Six Word Saturday #404

finishing tasks ahead of pending apocalypse

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Want to play along? All that's necessary to participate is to describe your life (or something) in a phrase using just six words. For more information, try clicking here. Feel free to explain or not explain. Add an image, a video, a song, nothing. I love seeing what everyone does with their entries.

Each week (probably on Sunday or Monday), I use random.org to select a bunch of entries to visit.  Or I visit everyone. Or even numbered entries. Or odd numbered entries. Or multiples of three. Depends on what's going on that week.  In addition, please visit the person ahead of you on the list (or visit everyone if you like!). That way everyone receives at least one visit!

If you play along in your blog, please add a link to the Mr. Linky. I appreciate a link back. Otherwise, you're welcome to leave your six words in this post as a comment.

Please be sure to link either to your main page or (preferably) directly to the 6WS post. Links to blogs that do not contain a 6WS entry will be removed (sorry, just the button in the sidebar doesn't count as participating).

Six Word Saturday

standing up for myself is exhausting

Question: I'm aware word verification is appearing before the comments. I have it disabled. It appears that if you leave the field blank, you can still leave a comment. I tried to figure it out when it first started but had no luck. I'll try again when I have some time.

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Want to play along? All that's necessary to participate is to describe your life (or something) in a phrase using just six words. For more information, try clicking here. Feel free to explain or not explain. Add an image, a video, a song, nothing. I love seeing what everyone does with their entries.

Each week (probably on Sunday or Monday), I use random.org to select a bunch of entries to visit.  Or I visit everyone. Or even numbered entries. Or odd numbered entries. Or multiples of three. Depends on what's going on that week.  In addition, please visit the person ahead of you on the list (or visit everyone if you like!). That way everyone receives at least one visit!

If you play along in your blog, please add a link to the Mr. Linky. I appreciate a link back (shiny code below if you like!). Otherwise, you're welcome to leave your six words in this post as a comment.

Please be sure to link either to your main page or (preferably) directly to the 6WS post. Links to blogs that do not contain a 6WS entry will be removed (sorry, just the button in the sidebar doesn't count as participating).

Six Word Saturday

going out in public today - overrated

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Want to play along? All that's necessary to participate is to describe your life (or something) in a phrase using just six words. For more information, try clicking here. Feel free to explain or not explain. Add an image, a video, a song, nothing. I love seeing what everyone does with their entries.

Each week (probably on Sunday or Monday), I use random.org to select a bunch of entries to visit.  Or I visit everyone. Or even numbered entries. Or odd numbered entries. Or multiples of three. Depends on what's going on that week.  In addition, please visit the person ahead of you on the list (or visit everyone if you like!). That way everyone receives at least one visit!

If you play along in your blog, please add a link to the Mr. Linky. I appreciate a link back (shiny code below if you like!). Otherwise, you're welcome to leave your six words in this post as a comment.

Please be sure to link either to your main page or (preferably) directly to the 6WS post. Links to blogs that do not contain a 6WS entry will be removed (sorry, just the button in the sidebar doesn't count as participating).

<a href="http://www.showmyface.com/search/label/6WS"><img src="http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp35/showmyface/guts/6wsButton.jpg" ></a>

Six Word Saturday

can only control my own reactions

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Want to play along? All that's necessary to participate is to describe your life (or something) in a phrase using just six words. For more information, try clicking here. Feel free to explain or not explain. Add an image, a video, a song, nothing. I love seeing what everyone does with their entries.

Each week (probably on Sunday or Monday), I use random.org to select a bunch of entries to visit.  Or I visit everyone. Or even numbered entries. Or odd numbered entries. Or multiples of three. Depends on what's going on that week.  In addition, please visit the person ahead of you on the list (or visit everyone if you like!). That way everyone receives at least one visit!

If you play along in your blog, please add a link to the Mr. Linky. I appreciate a link back (shiny code below if you like!). Otherwise, you're welcome to leave your six words in this post as a comment.

Please be sure to link either to your main page or (preferably) directly to the 6WS post. Links to blogs that do not contain a 6WS entry will be removed (sorry, just the button in the sidebar doesn't count as participating).

