The Laundry Pit

It's been 9 years since I had a baby around. Nine years since I had Logan...and 9 years since I had a service dog.  Granted, it was 15 years ago that my last service dog was this little....but it's been a long, long, long time since I had a baby around...either one of my own or the furry kind.
OMG, I'm tired.

Granted, with human offspring there is the 9-10 month wait to get to the point of caring for the little booger outside of the womb, and by that time I'm so tired of not having control of my own bodily functions that I'm perfectly happy to wipe poopy bottoms and get up at all hours of the night- because I know that a well-timed kick is no longer going to make me wet my jeans in public.

This is a bit different in that I didn't have 9 months to prep myself for the mental and emotional situation of having a baby again.

It's gone back to what it was:

• Everything is about poop, feeding and crying.
• What time did he poop?
• How much did he poop?
• Was it a pudding poop or a tootsie roll poop?
• When did he last eat and how long between that and the poop?
• Where did he poop and did you clean it up?
• Why is he crying? Maybe he needs to poop.

I'm telling you- it's been a long, long, long, LONG time since my world revolved around poop.

It's also been a long time since I've needed, no wanted, to sleep at any given moment:

• while on the toilet (we're not going to cover poop on this one)
• while brushing my teeth
• while pouring my coffee
• while driving my jeep (yeah- bad idea, I know.)
• while standing in line at the supermarket holding a 17 pound great dane puppy.
• while my boss is over for dinner and I'm trying to listen to what anyone has to say.

I'm fried.  I told Tommy that we had brownies with 'german chocolate' frosting and he heard 'german shepard' frosting and somehow we were both fine with that. Hey, we're Dane people. Don't judge me.

......little snot put both huge front paws on either side of one of my breasts, and proceeded to BITE DOWN with those needle sharp little puppy teeth......

YEOW!

That was the last night I slept on the floor with him. He's now learning to sleep in the crate.

Granted- that's another series getting him to sleep in the crate without shrieking that can be heard for miles:

• Set dryer on 60 minute cycle with clothes in it
• Set washer for 60 minute delay with clothes in it
• Turn on TV and put in a guy-flick (first night was "Braveheart", next was "X-men: Wolverine")
• Turn on Tom's 'rain sounds' alarm clock setting
• Swap washer/dryer at 1 or 3 a.m. and repeat settings for 2 more hours of noise...

Hope the combo of the TV lights and low volume (has to be action flicks- he's going to be a big macho boy not a spotted fairy so no chick flicks for him...) and the 'thrum-thrum-thrum' of the dryer, followed by the 'whrm-ruhm-whrm-rum' of the washer...and the sound of pouring rain...put the little bugger to sleep.

He's down to 1/2 hour whine/cry sessions and then he's good. Last night he only woke up twice...I'm hoping tonight he pulls a repeat cuz Santa's going to give him bupkes if he wakes me up more than twice!

Lord, hope the little bugger knows he is loved. So loved.
Santa needs to bring me a week worth of sleep.
Dear Santa....bring me sleep...and get the puppy to sleep too. Thanks.

I just spent about an hour in the middle of a "gunfight." [and do forgive me if this rambles- I'm sleep deprived!]

An old-west, Clint Eastwood-ish gunfight.
You know how in those older flicks, the camera seems to be standing between the two gunmen (no clue how they both miss 2 guys; camera operator and boom mic operator- when they draw and fire....)  and the camera switches views back and forth catching the little twitches, expressions, tics and anxieties of the two that are duelling?



The viewer sees every bead of sweat, the twitch of the eyes, the sun-burnt leather of the skin and unshaven faces....dirty western gear and desolate streets with tumbleweeds. The camera shifts from one gunslinger to the other- back and forth, back and forth, building tension....can you see it?

Well, I was in the position of the camera...... between the "Pointy-eared Siamese" gang...and the "New Sheriff" in town: "Big Woof." 

For anyone not caught up on the goings-on in our house; Hamilton came home with us tonight. It's been a long weekend of flying and driving to get him from TN- and we got inside and I set him down and off he went to explore. He came from the kitchen into the living room and Bushi had heard us come in and had come downstairs thru the hall and foyer and was headed into the living room from the opposite direction.

