At least I've managed to stay out of prison

And that's the only thing I have to say about that, really.  Oh yeah and I've never been fired for stealing from a company.  Actually, I've never been fired.

Moving on.

It's Friday!  Heaven?  Also, it's Friday:

Sometimes the wind blows

The fog rolls and the waves crash

So happy I moved

This weekend I don't have any big plans just yet.  My poor lumpy foot has finally made it back into real shoes, albeit flats, but I can't do too much walking just yet.  I've been going really stir crazy. 

Oh and I need to buy a car, in case you're selling one.

In which we make each other laugh, but a bystander looks like she might cry

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I mean, I'm trying to think about something that I don't really understand. My brain hurts."

"Coffee?"

"Yeah I think if I had my morning coffee, it'd be a little easier, but it's also sort of....untangible. Is it untangible?"

"INtangible. But good job trying to use a word you don't know! I'm really proud of you for using your brain!"

"See, that's where the coffee would have helped."

"And maybe it would help me be less of a bitch when you're stupid?"

"Maybe, but you're kind of just a bitch."

"And you're kind of just stupid, so I think I got the better deal."

Every weekend should be this long

So it turns out that I'm getting a lot more money back for my car than I thought I would.  Does it seem strange to anyone else that if your car is a total loss you get the sales tax back?  I mean, if my pants set on fire, do I get the sales tax back?  I guess only if I have pants insurance...

So that was a nice relief.  And I think that my grandmother is forcing her stepson to sell me his car?  It's sort of a more complicated story than that, but the telling would be long, and the result would be boring.

K took Gabriel for the weekend, and I think they had a good time together, so that was nice.  Of course he managed to piss me off in the process, but I guess I'd be more surprised if he didn't.   I was sort of kind of hemming and hawing about thinking about maybe considering the possibility of perhaps driving up to Sacramento this weekend to deliver Gabey to his pa, but I'm pretty annoyed right now, so who can say what the future holds?

My parents' house looks like it's going to survive this fire, which is good.  Although there's definitely some guilt in my relief, what with me willing the fire in the direction of other people's homes.  Because the sheer force of my will?  Totally did it.  Monday they opened up the road, but the Highway Patrol was stationed at the bottom checking ID's because they were worried about looters.

Highway Patrol:  Are you a resident?

ME:  Yeah, I'm at 800.

HP:  Okay ma'am I'll just need to check your Driver's License.

ME:  Oh it actually still has my Chico address, but here you go.

HP:  Is your car registered here?

ME:  Actually it's a rental.

HP:  Well....I'm not supposed to let you up, but I guess you don't look like a looter.  Although if you come back down in a couple hours with a big screen TV in your car, we might have some problems.

CRAP!  I was already getting away with not having to gimp 3.5 miles up the road (I could park on the other side of the barricade and walk, if I so desired, but with the broken foot I did not desire).  I couldn't tell him that I was actually planning on getting my TV from my parents' house!  So I still don't have a TV at my new place, because I didn't want to be arrested for looting it.

Is it wrong to drink on my lunch hour?

Monday I didn't go to work, because I was tying up all of the loose ends that go with debilitating accidents.  Loose ends like picking up x-rays and renting rental cars, for instance.

On Monday, I left Gabe and my mom and all of my stuff at Taqueria Vallarta while I went to get a prior authorization from my doctor.  Because HMO's don't frustrate anyone, ever, at all.  Well my mom had to leave, so she put all my stuff in my diaper bag.  All my stuff including my OPEN COFFEE CUP.  Not surprisingly, my cell phone and my morning java did not get along, meaning that in addition to having no car and feeling crappy about the state of the world, I now had no phone as well.  Which is super.  

There's only one store in the county that sells T-Mobile phones.  Once again, God actually came down from the sky and forced me to get a pink one.  I'm not kidding.  It was the only phone under $100 that I could get, and it was $30.  Unfortunately, for the 28th time in 6 weeks, or however long it's been, I don't have any phone numbers.  Although it has been an interesting social experiment.  The only numbers I have are of people who've called me.  They get extra amounts of love.

