Monday, September 27, 2010

Twenty minutes until How I Met Your Mother

...I just really love that show.

I know, I know, I haven't blogged. But the vast amount of nothingness going on is the best explanation I can offer. If it makes you feel any better, even I check in on TtheD once in a while, just to see if maybe I lapsed into some kind of fugue state and blogged, or if perhaps one of my other personalities has logged in to fill the void.

Just to keep you in the loop, in the last week, I've
- driven to the Walmarts in Cornelius and discovered they do not carry oyster sauce or shiritake noodles
- had my brakes fixed (or did you know that?)
- had an ant explosion that came out of no where
- had a spider situation that kept me trapped in the casita for roughly thirty minutes until I could muster up the strength to face the dang thing, kill it and take the trash out
- had ANOTHER spider situation that caused me to call the condo association to kill it, which they did NOT, so I
- had to call poor Neighbor Robert to come kill the motherfucker once and for all, because I am not kidding you, that thing was flipping huge
- almost fell off a step ladder
- dry heaved during one game and then
- threw up during another (not very much though, but I'm worried about next Saturday)
- watched ANTM FINALLY in the Timms' media room
- ran out of Raid

I don't know why but being out of Raid makes me feel all nervous and unprotected. I ALWAYS have Raid. I need to get to the store and refill pronto. I'm not sure I like how this feels.

Okay, that's pretty much it. I still have ten minutes to go before the show, but preparation takes time, and I'm just going to focus on that for now.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Fail.

So I was telling MaryAnn today at work that I figured out the reason why we are getting substandard service from some of our vendors these days - nobody has allowed me to talk to them. I told her I'm sick to death of us being the only people who actually give a crap out there anymore. And frankly, our vendors need to hear about it.

The other day one of the copy machines at the circus was acting up, taking paragraphs mid-page on every document and scrunching them into teeny tiny bold paragraphs. What with us being the number one title company on the planet, it doesn't look so good. So service was called and the same guy who always comes out came out and messed with it and spent a good amount of time in there and then he left. Shortly after he left I made a copy set of seller docs (small package) and the normal default setting made them all on short paper. Which, you know, they shouldn't have been on. And which, you know, has NEVER been the default setting. I swore a couple of times and recopied. Somewhere, another tree died.

This morning, still within 24 hours of the guy being there, I walked in to use the copy machine and sure enough, big box on the readout said CALL SERVICE. Because it was broken. It didn't work. Whatever it was he did to it, it surely wasn't copy machine repair. That kind of thing just pisses me off. It's not like he's a copy machine repairman and a podiatrist; he's JUST a copy machine repairman. He has one thing to do: fix the copy machine. If I failed fifty per cent of the time I would be out of a job.

We also have a new vendor, one that our industry relies on very heavily, especially my end of the industry. We'd used them in the past, maybe eight years ago, and they started sucking really bad and so we switched vendors and have been happily with this other company ever since. Sure they mess up sometimes, everybody does. But they were genuine and friendly and we knew them all and we in the trenches liked them pretty well. But apparently they were getting expensive, so we switched back to the people we used back in the day. Because of their sales manager, a blow hard who gave quite a sales pitch and landed our business again.

We've been back with them for about a week and a half, and I know I shouldn't be so quick to judge, but I'm severely disappointed with their service. The pitch and presentation Blow Hard gave to the entire company has turned out to be pretty much smoke and mirrors, because all of the things he said they would and could do they haven't been doing. Which pisses me off. Because what do you take us for? Perhaps it's just newbie quirks that need to be worked out. But I don't know. It's a pretty simple service, really. I mean, there isn't a lot to it. It's step one and step two and then you're pretty much done with the request. But they keep fucking it up and way too often when I'm around and Blow Hard comes in with cookies and thinks that's going to be all it takes to make us broads happy. Or rather, "his gals", as I am sure he refers to us, since that is what he had called his staff in the dog-and-pony show he put on convincing us we'd be happy with him.

Good God I hate that. Intellectually I run circles around you and your half-assed attempts at getting the job done. I am not your "gal". You cannot come in face-to-face and apologize, or ask me who I want fired as a result of the latest fuck up, or any other bullshit blow hard jackass attempt at making me happy. Because it won't work. You wanna know what'll make me happy, Buddy? How about doing what you get PAID to do? This one little simple service that you have been doing for years, and obviously not doing well or we wouldn't have canned your ass to begin with. Fucking step one and step two, poof, end of request. Because the way I understand it, that's all your company does. So why is it so tough to get straight? Sell me your services, cut your rates, make whoever made the decision to go with you again all impressed with your shpiel, but in the end, all I care about is you doing your job. Because, again, if I fucked up HALF as much as you guys have in flipping EIGHT DAYS I would be out on my ass living in a box. Fucker.

So yeah. I've been a little fired up about this.

All they need to do to fix this is let me talk to him. I am telling you I will get results.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

The week not reviewed.

No input, no motivation, nothing new to report.

I was going to write about how it's school bus season again and I didn't realize it until my first drive to Orenco last Monday but then I didn't.