You guessed it. Nose to nose. Boy, was Bushi not happy. I didn't even see him leave he went so fast. Poor Hamilton was sitting there rather bewildered about what just happened. I could just hear him like some little kid with a lisp; "I tawt I taw a puddy tat, mom, I did....?"

As we're doing housebreaking and settling Hamilton in....I'm bunking on the floor as Hamilton is not, and will not be, allowed on the furniture. Ever. I won't be able to move a stubborn 200+ dog from anything- so he's not learning now. He's still small (7 weeks) and these are his first nights away from his mom and littermates and so in an effort to ease him into solo-dogdom....as we don't want him up all night crying and howling- so I'm keeping close to him.

I set up a bed for myself on the floor between my bedroom and our master bath- laying across the doorway on a stack of sleeping bags, blankets, etc. Hamilton's bedding is just inside the bathroom on the travertine floor....where he can't do much damage if he has an accident. So, I'm laying there next to my side of the bed, near the doorway so if he tries to come out, he has to crawl over me....and I roll over the other direction and face my bedroom.....and come eye to eye, nose to nose...with Goonie.


Nevermind the other 1,999 square feet in the house- both cats need to be in close proximity to the 2 square feet (and growing!) that Hamilton currently occupies!

Bushido was about 4 feet behind Rangoon when I rolled over....and Bushi was looking equally somber. These two outlaws were NOT HAPPY about the new lawman that has come around....and really they are in WAY over their little masked faces with this as they have NO IDEA that "Big Woof" is going to be 200+ pounds here in the coming months.

Hamilton is an absolute bumbing idiot at this point- as all puppies are- and just has this goofy "who me?" look on his face all the time like some gullible little twerp in grade school that all the kids pick on and he's just too happy-go-lucky to let it bother him.  Little dork.

That little goofy/nerd kid (think Tobey MacGuire in the first Spiderman, pre-bug-bite) but in the spotted suit with the pink nose that the cats are thinking about picking on ...is going to be the one that comes back the following fall looking like an Arnold Schwarzenegger body double- and who hopefully won't hold a grudge.

The Pointy-eared Siamese boys have been ducking in and out between the legs of the bed, and the chair, and behind a couple of boxes of paperwork left from the migration of my office.

Big Woof was sitting in the doorway of the bathroom with a ridiculous grin on his face, looking like a kid on his first day at a new school, dressed like a nerd- and with no clue that he was going to get pummelled if he left the safety of the bathroom and tried to navigate the darkness outside the doorway and beyond where I lay- not sleeping.

I tried so hard not to laugh. Goonie really looked as if he'd found the Anti-Christ. Freddie Kruger. Jason in his hockey mask. My mother. Just all these horrible and terrifying things you can come face to face with- Goonie was absolutely petrified.  Bushi- on the other, hand, was plotting. Is plotting. I can see this playing out like "Karate Kid" or something- but the problem is that if Bushi's not careful- he's going to pick a fight with a dog that could realistically make him into a pile of furry and interestingly marked mashed potatoes in a few months.

The cats have been circling, and angling....ogling and making themselves scarce when Hamilton moves or utters one of his silly and boyish "yips".  The whole thing plays out like a western...or a gang movie...or something bad enough to hire Kim Baysinger in it.

I suppose it didn't help my active imagination that the Pointy-Eared Siamese gang both have masks....and a propensity to sit and glare when displeased. Bushido is actually sitting at my feet, glaring at the sleeping puppy- as if he wished it to vanish into thin air due to his laser-beam gaze. 

I knew some of this was coming- but I guess I didn't figure on (or I'm too tired to care) how ticked-off Bushi is. I had called to Bushi from downstairs when I was hanging up coats....and I really swore; with my very close mental and emotional ties to Bushido- that I heard him utter some pretty foul language telling me I could take my sing-song sweet calling to him and, well, shove it.

