To Each His Own

Around Christmas time I informed the Boy it would be a great idea to go caroling. I told him I could play my french horn which I had not played in 10 years, and he could sing off key. This, I told him, was a great way to get to know our neighbors.

Of course I was joking. I said that my true goal was to be known as the craziest people on the block so that they would all stay away. Little did I know that was going to be a difficult task.

I found out later that the house across the street is used as a halfway house for reintroducing persons who have been committed to psychiatric wards back into society. I think this is a great program, personally, because it provides a step down that some people need. Our other neighbors informed us that from time to time we may find mail missing as the residents are often sent out to retrieve mail and if they don't have any in their box, they will go to all of the neighbors houses to collect some. Which, they can have all of my junk mail if they please.

Saturday I was out heading into town when the resident of the day came out to get the mail. It caught me off guard at first, until I realized that I wasn't seeing things and that he indeed had his dark hair slicked down and was sporting a full on dracula cape. And he was owning it. More power to him.

Gaining my identity....losing my mind.

When I married the Boy, I decided that I would take his last name. This was a decision I didn't take lightly as I've carried around my last name for 30+ years now. And I like my last name. But his is easier to pronounce and spell, and in a profession where a dozen new people each day are hacking your name, sometimes easier is better. But so I didn't completely lose the old me, I took my maiden name as my middle name. Simple enough.

Last week I began the dreaded chore of traipsing up to the Social Security Office to make the official change. Of course the place is open the convenient hours of 8 to 4, M-F. And of course the closest ones are half an hour in either direction of my house. But I picked one, took off early from work, and drove up there.

When I got there, there was no one in line and I was immediately called to the counter. Thinking this was going to be the quickest government agency visit ever, I pull out all of my documents only to discover I can't find my license. I had switched purses when we went on our honeymoon, but I thought for certain I had switched back. But alas, I couldn't locate it. I knew the answer before I asked, but I asked if I had to have my photo ID, and was told that yes, to get the new card I needed my DL or my passport. Neither of which I had.

Later that night, I'm out eating dinner with the Boy and relating the story when he reminds me that the weekend prior I had handed the DL to my oldest stepson so that he could look at it. So we checked the car and buried in the back seat was the DL. Thank goodness, but it only irritated me more that it was with me the whole time.

So today, even though I'm on call in the office, I found someone to cover for me so that I could get up to the SS office again before I'm out of town next week at a conference. Get there, documents neatly stacked, application filled out, and breeze right up to the desk. I'll start with the fact that the guy never asks for or sees my DL. I set it on the counter, and unless he has super focused vision, I know he didn't see it from his chair 6 feet away. Then he took my application and went through it entering all of the information into the computer. After about 10 minutes he printed the form for me to check for spelling errors and told me to sign. On the line where it said, "name as it will appear on your SS card" it said my first name, my middle name (the one I was born with ) and my new last name. Clearly not how I had written it on the application 3 times. So I had to have him correct it, which I swear took longer than the initial entry. Then he gave me a receipt and sent me on my merry way.

The Boy happened to be at that moment at the BMV in our town. Online it said you had to have your new SS card in your new name before you could get your license in your new name. But you had to have your new license within 30 days of the marriage. And since my SS card will take "at least" 2 weeks to get here, there's no way a person who takes a honeymoon and goes to the SS office will ever be able to wait until she gets the card back to go into the BMV. So he asked the clerk for me and the clerk said as long as I had the marriage certificate, proof of my identity, and the receipt from the SS office, I was good to go. Except she said something about having to have the official red stamp on the receipt, which I did not have.

So I came back into town and headed for the BMV before they closed. Walk in and get called to the desk. I tell the lady what I'm there for and she takes all of my neatly organized documents to start the process. Then she asks if I just went to the SS office today. When I reply in the affirmative, she tells me that I can't get my license today because the magical computer systems have to cycle over night. So I have to wait until at least tomorrow. Which they never told the Boy when he had asked for me 30 minutes earlier. Grrrrr.

I should have asked while I was there if the no red stamp thing was fatal. But I forgot. She had looked directly at the form and never mentioned it. So if I go back on Friday and they say I have to have some magical red stamp, I think I might really lose it.

Things that go bump in the night.

