Another oldie
Mike is off to Korea for 10 days. He leaves tomorrow. So I'm spending time with him before he goes. I'll be back to regular blogging soon. Till then, enjoy this one. I actually realized I should be doing a blog when I typed this one up.
I wrote it March 3, 2004 (I think)
Yesterday was another one of Heather's Days. I'm thinking maybe this is my life plan. To have shitty days and write them out for the entertainment of others.
So yesterday. Got up. Breakfasted without incident (RK fell back in love with french toast which thrilled me to no end) except I still have a fussy baby. But that is nothing really. Oh, and the ants. The gnats are gone from all the rain. But the ants have taken their place. I got up and the counter was covered with them. Thousands and thousands of little black ants. They whole counter. They had a highway built across the kitchen floor from the sliding glass door to the dogs’ food to the counter. I’d call Terminex, but last time they came, they told me that I didn’t have a pest problem. I was my own problem. According to the guy they sent, I need to get rid of my dogs and my kids and all the stuff in my garage and then I wouldn’t have any bugs at all. In his exact words, “I can spray all day long, but it is your lifestyle that causes your bug problems.” Instead I put out those ant traps that they love so much. I think they thrive on the stuff they put in them.
I had some phone errands to do. So at about 8am I started on the phone. I called the Cook County Clerk's Office about getting my absentee ballot sent to me via email. I had checked the website and it had a whole page dedicated to military and how they will send you a ballot via email. Look for yourself.
http://www.voterinfonet.com/sub/absentee_overseas_military.asp
The woman on the phone flat out said, "No." What? What do you mean, "No?" I don't get it. The website says that you can. "No." I read directly off the site to this woman whose answer is... "No." I read again. "No."
I then talk to the supervisor who tells me that they have never done it that way. They cannot do it that way. And she cannot figure out how I would ever think that. When I again read her the website she just says, "Well, it's wrong."
The bottom line is that military gets no easier way to vote than any other absentee. Fine. I now have to fill out an APPLICATION for a ballot and return that and then they'll send me the ballot. This all needs to be completed by the 15th of March which means we'll be overnighting two applications and two ballots for a total of 60 bucks. 60 freakin' buck to fucking vote!!! And then I still don't know if it'll get counted since it is cutting it so close.
That is of course easier than last year, though. Last year I had to fill out an application for an application for a ballot. Go figure that one.
I get off the phone and hear RK yelling, "Poo poo on the foot!!! Poo poo on the foot!!!" I go running to see whose foot and whose poo poo and find it to be Truman's poop on RK's foot. It's all over the downstairs. And Truman's long haired ass. I decided to cut the poop and hair out. He's got to go the groomer this week and get a chop chop. More on this later. But I get the poop cleaned up from all offending areas.
Then I called my house's builder. You see, my driveway isn't flush to the asphalt so every time it rains, about an inch and a half of mud collects where the driveway meets the street. Additionally, the driveway concrete is crumbling into little stones. But my main point of calling was because the kick plate to my fridge has never been delivered. They keep trying to tell me that the fridge doesn't come with a kick plate; that the motor is supposed to be exposed on the bottom of the fridge. Dumbasses.
Anyway, I call and my customer care guy (Scott) is supposedly out of the office. The woman I am talking, however, seems to have a bad case of the giggles.
Me: My driveway needs to be run done.
Her: [giggles] Yes?
Me: The cement is crumbling.
Her: [giggles] Oh, that's bad. [giggles]
Then I tell her about the fridge and this is high comedy to her. It has gone from giggles to all out laughter. I finally ask again if Scott is there and she says, "Scott? No, he's not here."
Huh. Okay. Fine.
I move down my list of to dos. The library. I received two notices from them while I was on the mainland. One for the book I ordered from another library. It seems that it came in while I was out of town and since I wasn't there to pick it up, I must pay some kind of a fine. The other notice is for that damn DVD The Land Before Time. They claim I never turned it back in.
So I call. They are not open until 1pm. I ask you, what kind of a library doesn't open until 1pm on both Monday and Tuesday? Especially since it is not only the local public library, but also the High School library. And it doesn't open till 1pm? I'll tell you what kind of library it is. It's the kind that charges you to take anything out of there except books. Books are free. All else you pay for. Can you believe it?
