Momomama
How can three and a half years of work be distilled down to a file cabinet, four disks and one giant hefty garbage bag. And no tears. Not yet, anyway. My coworkers threw me a fabulous shower/farewell party on Tuesday, complete with cake, plastic ball and chain, gifts (REALLY generous gifts) and tears. But none from me. Perhaps they are holding out until tomorrow, or perhaps they will not come at all. Either way, I'll miss this place.
I am the lame duck here at work, because I have pretty much been replaced (unofficially and sorry to you all who wanted my high powered job.) We even have a "staff meeting" today, which I happen to know is my goodbye party. But I have three more days left.
As my personal to do list gets shorter I stop stressing. Insurance - check. Bank has new address - check. Postmaster is informed - check. Utilities Cancelled - check. Phone turned off - check. (well, not yet, but arrangements have been made.) I feel so much more relaxed than I did a week ago.
AND I will be rolling in dough on friday! I have 29 days of unused vacation time, for which I am being paid. I have $1000 that I would normally be spending on rent, which I am saving. And baring a rager on Thursday night, I will get my $900 security deposit back next month. I plan on getting it all in ones, rolling around naked in it, and then sending it to VISA to pay off my credit card. Oh joyous day.
I have the most pathetic empty apartment in the whole world. I am sleeping on a pile of blankets in the corner and eating my dinner off my lap in a folding chair. You would think, then, with nothing to distract me, that I would spend the rest of the week before I vacate the premises cleaning that mofo within an inch of its life, or to at least, broom clean condition. I am not. Nope. Instead I spent last night watching awful reality shows and rearranging the pile of boxes that will go north with me in my car. I know I will regret this on SAturday morning when I end up leaving for the last time not at 8am as planned but at noon.
NPR reported this morning that voter turnout is expected to be down in Hawaii today. Because of American Idol. And I was feeling bad about being disenfranchised.
Every year the fine institution where I work holds a scholarship auction. Alumnae/i, parents, and students donate items. One year someone tried to donate a horse. Why that didn't fly when we allow our alumnae/i to clean out their closets for us, I will never understand. Anyway, said Auction is a week from today, so we were all emailed a list of auction items. This year, Alice Brock has donated a signed copy of her book, "How to Massage Your Cat." As well all know, Alice Brock is a very famous woman - the subject of an 18-minute song and a movie - and former proprietress of Alice's restaurant. So I got the damn song in my head. And I was singing it, when one of my younger co-workers asked what the hell kind of song is that. And she had never heard of Alice's Restaurant. Or Arlo. Or, and this is the kicker, Woody. Never heard of Woody Guthrie (But at least knew his most famous song.) So being both appalled and a bossy know-it-all, I sat her down and explained it all and I even found the lyrics to the song for her. But now, I just feel old.
Not to get too personal, but poor little Mo has been having the trots as of late. Too bad I have never been able to potty train him. The vet's suggestion: rice and kaopectate. I should probably have the same.
Yesterday I met the 80s. And was reminded that the 80s are happening again. The 80s have the combover of all combovers. The 80s were sweaty from the golf course. The 80s have a foreign girlfriend who was not going to eat the three servings of rice pudding she had in her hand when she walked away from the buffet. The 80s shook my hand and looked over my head, because the 80s are really tall. The 80s attract the tanned, the augmented and the pink jacketed at the Club. The 80s are back, and the 80s are more 80s than ever.
I don't believe in Firday the 13th being unlucky. Please don't make me believe in it, either. I mean it, Universe. Please help my little Trixie the Honda not have a engine damage due to the fact the Jiffy Lube either did not replace my drained oil or did not put the drain plug back in and she ran out of oil. I mean it, Universe. That would really really suck for me, especially when I am trying to deal with many many other stresses and not a whole lot of money. You may make the repairs cost no more than $200. Thank you. Because I don't want to be a supersitious person, nor a sad and broke one.
Edited to add: I love Yuki, of Yuki's Pit-In, in Scarsdale, NY. He thinks it is going to be okay. He drained all that was left, thinks he found the leak, and cleaned it up. Here's hoping that will do it.
I have to get a TB test for the new job, as I will be working in a health care facility. I just hope I don't repeat the experience I had with the test in Kindergarten. You know the one. It was on my birthday. Remember how I was pouting and crying a little about getting stuck in my arm and Mary the Kindergarten aide said to me, "Just because it's you birthday, doesn't mean you can be a little bitch."
Oh yes she did.