These poor cats.  They've had the run of things so much- and they have ruled the roost.  However, Hamilton is now here....and he's going to clean up these two outlaws....and show them who is boss.... That is, as soon as he can walk without tripping over his own four oversized feet.

Dear Santa,

I'd like the rest of the world to be totally OK with procrastination. I'd like us all to be more like the French and Italians- and just "whatever, whenever, capice?"

I just really hate it when I slowly rumble out of bed and people expect things to get done. Like. Now.
It's important that you, and everyone else, understand that I DO NOT FUNCTION until my body has been vertical for a couple hours. Before that- I am just auto-piloting things. Totally. No black box- you won't know what's going on, ever. Don't try to find out.  It's like gravity; it just IS.

For example....just so you know things we need to address;

I hate that the school bus insists my child be AT THE BUS STOP when they get there. Dang-it. It's cold. Can't they wait a bit while I watch from the warmth of inside and then tell her to scoot her fanny out, pronto? Plus, she's got the whole procrastination-out-of-bed thing going on now and then too and I don't know that I want to entirely discourage that- as I'm asking for it to be more normal in general, you feel me?

I hate that hubs has to be AT WORK at a particular time. I need that morning time to get him to do some stuff around the house, and let me wake up before he starts asking questions or giving me information I'm supposed to remember later- like the fact he is going to be out for the evening with a meeting, or that I need to remember names, addresses and phone numbers....or things like- my name. I mean, emergencies and disasters aren't kind enough to make appointments with us- can't we expect a little latitude about when he's in his office or not? 

I'd really like some of the utility people and, like, the people we make our car payments to, and those annoying insurance people....to just chill out a bit about what day of the month it is...and whether or not I've clicked the little 'pay' button online on a PARTICULAR day or not.  I mean, the ebay auction I'm watching is a little more pressing than the sewer service bill, yah know?

I'd like this 'right here, right now' stuff to dwindle out a bit....because I'm really trying to be a more relaxed, non-uptight and less-Virgo-type-A-like-my-mother-uptight-b*tch about things----- except, that is, when I need my husband to do something- then I want it enforced like DUI laws in the Middle East, OK?



TTFN,
Dr. Lurch

Hubs and I have hit the divider. The one thing we will never agree on. Ever.
We can compromise on dinner, paper vs. plastic, tomay-to vs. tomah-to, and whether the toilet seat needs to be up or down- and whether people just need to look where they're sitting before doing so....

We cannot, however, agree on bumpkin-ville vs. the city.

I hate. small. towns.
In particular, I really, really, REALLY dislike the small town we're in, in no small part due to the fact I grew up here.

I left at 17. Happily. Jubilantly. Skipping-all-the-way.

Really with no intention to ever return.
It's a freakin' black hole, folks.  Come within 50 miles and you're sucked in.
(sucking sound)
Yep.

My husband doesn't get it. The things he loves about this town, I hate.  For example:

1. He loves that everywhere he goes he runs into someone he knows, or everyone he knows. 

I hate this. I hate the constant pressure to look presentable because you're going to run into someone or everyone you know while doing anything, everything, once you leave your house.  I hate that I always have to think of names and faces and how many children, and are they divorced/married, the whole thing of feeling like I have to have 3 x 5 cards in my pocket to make sure I have notes on the dozen or so people I might run into while shopping for Pepto Bismol and glass cleaner at Walmart.  

We'll talk about the configurations of my shopping lists, later..

I hate that running into people is a mixed bag; you might run into someone you like- but usually the store or wherever you are isn't a 'sit down and chat' type thing- it's an 'in passing' thing and I am always left with those situations- feeling like I said too much, or too little, and it was so RUSHED and pushy.  You come around the corner of the cereal aisle, just after telling your child they can't have the 100% sugar poofy cereal with the made-in-Taiwan toy in it, you're pissy, they're in tears...and lo-and-behold; here's Susan.  Who wants to chat.

(Sarcastically) Great.
Super. Right here, right now, when I'm dealing with a temper tantrum, a chat. Whoopie.
Then in the next aisle it's Jill, and then Mary, and then Ashley.....THRU THE WHOLE DAMN STORE!

