Bento Boxes, Russian Hamsters and Kinky Toes

I'm coming to you today without the benefit of coffee, so if I start babbling incoherently about the mother ship or  John Wayne.. just look the other way, kay? I have coffee, I just don't have filters. I could have gotten a cup on the way to work, but T.A.'s boss was working and I feel funny going in for free coffee when he's there, even though he wouldn't care. I have one leftover creamer in my desk from God-Knows-When, so I may partake of the communal office sludge before the morning is over. In the meantime I've got instant Arizona green tea.

T.A. was tickled with her birthday pressies, a Japanese bento box with all the accessories. I think she had already guessed what it was, but she was happy just the same. There were homemade peach pancakes for breakfast (made by T.A. herself) and cupcakes yesterday afternoon. I consumed enough carbs to sustain a small Ethiopian tribe for several days. 

Sometime Saturday I had an outbreak of the hamster pox. Some of you will remember when I had my little Russian Dwarf hamster that I discovered, the hard way, my severe allergy to rodents. Every time I handled her, my eyes would itch, turn blood red and eventually swell shut, exactly what happened Saturday.. except I don't have pet rodents anymore. 

I think I smell a rat.

Therefore, I will be spending the majority of next week's vacation donning a Michael Jackson face mask (not a mask that looks like Michael Jackson, a mask like the one worn by the King o' Pop, lest ye wondered,) and some rubber gloves to tear apart all the kitchen drawers and cabinets, scrubbing their innards and applying new shelf paper. 

Cuz I know how to party like a rock star, ya'll.

Over the weekend, Miss BetteJo, from over at A Bead a Day, suggested that perhaps T.A. and I could embrace our inner entrepreneur and sell our slightly worn delicate underthings on eBay to those patrons of the innerwebs who have an appreciation for such things. I'd like to pretend that I'd be appalled at such a suggestion, but.. ya know.. it might not be a bad idea. Shipping costs for some slightly smelly nylons would be next to nothing and if you can get past thinking what they're going to do with them once they get them... well.. what the hell right? Live and let live I say.

I'll leave you with that thought for the day...

Ya'll have a killer week, we'll talk again soon.

Later Taters!!

Odds and Ends.. But Mostly Odd

This photo speaks to the
artist in me and makes
me crave a banana.

Lawd ya'll. This week has already been two months long... and it's only Humpday.

Have ya'll tried that yogurt that's supposed to help your digestive system? I did. My gut is always in a state of unrest, from one ailment or the other. I thought this miracle yogurt sounded like a great idea, so I picked some up.

On day two it hit me.

Now I know why Jamie Lee Curtis looks so tight lipped and perky in those commercials, sitting perfectly straight and putting a death grip on her yogurt spoon. She's trying with all the gumption God gave her not to CRAP HERSELF BLIND, right there on the tee-vee.

Good gawd.

But can I take a hint? Noooo. I go on the trusty old innerwebs and find that you're supposed to hang in there for two weeks, to give it a chance to "regulate" your system.

So I tried. And God as my witness, there was nothing "regular" about what took place in my lower abdominal region. I didn't even make it a week. That stuff is atomic. It should come with a warning label: "May cause excessive, explosive bowel movements. Incidents of customer's colons turning inside out, giving the appearance of a baboon experiencing spring time lust have been reported. Use with extreme caution and take extra care to pack yourself some extra granny panties (or big boy bloomers, as the case may be.)"

This has been a public service announcement.

~*~

I've been back on my quest to find ways to make some extra money. Extra from what I get paid at the Asylum, but not "extra" once it hits my bank account. I don't think I've ever had that kind of extra money.

I've tried just about everything on the internet short of running my own porn site.. although there was my brief career as a Second Life stripper...

But anywho..

I think I've finally found a couple of things I can do from home, when I have time, that don't require an "investment" of any kind. Keep your fingers crossed. If they pan out, I'll be sharing the information.

~*~

Jolene has developed a wiggle in her rear end, which may be attractive to boy trucks, but is a little unnerving when barreling down the backside of Froggy Mountain. I hope it's nothing major. I can't afford major. She also needs a bath and a good vacuuming. It's on my list.. my ever growing, extremely long To Do list. It should be called the "You'll Never Live Long Enough to Get All This Crap Done" list.

~*~

So far, The Amazon hasn't figured out her birthday pressies. At least, I don't think she has. She's crafty, that one. We've been having this debate over the cupcakes. I want to make something different, like strawberry or extreme chocolate, but the child wants yellow. YELLOW IS NOT A FLAVOR. And cream cheese icing.