Moving, and the packing and organizing that go along with it present a time for self-examination, introspection, and plain old navel-gazing procrastination. Yes, last night I packed all my photographs. And looked at every one. And so would like to present to you the evolution of my hair:
In the beginning there was blonde. And it had curls. And it was deemed cute. As time passed, it grew, and the curls became waves and the waves were madeth thick by the profusion of follicular growth. The thick became heavy and tiring to the neck, and there was feathering at the JC Penney Salon in Bangor, Maine. Tear were wept. The feathers accentuated the longness in the face and the references to the pretty mermaid who hath wooed Tom Hanks were ended. An awkwardness descended upon the land. But then, behold, growth! And the use of the curling iron! Sun-In was applied, but what for? The blondeness does not diminish. And then there was redness, of shades strawberry, and raspberry and mahogany. The blondeness is foresaken. And then ressurected. And then foresaken. And alas, the long waves are shorn, and the hair forced into the unnatural shape of blunt bob. And then, to enter the ivory tower, bangs. But the hair grows bolder, and is shorn shorter, until there was none. The head is found to be nicely shaped, with no rocky protusions (and her teeth, like ewes just up from the shearing...) The stubble is dyed. Blonde, black, red. Without color it is beige. The head kisses girls. But behold! What begins to rise from the scalp? Crimson waves of cuteness, glowing coppery under Texas sun! And then longer! Now blonder, now redder! A man is put in charge of the hair, but then, cast away! when he makes in appropriate conversation at the hair washing sink. Hark, do we hear made reference to the Mermaid once again? Suddenly - confusion! The bob again, but this time made wavy and layered, and platinum. And she meeteth a man, knee deep in the river. They rejoice in love, and yet, he utterth the words, "Um, your hair is kinda crunchy feeling..." Cast out, like the man at the sink and the clippers and the bangs and the curling iron, are the dyes. Grown is the hair. Curlier now, and even curlier than that, the gray.
Fairly soon after my last move, I came across one of those charts of stressors that we used to see in health class. I scanned it quickly and realized that other then the death of a child or spouse and marriage, I had experienced most of the stresses listed within the past 12 months. It was in the time that I mysteriously lost about fifteen pounds. I wonder what my stress score (also know as risk of a frickin' heart attack) will be at the end of THIS year.
Help! I've been disenfranchised!
I am moving on 28th of February. The New York State Democrat Primary is on March 2nd. I am registered to vote in Westchester County, but not in Essex County, where I will be living at the time of the Primary. I can not register in Essex County becase I do not live there yet, and even if I did, I would not be eligible to vote as it is less than 25 days before the election. In other words, I've been screwed!
Can this be right?
Now don't get too jealous, but I will be spending next Sunday in Palm Beach. That's right. Now if only I had some Lili Pulitzer pants to wear, preferably green with pink whales.
I'm going to have the talk with Mo tonight. About the move. Every since I got him, it's been mostly just the two of us. True, I lived with roommates when I got him, but we didn't really bond like we have now until I moved to New York. He was too busy getting over being sick and skinny and abused. But for the past three and half years it's been the Martha and Mo show. He gets away with murder, sleeps in the bed with me, and follows me from room to room (pretty easy in a studio.) He does get jealous of Bill. Sometimes, when we hug or kiss, he'll run around us, barking. "She's mine! She's mine!" And life with Bill will be different. Even if he was going to be allowed on the bed, there won't be room for him. But it will be better for him too. Less travelling for me, less kenneling for him. He can stay outside all day if he wants. We can go swimming any time, and hike every damn day if we want to. He might decide he's up for a hunt one of these days. The woods smell phenomenal and the Bunkhouse always has an extra pair of hands for petting hanging around. So it will be good. But the transition will be brutal. Probably on both of us. Luckily Mo only has a few things to pack.
Last night I dreamed of Paris again. I was eating dinner with my old friend Bill Murray at the huge butcher block table in his spacious Upper West Side kitchen. Paris and Bill were sitting at the other end of the table. He was helping her with her coloring.
The next few weeks are going to be a blur, I can tell. My last day at the old ivory tower is February 27th, and I start my new job on March 1st. In that time I have to switch car insurance, figure out if I should get my eyes checked and contacts ordered while still on old vision plan, figure out how I prove I had all my vaccinations, see my gyno one last time (sort of silly considering I will be surrrounded by birth control 5 days a week), cancel all my utilites, change my address, pack, oh, and move my stuff 300 miles sans amoving truck. Luckily I have my apartment down here for all of March, too. (But I wish I didn't have to pay for it...)
This new job is a pay cut, but after subtracting my $12000 a year in rent, $1200 a year in parking, and cutting my car insurance costs in half, I'll only be $2500 less than I am getting now. I was panicking over how I could cut over $200 a month out of my budget when Bill mentioned that he actually makes money too. Oh. I guess that's true.
Everything seems completely overwhelming at this very moment, but I am also really excited. I feel like I am really embarking on a wonderful new adventure...
I got it! I got it! I got it!
The second interview went very well...and now we wait...
I have had more hits today than any other day in the life of this blog. Just because I once mentioned Janet Jackson, write about bras, and slept in for a half an hour once.
So if you came here via google after reading this.....
Momomama
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