Or worse, you run into someone you DON'T like...and would like to avoid.  You can't. They're everywhere. I have run into the same person in 3 different locations in one afternoon. It was like we had carbon copies of each other's errand lists.  The grocery store, post office, bank....and then I think I ran into that same person two more times before I went home.

GOOD GRIEF. GO AWAY, will you?  Or will I?  Oh, I will. Thank you. 

So you run into Bob, that you don't like or have some negative experience with, EVERYWHERE. I'm sorry, but after the third time of feigning interest in what is new in wheat germ...I run out of ways to pretend I've not seen you and will just turn around and walk away. This, of course, isn't going to make the NEXT time I run into you (say- in 15 minutes) any easier.

Again, from Shauna: "Stab. Stab. Stab."

I like the obscurity of not knowing people in big city stores and markets. I've perfected the 'stranger stare' of not actually looking at people, just looking beyond them, and doing my own thing.  Left alone.  I don't want the contents of my basket or bag scrutinized by people I know are friends with six other people I know, who next time they get together at the bar (a whole other situation) they can talk about what I was wearing, how my hair was, and what the HELL I was shopping for.  I know they'll do this because there is NOTHING ELSE IN TOWN TO DO.

2. My husband likes going to the little town functions and street events, and local watering holes, as he knows everyone.

This is a continuation of above, but is worse, as it's the SAME PEOPLE ALL THE TIME.

Over and over and over. 

There might be comfort in that for some people (You eat the same PB&J sandwich every day with the crusts cut off and little shapes made out of them? Oh. Wow. You're interesting.) but I'm a variety-lover and I get sick of seeing the exact same little clusters of people, all-the-dang-time.  Very little is new, very little changes, and you don't have that pleasant "wow-fancy-that-meeting-you-here" thing...it's more of a "here-we-go-again" thing.

What's worse; I grew up here, so it's the SAME PEOPLE ALL THE TIME that it was in elementary, junior high, and high school.....the SAME CLIQUES, over and over and over.  I have a very decided view on people that were born here, raised here, and never leave here. 

I have the same view of a goldfish that is perfectly happy never leaving the baggie he came in.  Is this ALL you wanted in life? REALLY?!?!

That same-old-same-old crew, most of whom inherited money or business from the folks (or both) really doesn't need to leave as anywhere else; they probably wouldn't amount to much in the big scheme- as here they have a pre-set business, clientele, housing, and income; some of which was given to them by their parents...and negated them having to do/learn/try/aspire or otherwise accomplish anything short of just breathing in and out all day long.

I get really tired of being around the same personalities, the same stories, the same social hiearchy....all the time. It gets to feeling like the jr. high lunch period where everyone has 'their table' or 'their territory' staked out...and the BELL NEVER RINGS for lunch to be OVER.  It sucks.

3. Hubby hates traffic. Hubby hates city life. Hubby hates being in cities.

I love all of it.  I love traffic, I love driving in it, sitting in it, and figuring out ways around it. I love it being an excuse when I'm late, or a reason to delay things I don't necessarily want to do.  I like watching the flow of it, and figuring out the dynamics of it, and just the constant motion of it all.   I even like the frantic hurry to get thru it, navigate it, figure it out, and just to sit and watch it work itself through.

I love city life in that there is SO MUCH TO DO.  You have your favorite 2-3 places to eat, but there is always something new opening or some place you haven't tried, or some place you've not been to in a while or ever- you just have to put yourself in a new neighborhood for a Dr. appointment or something and 'boom'...new shops, restaurants, and options present themselves in; "Hey! I didn't know we had that there!" ways.

I love to shop, I love to people-watch (when they're STRANGERS!), and I love the constant go-go-go.

I love the parks, concerts, shows, freebie- things, museums, and constantly changing seasonal offerings....like right now, the Holidays:

- The City of Denver lights up a few major buildings that are pretty awesome to see on cold winter night. It's in the middle of the downtown area in a circle of traffic, plaza and park. You drive or walk by it with the sounds of the city, the traffic in motion- the red tail lights and white headlights and green/red/yellow traffic lights, it's a blinking, glowing, in-motion display of light and sound....and you can stand there freezing your bippy off and watch it for as long as you can stand there..... and it's beautiful. Lots of angles, lots of options, lots of pictures!