Next phone call is the post office. This is an interesting one which requires me to give you some extensive background. I sent out an invitation to Roman's christening to the mother of a very good friend of the family. She wished to attend but would only do so if a formal invitation was extended to her (she wouldn't just come as a guest of her son). So I sent one to her along with the 60 other invitees in the middle of January.
A week or so later, it was returned to me with a stamp saying, "Return to sender. Attempted - Not Known." This woman has lived at this address since ancient times. I called the family and verified that the address was indeed correct and then I took it back to the post office. I talked to the clerk and he wrote on it, "Retry" and then stuck it back in the mail (mind you, this was in the days of dragging two kids and my father in law everywhere I went so this was no easy trip to the post office). By 4pm that very same afternoon, the damn letter was back in my freaking box!!!!
Back to the post office I went. This time the clerk told me that since it was returned for a second time that is obviously is the incorrect address. I try to explain to him that it never left Ewa Beach the second time and that they need to try it once more. He calls in his supervisor he then tells me that I simply don’t understand the complex post system and that this letter just cannot be delivered. “WHAT? WHY?” I ask in my most diplomatic stressed out fat housewife demeanor. His answer: “Because you didn’t scratch out the postal bar codes stamped on the bottom from the first time it was returned.” Huh? Like this is MY damn job? No, sir. My job is to clean up poop and pee and breastmilk spit up. That’s my job. My job doesn’t involve postal codes or bars or any of that nonsense. Jackass.
Anyway, I scratched out the damn bar codes with a marker and sent it off for a third time. At the suggestion of the supervisor, I followed this up with a phone call the post office for her zip code. I talked to a guy there and he promised me that he would be on the look out for this letter and would personally make sure that it was delivered in time for the christening.
On Monday, two weeks after the christening, it arrived back in my box. This time stamped “Insufficient address.” This was the reason for my post office phone call.
I called the Chicago post office and explained to a woman there the situation. This, mind you, was the same number I called when the man assured me that he would make sure it got delivered. This woman tells me that I have the wrong post office and gave me another number to call. I call that number and explain to a man there what happened and he tells me that the woman I am sending to must have moved. No, she didn’t. Well, she must have forgotten to change her address when she moved. No, she never moved. Oh, well, then she didn’t come to our office and fill out a forwarding address form before she moved. SHE NEVER EVER MOVED. He then asked me for the name and address and went to look it up. After fifteen minutes, he comes back and says, “Ummm…. She never moved. I don’t know why it’s getting returned to you. Just put it back in the mail and I’ll make sure it gets to her.”
Sound familiar? I’ll keep you posted on that one.
Minutes after that call my mom calls to tell me a few things about my grandma. In the first few minutes of talking, RK comes up to me and says, "Mama, I'm all wet." I asked her if she peed her panties and she proudly says, "Yep." (the potting retraining is going like gangbusters, you can see) I tell her to go change her panties and clean her yoni and off she goes to the bathroom and resume talking to my mom. A few minutes go by and I realize that I hear her splashing in the toilet. I investigate and find her dunking her panties in the potty, poop all over the floor (big hunks), smeared all over the toilet, the baby potty, even the tub.
I get off the phone with my mom, grab the disinfectant towels and start to clean. I put RK in the tub to just stand. Of course, she can't just stand so she is touching her poop smeared bum with her hands and then touching her hair, her face, even rubbing her eyes (to which she got my shrieking in her ear!!!) When I finished cleaning up the mess (took about ten minutes -- it was that bad), I turn the shower on and we both go in the shower. RK hates showers and screams so much and so loudly that she wakes Roman and he starts screaming. By the end of the shower, all three of us are screaming.
Oh, and Truman peed on the carpet right outside the bathroom door. I got to step in that when I exited the steamy scream chamber.
