Coffee ringing

So I was driving in to work this morning thinking, I should blog about how good that dang Dunkin Donuts coffee is. But then I realized I couldn't blog until after work, and by then I wouldn't be reeling in the aftermath of it's coffee goodness. Seriously, it's really good. We don't have a Dunkin Donuts around us I don't think - we used to over there at that hideous intersection where Beaverton-Hillsdale Hwy meets Scholls Ferry Road meets Oleson Road, but that turned into a Sesame Donuts about the time I was working at that Raleigh Hills branch of Pacific NW Title, so what would that be, about 1999? 2000? And even then I never went in it when it was a Dunkin Donuts, and I certainly didn't ever have any coffee from there. But I started hearing about it right around the time I watched "Good Will Hunting" for the first time, which was actually about 7 times in a row, because it was on one of those Pay Per View channel specials that my friend Kris had where you bought it and could watch it over and over for the next 24 hours if you wanted to. Well I saw it the one time and you bet I wanted to watch it again, and again, and again. I think that was probably my first noted introduction to Dunkin Donuts coffee. In retrospect, I am pretty sad about having missed out on it for all those years. Except I saw a commercial recently playing in the background that it was now available at the supermarket, and I remembered just in passing thinking, woo hoo, you know, all Portland needs is another brand of coffee, right? So Saturday I was in the Target, picking up some paper products and health and beauty aids, and I figured I should pick up some diet A&W because I was running low (I don't drink a lot of pop, but when I do, it's diet A&W root beer, because, frankly, it rocks) and I was back there in the department that has grocery stuff, and I was reminded that I needed coffee. So I was grabbing a bag of Starbucks, and then I noticed the Dunkin Donuts brand. So I bought it. And yesterday I made a pot. Oh my hell. That's good coffee. To the point where I was almost excited to get up and have more this morning (I need to like convince myself to get up, so whether it's Yay it's casual day get up, or Woo hoo, you just got a haircut let's style it, or Yay America's Next Top Model is on tonight, you know, I have to find that thing that will get me up. This morning it was the coffee). So yeah it was just as good as the day before, and like I said, after having had some, and driving into work, I was thinking I should blog about it, but really, I mean, it's just coffee, and by the end of the work day the odds of me remembering it are pretty slim, and plus it's like the last day of the year, and I should probably be a little bit more insightful, or deep, or retrospectful or something, rather than just post about how good this Dunkin Donuts coffee situation is. But I can't really think of anything deep and insightful this evening, and the coffee is still pretty fresh in my mind, after this whole day and everything, so here's my post, the last of 2007.

Happy New Year, everyone! Thanks for being my faithful readers, even if so many of you just wanted to know the origin of the Toyota sales event commercial song or if Mighty Putty really works. But to all the true faithfuls, thanks for all the great comments and happy thoughts when I needed them and support and for laughing at my rants and jokes and stuff because, you know, that's why we all keep blogging, when you get right down to it.

Cheers to a brand new year!

And then people wonder why I rarely leave the house on the weekend

I knew it wouldn't take long to come up with something to bitch about.

It's Saturday, and I spent about an hour on the phone with Barbie while I coffee'd up and waited for my sheets to dry. Rather than shower for really no apparent reason, and since my only intention today was to hit Target and go home, I decided to make Sunday be the shower day and threw on a sweater and jeans and hit the road. Kinda forgot to look in the mirror. Bad idea. Turns out the remnants of a few Jaegerbombs still lingered on the sweater I grabbed. I noticed this about half way to my destination, considered turning around, and then decided Fuck it, I give this much of a shit about the other patrons of the Target.

In my small errand, however, I found a bunch of other things that irritate me right now.

So like remember older cars and how if you cracked the window in them in the rain they had those little ridges on them that made the rain not come down like a curtain of water all over the inside of your door? That doesn't happen anymore. God help all smokers. I put a dishtowel along the window console (you know, with all the electrical stuff there that, it seems to me, would short out and kill me if it got wet) every time I light up. Is it just me? What if you DIDN't smoke, but just wanted a little fresh air? I know everyone is out to get ME, but it appears now that they are also out to get smokers in general, what with the lighter-and-ashtray-are-options-and-not-standard thing they got going on with new cars now. Hm.