<a href="http://www.showmyface.com/search/label/6WS"><img src="http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp35/showmyface/guts/6wsButton.jpg" ></a>

I Stole a Shirt

This weekend, we made a trip to our warehouse store of choice. We only go when we're desperately out of things, which makes the sting all that worse when we head to the cash register. But this time, I helped lower our total by stealing a shirt. Yep, a little five-finger discount in aisle seven.

Eh, am I fooling anyone? I like to think I'm a total bad-ass, but probably notsomuch. The truth is just so much less interesting and I'm trying to build up some street-cred so people will fear me once I put my plan for world domination in action.

Anyways, I was looking at their clothes and decided to buy two items (there's the bad-ass part - yeah, I buy clothes at a warehouse store from time to time!). The shirt was on a hanger. The sweater was not. In order to keep the two together and free of meat debris once we hit the food aisles, I placed the sweater on the hanger with the shirt. See, smart! And when I did this, I thought to myself that I should make sure to separate them once we hit the checkout so I didn't accidentally steal a shirt.

Fast-forward four hours later and we're finally done shopping and heading to the registers. I left Joe in line with the cart and made a quick dash to the loo so I wouldn't pee myself on the way home in his car. I'm so considerate!

I didn't think about the shirt again until I was helping load the car and saw them hanging there, still nicely intertwined. Uh oh. I checked the receipt and sure enough, I had stolen a shirt. Dammit!

Back to the store I went. I thought about trying to pretend I was from the corporate office, conducting field inspections to see how thoroughly employees were working to prevent shoplifting, but it was really my mistake and I didn't want to get the cashier in trouble. Plus, you know, it wasn't exactly truthful. Customer service thanked me for my honesty, charged me for the second shirt, and sent me on my way.

Exciting, really, living a life of crime. Now I can add "petty theft" to the list of skills on my resume. Any of you want to hire me?

Bus Stop

I'd just like to preface this post by saying I'm not REALLY that person. The cranky old one that shakes my fist and tells those kids to get off my lawn. That would imply that I a) care about my lawn and b) have enough free time to shake my fist at anyone but the cat.

So, I realize that our home is at the end of the subdivision. I realize the sidewalk is on our side of the street. I realize that this is the logical place for children to await bus pickup.

That's all fine. But is it too much to ask...

...that those lovely children talk in a normal tone of voice, rather than screaming and hollering at high decibels before 7am?

...that parents don't glare at me when I look both ways and carefully pull out of my garage as if I'm driving far too fast and deliberately trying to mow down their little angels?

...that those same parents don't sit in their big stupid vehicles IN FRONT of my driveway either blocking me in, or out, and then act inconvenienced when they have to move to allow me access to my property?

...that since that they're out there anyways, maybe they could bring up my paper, mow my lawn, and weed the garden?

Maybe that last one is a bit much. But I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for the first three.

At least we got them to quit eating pears off our pear tree without asking first. By cutting it down. BWAHAHAHA.

P.S. That's not why we cut the pear tree down. And we didn't really mind. Except it would've been nice if they had asked.

What a Start

I'm going to go ahead and warn you right now that this post includes references to slight ickiness that you may or may not want to read over breakfast. Or ever.

Today begins my status as a part-time employee, full-time student. I only work two days this week, with yesterday being a holiday and the remaining two days devoted to classwork.

I awoke early with great plans! On most of my class days, I intend to wake up at the same time I would wake up for work. Sure, I could indulge and sleep in but that's not the point of this part-time employment. So this morning, I started off well, waking up around 6:45 and out of bed by 7am. I created my task list for the day, including two more units of my PR class.

As I prepared coffee and a light breakfast-to-go for the husband, it all took a turn for the worse when Tonya came flying down the stairs like her tail was on fire. She decided to put that fire out by scooting her furry little booty across the (new!) carpet. Apparently she missed the memo that the (new!) carpet is NOT Charmin. I yelled and chased her back upstairs, where I held her down as Joe cleaned her up. The entire time, she cursed and screamed serenaded us with some lovely songs of thanksgiving.