Sometime whilst God was busy making sure that I sport the color pink in as many venues as possible, he also decided that in a single seven day period, I should really lose my car, my foot, and then worry about losing my father and my childhood home.  The ranch isn't in the DIRECT path of the Summit Fire.  But it's awfully close.  And my dad is protecting his avocado trees.  Also, just, you know, while we're at it or whatever, this should be the same seven day period that I move.  And that I transition Gabey into underpants.  It would be totally awesome if all of those things happened in one week.  Oh and I should get my period too.  And gas should cost more than $4 a gallon.  And my stimulus check which is actually my stimulus direct deposit should NEVER APPEAR even though everyone else has gotten theirs.  And maybe he'll send some harpies down to pluck out my eyeballs.  Just in case, you know, maybe I didn't get the point?

Most Amazing 7 Days EVER

Because breaking my foot, totaling my car, and moving households was not enough for one seven day period, my childhood home is in the mandatory evacuation zone for this giant fire, and to make it EVEN better, my dad's refusing to leave.

I want to post more, but I'm too anxious and distracted to do anything but fret.

I need a do-over for May.

Back at work and as usual giving myself a headache

I'm back at work today, and although I never thought I could have these thoughts escaping from my brain, it IS sort of a relief to get back into my routine.  Thursday I almost died, but I didn't, and I didn't even hurt anyone besides myself, so there's a lot to be thankful for.  I don't much want to talk about it (and I realize that I AM TALKING ABOUT IT RIGHT NOW but honestly, that's just to tell you that I don't want to talk about it) because thinking about how stupid I am makes me angry, and I'd rather just be stupid.  As opposed to stupid AND ANGRY.

There.

The receptionist at my doctor's office has revealed her true colors as a righteous B-I-T-C-H, but despite her willful refusal to be helpful in any way, shape or form, I do finally as of today have an appointment with a podiatrist, who I suppose will tell me that I have to wait around and hope that my tiny foot bone heals, which I suppose I already know.  But hearing it from a doctor will be more reassuring than hearing it from the depths of my soul, because the depths of my soul are not very reassuring.  They're actually quite anxiety-producing.

I'm mostly moved into my  new apartment, which is actually quite cute and, considering that it's only a one-bedroom, quite spacious as well.  As a sort of silver lining to this week of utter disasters, my immobilization meant that my brothers and dad moved all my stuff, and I didn't have to do anything at all.  I do believe I mentioned that I hate moving?

My rental car is a brand new 2008 Toyota Yaris (I didn't know that was a car until I picked it up yesterday).  Aside from bizarre dashboard placement, it's very nice, but there's something bittersweet about a shmancy car right now.  I sort of never want to drive again, and I sort of am not interested in delving into another expensive auto experience, so methinks that if I do have to buy another car in order to ferry Gabe about, it'll be some sort of early 90's clunker.  Which makes driving a car that's essentially new off of the lot pretty tortuous in a lot of ways.  It's so shiny.  And clean.

Absenteeism

So. Uh. On Thursday I totalled my car and broke my foot.

Also, the last time I saw my cell phone it was in the hands of my two-year-old nephew.

And moving has been going just swell.

I might not be around for a bit.

Making Ready

Saturday I move.  Duncan's coming down from Davis to lend his manly arms, and James has promised to devote the day to me, and my dad has committed himself to driving the pickup truck.  My mom's taking charge of Gabey.  This is why I moved here.  Because of all of the help.  

I don't really possess the words to express my non-desire to move.  See, right there, when I was writing that, I had to make up the word "non-desire" in an attempt to quantify my PLEASE JUST LET IT BE OVER BECAUSE I DON'T WANNA feelings.  

Hopefully, it will pass quickly and with relatively few nightmares.