There seems to be an increase in those guys that hold the big signs on the side of the street trying to get drivers to come in to their store. You know what I'm talking about? Like the furniture stores when they went out of business were big on those. Guy on the street waving this sign around like a jackass all hours. I noticed there is one now outside a pawn shop in Beaverton, and then today seriously there were like 9 other ones all down Canyon Road. Not one car around me was convinced to go in. What's the point? And how much are they paying these guys? Furthermore, where are they GETTING these guys? Are they circling these ads in the paper and going, "Hmmm, I could do that.."? And in the driving rain no less.

Which of course leads me to the phenomenon that the rain is only torential when you are outside in it. From the car to the Target, downpour. If I wasn't actually IN the Target, I could see what I am sure is happening: clouds parting, birds singing, rain blazing, until I hit the cashier and it starts to cloud up again. From the Target to the car, downpour. Once in the car, merely sprinkles. Seriously.

Also, too, you know. It's winter. In Portland. So like, most days, it is barely what you could call daylight. So do me a favor. If you must dart into traffic on Canyon Road, arguably the most trafficky road in suburban Portland, and on foot, in the driving rain, in December, don't wear all dark colors. No one can see you. It's pouring (because someone somewhere is coming out of a Target at that moment) and it's gray and gloomy, and you are in a Ninja outfit for God's sake. Deciding all of a sudden that you HAVE to cross the street. I don't want to be the poor son of a bitch that hits you, but frankly, somebody should, just so you learn your damn lesson.

For me, an admittedly selfish person, to have to tell people (in my head, you know, I am not that confrontational) (unless really provoked) that it isn't about them, and to flipping pay attention and realize there are other people around you in the Target or on the road, well, it's pretty sad. I have my chores, and I want to get in and get out with the best of them. But I don't like, stop my cart in the middle of the aisle, or cut in front of others in line, or just barrell right the hell through a sea of other carts. I'm considerate. Take a lesson.

I told you yesterday that I was going to spend the weekend focussed on me, so I took care of the most important of my errands, and now I am bound for the sofa for a little bit. Hopefully the kits and I are on the same page. Hopefully for them. I'm cranky.

This weekend will be better than the last one

But before I get started,

WHY DO YOU THINK THAT BY YELLING AT ME I WILL BUY SOMETHING FROM YOU?? I WILL NEVER BUY MIGHTY PUTTY OR THAT DETERGENT MADE OF ORANGES OR BETTER YET A MATTRESS SIMPLY BECAUSE YOU PEOPLE KEEP YELLING IN YOUR COMMERCIALS AND IT DRIVES ME BANANAS! STOP YELLING FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!

I spend a lot of time with the TV on because coming from a largish family I need the background noise, and the kitties don't meow. Commercials just might possibly be the death of me.

Anyway the weekend is upon us once again, and this time, it is all about me. I have been sick since Christmas Eve (sorta, I felt it coming on, Christmas dinner I hacked through the whole thing, and Christmas night was feverish and coughy and stuffy and you know, you gotta go to work and you just never get better)(and it was actually kind of funny because everyone in the unit was sick, all of us, all with the same thing and all started getting sick on Christmas Eve), but it's hard to try to feel better when you know you have to get the hell up again at 5 the next morning. So this weekend, I am going to get better. I am going to not answer the phone when it rings unless I want to, I am going to go to Target early tomorrow morning so I can take a nap at noon, I am going to wear houseclothes for as many continual hours as I can.

Last weekend was a four day weekend, but seriously, I demand a recount. Everything I did was for something or someone else. I don't have to explain to any of you how selfish I am. When it comes to my down-time (meaning not at work time), it is all about me. Or it better be. Sometimes I have so much me time I drive myself crazy. But that's my perogative.

I haven't been terribly social this week either, and I feel kinda bad about that (actually I feel a lot bad about it), but I rarely get sick, and when I do, I become sort of a baby about the whole thing, feeling sorry for myself and whimpering around the house and stuff.