Apparently, T.A. does not understand that I've been eating healthier, trying to shed a little of the junk in my trunk and I'm REALLY looking forward to these cupcakes. I keep reminding myself that my therapist warned me to stop making everything about me...but I'm the one who carried another being around in my nether regions for nine long months, only to have her RIPPED from my abdomen, left permanently scarred from the experience and granted permanent Black Sheep status within the family.. WHY CAN'T I GET A FREAKIN' CHOCOLATE CUPCAKE????????

*cough*

Anywho...

Ya'll have a bootylicious Humpday. We'll talk again soon.

Later Taters!!

Going Green with Mahala

I wish I had some earth shatteringly fantastic story to tell you from my weekend, but other than Wally World, all I really did was nap. And apparently? That was way too much excitement for me so I had to nap some more. I guess all the fun from the last couple of weeks was catching up with me. On the plus side, I feel like kickin' ass and taking names this morning, so it's not all a bad thing.

As I mentioned, I had to hit Wally World yesterday. Old Mother Hubbard didn't have a damned thing on me. We were down two fish fillets and a apple and I'm the only one who eats fish. I hit Ma up for some help with the food bill, it's between paydays, ya'll know how that goes. Apparently she had a cash stash going on in her nightstand, which she handed to me, gave me a list of what she wanted and told me to get "whatever" with the rest. I'm not going to tell you how much it was because I spent every stinking penny. I had to borrow a dollar from The Amazon when I got to the checkout because I went over.

I can tell you that our freezer is full and that's one ginormous chunk of one less thing to worry about for a couple of weeks.

I had to make The Amazon haul my Christmas bonus turkey to the trash bin to make room for all of it. The big arsed fowl has been sitting in there since December, through numerous power outages and I'd already been informed by the other people living in my house that if I cooked it, I'd be eating alone.

I like turkey but not that much. I still think it would have been okay, but I reckon with all the salmonella outbreaks and brouhaha over bacteria and whatnot, tossing it was the safe thing to do.

A couple of years ago I watched a series on PBS about some people who volunteered to be gathered up and dumped on the shore somewhere remote with only the supplies that the pilgrims would have had. They formed a society and lived as they would have lived way back when. The New Age pilgrims were scraping bugs off meat and eating it and picking green fuzz off veggies before they cooked them and they survived. Don't you reckon maybe we're just spoiled nowadays? What's a little fuzz anyway? Penicillin is made from that stuff right? Maybe the fuzz is good for you, but we'll never know 'cuz the first sign of anything interesting going on and we toss what is probably perfectly good free antibiotics right in the trash.

I could give new meaning to "going green."

Anywho...

I'd better get the ol' honker to the grindstone. Bossholio is riding the attitude trolley this morning. We don't want him to derail.

Ya'll have a good one, we'll talk again soon.

Later Taters!!

Wonder Woman Birthdays and Hidden Pressies

It's cooled off a little in the holler this morning. It's nice getting to the office without having to scrape the humidity off your body before you can start to work.

The Amazon's 25th birthday is coming up next weekend. Her inner child loses it's mind this time of year, with pleas for Wonder Woman - Batman stuff and Sponge Bob cakes. I still have the Sponge Bob cake pan from a couple of years ago, just in case you think I'd exaggerate.

We've agreed this year that it's just too dang hot in our kitchen to try to do anything too fancy with cake decorating, so she's gracefully accepted to settle for cupcakes.

Yay.

The child has no shame when it comes to being nosey about presents. She begs for hints, fondles any and all packages that arrive in the mail, pokes, prods and threatens. I've learned to not give any clues, she has a gift for figuring it out. One year at Christmas, I bought an extra pressie, something she'd never asked for and wrapped it up to put under the tree. I didn't put a "to" name on it, hoping she'd just ignore it. When our cat knocked it over on it's side and music started playing, T.A. looked at me and exclaimed "A JEWELRY BOX!!!" well.. I damn near killed that stupid cat.

Now I take extra precautions. I hide things, waiting until the very last minute before I take them out for her to examine.

Yesterday, I got home from work to find a package. T.A. had picked it up from the post office and tossed it aside, assuming it was more free junk I'd signed up for. She was sorta ticked off when she realized she'd been alone, unsupervised, with one of her birthday presents for several hours.