It was while I stood in the bathroom holding Tonya for her impromptu booty-bath that I looked over and discovered that Rusty had decided to poo in the tub again. Awesome.

So far, my first day as part-time employee, full-time student has involved a cat bath, scrubbing cat poo out of the bathtub, and using my miraculous BFF (pictured at right) to scrub multiple spots on the (new!) carpet. All before 7:30.

It can only get better from here, right? RIGHT?!?!? ZOMGPBANDJANDBBQ YOU HAVE TO TELL ME I'M RIGHT!!!!

P.S. As I prepared to click "publish" on this post, I heard a crash from upstairs. Where Tonya is hanging out because Joe has already gotten the hell out of Dodge abandoned me with the fur-devils dutifully departed for work. If I'm not back in ten minutes, assume I am murdering cats. And please send help and gin.

P.P.S. This post was not sponsored or endorsed by Bissell. But I'm totally willing to be their spokeswoman. Call me!

Creative Income Generation

You're welcome. For what? I deleted about six paragraphs of whining that you didn't really want to read. Even though it's my blog and I can write anything I want. BANANA MOTORCYCLES! KANGAROO MOSQUITOES!!! See?

Anyways, I would like to go back to school because my job sucks. This is to escape my crazy Drama Llama boss and some breathing-down-my-neck upper-level management and to maybe preserve a bit of my sanity. Like there's any left. At one point I thought I could quit my job for the Fall and go take classes full-time. Except Joe says there are these stupid things called money and bills and adult responsibilities. So scratch that.

Still, I thought about my ability to handle full-time work and a full classload. I expect it will go something like this:

• Cate starts classes
• Cate is excited for one week
• Cate is struggling to keep up with assignments
• Work starts putting on crazy stress
• Cate realizes she's talking about herself in the third-person again
• Someone says "could care less"
• Cate ends up rocking back and forth in a corner singing "Every Breath You Take" and eating cat hair

I'm assuming at that point, I might have to quit the job.

Joe estimates we could survive for 3 months if I gave up eating somehow managed to bring in at least 50% of my current salary. I immediately set out thinking of other ways to make money. Here are my ideas so far:

• Sell organs (research market values)
• Pimp Tonya
• Yardsale for my slightly-drooled-on stuffed animal collection
• ???

I'll admit, it's not a very good list - yet.

Actually, selling organs might be a good one. See, I still have my appendix, tonsils, and spleen. And since people are always having those things removed (my mother had her appendix out just last month!), there's probably a big market for them. Right? Right?

Okay, yeah, I'm still working on it.

Migraine Rhymes With Pain (Not a Coincidence)

Note: I didn't write a post for today. And I don't feel like writing one. So instead I'm pulling this post out of the drafts and publishing without really looking it over again because I don't even feel like editing a post.

This post makes more sense if you watch the show Lost. But it doesn't discuss any spoilers. And it still might not be funny.

Last week, I experienced one hell of a migraine. Truthfully, I'm surprised I was able to gain control of it without heading into the emergency room for shots. Grateful, though. It's always preferable to avoid hours wasted in the ER while they inject chemicals into my booty.

One of the side effects of migraines (for me - they vary greatly for each person) is dysnomia. You may remember seeing it in action before, back when I tried to buy celery. Anyways, that inability to recall the correct word is called dysnomia. Here's an example from my recent migraine adventure:

chixor: NO LOST NEXT WEEK
me: yeah, wth up with no lost last week
err, next week
dysnomia ftw
chixor: are you time travelling now too?
am i talking to sideways cate or real timeline cate
me: alternate universe cate
chixor: lol
me: I've gone "off-island"
and by "off-island", i mean "completely cuckoo"

So at least she was able to give me a laugh over my mix up. And if I could time travel alongside Desmond? Rawr! Sign me up for more migraines!

Super Joe Suffers an Injury

I've mentioned before that my husband, Joe, is a very busy man. His work creates a huge amount of time- and brain-strain but he does a great job and everyone loves him. Of course. Because he's Super Joe.