Everything's wrong on the wrong side of dawn

As a mother, I am at my worst in the middle of the night.  There's no such thing as the time of day when I'm as patient as I would like to be, but this is generally mitigated by my genuine desire to be a good parent when I'm fully cognizant.  Not so at 2a.m.  

Last night, for the second night in a row, Gabriel woke up and cried, keeping me awake for well over an hour.  Now that it's over with and I've gotten on with my day, I can see quite clearly that last night's episode would have been much shorter and less unpleasant if I had been able to pull myself entirely out of my dreams and into the business of being a mom.  However.  Last night was the second night in a row.  I was angry as soon as I felt myself being pulled into consciousness.  

What? Shhhh.  Go back to sleep honey, it's okay.  Hush now.  What's the matter?  Shhh.  You need to go to sleep.  It's the middle of the night.  Go back to bed okay?  What's wrong?  Why are you crying?  Go back to sleep.  WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU??  NOTHING.  Nothing is wrong.  You need to lie down.  Your diaper's clean, you're warm, you're well fed, you can sleep wherever you goddamn please would you JUST SHUT UP?!?   I have to wake up in 2 1/2 hours.  Gabey I cannot do this right now.  I don't get to take a nap in the middle of my day.  What do you want?  What do you want me to do?  What do you want from me?  Whatever you want you can have it.  Words.  Use words.  Pick a word and use it.  Just please.  I need to go to sleep.  You need to go to sleep.  Actually I don't care if you go to sleep, but for the love of all that is holy, please stop.  Stop screaming.  I'm done with you!  I'm sleeping on the couch!  I don't care.  No, I don't want to hold you.  I want to be left alone.  Leave me alone.  Lie down.  Be quiet.  Oh fine I'll hold you but only if you'll calm down.  There.  I'm up.  I'm holding you.  What do you want from me.  No you can't have juice.  You can have water.  I don't care.  No I WON'T turn the light on.  It's the middle of the damn night.  WHY ARE YOU CRYING??? THERE IS NOTHING WRONG.  I'm really sorry, I love you, but I CANNOT be nice to you if you're going to scream in the middle of the night.  You're making me really, really mad.  Sweet Jesus could you just. calm. down.  GABRIEL.  Stoppit.  Please.  Fine.  Here.  I'll get up.  You want me to get up?  I'm up.  Are  you happy?  No.  You're crying.  And I'm up.  What am I doing out of bed if you're just going to keep with your screaming?  I can't comfort you right now I'm too mad.  Just give me a minute.  For fuck's sake it's 3am.  What do you want from me?  Could you please lie down and go to bed?

 At some point, and having absolutely nothing to do with me and my sub-par midnight parenting, we did both get back to bed.  I woke up this morning in a fog of exhaustion and guilt.  How could I be so mean to my baby?  He probably just had a bad dream or something.  If I had just got up and gotten out of bed as soon as he had woken up, we probably wouldn't have lost more than 10 minutes sleep.  I need to be more sensitive, or more loving.  

But I can't.  I don't have the patience.  I don't know how to be kind in the middle of the night.  I need to sleep.

Recurring Nightmares

I can't think of anything worse than listening to someone tell me about their dreams. Actually, sometimes it's worse to look at someone else's photo albums and pretend to be interested. I know this. But I'm looking to you for interpretation, so bear with me.

These are my three recurring dreams (nightmares?):

Original Dream: I am at a pool (it's always the same pool, and I feel like I would recognize it if I went there as an adult, but I'm not sure which one it is now) with my mom, my sister, and my brother Duncan. My mom tells me that the pool is very deep, and if I get in I'll drown, because I can't swim. But I have to push a ladder from one side of the pool to the other, or else I'll die (I'm not told this by anyone, I just know it to be true). So I get in the pool, and am walking across the bottom with a ladder, when I realize that I'm dying anyways, and I freak out and wake up.

I've been having this dream since I was 2 or 3 years old.

Variations: Sometimes just my mom is there. When my siblings are there, it is always as their 1 and 5-year-old selves, even though I am always my current age.