On Sunday, the Boy and I prepared dinner for the kids and were in process of moving everything outdoors for a picnic on the back porch. In the process, I was stooped over the refrigerator pulling the necessary condiments, when I suddenly had a full bottle of wine drop off the fridge and onto the back of my head. Man did it hurt. I didn't black out, but I did see some fuzzy lines for a moment. And I had a tennis ball sized knot on the back of my scalp for the next 12 hours. It's gone down now, other than the tenderness, but it's just yet another example of my klutzery. Observe:

The first weekend my stepsons stayed at my apartment, I was so worried about spilling something on the carpet and staining it, that I bought them cups with twist on lids to prevent the accidental spill. In the process of reminding them to watch their drinks, I managed to spill and entire gallon of orange crystal light all over the beige carpet.

At another point, we had stopped at McD's to grab some drinks and I was helping the youngest get into his car seat. Like I normally do, I set the Boy's and my drinks on the roof of the car to free up my hands. Unfortunately we were in the Boy's car. Unlike my car, his has a moon roof, which happened to be open. So we had 2 large sweet teas fall straight through the roof and onto the leather seats. Fantastic.

And one other example, because I'm sure I've proven my point by now. I have a knobless crock pot. When we moved into our new house, we had to start using a gas oven, rather than the electric. I had the crock pot on the back of the stove (since we have no counter space) and while it was cooking, I made some tea. Except, I guess the gas flame didn't stay contained under the tea pot and instead caught the knob on fire, shooting 2 feet of flame up into the stove hood. Of course my stepsons were there to witness and every once in a while they will start a conversation with... remember that one time when you set the kitchen on fire....

All examples of a day in the life of me. Ms. Accident waiting to happen.

Back Home Again

The worst part about going on vacation, is that when you return, the house is still a mess, the litter box needs scooping (desparately), the dishes that were on the counter when you left haven't been miraculously cleaned by small woodland animals, and you have to return to work. While I love my job, I'm not looking forward to the stack of new work, the contested trials scheduled this week, or the number of emails and voice mails I'd have to return.

What's worse is when you have a lot of gifts people gave you before you left piled in every room of your house that need organizing. So we bought a shelf. And a grill. The boy has been dying for a grill for a while. Now, instead of cleaning house or cooking food, we're putting together new equipment. In the long run, it will help out immensely. In the short run, it just means we're procrastinating again on things that need done. Somehow, the tomorrow that I always put things off to never seems to surface.

A Blog Reborn

It's been about 9 months since my last post, and I figure the gestation for the next post is now complete. Several things have changed over the last 9 months, and I can't believe reading back through the posts that less than a year ago that was my life. I'll briefly detail the changes and then hopefully start back in with some snarkiness. It can't be all that hard to get back in the saddle.

The Boy that I was dating has now become The Husband. A week ago we made it official and I gained a new last name. It's very odd to think about it, so I try not to. The past week we took an abbreviated honemoon out east and at certain points I'd look at him and it would hit me: That's my husband. I confessed to him my thoughts, and he laughed and said he'd been doing the same thing. It's just weird. I don't think I moved from calling him my boyfriend to my fiance yet, and now I can't say, guy I'm dating. And the rings on the left hand throw me off.

I started my main job late last September. And, I love it. Even though I'm trying to be back to blogging, I'm going to not blog about work because that would be inappropriate. Let's just say I'm on the criminal end of the legal spectrum. Bye Bye civil litigation.

I quit my second job (the one where I met the Boy) shortly after starting my new job. Sleep. It's way underrated. On the down side, I don't get to see the Boy as much since he's still working there. Our schedule tends to be me leaving the house at 7:30, and if I'm lucky, he'll make it home 15 minutes before I have to go. Then, if he's working his other job or in school, by the time I make it home, he's already left the house. Generally he will come home between jobs and have about a 30 minute layover. Then it's back to work at 11 p.m. while I sleep. And we start the whole thing over the next day. Hopefully when he finishes up school he can find a normal hours job. Because I'm not too fond of this routine.

We're (we being The Boy, me, and my 2 stepsons) here at my parents house getting ready to leave to go to an amusement park for a small family vacation. I think we all need the debriefer after the wedding planning and all around stress that we have. I didn't sleep much last night, so hopefully i'm not pooped at 3. It should be a good time though.