Ha. I win.

Four more packages to come and the only clues she has are that there's an owl, a bunny, a bear, some fish and some trees.

I plan to drive her inner child totally apeshit by her birthday next weekend.

Because it's my job. That's why.

In other, totally unrelated news...

If you scroll down to the very bottom of the page, you'll see a widget doohickey from MyFitnessPal.com. I signed up yesterday and so far I really like it. I don't get anything if you sign up, I'm honestly just sharing because I think it's pretty cool.. and free. If you want to keep up with my last act of desperation before they have to build a casket around my bed and cut a whole in my wall when I die like they did for the "real" Mahala decision to lose a few pounds, you can see my progress (if any) at the bottom of the page.

Notice the big fat 0.

Rome wasn't built in a day.. and neither was I. So there.

Anywho...

TGIF ya'll. Let's muddle through and get this one behind us. We'll talk again soon.

Later Taters!!

You Can Almost Smell the Crazy

I don't even know where to start.

Since Monday, I've spent another morning wrangling Ma out of the floor, she's ordered a hospital bed, they've delivered it without all the parts, they've returned to fix it, she's called them to take it back, she and The Amazon have damn near killed each other and.. as it stands at this moment (subject to change) the bed people have to come back and take the wheels off so Miss Shortypants can heave her big butt up in the bed on her own.

And then? I hope to hell the situation will be resolved, for the time being.

We now have a soiled queen sized mattress propped up against the front of our house until I can get to the dump. That means I'm one step closer to earning my hillbilly merit badge. w00t!

Getting Ma out of the floor is no easy task. While she's not very tall, she's not a small woman and neither am I. When you factor in her bad knees and only having use of one arm then consider both our sizes and shapes.. well you can imagine the mass of rubbing bellies, boobs flying in every direction, four letter words, flatulence (with surprises!) barking dogs, grunts, groans and cries for mercy (mostly from me) that take place.

It ain't a purdy sight.

Afterwards, Ma is usually laying there, sprawled out on the bed, red faced and covered in sweat, looking like the morning after a busy night down at the Cat House while I'm hunched over like Quasimodo.. all before my morning coffee and my shower.

Last night, after spending an hour in a flurry of texts with The Amazon as she kept me abreast of the latest developments, I went home to find Ma wallering back up on to the too high bed.

"Oooooh just shoot me. Take that shotgun and shoot me, then take it and throw it in the river. No one will ever have to know," she moaned.

"Uh huh. That's great, but what am I supposed to do with your body?" I asked.

"Throw it in the river too. There's some big catfish down there, they'll get rid of me."

"Oh sure, I can't even waller your butt out of the floor.. and you expect me to carry you all the way down to the river? I don't think so." 

"But you're gettin' better at it!" she said, grinning.

"Don'tchoo fall out of that bed. My back hurts. Gimme a chance to heal before you go carpet diving again. I ain't messin' with you no more for a day or two.Got it?" I said, as sternly as I could muster while shaking a finger in her direction.

"Bring me a Coke," was her answer.

If she goes before me.. and there are days when I'm not quite sure she will, I'm putting that on her tombstone.

And then? I get to go to The Asylum and deal with Bossholio and his joyful feckin' presence. I don't know what crawled up his grumpy old butt yesterday, but he spent the entire afternoon slamming drawers, barking orders and practicing general assholery.

I've started looking for a new job. I've not fixed up my resume yet, but I'm checking the online job sites, hoping something will turn up. I shouldn't have to take medication to keep from having an anxiety attack just because the turnip head I work for has anger issues.

If you hear of anything, let me know.

On that note, I need to get some stuff done. It's Hump Day. Hump it hard and fast while you still can.

We'll talk again soon.

Later Taters!

The Return of Turnip Head

I wish I could say that it's good to have Rainbow Brite Bossholio back in the office today, but I'd hate to lie to you fine folks.

Perhaps an enema of Skittles (taste the rainbow!) and Jack Daniels would do the trick?

Anywho..

It was too gawd blessed hot up in this holler to do much this weekend. While we have two window units going full blast, when it's 99° outside and you've got three adults, two dogs, a cat and one giant pupzilla crammed into a rectangular aluminum box sitting in direct sunlight.. well.. you spend your summers feeling like a foil wrapped tater, tossed in the BBQ. 

Mushy, steamy, falling apart and a little bit crusty.

In other news, I had to waller Ma out of the floor again this morning. I don't know what to do about her, other than get her up when she falls. 