So this weekend, I have no commitments. None. Just gonna hang out with the bunnies and read and nap and flip channels. Maybe I'll even come up with something to bitch about for you guys.

Merry Christmas!

Good morning and a merry Christmas to all ~ I hope that those of you who celebrated nochebuena have a lazy day today, and those of you who are opening presents right now return to your loved ones because they are probably pissed that you're at the computer again. And those of you with two kittens hanging from the same thigh, I hope the bleeding is brief and the scabs heal quickly.

Merry Christmas!

Catching up on doing nothing

So the 12 day work week finally ended, and I spent most of yesterday sleeping and not thinking. Actually we all went out for Rhonda's birthday Friday night, which had a lot to do with me sleeping in til 9:38am on Saturday. I took Marsha to pick up her car, and we went to breakfast, and then I came home for an hour before I had to leave again for my 1:45 cut and color. We did roots. It matters. After that I did NOTHING (no nap, though, oddly enough, but my rule is "no naps after 4:30" so I guess that makes sense)until midnight when I went to bed. Wasted day, but good. This morning I need to hose off, run to the Fred Meyer, and then come home and clean. Because the little poopingscratchingbiting bastards really have left this place in a shambles (I don't know how they managed to make the kitchen counter into such a disaster, but I'm just gonna go ahead and blame them anyway). Today there will be a nap, I know it. I'm up at 7:45 and I am still really tired. So there you go.

Here are the tykes from yesterday while we spent some good lounge time in front of the TV. They look so innocent. It's almost hard to believe they draw so much blood.

Here's Lava And here's Seca Growing like little kibble-eating weeds.

I am going to complain.

Yeah, you know what? I deserve to complain. I just got a tiny (and yet oh so effective) claw jammed right into the arch of my foot. Yeah, the bottom soft part that doesn't get beat up by the pavement when you're barefoot. I'll look beyond the scabs all over my legs and the complete shambles of my apartment. But the claw to the foot hurt. And these cats have NO FEAR when they are wound up like this. They go through stages from the time I get home to the time when I consider letting them run free all night long to the time I decide there is NO WAY I am going to let them run free all night. Yay the human is home, then woo hoo we're kitties and romping is fun, then let's climb on the human while she answers her email, then look the human is eating something other than kibble, let's see if we can actually make it on to the table this time, then ooh I am so weary, let's snuggle up a little bit and show some love (this stage lasts roughly 3 1/2 minutes), then DEVIL WHIRLING DERVISH POSSESSED RUNNING LIKE CRAZY TEARING THINGS JUMPING FLYING BITING SCRATCHING WHACKO ALL HUMANS BAD IS THAT JUST HAIR OR IS THERE SKIN UNDER THERE TOO PAPER MOUSE WALL CHAIR LEG LEG LEG LEG...

It is by that stage they are herded into the bathroom (because that stage can last a good hour if you let it).

You know what? I'm fucking exhausted. I have worked a lot, and in this work, I have had to think a lot. And make decisions and solve problems and ease guilt and reassure fears and be diplomatic. I am flipping DONE. I am scooping those cats up and hauling their furry little bastard asses into the vet whereupon they will be declawed, because there is no stopping the bleeding on that part of your back that you cannot reach from above or below, and because I LIKE my sofa, and I am SICK of vacuuming every other FLIPPING day, and when I get home after a 12 day run like this, I DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO DEAL WITH PAIN.

I'm done complaining.

And seriously right now as I type this there is an ad on TV for a Peticure - a cat/dog electric nail file. A message from somewhere?

Happy Birthday to Jim!

He's my brother-in-law, and a great guy. I think he stopped reading just after I came back the 1st time, but I am sure it's because he switched to a job that keeps him in the field and on the road. It couldn't be because while I live in Oregon the only thing I have to blog about is the rain, my crankiness, and most recently, the 473 needle-size holes all over my thighs, shins and back. If I ever get pulled over for anything and they strip search me they're going to think I'm a heroin addict. Except that, well, let's just say I don't have the typical body type of a heroin addict... yeah. We'll just say that.