As for posts, I have one in my head that I'll get on here in the next few days. The Boy and I went to DC for our honeymoon and I navigated while he drove. I'll leave it at that for now.

I'm too tired to come up with clever title.

Life is busy, if you haven't figured out. I've been off of my primary job this week, and although I promised The Boy that we would try running this week, things haven't panned out. So much for good intentions. I guess there is always tomorrow morning, but since he hasn't mentioned it since about Tuesday, I'm not going to be the first to bring it up. I did buy a good sports bra for the occassion though, in case we ever do venture out. Did you know those things cost 60 bucks. I mean, seriously?

Things they are a changing around here. I'm off work this week because I am, yet again, between jobs. Actually, this one is a good thing. A while back I was approached and recruited for a new position. Things panned out the way I had hoped and I was offered a new job a few weeks ago. The stars aligned and I said good-bye to my state job and instead accepted a different type of government job. Different, and it scares me a bit, but I'm looking forward to it. They've said they will work with me to let me keep my night job if I want to, but I'm not certain I will. For right now, I might. I'm hoping to buy a house in a year or so, and the extra money would be nice. But sleeping through the night would also be nice. So I'll probably give it a whirl for a while, and if I can't hack it, I'll go back to being normal and only having one job.

I've got to get into my night job here now. So much for my mini vacation.

Are my pants on fire?

Even the casual reader here will know that I detest exercise. All forms. I've blogged before that one thing I enjoy about my second job is that I'm getting paid to exercise. So far, I've been happy with that.

Then comes The boy. See, the boy and I work the same job. Only, my tasks at the job tend to be a little more physically demanding on a daily basis. I'm not saying he doesn't work hard, because he does. It's just he gets to rotate and do different things different weeks. So while one week for him may be physically demanding, the next week may not be quite as intense. On a nightly basis, I start work and do the same task for 4 straight hours, burning calories the whole time. He has to run around and do other stuff so it's not continuous.

Anyway, last night as we're chatting on the phone on the way to work, The Boy mentions again that he's been thinking of ways that we can exercise together. He agrees that the job is exercise, but somehow thinks that once it gets routine, it doesn't do as much for you and therefore we need to supplement. He mentions that he's considering running for half an hour to an hour in the mornings when he gets off of work. I listen and comment something along the lines of, "well good for you." Until I realize that he wasn't talking about running alone. Apparently it was an invitation for us to start running together.

I get off of my second job typically around 5 a.m., sometimes later. It's a 15 minute drive home and then I usually like to hop in bed for anywhere from an hour to 2 hours depending on my morning schedule for my regular job. Then I hop up, go to work, come home and try to sleep 4 to 5 hours, but it ends up being 2 or 3.

Now, The Boy is expecting me to give up precious sleep time to go running? Have I mentioned I'm starting to question The Boy's sanity.

Spit Swapping

The Boy and I and his kids paid a visit to my parents' house over the weekend. Yes, mom. I know he's a man. But "the boy" just sounds better. Anyway, on our way over, we stopped at a roadside produce stand to pick up some sweet corn. We'd had really good luck at the stand by his house, but unfortunately he forgot to check the sign and it was closed on Sunday. Totally his fault. So we had to stop at a new place we'd both seen up the road.

Stopping was probably our first mistake. I got out to get the corn, and his 5 year old (D) wanted to help me carry it. When we got up to the stand, there was a half watermelon which had been cut into little cube pieces. Immediately, D noticed the watermelon and asked for a taste of it. The stand owner happily obliged by offering a cube on his plastic fork. D, of course, was pleased and took it with no qualms. Next, stand owner, whom, so you get the picture, was toothless and forgot to put in his dentures that morning, turned to me and offered me a piece off the same fork. I graciously declined. He then offered the community fork to the next person in line, before helping himself to another piece and gumming the fork to get every last morsel.

And to think, I didn't like watermelon before.

Is this thing on?

wow. Time flies when you're having fun. I almost forgot my password to this thing. It's hard to imagine a time when I actually posted to this thing daily. Now it's mostly an afterthought. I mainly keep up through the mom's blog, and even then i've been lax.

Well, if you read my last post, you're pretty much up to date on my life. Work is the same. The 2 jobs still take up most of my time. the bro got married 2 weeks ago. He seems really happy.