He may not be faster than a speeding bullet or more powerful than a locomotive but instead of x-ray vision, he has the ability to effectively conduct interviews while putting his phone on mute so the job applicant can't hear him slurp his lunch noodles at his desk. I had no idea it was possible to have an actual conversation while using mute but he has taught me that I was limiting my multi-tasking options without that magic button.

However, even Super Joe is human and poor housekeeping skills the Fates planetary alignment the universe has provided me with a great example earlier this week.

It was Monday night. I was slaving away over microwaving a dish from Emeril frozen vegetables while he grilled steaks for our dinner. That's when he stepped on a piece of glass. He hobbled to the table, rawring in great pain about the "massive chunk of glass" in his foot. Once he decided he couldn't find the infiltrator on his own, he asked me to chase down the tweezers and a flashlight. After a few minutes, I was able to latch onto the teensy bit of glass and remove it from his foot.

Of course, like a man, he wanted to see the offending particle, took the tweezers from me and promptly "accidentally" dropped it back on the floor. Right under my seat at the table. Brilliant.

He then spent 15 minutes washing the wound with peroxide, applied some ointment of some sort, and wrapped it all up in a bandaid. You'd think he broke his leg. Oooooh, the pain!!!

Before bed, he insisted he could still feel glass in there and asked me to check again in case it had worked itself loose. What if it got infected? What if he lost his foot? Laying on the bed, he stuck his foot up in the air for me to examine. I couldn't find the spot and asked where it was. "Under the bandaid!" Except there was no bandaid. "Oh, must've fallen off." I spent a few minutes poking around, found a spot that might've been it, but there was nothing there to tweeze so I gave up. He reapplied ointment and a bandaid.

The next evening, I asked him how his foot had been that day.

Joe: I found the bandaid.
me: Was it downstairs?
Joe: No. It was on my other foot.
me: Huh?
Joe: I gave you the wrong foot. The glass was in the other one.
me: So you ended up with a bandaid on both feet last night?
Joe: Yeah, I noticed when I got in the shower this morning.

Super Joe. I guess he just has too much on his mind to keep track of which foot is experiencing pain due to a major gash.

Playing Favorites

Yesterday afternoon, SomeMonkey was telling me about something one of her kids had done. I responded that this is why Child #3 is my favorite.

And that made me think. They say it's wrong to have a favorite child. It made me feel bad that her children #1 and #2 are not my favorites. Does she resent me for it? Was I being unfair? Rude?

But the thing is, they aren't my children so I guess it doesn't matter. Really, that works to my advantage - it's well-known that outside of my family, I'm the favorite. The smartest, the brightest, the most successful. Inside of my family, it's well-known that I'm the least favorite. The most rebellious, the coldest, the one that occasionally stands up to our mother's lying and narcissism. So it's to my advantage that people outside of the family are allowed to have favorites, especially if that favorite is going to be moi.

I'm sure that with time, SomeMonkey's Child #2 will be my favorite anyways. #1 and #3 are boys and eventually, boys are gross. Child #1 has already crossed that threshold and Child #3 has about two more years before he falls from grace. And then it's all about the girl.

Be warned, Child #2. Cate is coming for you.

The Ranch Hand and the Yankee

People of Earth! (Hey, it's working for Conan, look how many people love him right now! Except maybe Leno. And NBC. But who are they anyways?)

Last night, on the way home from work, there was an accident that caused traffic to be diverted awkwardly through a parking lot. Inadvertently, I kinda cut off a guy in a truck a little bit. Which I would totally never do on purpose because I'm a very good driver. And I never have parking lot issues. I'm going to skip the part about how his truck had been off-roading, was covered in NASCAR and confederate flags. (Okay, that was a lie, I didn't skip it at all!)

The guy leaned his mullet-head out the window and yelled at me. What he said made me so angry that I shook the whole way home where I told the story to Joe and prepared for him to have some serious umbrage on my behalf.

me: So he flips me off and then yells out the window "you stupid bitch Yankee woman driver!"
Joe: Wait, how'd he know you were a Yankee?

