight and sort of to the side, and then turn my torso back in the other direction, then intending to bend down, pull the door open, and retrieve the used capes and towels inside.

However, whilst turning my torso back in the other direction and bending down, I managed to slip a little to the left, and before I could catch myself with my hands, I managed to hurl my body to the right, just at the correct angle to bring my right cheekbone down full force upon the top of the laundry bin door handle, smiting it yeah verily with a very solid thunk. Which did in fact dent my cheek for a while, right before the dent turned bright red, and then swelled up into an average olive-sized lump, right on the most prominent and cheekboniest bit on that side of my face.

And today, my cheek is still very sore to the touch, a little painful to smile, puffy yet slightly-less swollen, and a swirl of yellow and green, with blotches of purple and blue towards the center of the injury.

3) They say that bad things come in threes, so I choose to believe that the third bad thing is as follows.

While I bought this today, I don't get to have it until Friday, due to warehouse stocking issues and whatnot.

Hewlett-Packard - Pavilion Notebook with AMD Turion™ 64 dv8125nr
AMD Turion™ 64 mobile technology ML-32; DL DVD±RW/CD-RW drive; 17" widescreen; dual 80GB hard drives; 512MB PC2700 DDR memory; Windows XP Media Center; LightScribe labeling; 6-in-1 media reader; remote

Dude, it has a TEN-KEY pad and a remote control.

Which should severly cut down on misaligned numerical touch-typing corrections.

And, I can be just a little out of arm's reach of the computer, and still make DVDs play!

Plus, for like $150 or so more, I can acquire some sort of multimedia thingamajig that allows me to not only watch television programs upon the screen of my computer, but also record said television broadcast onto a disc, effectly allowing my computer to function as a DVR.

That's power, but I'm not sure exactly how often I would actually wield it.

For now, I choose to forgo the wi-fi router and pricey multimedia add-on, and use it as a notebook computer, much as I use this one under my fingers and hands.

4) Addressing the people who were wondering about the relative hotttness of Lord Sesshomaru vs. his half-brother, this is what I shared with the Dread Pirate Tif:

"Lord Sesshomaru is:

"http://www.animegalleries.net/img/7561

http://www.animegalleries.net/albums/media/48/iy_sesshomaru023.jpg

http://www.animegalleries.net/albums/media/48/iy_sesshomaru036.jpg

http://www.animegalleries.net/albums/media/48/iy_sesshomaru035.jpg

"He's missing his left arm because his half-brother chopped it off in the first season while he was in his demon dog form:

"http://www.animegalleries.net/albums/media/48/iy_sesshomaru041.jpg

"His half-brother is more whimsical and cute-ish, not hottttt.

"http://www.animegalleries.net/img/7347

http://www.animegalleries.net/albums/media/42/iy_inu098.jpg

"And at the new moon, the half-brother turns fully human, and this is his form:

"http://www.animegalleries.net/albums/media/42/iy_inu056.jpg"

5) And, as an aside, more than 2/3 of the virus emails I receive these days end in ".au."

Either I have a larger Oz readership than I imagined, or else I'm really hottt on the most popular Oz virus listings.

FYI, ".uk" is getting up there too, though.

Not that that is a formal challenge or anything. I'm not courting more disaster than I already have.

6) Thank you, please drive thru.

fifteen secrets

My mom still calls me "Boojie Lou."

I eat ricotta straight out of the container with a spoon.

I have a Ginger Spice doll.

Every morning when I blow my nose, I draw blood. Capillaries are a funny thing.

When "The Queen is Dead" came out, I hated it because I thought Morrissey was a self-important, whiney little priss.

I once got into a drunken altercation with a tree, and ended up with a scraped up lip that looked like a cold sore, and a bruise on the side of my neck that looked like a hickey. And don't worry, the tree is fine.

I subscribe to Game Informer magazine.

Even though I have an iron, an ironing board, and fusible hem tape, I still use double-sided sticky tape to hold up the cuffs on two pairs of my work pants.

I find Japanese shears* infinitely superior to German shears.

I think Lord Sesshomaru is way hotter than his half-brother.

Panty lines are very high on my list of pet peeves.

When I weighed 93 pounds during the Bell Jar era, I liked how I looked with a completely flat chest.

I take ten pills every single morning.

If I had to be a hooker, I'd rather work in a brothel than walk the streets, mostly because I know I'm too lazy to find my own tricks.

I do not subscribe to Martha Stewart Living.