The biggest change to my life has been the addition of a boy. Yes, perpetually single H is dating. I won't talk much about him cause that's not my style. He knows I have this blog though and is dying to find it. So I tease him a bit with it. He's also met the fam a couple of times and survived. He even spent a weekend with them at Kings Island after knowing them for approximately 6 hours. Even right now he's asking what I'm blogging, so I should get off of here before he looks over my shoulder.

Toodles.

I've been hanging around...

Yeesh, time is certainly flying by. I just looked at the date of my last post and realized it has been a whole 6 weeks since I've been round these parts. It's already May! Can you believe it?

I guess a quick update on what I've been up to is in order for those I don't talk to on a regular basis. Which is probably a lot of people since I don't talk to many people. But it's probably not many people who are reading this because I'm fairly certain anyone who once may have read this has long since abandoned the idea of it. But in case you peeked your head in here and wanted to check in, I'll oblige. And I'm not making any promises about being better about keeping up with the posting, because seriously? Let's be honest here.

I'm still working my government job and being swamped as ever. I like it just fine, but I was promised secretarial/paralegal help would be arriving last June. It's not here. I have someone who occassionally helps with my filing, but she can't even get that right and if she doesn't know where something goes, she will just create an entirely new case file for it and file it away. You can imagine how convenient that is for me when I go to my drawer and I have 4 files for the same case. So when I'm talking to other attorneys on the phone and they have the nerve to comment to me about how difficult it is to get ahold of them since they're so busy, I have no qualms about pointing out to them that I am the sole attorney for 2 counties and I'm my own paralegal and secretary. When they don't believe me, I give them details. Add that to the fact that I was in Court every day but 3 for the month of May, and you can understand why I'm behind in my paperwork and preparation for Court. It's hard to prepare for hearings when you're always in hearings to begin with. But you've got to love government work. At least it's all pretty repetitive and I don't feel like I have to reinvent the wheel every day. For that I'm thankful.

I'm also still working my second job at the company located at the airport. And, surprisingly, I still love that job. Even though it messes with my sleep schedule, there's something about it and a culture that is just difficult to explain. For the first 4 months or so, I spent most of my time feeling like a complete idiot since they don't exactly train you on what to do and mostly just yell for you to do something. But after a while I started to catch on and am now feeling 50% less idiot. They also got it in their brains to train me to drive for part of the night, which requires me to pull about 40 tons of freight behind a tug and navigate it around the place while avoiding hitting things, especially the planes. It took me a while to get the hang of that as well, since my second night out, I didn't clear a corner and managed to take out a stop sign. A stop sign that was attached to a 3 foot by 5 foot concrete barrier. But hey. It wasn't a plane. Most people thought I'd last in that job for about a month or so, but I'm going on my 8th month there and enjoying it. Plus, I've gotten used to the money. I don't tell people what my day job is unless they ask me point blank, because the stares I get from those who have found out is enough to scare them away. There's still this stigma associated with lawyers and as soon as they find out that's what I do, their first question is always "what the heck are you doing working here?", and the second is usually, "hey, can you tell me how...".

With as busy as I've been with the 2 jobs, I've not had much else going on. Another reason I love the night job is that it's paid exercise. Anyone who knows me knows that I hate working out. Always have, and I'm sure I always will. With the job, I don't have to worry about it. Plus, if I'm not home during the week, I'm not home snacking.

Also, my younger bro is getting married in 2 months. So we're wedding planning and I'm fulfilling my bridesmaidly duties. So that's another big chunk of my oh so exciting life right now.

And basically, that's me in a nutshell for now. It's not all that entertaining or worthwhile of a read, but there it is. I'm keeping busy and enjoying my weekends as much as I can. I haven't been able to take a vacation day in about a year from my main job because I've felt too guilty with burdening the other attorney in my region with covering for me. So I've been using my vacay time a half day at a time to basically sleep in when I want. Lucky for me, my offices let me flex my time, so if I want to sleep till 10 one morning and then come in and work till 7, I can. It's fabulous. Every vacation day I have scheduled so far, there has been an emergency hearing I have had to attend. But I got someone to cover for me on Monday so that I can have a long weekend with election day off. Too bad I'll be spending my vacay day and election day catching up on court orders that I need to do because I'm so far behind. But seriously, one day I'll take a vacation. Because I really really could use one.