I was looking for a clip of the episode of the Partridge Family where they are in the wild west or some dang place and Reuben was the bad guy and Keith was the town minstrel because for some reason "I think I'll eat my lolly later" popped into my head in the middle of the week but I couldn't find one.

I was going to talk about the anticipation of another Duck victory and then again about another Duck victory, but I got sidetracked and just didn't.

I was also going to write about how my niece is starting at the UofO next week and the whole generational thing and how it's exciting and all that, but I haven't really formulated anything and I'll probably be more in to that later in the week.

But then I realized that after all this time I haven't blogged at all and that kind of sucks, so I sat down, and there's just nothing there.

So you can imagine how much fun it would have been to read all those posts that never were.

Imagination is a good thing. You can thank me for making you use yours.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Another year passes



Well, I'm forty-five. Shit.

Facebook is pretty much the only way I can remember all but a few birthdays these days, and from the looks of things, it's the same for a lot of people. Not everyone from there reads TtheD, but those who do, I can't thank you enough for the barrage of happy birthdays I received. Seriously. There were like 80 of them.

Work may have kicked me in the ass today, but the rest of it was a-ok.

Waking up at forty-five in Beaverton, Oregon is probably not such a bad thing after all.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Saturday flashback

In the Spring of 1994 I moved into an apartment in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. It was just a few blocks from my friends' Kelly D. and Pat S.'s (it's hard to not type their last names because I always called them by their first and last name.) apartment. It was a great little pad, railroad car style, but it was Spring and I didn't realize how ridiculously hot it would get in the middle of a northeastern Ohio summer. It was an old building with no hope for window a/c, the electrical system couldn't handle it. It had a boiler downstairs and sometimes the radiators would leak, which I never understood. I still don't. Perfect place, except for the spiders - it was riddled with them. I've never lived in a place that had so many. Seriously, they were everywhere. After I pulled one off my arm in the middle of one night I started sleeping with a can of Raid. You can imagine why I have such a phobia - they were in every room, every day. I'm still shivering.

A couple of months later Pat and Kelly moved into the building next door. Kelly, who I met while collecting at National City, went back to work as a bartender at our local, Chelsea's. We all liked to drink. A lot. Kelly introduced me to Harvey Wallbangers and it was pretty much all over for me.

But here's what I loved the most about living in the Falls: Saturdays Kelly would have to work around 2 or 3 (can't remember, really) and Pat would usually drive her in and stick around. Not long after my move to the Falls, I'd go with them. It worked out great because, in theory, since Kelly was working, she'd be the most sober to drive us home at 2 or 3 am when the bar cleared out. Pretty soon, Pat and I would just go earlier and Kelly would meet us there when her shift started. Spending Saturday afternoons at Chelsea's was seriously one of the best times of my life - hanging with the vacuum cleaner salesman, the biker, the rest of the drunks, oddly enough made me feel like I was a part of something. As the afternoon wore into evening, more of our friends would come and pretty soon our little portion of the bar was standing-room-only. Tom Petty and Frank Sinatra on the jukebox, seven or eight Harvey Wallbangers lined up, Coors Light all around (except for Pat, he was a Bud man), I loved it.

I really miss those days, though not in the sense that I want to go back. Just a reminder of a simpler time, I suppose.

This morning I called Kelly to check in, and Pat answered. Suddenly it was sixteen years ago, and I asked him if he wanted to go to Chelsea's. Despite the real-life agenda of running taking his kids to swim practice, the mall, the grocery store and day camp, he said yes.

I can taste the Harvey Wallbangers already.

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Blahgging.

I saw it in the forecast, I knew it was coming. Rain. It poured down rain like a crazy sonofabitch right around 2:30 today, .31 of an inch per OregonLive.com.

We so didn't have a summer. I feel totally cheated. There were maybe five days total that it hit higher than 90, and the rest of it was in the 70s and 60s. This is all I can remember of the last two months.

Something's got to give in my life because seriously, even after having had a somewhat dry run for the last month, one day of this just gets me so completely down. I don't like the way it looks, I don't like the way it feels, I don't like the way it ruins my hair, I don't like anything about it. I cannot for the life of me figure out why I have been living here (for the most part) for the last fifteen years again.

Fifteen years, as my dear friend Kelly D. reminded me yesterday. Fifteen years ago this fall I hit I-80 west from Cleveland and never looked back (well, yes I did, a little bit). And though I did move out of the country within these past fifteen years, I certainly don't feel like I've accomplished much more than that.

My main reason for leaving was that I didn't want to wake up one day at forty-five living in Akron, Ohio (I lived in Cuyahoga Falls, actually, but it's a suburb of Akron, close enough). So yeah. Waking up one morning at forty-five and living in Beaverton, Oregon is better? Because that's what will be happening next week. There really isn't a whole of time left to make that impact I figured I was drawn here to make..

This rain and the approaching Fall are making me think too hard about things, question things, take stock in what I'm doing. And continue to wonder what's next. Because seriously. This can NOT be it.

I probably shouldn't have blogged tonight, because there is no substance.