Original Dream: I am at the pool at the YMCA with a girl from my kindergarten class. The water is frothing and bubbling. Someone tells us not to run, but we are running around the pool at top speed. At the shallow end, we slip in, and are sitting Indian Style at the bottom of the pool. Various other members of my kindergarden class are there, as is my brother Duncan. I have to breathe, so I try to rise to the surface. A boy from my class sits me back down and tells me that if "they" see me come up, they'll kill me. I ask him what I'm supposed to do, and he says we're all waiting to die. I wake up in a panic.

I've been having this dream since the beginning of kindergarten.

Variations: My companions in this dream are no longer my Bradley School classmates, but throughout the years have changed to be reflective of whomever my current social set is. This was the dream I had last night, and I was running around the pool with Julia. The person who tells me that we're waiting to die is always some current boy that I'm thinking about.

Original Dream: I'm taking a bath at my parents' house. I try to turn off the water, but I can't. The whole bathroom starts to fill up, and I'm treading water. I can't get out. Eventually, it is full to the ceiling, and as I lose the last few inches of space and get sucked under, I wake up.

I've been having this dream since I was 9 or 10.

Variations: Now that I have Gabriel, sometimes I'm trying to save him as well. Sometimes I know there are people on the outside of the bathroom refusing to help me.

So. What does it mean? And has anyone else been having the same dreams for years?

I'm not normally one to write negative reviews

I'm big on customer service.  It's important to me.  I care.

Three weeks ago (April 15th), I ended up at Subversive Cross Stitch via Dooce, and thought it was pretty much the coolest thing I'd ever seen.  I love crafts and I love subversity.  I ordered up Truthiness and Irony is not Dead, and was quite pleased with my purchases, made through PayPal.  

As of yesterday, I had heard NOTHING from the seller.  Not a confirmation of my order, not an automated vacation reply, NOTHING.  While I'm flexible about shipping dates and small companies and a variety of things that can come up, I'm pretty sure that at some point, a vendor should at least acknowledge that they have your money.  

I opened a dispute via PayPal, mainly because I wanted to know what in the heck was going on, and within 12 hours, the vendor had refunded my money.  So it's not that she isn't checking her damn email.  I don't believe that she couldn't have dropped me a line and let me know what was going on with my order.  It is unreasonable to have zero communications with a customer within THREE WEEKS of an order.  In a way, I would have felt better if it had taken her awhile to get back to me, because then I could believe that her poor service was due to family troubles, or exceptional busy-ness, or  unexpected travel, OR SOMETHING.

Had I received these items, I would have used them, and then I would have talked about them, probably here as well as in person.

Please:  Treat your customers as such.

Thanks.

Edited to Add:  I was looking at the site, and on April 27th the business owner updated to indicate shipping delays.  However, as I ordered on April 15th and heard nothing whatsoever of these potential delays, my opinion still stands.

Edited Again to Add:  I sent the owner of Subversive Cross Stitch a link to this entry, and she responded very promptly.  While she expressed negativity in regards to the public forum of my review (but what are reviews, if not public?), she did acknowledge her error and apologize for the poor service I received.  As a result, I have a more positive view of the business (remember that bit about communication being important?), and while I won't be patronizing this site in the future, I won't be discouraging others from doing so.

Books I've read in the past month, with short reviews

Let me just preface this with the following disclaimer:  I read.  A lot.  Probably too much.  When I was in elementary school, and we were instructed to write about our hobbies (sports we played or things we collected), the only thing I could ever come up with was reading.  Which didn't make my 9-year-old self any new friends, but does go a long way in explaining the degrees in linguistics and library science.

Oh, and I do not exaggerate the number of time I have read a book.  

What Is The What?  I bought this when I was stranded in the Seattle Airport.  I didn't get around to reading until right before I left for Philadelphia, but once I started I couldn't put it down and read it in about three days.  It is the fictionalized memoir of Valentino Achak Deng, one of the lost boys of Sudan, written by Dave Eggers.  It is gripping, moving, educational and inspiring.  Highly recommend.