- The City of Durango lights up a tree on one corner downtown. That's the big hoo-ha.

Whoopie. 

You can drive by it in 2 directions and rarely is there much traffic around it.

You have to stand across the street or in the middle of the street to see it all properly, and then that's it.

You saw it. You go home. Yay.

I get goose bumps in Paris when the Eiffel Tower does it's sparkling-blinking thing....and it does it often. I love light shows. I love the constant glow of the city and the motion and the flicker....it's like watching something LIVE.  I could stand by the Eiffel Tower all night long and watch it flicker until they shut it off at 2 a.m. or tell me to go home, whichever. Then I'd probably be back to watch the sun rise and the whole area come to life again- because I love it.

Small towns....suck.
I will have to continue my thoughts on small towns as I'm now so disgusted with the idea....it will weigh me down for a few more hours and I have to go make sure the child got on the bus to school, and then to go down and fight the horrendously stupid parking lot at the ONE POST OFFICE we have in town. Yay.

She made the bus so I'll make this fast:

1. My parents live here and I don't like nor speak to, my parents. My mother crosses the street to avoid talking to me. That's a positive encouragement right there to stick around.

2. There is ONE newspaper, and it's a really sad representation of both publishing and journalism. There isn't anything else for the writer or journalistic-minded. Nada.  They have the phone book, the paper, and the major web site producer. I know- I worked there for two years (thinking I could come in and grow and change things- HA!) and it SUCKS!

3. I had to drive 100 miles RT for a $0.33 skein of embroidery floss.  100 miles.  Nobody in town has it.

4. We have 2 grocery stores, and 1 Walmart. If they don't have what you need- you evidently don't need it. Ever.

5. Rent here is astronomical. The median home price is nearly a half-million dollars.  You have two choices:

a. Spend over 60% of your income on a decent, clean place to live that is owned by someone out of state who has 3 houses.

b. Spend 30-40% of your income on a rat-hole that has housed thousands of college kids and is only being held up by the paint, and is owned by someone in town that has 10 houses they ignore.

..............there is a joke here:  "You know you live in Durango when you work 6 jobs and live in a $100,000 house you don't own with 5 other people also working 6 jobs, or you have no job and live in one $1,000,000 house you own with nobody else around."

6. We do not have a fabric store within 50 miles. We do not have a craft store within 50 miles.

7. I buy a strand of beads from Hong Kong for $1.50 + $3 shipping and wait 3 weeks for them to arrive. I go down on main street to the one bead shop we have and pay $30 for 1/3 the strand of those same beads. 

8. Gas prices are at or just below that in Aspen and Vail.

9. Housing prices are the third or so highest in the state.

10. Incomes here vary between the retired snowbirds ($$$$) the mega-bucks who came here with money from elsewhere ($$$$$) and those who work and live here ($$) and actually live outside of town due to the cost of living in town (or they go with that joke from above).

11. We have crappy asian food (other than Thai- and there's ONE. If she's closed, you're out of luck)

12. We have crappy mexian food (the tourists like it though)

I have more list...but this is depressing!

I don't know why I want to try to have more kids so I can have a son.
I don't know why the idea of having another male in the house would appeal to me at all.
I don't know why the idea of having a male in my house ever crossed my mind. Ever.

Really.

My husband and I seem to have days where we speak two totally different languages, but both of them sound like English.  I have a degree in English. Why, when my husband speaks it, does it not sound like English, but at the same time, it is?  This is along the lines of why does jello wiggle and who the hell eats blue jello...but hey, there are many unanswered questions out there.

I finished cataloging some mail this morning and went to go upstairs, and hubby came hustling down the hall to the bottom of the stairs;

"Do you want waffles for breakfast?"

I stopped. Oh, boy. What a loaded question. Now what am I going to do?

"Uhm."