********
*Seriously, dude, the Japanese were forging swords with 50-gazillion folded layers of metal when Proto-Germans were still hitting each other with sticks.

the newest nemesis...

The latest in indignant pixie-penned letters to Corporate America!

pixiemartin
delirrealm
fourth floor
chicago, illin' 606xx-xxxx
TJX Visa account: xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx


Capital One
Attn: Customer Relations
PO Box 30285
Salt Lake City, UT 84130-0285

February 12, 2006

Dear Sir or Madam,

I apologize for the length of this letter in advance, but I am writing to express my disappointment and displeasure with treatment that I received from your Customer Service department this afternoon. I was ignored, hung up on, spoken to rudely, and generally very unprofessionally treated by several members of your Customer Service team.

This afternoon, I called your customer service department with the intention of closing my TJX Visa account. This isn’t because of anything that your company had specifically done, but mostly because I am trying to be more fiscally responsible, and closing the account figured into that financial plan.

After I was finally able to speak to an account representative, at approximately 2:30 pm this afternoon, I explained politely that I wanted to close my account, and when asked why I was closing the account, I told the young man that it was a financial matter, and planned to leave it at that. I suppose, understandably, that he wanted a more specific answer than that, so I told him I was paring down my credit cards, and that it was more beneficial to earn money on a low-interest card than to earn gift certificates on a high-interest card.

He then offered to give me a low interest rate and sign me up for a cash reward program. I politely declined, telling him that at this time, that I was only interested in closing my account.

I know that in the world of telemarketing and telephone-based customer service that there are certain requirements as an employee that one must meet, so as not to lose business for one’s employer. However, after the third or fourth time I had assured him that I still wanted to close my account, and that no further inducements could change my mind, he still continued to sing the praise of the card and detail the valuable features and whatnot that I still neither wanted or needed.

I also know that in the world of telemarketing and telephone-based customer service, there are scripts that one is suppose to read, and possibly memorize by rote after a while, offering a solution to whatever problem the customer has with a company. And as the young man continued to hard sell me on keeping the card, I politely told him that I realized that he probably had a certain number of attempts to be made before giving up, and that he had a script of some sort that he was sharing with me, but that I didn’t need to hear it, and that he could consider that specific refusal as the final “no” that his employers probably required.

Sounding deeply offended, he told me that he was most certainly not reading a script, and then proceeded with the praise singing and the valued feature detailing.

I politely cut him off, and told him once again that I did not want the card, and was only interested in closing the account, whereupon he continued to ignore me, and picked up in the exact spot that he had left off before I had interrupted him.

This eventually devolved in me saying, “No, thank you. I would like to close my account,” over and over and over again, while he ignored my request and continued to tell me everything wonderful there is to know about the credit card, your company, and the benefits of everything and anything that were attached to the card and your business.

After politely repeating that phrase at least 15 to 20 times, I stopped him, told him that I was getting irritated, and wanted him to either close the account, or let me speak to his immediate supervisor, so that I could have that person close the account.

He ignored me again, still trying to sell me the card, when I again asked for him to either close the account, or let me speak to his immediate supervisor.

His response was that he was the Account Representative in this situation, and that he had no immediate supervisor to whom I might speak. Essentially, it was talk to him or deal.

I asked him for his full name, and when he didn’t say anything, I repeated the request.

He then hung up on me.

This experience had gone on for at least 5-7 minutes, with me having actually said, “I want to close my account,” more often in that span of time than I have probably used the phrase in the entire rest of my life.

I do not know if his tactic was to wear me down until I decided to keep the card, or if he was just being obstinate. To whatever end, he only succeeded in irritating me.

I called the customer service number again, and after 5 minutes of button pushing and listening to the music on hold, I finally was able to speak to another representative, who told me that her name was Marilyn.

After answering all of her security questions, she asked me how I was doing, and I told her that I was irritated by an experience that I had just had with another representative.
She apologized profusely and said that she would do what she could to amend the situation, which I appreciated greatly.

She then asked me how she could help me, and I gave her an abbreviated rundown of the previous call’s events.

I told her that I had called to close my account, and that the representative ignored my repeated requests, instead only trying to interest me in keeping the account. That no matter how many times I requested that he close my account, he kept ignoring me.

She said something like, “Okay,” and I continued.

I told her that I realized that they were not only there to help with account issues, but to also keep the consumers using the cards, and that I understood, but was only interested in closing the account at this time. I went on to say that when I realized that the previous representative was not going to assist me, that I asked for a supervisor or his name, and that he had hung up on me.