Educational TV

At dinner with my family tonight, my 3 year old niece was wearing a shirt that said "Grandpa's TV Buddy". Since Papa keeps her almost every Friday, I knew there was some truth to that statement, so I decided to ask her about it. I asked her what her favorite show was and she responded,

"Hannah Down Hannah"

What she means is Hannah Montana. Man, is that Miley Cyrus everywhere. She's even bigger than Britney was in Britney's heyday. I only hope that the pressure of stardom at such a young age doesn't drive poor Miley to explode in some teen pregnancy scandal or heroin overdose in a couple of years. That seems to be about the only way these things end anymore.

But back to the TV. I quicky found out that the niece isn't the only one who gets to pick the shows to watch on Friday. I asked her what Papa's favorite show was and she responded,

"He likes the one where the bad boys shoot people."

Apparently Papa and the niece watch a lot of Cops as well. Glad to see Papa is broadening her viewing habits and not pigeonholing her into watching only toons.

Laugh by Omission

I got an email from a friend yesterday that proved that leaving out a word can certainly change the meaning of what you're saying. What she said was, "I would like a hairy ape in my shorts." After I stopped laughing, I realized she meant to say she would "look like a hairy ape". Not quite the same thing.

Also, I'm sitting in the back of court during closing arguments of a jury trial. I was 10 minutes late for a hearing so they couldnmt call me first and instead had to put me after the jury. It would't have been so bad if I hadn't have learned that the judge was looking for me in the rotunda prior to the hearing. I had called the bailiff, but I'm not certain that is going to save me from getting my butt chewed when the case does get called here in a few minutes. I've now caused the other side to have to sit here for an hour because I was late.

Incidentally, if no one hears from me in the next 24 hours, someone please find me and bail me out of jail. Please.

Can you throw them over your shoulder, like a Continental soldier?

My niece is a whole 3 years, 3 months, going on 30. I say her age every time I talk about her because I'm still amazed at some of the things that come out of her mouth. I know they say I was a smart child, but there is no way I was as smart as she is. My mother will be the first to tell you that she has picked up lip reading. Even from across a short distance. She can understand what you are saying even if there are no words coming out of your mouth. Which is dangerous.

Today, she and I were having one of our random conversations. It just so happened to be about what I needed to take off before she would let me shower. She was taking me through piece by piece of clothing, starting with my socks. Surprisingly, she was letting me keep my sweats on. But I had to lose the shirt and the socks, and then "that thing", she said as she pointed to my bra. I asked her if she knew what it was called, and she didn't. So I told her it was a bra. I spared her from telling her what one of her grandmother's used to call it*, and will definitely avoid telling her until she's older what another of her grandmothers used to lovingly refer to is as**.

Once she got the word, I asked her if she wore a bra. She replied with a simple "nah", and before I could get out her ever favorite "why" question, she offered an explanatory, "but I'll have to when my boobs get big."

The fact that (at 3) she didn't know what it was called but knows the purpose and gets that she's one day going to be cursedblessed with a chest just freaks me out a little bit. Are they teaching sex ed in daycare?

*Over the shoulder boulder holders.
**Not appropriate for this blog, but it rhymed with kitty hags.

So it begins

I found my first grey hair today. Who knows how many more are hiding underneath my color treated hair.

It's all downhill from here.


*Back to hiding in the bathroom from the tornados.

I'd smile if I had control of my facial muscles.

Last week here, the temperatures dipped below zero on a couple of nights. For most people, that simply means that when the alarm sounds in the morning they don't really want to roll out of bed. For me, it means that there's a good chance I'll be fighting off frost bite.

By now it's no secret that my second job entails working around planes at the airport. I'll pretend, by not mentioning the company by name, that perhaps there is still a bit of mystery surrounding it. But it's safe to say that while I'm sorta inside a building for 3 of the 4 hours at night, the massive doors on the building are open all night with the wind whipping through. Then, at the end of the night, I have to walk out to the plane across the ramp. Surprisingly, they don't exactly have shade trees planted along the way to block the wind. This week, when I'd get home, I'd be lucky if I could even open my mouth because my cheeks were so wind blown and dry I couldn't move them.

Don't worry, this summer when it's 95 out, I'm sure I'll be complaining about that too.