My hesitancy has now flicked his switch and he goes into passive/aggressive mode.

"Well, if you don't want waffles, I don't have to do waffles- but I thought I would offer to make waffles."

I'm already tired of the word waffles.

We had breakfast for dinner the other night as I bought fresh blackberries and we had...you guessed it...
waffles.

Normally I am the cook in the house as I don't use recipes, I don't follow instructions (this is a life-long thing) and I cook using my senses and intuition- which means if someone else does it- and follows a recipe or instructions- I totally DO. NOT. GET. IT.

So Tommy made waffles the other night when we did breakfast for dinner.  Uhm...they weren't, well. Great. Something was not right.  I cut one with a fork and it disintegrated. No part of said waffle would stay on the fork. It was weird.  I ate one.  That was all I could manage as I was about to get a spoon and some chopsticks to contain the 'waffle' that really a physics scholar should have been figuring out what on the atomic level was WRONG with this waffle.

Flash back to me on the stairs, staring at my hubby with his white-boy-Irish-afro of hair and boyish expression, now wondering what in the world I had against him, his cooking, and more importantly, his waffles. 

"Well- the waffles the other night just tasted odd- and I'm not sure why. If we don't do that again...yeah."

He said: "Ok."

I proceeded upstairs with my cache of mail and went up to my office- which I am trying to avoid today.

I came back downstairs a few minutes later- to Tommy sitting by his laptop. Hmmm.

So I sat back down on the sofa and went back to pursuing that really obnoxious ebay auction that had caught my attention.

Twenty minutes go by. I risk being eviscerated:

"So, are we not doing waffles?"

"Well, you said you didn't like my waffles."

"No, that's not what I said...." (but it's what I thought- maybe I thought out loud...) "I said the last ones were kinda weird and 'off' tasting and if we don't do that again, I'm fine with waffles."

"Ok, so you want me to make waffles?"

"No. Whatever. I'll toast a bagel."

Here's where things just slide like butter on a hot cookie sheet.

"Fine. I'll make waffles for me, and I'll eat my waffles and if you think you can bring yourself to eat my waffles, then eat the waffles...but I'm making waffles...."

I'm going to borrow a phrase from Shauna Glenn: "Stab. Stab. Stab."

Something tells me this is not the time to tell him that when he makes the coffee it tastes like feet, or that I totally don't trust him in the kitchen cooking any more than he trusts me in the garage fiddling with a metric wrench set and hydraulic fluids.....

I just didn't dig his waffles the other night.  I walked past the stove while he was prepping and the batter looked like spackling compound- but hey, he was cooking so I sucked it up and didn't say anything hoping that the lack of food in my system was fiddling with my eyesight and it would all be just hunky-dory....right?
Yeah. Well. Whatever.

So....I'm sitting here in the living room not saying anything. No waffle. No objection to waffles. No opinion on waffles.  I'm sipping feet-flavored-coffee that I put half a pint of cream in to avoid the feet-taste, and I'm not saying anything about the XY chromosomes in my kitchen making odd-flavored food.

I must be insane to want to replicate this situation by having a son. Really.

Now, I'm gonna go sit down at the table and choke down the waffle he just dropped onto a plate for me.....with a resounding "FWAP!" that I heard here in the living room.

Marriage is all about the communication.....and the waffles.

I want to find out who hires for the City.
I want to know who hired the cashier lady at the City Hall "Cashier" window.

I think she has to be one of the least, if not THE least, helpful people on earth. I will refer to her as "Potted Plant", as that's what she is...and gets paid to do it. Grrrr.

Yesterday, Tom left the house in the a.m. not feeling great. This sometimes is a result of a lack of coffee, or he's slow waking up, and he improves over the morning. Yesterday, he didn't improve. He felt lousy. 

11:00 a.m. rolled around and he decided he was not going to make it to 5:30, so he IM'ed me he was coming home.  A few minutes later he IM'ed me that he wasn't coming home; there was a boot on our truck.