She started to apologize, and I freely admit that I was a little abrasive at this point, but I told her that I just wanted to close the account.

She then said in a voice that clearly conveyed irritation and contempt, that if I could let her get the rest of my information, she would be happy to assist.

I said that was fine.

I was then told, in the same tone of voice, that they would normally try to establish a specific reason for closing the account, “…but at this point, I do not even care. So, I am just going to close the account.”

I was taken aback, but decided to just let it go, when she told me the account would be closed immediately, and hurriedly read me a disclaimer statement.

Then, in a very insincere, very sugary sweet voice, thanked me, and told me to have a very nice day, before hanging up.

Now, normally I guess I could chalk this up to it being a Sunday or something, and that the reps were tired and wanted to be at home instead of dealing with grumpy, irritating people, but I have experienced this level of discourtesy in the past from a representative of your company, which also ended up in me writing a letter.

In that letter, which I wrote October 21, 2002, I detailed how I had spoken to a representative that was rude, and had decided to write a letter instead.

I wrote in the letter that after the girl had been abrasive and rude, I asked her if she felt she was a good representative of your company, and this was how your company was going to treat its customers, I was going to be closing my account.

She snottily replied, “You can’t close your account until it’s paid off,” and then hung up on me.

In fact, I did close the account as soon as the balance was paid off, and swore to never give your company my business again. (Amazingly, I believe the person that actually closed the account was polite.)

And when I signed up for the TJX card, and then discovered it was a Capitol One card, I very seriously considered closing the account based solely on that. But, I gave your company another chance, and am now certain that not only am I going to never do business with your company again, but that I am going to very strongly discourage everyone that I know, or will know in the future, to seriously consider not giving Capitol One their business.

And trust me, a lot of people will hear about it.

I find it extremely ironic that in your advertisements, you have actors portray obnoxious customer service representatives at some other credit card company, abusing customers, while it is intimated that you don’t receive this sort of abuse from Capitol One.

Because every single time I have dealt with one of your customer service reps, I have been treated rudely and with extreme disrespect, I now find myself only inclined to deal with customer service representatives from any credit card company that isn’t Capitol One.

I hope that in the future, your company will consider hiring employees that exhibit the ability to politely interact with society, because the people you have now distinctly lack that skill.

pixiemartin

*********

(Actually, in retrospect, that might actually be the shortest indignant letter I've ever sent out.)

comments

I was informed that whenever people have tried to leave comments in the recent past, it doesn't actually save them or some such. Ergo, no comments.

I thought y'all just hated me and didn't care.

Hopefully, the issue has been fixed, so comment away.

random

While I don't particularly enjoy the reason I have to buy 2-cent stamps, I still find it a strangely rewarding task.

You can get like 50 of them for ONE dollar.

Dude, that's awesome.

About the only other useful things in that quantity that you can buy elsewhere are paperclips and index cards.

And they come prepackaged, which isn't any fun.

If you want paperclips or index cards, you don't get to stand in line and then tell someone in a blue uniform that you want 50 of something.

And you can't pick some random number of them, either. It's like you get the 100-pack or whatever.

However, you can buy as many or as few 2-cent stamps, at minimal investment, as your pocketbook will allow.

There is no, "Hello, my jolly good man! I would like to purchase 13 fine paperclips, so that I might join together 13 sets of documents."

You just pick up a box, and then wait in line to pay for them.

That's infinitely less fulfilling of a task.

Plus, the magical addition of a paperclip or an index card doesn't make something else you already have of even greater value.

Suddenly, with an addition of a little 2-cent gum-backed paper, you can turn a practically useless other piece of gum-backed paper into a vehicle that facilitates the activity of postal correspondence.

Which totally rocks.

More ways to tell.

Sunday, I watched 4 hours of "Animal Cops Houston," the show about rescuing damaged and broken animals from neglect or abuse.

I am notorious for having an especially soft heart when it comes to the suffering of children and animals, I suppose mostly because they are generally helpless, and have limited ability to escape the abuse.

The worst I got was when my eyes teared up a little once, but no tears actually happened, nor did nose blowing occur. And a couple of times I tsk-ed, and said something like, "That's horrible. That poor horse!"

And then Monday, I successfully talked about how painful the beginning of 9/11 was for me, which is something I have never been able to do without bawling and/or saying," I'm sorry, I don't feel comfortable talking about this subject right now." My eyes did tear up a little at first, but I didn't get all choked up and distraught. I was merely saddened, and regretful.