I am getting the kids dressed and the only clean clothes I have for them are new ones. I picked out sort of matching outfits from a good friend of the family. I’m not sure what possesses me to do this, but I decide to take some pictures of them in these outfits to email to the woman who got the clothes for them. As I’m getting Roman diapered, he spouts a fountain and pees all over himself, the clothes, and the bedding. I give him a bath (the pee got all over his little remaining hair) and strip and make the bed. I get another outfit that’ll go with RK’s and set about taking pictures. While I am snapping away, Reilly, who is bare bottomed (for potty retraining) pees all over my freshly made bed as well as her dress. I strip the bed and the child and redress both. I smartly decide to quit taking pictures.
I’m gathering our stuff up to get us out of the house. I go to grab my cell phone which had been charging for several hours. It is not charged. In fact, the display says, “Unable to charge.” I retry it a couple of times and then the thing just plain old dies. Completely and totally dies. Fine. Not exactly a good day to leave the house without a cell phone, but I’ll throw the bones. Everything in life is a gamble, right?
As I am pulling out of the garage, a bird flew in. Yep. A bird. Flew right into my garage. I get out of the car and try to shoo it out of there, but it’s scared and panics and flies about frantically. The last I see of it is by a pile of Rubbermaid boxes filled with holiday decorations. I couldn’t find it after that. I decide to proceed with my leaving since it’ll probably fly out when I open the garage door upon our return. Again, a gamble.
It is now 11:30am and we are off to Wal-Mart. Ya see, on Thursday (the day of the storm) RK had to leave the house without shoes on because we have somehow lost all the shoes that fit her. Well, that isn’t exactly true. We have closed toe shoes, but she only owns several pairs of socks (since she is mostly in sandals) and she wore them on our trip so they were dirty. Anyway, we had to go get her shoes. And sunglasses (she broke her last pair and she screams if we’re in the car and the sun hits her eyes without sunglasses on).
Long story short with Wal-Mart is that they didn’t have sandals in her size so I bought her a size too big. And the sunglasses fit fine, but she broke them before we even had left the store. As I am putting our stuff into the van, RK says, “I gotta go poo poo, Mama.” Luckily, my mom bought us a little tiny car potty. It basically is a seat that you attach these bags to. On the bottom of these bags is a pad thing to absorb pee. So I set this up, but by the time I got it set up, she had already started to go in her panties. Poor thing had diarrhea. She went so much that she filled the bag and it started to pile up to her bum. I had her get up and I changed the bag. She filled two bags with poop. So imagine it. There I am in the parking lot with a baby on my boob (oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that by this point Roman was hungry and I had to nurse him) and a toddler on a bag car potty for about 20 minutes. People would go in and come back out and we’d still be there. I’m sure we were a sight to behold.
When we got home, I tried calling the library again. I explained to them that we don’t have the movie and that I was out of town and unable to pick up the book I had ordered. While they were busy calculating my fees, I just happened to think that maybe, just MAYBE, the movie had fallen behind our TV. I look and can make out the shadow of something. While still on hold, I try moving the TV and the wine cabinet that it rests on. As I am heaving and hoeing, the top drawer in the wine cabinet falls out and hits my foot causing me to scream out in pain which for some reason startled Truman who starts barking his head off waking up Roman (Reilly Kate thankfully was still asleep having fallen asleep on the ride home from Wal-Mart). But low and behold, I find the stinkin’ DVD.
When the lady comes back on the phone, I excitedly tell her that I found the movie. She then tells me that the late fees for it are 20 bucks. TWENTY BUCKS for a movie that my daughter couldn’t even watch to start with. So all said and done, with rental fees and late fees, I will have spent 40 bucks at the library in just TWO stinkin’ visits!!! It would be cheaper for me to just go to Borders and buy the damn books and DVDs!!!
Shortly thereafter, Mike comes home and I ask RK to show him her new shoes. She puts them on and then tries to walk in them. She fell flat on her face. They are too big. She cannot walk in them. Great. Guess who’s going to Kmart today for shoes and another pair of sunglasses.
For dinner, I cooked a pork roast according to the directions. When I cut it open, it was still bleeding. We nuked it and it tasted like shit. We had chocolate ice cream instead.