But maybe that's the message.

Sunday, September 05, 2010

And you call yourselves "fans".

I just got off the phone with my brother Tom and now I'm all fired up so I thought I would share it with you. You lucky bastards.

Here's what irritates the shit out of me about Beaver fans:

YOU'RE NOT FANS.

So yesterday after watching the Ducks beat (the crap out of) New Mexico (72-0 - records beaten and tied all over the place), I jumped in the car to finish up some Saturday errands. On the way to the Target, I passed roughly 20 cars in various states of Beaver Nation-ism (or whatever the hell they are calling it this year) - people in black and orange, decals on the car, flags flying from the windows, you get the idea. In the parking lot of the Target it was the same - tons of Beaver "fans" in their colors getting out of their decked out cars to do a little Target shopping. Here's the problem: It was 4pm. The Beaver game started at like 3:15pm. Against TCU. Does anyone see where I'm going with this?

WHAT ARE YOU DOING AT THE TARGET IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GAME?!

If you're such huge supporters of OSU football, shouldn't you be WATCHING THE GAME? I can't even begin to describe how pissed off I was about it. If I hadn't been on the phone with Barbie at the time screaming at HER about the situation, I swear to God I would have been ramming my cart into these bastards. What. The fuck. Why spend the money on the gear, the decals, the flags and all that crap when you don't have ANY intention of even watching the flipping game? Don't call yourself a fan if you don't even know, or care, that the game is on.

I don't have a problem with Beaver fans that are actual fans. Not everyone is a Duck fan in the state (clearly obvious by reading KATU.com and Oregon Live and seeing NOT ONE headline about the Ducks but fourteen stories about the Beavers' defeat by TCU), and that's great, that's what rivalry is all about. But for fuck's sake, WATCH FOOTBALL. It wouldn't have bothered me so much if there were just a handful of Beaver "fans" in the parking lot, or even if most of them were actually LEAVING the store (so that I could assume they were rushing home to watch the last 3/4ths of the game) but I'm not kidding you - there were a TON of them. Just a bunch of assholes strolling around wearing a color that only a very few can pull off without looking ghastly NOT caring that the game is on, NOT fired up for the season, NOT interested in seeing how "their" boys looked against TCU. Seriously I am just disgusted by this. If you want to be a fan and sport the colors and deck out your car then for GOD'S sake stay out of the public eye for a lousy 3 1/2 hours on a Saturday. Is that so difficult?

I don't know. Maybe all these people are OSU baseball or basketball fans and all decided at the same time to wear their gear on a sunny Saturday in early September. Does it make me feel better thinking that? Not really. Because all this illustrates to me is the bandwagon-ism bullshit that surrounds me in this state. I don't like to see it, and I certainly don't want to be bombarded with it when I'm out buying kibble and razors.

I'm not asking for much. Don't call yourself an OSU football fan if you're not one. Nobody thinks your cool, and nobody wants to see you in your getup when they know your game is being nationally televised on ESPN. You're an embarrassment to the real Beaver fans out there, and it's irritating. Just watch football. And if you don't want to watch football, wear something else.

Saturday, September 04, 2010

It's that time of year again

This is why I get up so early on Saturday mornings. Enjoy a little "me" time (when isn't?) before getting started on my errands, only to realize with mounting horror that I'm pretty far away from home with time before kickoff dwindling, beating cheeks to get through Beaverton traffic and home safe and sound in front of the TV. Yes, folks, it's college football season again in the casita. For your viewing pleasure (for the love of God I have to get in the shower already), I give you a little bit of hype from my world*.



I know I don't have to say it, but GO DUCKS!
______________
*Thanks to Alex M. for his FB post that got me all fired up last night.

Editor's note: Look for "The Pick" at about a 1:50 - poetry. I'm tearing up.

Thursday, September 02, 2010

Losing it

I'm fading and it pisses me off. I have a pretty unhealthy perception of my own skin color, growing up lily white and all, and so I tan. Kind of a lot. Because it looks better that way. But sometimes I'm tan and I think I'm white and tell people that and they give me shit. But whatever.

So my tanning package allows me to freeze it for like $5 a month (and then when you unfreeze it you get that money back as a credit for product which is a bargain because that shit is expensive at the salon and I can't be bothered with buying it offsite), and at the beginning of August I was so sick of tanning that I froze it beginning September. Then I tanned a little bit more and went to Palm Springs where I got NO color (I mean NO color. I thought I had some but seriously I had NONE. I came back paler than I was when I left.) and so before August ran out I tanned like once more which did nothing. So NOW, though I don't have to suffer the ridiculous monthly fee that I pay to tan, I have to live with the consequences of being pale.

I don't like it. At all.

But that's the deal with life, you know, one plus begets a minus.

(The plus is I'm saving $79 a month on tanning. Add that to the fact that I am now bringing my lunch and not going to Starbucks or Dutch Bros now which in itself saves me roughly $100 a week, and well shit I might just make it to Mexico in December after all.) (WHERE I WILL BE TAN AGAIN.)