I did tear up when watching Grey's Anatomy, when Meredith was having a panic attack and hyperventilating in the hospital closet, because I feel the same way sometimes, and I know how that particular flavor of pain doesn't seem to go away very easily. And yes, I did snuffle just enough that I needed to blow my nose one time.

I feel terribly successful for the baby steps.

How you can tell I'm less broken now.

I was on vacation from the 15th to the 22nd.

Prior to this, I had set a deadline of the 24th for STYLIST to THING, or provide some sort of proof of THING, or else I would have to THAT, because OUR EMPLOYER required THING. Which gave her 16 days to THING.

On the 23rd, while Diva was cutting my hair, she mentioned that STYLIST had told everyone goodbye on the 21st, and that she would miss working with them.

Diva said that they tried to convince her to call me, or leave me a note, or talk to a manager in the store about the situation, but that STYLIST insisted that it a was pointless gesture, because she hadn't THING-ed or have proof of THING. And then she packed up her gear and left.

The way that Diva had initially explained it made it sound like STYLIST was just taking her stuff home to have it with her, and that she would still show up for her next shift, if only so that we could discuss THING, and how it would effect THAT.

I've needed THING for several months now, but I had cut STYLIST slack because she had a silly, but perfectly reasonable and understandable excuse for her not THING-ing several months earlier.

Well, it turns out that since she had missed a particularly important date involving THING, because of the silly but perfectly reasonable and understandable excuse, she needed to ACTION that would cost a lot of money, and then also OTHER THING.

Of course, neither Diva nor DIFFERENT STYLIST thought to call me or tell a manager about STYLIST leaving, so I found out about it being a permanent issue when she didn't show up for work the day after my haircut.

STYLIST had already allegedly ACTION-ed before the particularly important date, but DIFFERENT STYLIST told me the day after I had my haircut, that STYLIST had told DIFFERENT STYLIST that she didn't have the money to ACTION in the first place, and didn't know when she could THING. Much less OTHER THING. So, basically she lied to me about THING all along.

Ergo, I am down a stylist.

And it didn't even make me cry.

In fact, I was all like, "Well, whatever. Life goes on," and then went back to whatever I had been doing before I was given the rest of the skinny.

I didn't even get a stomach ache.

Seriously, I totally don't care.

Shit happens.

People lie.

And yet the world still keeps on spinning, which is enough for me sometimes.

I've been watching Discovery on Friday nights, again.

Dr. Zawi Hawass has like the coolest job ever.

Secretary-General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, dude.

That's even better than Wafaa El-Sediq, and she gets to be the Curator of the entire Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Well, okay, that's pretty damned cool, too. So I think her position is like the other coolest job ever.

And, as an aside, this is what I'll be doing at noon on my birthday this year.

Something else I love goes away.

Damn it, I happen to really like Teflon.

I might even go so far as to say that I love it.

I'd much rather have an unlikely and improbable, yet still very, very, very remotely possible health risk than I would have some hypothetical fettucini noodles firmly bonded at a crazy, culinarily molecular level to the bottom of a bare metal sauce pan.

Hell, I do love Teflon.

I feel like I should scamper over to Wal-Mart and snap up all the T-fal that I can get my hands on.

snatches of song.

I was at an NCA trend show, learning stuff, when I realized that the music playing during the show was fantastic.

It was sort of dreamy, and hypnotic and vaguely dance-y.

A woman and a man were sometimes speaking in maybe French, maybe Portuguese, maybe both.

I wrote down what few snatches of sony lyrics that I could grasp, figuring that I would be able to find the song(s) online somewhere, if only so that I could buy the album for myself.

And yet I can't find it online anywhere.

This is what I wrote down:

"a conversation overheard between + man + saxophone" french? portuguese?
"lazy casanova" "so much love"
"lazy lazy love"

I think that it was the Manuel Rodriguez class at the Merchandise Mart, showing trend cuts, color blocking techniques, and hair styles for fall.

I don't remember specifically if that was what it was, but I do remember someone referring to the "American Graffiti" collection. (Even though he would have been teaching the Pivot Point trend collection, "The Mechanics of Emotion.")

I took the class in like August or September, and have been carrying around a scrap of paper with those words on it (in my apron pocket at work) for so long that the scrap is all ratty around the edges, and full of creases and stains.

I don't know. I just liked the damned music.