Oh, and that bird in the garage? Haven’t seen hide nor feather of it. I imagine we’ll know for sure it’s fate in a few days when it starts to stink.
I wrote it March 3, 2004 (I think)
Yesterday was another one of Heather's Days. I'm thinking maybe this is my life plan. To have shitty days and write them out for the entertainment of others.
So yesterday. Got up. Breakfasted without incident (RK fell back in love with french toast which thrilled me to no end) except I still have a fussy baby. But that is nothing really. Oh, and the ants. The gnats are gone from all the rain. But the ants have taken their place. I got up and the counter was covered with them. Thousands and thousands of little black ants. They whole counter. They had a highway built across the kitchen floor from the sliding glass door to the dogs’ food to the counter. I’d call Terminex, but last time they came, they told me that I didn’t have a pest problem. I was my own problem. According to the guy they sent, I need to get rid of my dogs and my kids and all the stuff in my garage and then I wouldn’t have any bugs at all. In his exact words, “I can spray all day long, but it is your lifestyle that causes your bug problems.” Instead I put out those ant traps that they love so much. I think they thrive on the stuff they put in them.
I had some phone errands to do. So at about 8am I started on the phone. I called the Cook County Clerk's Office about getting my absentee ballot sent to me via email. I had checked the website and it had a whole page dedicated to military and how they will send you a ballot via email. Look for yourself.
http://www.voterinfonet.com/sub/absentee_overseas_military.asp
The woman on the phone flat out said, "No." What? What do you mean, "No?" I don't get it. The website says that you can. "No." I read directly off the site to this woman whose answer is... "No." I read again. "No."
I then talk to the supervisor who tells me that they have never done it that way. They cannot do it that way. And she cannot figure out how I would ever think that. When I again read her the website she just says, "Well, it's wrong."
The bottom line is that military gets no easier way to vote than any other absentee. Fine. I now have to fill out an APPLICATION for a ballot and return that and then they'll send me the ballot. This all needs to be completed by the 15th of March which means we'll be overnighting two applications and two ballots for a total of 60 bucks. 60 freakin' buck to fucking vote!!! And then I still don't know if it'll get counted since it is cutting it so close.
That is of course easier than last year, though. Last year I had to fill out an application for an application for a ballot. Go figure that one.
I get off the phone and hear RK yelling, "Poo poo on the foot!!! Poo poo on the foot!!!" I go running to see whose foot and whose poo poo and find it to be Truman's poop on RK's foot. It's all over the downstairs. And Truman's long haired ass. I decided to cut the poop and hair out. He's got to go the groomer this week and get a chop chop. More on this later. But I get the poop cleaned up from all offending areas.
Then I called my house's builder. You see, my driveway isn't flush to the asphalt so every time it rains, about an inch and a half of mud collects where the driveway meets the street. Additionally, the driveway concrete is crumbling into little stones. But my main point of calling was because the kick plate to my fridge has never been delivered. They keep trying to tell me that the fridge doesn't come with a kick plate; that the motor is supposed to be exposed on the bottom of the fridge. Dumbasses.
Anyway, I call and my customer care guy (Scott) is supposedly out of the office. The woman I am talking, however, seems to have a bad case of the giggles.
Me: My driveway needs to be run done.
Her: [giggles] Yes?
Me: The cement is crumbling.
Her: [giggles] Oh, that's bad. [giggles]
Then I tell her about the fridge and this is high comedy to her. It has gone from giggles to all out laughter. I finally ask again if Scott is there and she says, "Scott? No, he's not here."
Huh. Okay. Fine.
I move down my list of to dos. The library. I received two notices from them while I was on the mainland. One for the book I ordered from another library. It seems that it came in while I was out of town and since I wasn't there to pick it up, I must pay some kind of a fine. The other notice is for that damn DVD The Land Before Time. They claim I never turned it back in.
So I call. They are not open until 1pm. I ask you, what kind of a library doesn't open until 1pm on both Monday and Tuesday? Especially since it is not only the local public library, but also the High School library. And it doesn't open till 1pm? I'll tell you what kind of library it is. It's the kind that charges you to take anything out of there except books. Books are free. All else you pay for. Can you believe it?