The Moorchild  Wanting something light (having just finished What Is The What, which is not light AT ALL), I grabbed this book to read on my way to Molly's wedding, and finished it on the plane.  It's a YA book, and a fast read, but I really REALLY liked it.  When I got home, I was talking to my mom about it, and she pointed out that Eloise Jarvis McGraw had written one of my favorites from childhood, 

Mara, Daughter of the Nile, about 40 years earlier.  I have read this book no less than 15 times.  I just read it again. It remains everything that the perfect young adult novel can be.  Good setting, good plot, good romance, not too cheesy, can be read in 12 hours or less.

Because I was feeling sentimental about books I read when I was 10, I finished Mara and immediately picked up Blood and Chocolate, for what was probably my third or fourth read.  This book is admittedly not great; it's one of those books written about teenagers by someone who obviously has no idea what teenagers are like.  But it IS about werewolves, and has a pretty good romantic element, and it's not poorly written per se.  I just recommend skimming the beginning and ALL of the dialogue.

Ready for a slightly more respectable book, I grabbed Prep, by Curtis Sittenfeld.  This book is a painfully realistic, cringe-like look at what it's like to be a teenager.  I literally kept putting the book down because I was too embarrassed for the main character.  But I was unable to actually put it down, and would come back about 2.4 minutes later.  This was one of those books where I don't particularly like the main character, or how it all turns out, but I couldn't bare to put it down, and was obsessively recounting my teen years in my head for a couple hours.

I finished that book Saturday afternoon.  Then I found A Tree Grows In Brooklyn on my mom's shelves.  This is possibly my all-time, favorite book ever.  I kid you not, I have read this book well over 50, and probably more like 100 times.  I read it again on Saturday.  If you haven't read it, you should.

Yesterday morning, I picked up Jesus Land.  It's a gripping and painful memoir, and I keep hating because I know it's true, and wishing that I could reach back in time to save this girl.  Then I tell myself it's okay because she made it out and wrote this book.  I have about 50 pages left, but I don't anticipate disappointment. 

Over this whole month, I've been plodding away with Snow.  It's so far a beautiful book to read, but it IS slow.

What are you reading?

Do you have recommendations?

For Amber

The validation

That I don't completely suck

Provided by you

Deathly Pale Red Head

Ironic Witty Nerdy

No not me....Amber!

For more info on 

Wishful Sinful Amber-love

Go here and/or here

Friday Haiku

I want to play to!

Finally Friday

Weekend's never long enough

At least there are naps!

Compromising, but not on my moral authority

I had this really stupid fight/conversation with K last night, and it left me lying in bed fuming until well past my bedtime.  The self-righteousness!  The audacity!  What is wrong with that man?

And of course I had to devote a good deal of time to thinking up all of the snappy things I could have said which of course wouldn't have actually done any good, but would have made me feel better.  And this in turn lead me into the writing out in my head of all the details of this stupid fight, and about how I'm right (which by the way I am), and about how much it sucks to be given a headache on at least a biweekly basis.

And then he called me this morning to apologize (sorta), and really, that's all it takes.  A little bit of humility?  Goes an awful long way.  And then I decided not to write about it, because it pisses K off beyond all reason when I use this venue to bitch about everything that is wrong with him as  a person.  Which is one of the reasons that I do it (although I don't write about A LOT of the things that are wrong with him as a person, because I DID date him for 3 years, and also have his child, and at some point it just starts making me look bad).  

However.  I got into work this morning and I had a nasty, snarky email that he wrote last night, I'd imagine round about the time of this stupid phone call, and I got pissed again.  Even though I know that he called me and apologized after he wrote this, I read it after he called.

As a compromise, I'm not going to explicitly detail that Gabriel's Dad Is Stupid and Makes Me Utter Expletives Under My Breath, but I'm going to reaffirm that yes.  He does.  So there.