I feel like SOME kind of addict since this is the 11th day in a row that I have had to get up before 5 and take a shower immediately. I don't like to shower more than 6 times in a week, so this is really pushing it. I'm not going to complain about how tired I am since there are SCORES of people who work 6 and 7 day work weeks on a regular basis, without complaining, so just maybe keep in mind that I am a whiner and kinda selfish (kinda) and it doesn't need to be said that I CAN'T WAIT TO SLEEP IN ON SATURDAY.

None of that has anything to do with Jim, who's birthday it is, and it's one of those lost birthdays, you know, where you can't remember if it's like 53 or 54 or even 55 and really, I mean, does that even matter? Maybe it would to him. Hm. I'll ask. Until then, HAPPY BIRTHDAY JIM!

Happy Birthday JANIE!

Good morning all and VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY WISHES to my friend Janie! I met Janie online a few years back, and then when I moved to Cancun I met her in person. She is from the cold cold east and travels often with her handsome and loyal husband Norb to Cancun and Playa del Carmen often, maybe even more often than Dave and Marita (and they are hard to beat). Janie is a fabulous woman, as nice a person as you will find these days, and I am honored to have her as a friend and avid reader-of-the-blog.
Okay so I don't have a photo of Janie sola, but this is a good example of the typical Janie meetup - she brings presents! That's her, standing next to TJ (who is NOT Norb, I think he took the picture), in the darker pink just above Elizabeth.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, JANIE! I hope it is FABULOUS!

Cranky post

Worked on that auction all weekend. Did I mention the auction? One of our builder clients auctioned off roughly 200 homes this weekend - he sold about 140 or so. Some deals were really great, others were just good. But the deal is that we needed a ton of people to work it, and we had a great turnout.

They hired a company out of Irvine that does this auction thing professionally, and then they usually use a company called West Coast Escrow to do the closings. This particular builder wanted Gloria to close them, so we recruited a bunch of officers and assisants and got a crash course in how to handle the gig. It was crazy, busy, loud, raucous, the time flew by, I had a blast. The downside was working til roughly 6 both nights of the weekend and then going in again for this week. AND I am in Lincoln Tower and will be until the files close. So today was pretty busy in its own right.

Consequently I am tired, cranky, my feet hurt, I'm on edge, there is a kitten literally standing ON MY HEAD right now, and yet I am too tired to kick her off. To begin day 8 of my 12 day work week, I got to clean up kitty vomit in the bathroom at 4:45am this morning. And it's raining. So, you know, I'm in a shitty mood.

Kitty moved to my shoulder now, so now I guess I'm a pirate. Except it's a kitten and not a parrot.

I really dislike winter. I don't feel social and all I want to do is sleep in. I'm cold to the bone from this blasted rain. February can't come soon enough.

Off to have some dinner since I just got home. I am VERY HAPPY TO BE WORKING, don't read me wrong, but I am pretty tired and the sound of kitten claws ripping the mother loving SHIT out of my sofa is about to drive me right the hell over the edge.

Good night.

Happy Birthday Tom and Joey (and maybe Arturo?)!

Is that right, RG? Is it also Arturo's birthday?

I do know it is the birthday of two of my brothers, and no they are not twins. Tom is 45 and Joey is 58. Yeesh. What happened?

I would love to sit and chat with you all, but I have to go to work. What's that, you say? Work? Why, it's Saturday!

Yes it is. But we (about 40 of us from work) are converging on the Convention Center to work this homes auction - roughly 220 homes on the block from a builder we do business with in Gloria's unit. Should be interesting. Should be a long day. And then another one tomorrow. But I could use the overtime and it will be an interesting process. So it's 6:52 am and I am showered and almost ready to go. Big fat hairy Starbucks run and I will be on the freeway headed east.

Hope the birthday boys have a great day!

And then...

While at Nicky's I showed her and her daughters a picture I snapped from my phone this morning, pre-corner-poop, when I loved them still. They were thrilled, so on my way home I sent the pic to my email. Yes, while driving 52 miles per hour down Murray Blvd.