Next phone call is the post office. This is an interesting one which requires me to give you some extensive background. I sent out an invitation to Roman's christening to the mother of a very good friend of the family. She wished to attend but would only do so if a formal invitation was extended to her (she wouldn't just come as a guest of her son). So I sent one to her along with the 60 other invitees in the middle of January.
A week or so later, it was returned to me with a stamp saying, "Return to sender. Attempted - Not Known." This woman has lived at this address since ancient times. I called the family and verified that the address was indeed correct and then I took it back to the post office. I talked to the clerk and he wrote on it, "Retry" and then stuck it back in the mail (mind you, this was in the days of dragging two kids and my father in law everywhere I went so this was no easy trip to the post office). By 4pm that very same afternoon, the damn letter was back in my freaking box!!!!
Back to the post office I went. This time the clerk told me that since it was returned for a second time that is obviously is the incorrect address. I try to explain to him that it never left Ewa Beach the second time and that they need to try it once more. He calls in his supervisor he then tells me that I simply don’t understand the complex post system and that this letter just cannot be delivered. “WHAT? WHY?” I ask in my most diplomatic stressed out fat housewife demeanor. His answer: “Because you didn’t scratch out the postal bar codes stamped on the bottom from the first time it was returned.” Huh? Like this is MY damn job? No, sir. My job is to clean up poop and pee and breastmilk spit up. That’s my job. My job doesn’t involve postal codes or bars or any of that nonsense. Jackass.
Anyway, I scratched out the damn bar codes with a marker and sent it off for a third time. At the suggestion of the supervisor, I followed this up with a phone call the post office for her zip code. I talked to a guy there and he promised me that he would be on the look out for this letter and would personally make sure that it was delivered in time for the christening.
On Monday, two weeks after the christening, it arrived back in my box. This time stamped “Insufficient address.” This was the reason for my post office phone call.
I called the Chicago post office and explained to a woman there the situation. This, mind you, was the same number I called when the man assured me that he would make sure it got delivered. This woman tells me that I have the wrong post office and gave me another number to call. I call that number and explain to a man there what happened and he tells me that the woman I am sending to must have moved. No, she didn’t. Well, she must have forgotten to change her address when she moved. No, she never moved. Oh, well, then she didn’t come to our office and fill out a forwarding address form before she moved. SHE NEVER EVER MOVED. He then asked me for the name and address and went to look it up. After fifteen minutes, he comes back and says, “Ummm…. She never moved. I don’t know why it’s getting returned to you. Just put it back in the mail and I’ll make sure it gets to her.”
Sound familiar? I’ll keep you posted on that one.
Minutes after that call my mom calls to tell me a few things about my grandma. In the first few minutes of talking, RK comes up to me and says, "Mama, I'm all wet." I asked her if she peed her panties and she proudly says, "Yep." (the potting retraining is going like gangbusters, you can see) I tell her to go change her panties and clean her yoni and off she goes to the bathroom and resume talking to my mom. A few minutes go by and I realize that I hear her splashing in the toilet. I investigate and find her dunking her panties in the potty, poop all over the floor (big hunks), smeared all over the toilet, the baby potty, even the tub.
I get off the phone with my mom, grab the disinfectant towels and start to clean. I put RK in the tub to just stand. Of course, she can't just stand so she is touching her poop smeared bum with her hands and then touching her hair, her face, even rubbing her eyes (to which she got my shrieking in her ear!!!) When I finished cleaning up the mess (took about ten minutes -- it was that bad), I turn the shower on and we both go in the shower. RK hates showers and screams so much and so loudly that she wakes Roman and he starts screaming. By the end of the shower, all three of us are screaming.
Oh, and Truman peed on the carpet right outside the bathroom door. I got to step in that when I exited the steamy scream chamber.