P.S. Sorry about the hair.
P.P.S. Camembert! (Because SomeMonkey said to work that in somewhere)

Judgement Day

Today I have jury duty.

Me, who is so freaked out the night before as I write this that I'm pretty sure I won't even find the parking deck. And if I find the parking deck, some deity help me because I'm pretty sure I can't find the court house 2 blocks away. And if i DO find the court house? I'm going to freeze to death on the way there because it is a frickdiculous amount of freezing coldness here.

Oh yeah, and let's just say I get there all in one piece and on time, thus avoiding being fined or thrown into jail. THEN I may be seated on a jury in which I'm expected to judge another person's innocence. And possibly throw out some sentencing.

Yeah, me. Me who (whom?) does not believe I'm really capable of deciding whether I should take the highway or city streets. Me who has spent the last 60 minutes spazzing about my ability to reach the place wherein I may be handing out punishment. Dude, I'm not worthy of trying to operate a vending machine on behalf of someone else. Please don't count me as a peer.

My hopes are that either I am dismissed early or struck by lightning before I screw someone's life up for them.

And please let it be before lunch because you would not believe the amount of spazzing I have done over the lack of information regarding the lunch situation.

P.S. I will have Gwen (my Blackberry) unless they take her away so please leave a comment, send an email, or drop me a Tweet of encouragement.

P.P.S. Assuming I escape from this experience with my life, I'll be posting my "Word of the Year: 2010" tomorrow. But, again, that's assuming I don't die or something. Or end up thrown into the clink (is it called a "clink"?) for obstruction of justice or contempt of court or for wearing jeans because I'm fat and want to be comfy and not freeze to death.

P.P.P.S. Laugh all you want but I'm seriously freaking.

Adventures in Caroling

We wish you a merry Christmas
We wish you a merry Christmas
We wish you a merry Christmas
And a happy new year

Aww, carolers! So sweet and happy, if not a little repetitive. I mean, my hearing's fine, I got the "merry Christmas part" the first time!

Good tidings we bring
To you and your kin
Good tidings for Christmas
And a happy new year

I have no idea what you're talking about and it's cold outside. Are you almost done? Not to be rude but I'd like to close the door now, before Tonya escapes.

Oh, bring us a figgy pudding
Oh, bring us a figgy pudding
Oh, bring us a figgy pudding
And a cup of good cheer

Bring you some "piggy puddies?" Oh, "figgy pudding." Like that's any better. And, really? Didn't your mother ever teach you to say "please"? Plus, you came knocking at my door uninvited. What makes you think I have pudding of any sort? And "good cheer" doesn't come cheap these days. Also, you look underage. Do you have any id on you?

We won't go until we get some
We won't go until we get some
We won't go until we get some
So bring some out here

Kids these days! Now you're threatening me? I'm totally going to call the cops. Or your parents! You can't show up on my porch making demands and threats and making such a racket! Go away now!

We wish you a merry Christmas
We wish you a merry Christmas
We wish you a merry Christmas
And a happy new year!

Pretty sure Christmas came and went while you were out here babbling about pudding. Thanks for nothing. Hey, looks like my neighbor's home. I hear she makes a fantastic figgy pudding!

SLAM

Hurry up and wait

Being a bit extremely anxiety-prone, "hurry up and wait" isn't one of my favorite activities.

Airports, for example, make me batty. I'm obnoxious about arriving early, then we hurry through security just to wait forever to board, then we rush to our seats and wait for take-off.

But at least that's a "hurry up and wait" process I understand. What I don't understand is the complete lack of process at my work lately.

• Hurry up, let's put this on the website NOW!
• Oh, wait, we're going to hope that councilman doesn't win re-election so we can ignore the request.
• He was re-elected last night, it needs to be on the website yesterday!
• Hang on, let's tie it up in committee for a month.

This particular project changed status four times yesterday. At the end of the day, we were in stall mode but I decided to work on some of it last night anyways. And guess what? This morning the boss says we're back in go mode.

So, I go. At least until this afternoon. When I'm certain we'll be holding off yet again.

Aren't politics and local government grand?

I <3 my job. (Which means I totally want to punch someone in the face.)