Lava on the left, Seca on the right

How can you stay mad? How?

Except now I smell like Wilson, the Timm family boxer, who shared a loveseat with me in the media room while we watched, IN HORROR, as Saleisha took the honors (it's not like I wanted Chantal, or even that train-wreck of a Jenah, and really who else could it have been, but I guess, Canuck, I wished I was still watching Melrose and Caridee, too.). Now the kittens won't have anything to do with me.

Oh yeah, um, spoiler alert?

Just another post about catshit.

Well I was just about ready to sit down and wonder out loud exactly how they can possibly cram all that needs to be done on America's Next Top Model tonight in one stinking hour, when suddenly, I smelled poop.

And I don't keep my cracktop anywhere near the litter box.

Of course there was a kitten hanging off one of my legs, so I picked her up and checked out her bum. Evidence.

Little. Pooping. Bastard.

It didn't take long to find it, it was over there in the sort of half corner by the balcony door. And it wasn't like she had an emergency, like you know, Oh my gosh I have to go RIGHT NOW and there is NO WAY I can make it to the laundry room! No. It was all sat over and stacked and I am actually half surprised I didn't see a folded up sports page sitting next to it. AND it appears she wiped her ass on the wall next to it. I don't know how I didn't spot it sooner - I can walk into an empty warehouse and spot a spider on the ceiling from 800 yards. Spi-dar I have; poop-dar apparently takes practice.

Did I shove her nose in it and smack her? Yes I did. And cleaned it up and my GOD I hate cleaning up poop. But these cats, I swear to God. They don't listen. They don't mind me at all. I can soak them to the skin with the spray bottle but it doesn't stop them from chewing the wires (I know, hard lesson ultimately to learn) or scratching the sofa. I sit them down, I tell them in English AND SPANISH what the rules are, but nothing. It's like they're not bilingual or something.

Yeah so anyway... safe idea for the carpet or not, I am going over to Nicky's tonight to watch the season (cycle, sorry) finale of ANTM on the big projection TV in the media room. You know, because it's that big of an event. I am interested, truly, how they can cram all this into one hour, but I guess I'll know soon enough, won't I?

Ask and you shall receive

Frankly, lately I don't have much to say. I'm feeling a little bit sick, and I'm tired, and I seem to do nothing but work, scoop poop and sleep. Oh, and try to stop the bleeding.

For those of you that are interested in seeing the progress of the little bastards, Lava and Seca, here you go. I'm gonna go lay down.

Seca
Lava
Lava
Seca

Aren't they just darling...?

Holy cow

YES I watched America's Next Top Model today and all I can say is:


I am not going to tell you what happened until Malcolm gets it downloaded from iTunes and is able to actually watch it. See how I listen? See how much I care?

Okay, so the "holy cow" part is my sheer amazment on how these cats can literally hurl themselves across the end table and crash into the wall, fling themselves across the room and into the side of the table, swan dive from the top of the sofa to the floor, then crash at roughly 40 mph directly into my shin and not be hurt in the slightest. That isn't taking into account the biting, scratching and face bashing they are constantly dishing out, and not just to each other. I am stunned by the amount of battering they can take, with their teeny little furry bodies. They are learning to jump up on the coffee table and the chest over by the window, in between beating the hell out of each other. This will not be good, as they are still quite clumsy. I don't see much of a future for the pictures I have up on that chest. But oh well. It's just stuff.

Clearly I was put on this earth to serve these two. It's cool. I don't really have much else going on.

Rain, rain, rain, wind, traffic, rain, gloom

That was today. It rained like a big fat fuck all day today, blowing winds (not terribly damaging over on this side of the Coast range but still) and flooding and freeways were closed and streams and rivers swelled and everyone still had to get home from work and it was dark at 3pm and it took me a solid hour to get home. Yuck. I'd take snow any day of the week, but then again, I live here and it doesn't really snow much.