I am getting the kids dressed and the only clean clothes I have for them are new ones. I picked out sort of matching outfits from a good friend of the family. I’m not sure what possesses me to do this, but I decide to take some pictures of them in these outfits to email to the woman who got the clothes for them. As I’m getting Roman diapered, he spouts a fountain and pees all over himself, the clothes, and the bedding. I give him a bath (the pee got all over his little remaining hair) and strip and make the bed. I get another outfit that’ll go with RK’s and set about taking pictures. While I am snapping away, Reilly, who is bare bottomed (for potty retraining) pees all over my freshly made bed as well as her dress. I strip the bed and the child and redress both. I smartly decide to quit taking pictures.
I’m gathering our stuff up to get us out of the house. I go to grab my cell phone which had been charging for several hours. It is not charged. In fact, the display says, “Unable to charge.” I retry it a couple of times and then the thing just plain old dies. Completely and totally dies. Fine. Not exactly a good day to leave the house without a cell phone, but I’ll throw the bones. Everything in life is a gamble, right?
As I am pulling out of the garage, a bird flew in. Yep. A bird. Flew right into my garage. I get out of the car and try to shoo it out of there, but it’s scared and panics and flies about frantically. The last I see of it is by a pile of Rubbermaid boxes filled with holiday decorations. I couldn’t find it after that. I decide to proceed with my leaving since it’ll probably fly out when I open the garage door upon our return. Again, a gamble.
It is now 11:30am and we are off to Wal-Mart. Ya see, on Thursday (the day of the storm) RK had to leave the house without shoes on because we have somehow lost all the shoes that fit her. Well, that isn’t exactly true. We have closed toe shoes, but she only owns several pairs of socks (since she is mostly in sandals) and she wore them on our trip so they were dirty. Anyway, we had to go get her shoes. And sunglasses (she broke her last pair and she screams if we’re in the car and the sun hits her eyes without sunglasses on).
Long story short with Wal-Mart is that they didn’t have sandals in her size so I bought her a size too big. And the sunglasses fit fine, but she broke them before we even had left the store. As I am putting our stuff into the van, RK says, “I gotta go poo poo, Mama.” Luckily, my mom bought us a little tiny car potty. It basically is a seat that you attach these bags to. On the bottom of these bags is a pad thing to absorb pee. So I set this up, but by the time I got it set up, she had already started to go in her panties. Poor thing had diarrhea. She went so much that she filled the bag and it started to pile up to her bum. I had her get up and I changed the bag. She filled two bags with poop. So imagine it. There I am in the parking lot with a baby on my boob (oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that by this point Roman was hungry and I had to nurse him) and a toddler on a bag car potty for about 20 minutes. People would go in and come back out and we’d still be there. I’m sure we were a sight to behold.
When we got home, I tried calling the library again. I explained to them that we don’t have the movie and that I was out of town and unable to pick up the book I had ordered. While they were busy calculating my fees, I just happened to think that maybe, just MAYBE, the movie had fallen behind our TV. I look and can make out the shadow of something. While still on hold, I try moving the TV and the wine cabinet that it rests on. As I am heaving and hoeing, the top drawer in the wine cabinet falls out and hits my foot causing me to scream out in pain which for some reason startled Truman who starts barking his head off waking up Roman (Reilly Kate thankfully was still asleep having fallen asleep on the ride home from Wal-Mart). But low and behold, I find the stinkin’ DVD.
When the lady comes back on the phone, I excitedly tell her that I found the movie. She then tells me that the late fees for it are 20 bucks. TWENTY BUCKS for a movie that my daughter couldn’t even watch to start with. So all said and done, with rental fees and late fees, I will have spent 40 bucks at the library in just TWO stinkin’ visits!!! It would be cheaper for me to just go to Borders and buy the damn books and DVDs!!!
Shortly thereafter, Mike comes home and I ask RK to show him her new shoes. She puts them on and then tries to walk in them. She fell flat on her face. They are too big. She cannot walk in them. Great. Guess who’s going to Kmart today for shoes and another pair of sunglasses.
For dinner, I cooked a pork roast according to the directions. When I cut it open, it was still bleeding. We nuked it and it tasted like shit. We had chocolate ice cream instead.
Oh, and that bird in the garage? Haven’t seen hide nor feather of it. I imagine we’ll know for sure it’s fate in a few days when it starts to stink.
posted by The Histrionics of a Fat Housewife at 3:21 AM
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