Yeah, the day after "Ms. RDBIKER" was all up in our tailgate.  My ridiculously predictable husband parked in the same spot....which had me thinking "Ms. RDBIKER" had a friend in the police department or something....and was a little 'bottlebrush' about her three tickets. 

Who says I don't have an active imagination?

So- at home, warm, comfy and working on things- I now have to get OUT of my pajamas (WTH?) and into clothing and go save my weak, tired, not-feeling-so-hot, hubby.  I was less irritated with him than I was with the idea that assault is against the law and so's putting marshmellow creme all over the car of whomever did this.

We walked over to City Hall from his office- and this "Cashier" whom I call Potted Plant, (her more appropos title would be "Doorstop") has always responded to every single question I've given her with:

"I'm sorry, I don't know, I can't help you."

Oh. Really. Then WHY FOR THE LOVE OF CHEESE DO YOU WORK FOR THE CITY?!?!?

Turns out, she CAN help you if you crawl up her leg and chew at her backside a bit- by pushing her a little outside of her comfort-zone of doing NOTHING, and request she actually DO something. 

She tells us we need to go deal with this at the Transit Center, 8 blocks away. 

Really. Really? REALLY?!?!

Hubby is standing here turning green and swaying (all 6'6" of him) and she wants me to what? Put him on a dolly and wheel him down there? His truck is booted- transporting him is not an option. (nevermind my jeep- that isn't a factor here.)  So then...We do the 'Press' technique.

Tom: "Can you call down there and find out what is going on with my truck?"  (the little sign they left did not specify why they had booted it.) I glared at her from behind my husband where I was trying to hold him upright. Glaring seems to affect Potted Plant a little.

Potted Plant: "Uhm, yeah."

I also have to mention that I went in about a month ago and dealt with this same Potted Plant person where our water bill was concerned as it had been in the wrong name and we were only sporadically getting our bills.  She claimed she could not do anything about it- "Sorry, I don't know, I can't help you." I was so upset that maiming someone with my car keys would get me in trouble...... (ahem)

And so I asked for her supervisor. She looked like I'd threatened to shoot her, but nonetheless called for her supervisor. I re-explained the situation with our water bill, our name, and our postal layout, as well as postal regulations- and the supervisor reached LESS THAN TWO FEET to the left and whipped out a form, which I filled out, signed, and now our water bill is in the right name.

I think this useless Potted Plant Cashier remembers me when I step around from behind my husband and now she's thinking she'd better help us or I'll ask for her supervisor again.

So, Potted Plant gets on the phone and talks to the parking department for a moment and hangs up. Then she turns forty-five degrees to her right and GETS ON HER COMPUTER and pulls up the information.  RIGHT THERE. IN FRONT OF HER.  WITHOUT STANDING UP OR WALKING ANYWHERE. 

Turns out my husband had 3 parking tickets (expired meter) from August- which he doesn't remember, I never saw, and thus- we never paid. 

Oh.  Ok. 

Potted Plant then says; "A letter of notice was mailed to you last month telling you about this."

Oh. Really.  So we paid the extortion fine, and then had to wait 15 minutes for someone to unboot his truck.

Hubs then came home and went to bed and proceeded to sleep until 5:30 the next morning. Yay for him. He evidently feels better today as he went to work, and took youngest child to school as well, without bugging me to get up.

HOWEVER: When we got home yesterday, after this whole interaction with Potted Plant,  I found the "letter" she referred to.  Dated 11/25/09.  Postmarked 11/30/09. Arrived 12/1/09.  Booted 12/2/09.

This does not add up.  Tom has taken the letter and envelope down to the City Hall building (and might I mention he works for the County and is in charge of all the Sheriff and Police, Fire and EMS in the county?!?) and file a complaint to get his extorted funds fine back as giving us 7 days notice, and then sitting on the notice for 5 of them, does not compute.

Evidently Potted Plant at the City Hall isn't the only one of her kind.

My jeep has been acting up lately.

Usually it's just something that I don't hear in my running around that the first time my husband hears it he has a cardiac that I let something audible go on for very long without finding out what it was..... (that 'if a tree falls in the forest...' thing?) UH, hello? I'm deaf.