And THEN, once home, I decided to change the kitty litter. Pulled the liner up and our little angels had scratched all the way through (you all knew that would happen) but luckily I had the foresight to expect that. So I did not spill. I brought the whole disposable box that sits inside the permanent box into the kitchen and transferred ripped liner and icky litter into another trash bag. While dumping fresh litter (sin liner, what's the point?) into the disposable box, for some reason I turned around to check on the kits, and sure as shit little Seca decided she JUST COULDN'T WAIT and was assuming the position in the clean ain't-got-no-litter-in-it permanent box. Thanks, kitty! Turns out she was faking it. I have found that now, when I go to the bathroom, Seca will immediately run to the litter box and mimic me (well, kind of: I'm not actually sitting in litter). Preciosa! But, you know, I still ran toward the bathroom, arms flailing, saying "Nonononononononono"... all is well, however, and the litter is clean, and the kitties are happy, and I am dry, and I have power, and the largest Sitka spruce tree in the US just broke in half from the wind yesterday. So that's what I got going on tonight.

Pissed off because I have to go back to the FLIPPING mall

So yeah, don't talk to me about yesterday's game. If the Beeevs are happy that they beat our 5th string, then great, give it to them.

Afterward (and that's all I'm saying), Barbie and I went to the mall and of course to Nordstrom. I decided all the signs were with me, so I did it. I bought the damn bag. But when I got home and took it out of it's bag, I noticed that the saleswoman didn't take the little white plastic thing off of it. I had the scissors in my hand ready to take it off, when it dawned on me that this was probably dye. I put the scissors down. The saleswoman was a dingbat to begin with. I should have known. So here is my bag in all it's I-can't-use-it-today glory. Pissed. I so don't want to go back to Nordy's today because it's raining like a big fat bitch and it's windy and I hate flipping showering on Sundays and it's Christmas shopping season and I just spent a whole bunch of money on a bag I can't put my shit in this morning and I'm bitter. Fuck.

But it's bad-ass, isn't it?

And don't think all bad about me because the kitchen counter is a disaster and I smoke. If you had these little bastards with their Ginsu claws racing all over YOUR apartment you'd put everything up on the counter, too. I had a lot going on yesterday and NOW I HAVE TO GO BACK TO THE FLIPPING MALL.

Good mooooooor-niiiiiiiiiiiing!

DA da de da, DA da de da

The Mannheim Steamroller concert was good. My only exposure to them were the many cds that Rhonda had/has, and truthfully she didn't really play them that much when we were roommates in the House of Cards. Or if she did I blocked it. I like to sing. Singing instrumentals just sounds stupid. But yeah, we met at a bar called the Thirsty Lion in old town and had a couple of pops, then trained it over to the Rose Garden and pretty much sat down when they started. The visual effects were nice and the music was full and rolling. Lots of vid, I guess that's their gig. I was kind of shocked, though, that the first set lasted like 45 minutes, the intermission about 25, and the second set about another 45. They did three encores (you pretty much just expect an encore anymore, don't you?) and sure as anything, they played the Carol of the Bells. I pretty much gritted my teeth through and tried to focus on the (rather odd) vid that went with it, and soon enough it was over. I'm no fool, I'll hear it another 79 BAZILLION times before, you know, next Thursday.

After, we went to Paddy's for another couple of beers, but the walk back to Marsha's parking garage took any sort of alcoholic after effects out of me, and by the time the car heated up, I was so tired I just wanted to go to bed. Which I did, because it was midnight. It's been pretty dang cold for around here, and what with my solid rule of "no coat until December 1", I thought I might simply die. I will say that just being in the old town area, where a lot of the missions are, I felt pretty lucky that I get to ultimately be warm, as opposed to not sure when I might be warm again, which is pretty much the case for all the homeless-types that hang out down there. It made me sad.

Anyhoo... this a.m. I am going to breakfast with the girls at Maxwell's, and they are going off to cut down their Christmas trees and I am going to run some errands, and then I will head to Barbie's to watch the game (Go Ducks) and then I do believe Barbie and I will hit the Square and I do believe I might. just. buy. that. purse.

I'm shaking.

But I do feel like it's the Christmas season now. Thanks to those crazy flute and organ players from Nebraska.