Do ya'll remember the Cutie Patootie? The sweetest boss I ever had (and he smelled yummy too) with the Barbie doll wife, who didn't have to "work," just did crafts, pursued a singing career and rode around in the Corvette he bought her for her birthday while he slaved away at the same crappy company I work for?

Yeah. She left him.

LEFT HIM. 

WTF?

She's been seen slobbering all over some band that plays down at the county line, the skankiest bar in existence. She's even got a new Facebook page where she's gone back to her maiden name and posted all sorts of ding dong looking trashy pictures of herself. 

People are stupid. 

I'd better get back to the grind before ol' Turnip Head comes back here and I have to put a hurtin' on him. Ya'll take care. We'll talk again soon.

Later Taters!!

They Never Really Go Away

My day so far:

• Tripped on the cat while rushing to pee at o-dark-thirty. It's only matter of time until I actually pee on the cat. I really don't want to explain that one to the vet.
• Brought an entire thermos of coffee but forgot to add creamer. Had to catch the GM's secretary on an errand and ask her to bum some from the gas station. Luckily I have connections there.
• My boss-free week was interrupted by a phone call from Himself, followed by about four emails asking me to "handle" chit I "handled" on Monday.
• Snarky buttmonkey customer I can't stand has called every day Bossman has been out, just to let me know how much he appreciates how Bosshole does things and to imply that I don't know chit from turkey. Today I transfered him to engineering. I'm pretty sure he won't bother me anymore.
• Tried in vain to get some sugary cream cheesey goodness from the snack machine in the break room, but it wouldn't take my dollar and the change machine was out of order. The coffee machine is broken too. They need to change the name from the "break room" to the "broken room." 

I suppose it will get better. I can withstand almost anything without Smiley here. I'll probably work through lunch, taking off just long enough to run down to the campground store for a mooburger.

It's hot ya'll. Hotter than a flaming jalapeño pickle. Nasty hot. The kinda hot that makes sweat ooze down in to your lady places.

I don't like it.

Ya'll have a killer Humpday and try to stay cool. We'll talk again soon.

Later Taters!

Staycations and Mia Farrow Kicks Butt

It's Day One of a Bossman free week at The Asylum. I'm so happy I might just wet myself. A few days before he left, I put in for the week of Labor Day off.

That's right.. a whole week.

When I wrote my long letter in response to the Day of Great Ass Chewing disciplinary meeting, I pointed out that Bossman had asked me to refrain from taking more that a day at a time while we were understaffed, but that he had no problem taking weeks off at a time, on the tail end of his mandatory furlough, leaving me alone in the office for long periods to do both our jobs and I felt that I needed to take some of my well earned vacation.

Dammit.

I think that was one of the things he ended up getting in trouble for. Oh well. Too bad, so sad for him.

So anyway, I've got a whole week off coming up next month. I probably won't go anywhere. I need to make various appointments (dentist, rheumatologist, family doctor and maybe an eye exam. It sucks to get old,) get some housework done and I'd like to do some writing. Maybe I'll sneak in a day trip to Cherokee or Knoxville. We'll see.

I wish I could afford to get far away from the holler for a week, like the trip to Vegas a few years ago or the week I spent in Vancouver.

I'd like to see some folks I'm not related to or at least don't have tobacco juice running down their chin.

In unrelated news...

Did ya'll see where Mia Farrow has taken the stand in the blood diamonds case and called Naomi Campbell a liar?

My hat is off to you Miss Mia. You have the cajones of a bull.  Naomi Campbell is one bad tempered nutnoodle. I hope Mia Farrow has hired extra security to keep her safe from flying cellphones. I'm not even sure I'd trust guards to keep my noggin safe. May I suggest:



That should do it.

Ya'll have an awesometastic week. We'll talk again soon.

Later Taters!

Weekend Wussy Rambling

The sun is shining down on the holler today. It's warm, but there's a cool breeze blowing. Perfect Saturday weather. I washed some blankets and throws then took them outside and tossed them over the porch rails to dry. I could really use a clothesline. I'll add that to my To Do list. I'll get to it around 2015.

The Repair Guy from our satellite service provider showed up while I was home on my lunch break yesterday. When he called to say he was on his way, the t.v. mysteriously began working. He kinda walked around and looked at stuff and pretty much said he can't fix what ain't broke.. but call him if it happens again. 

Of course, it's not working today.

If we lived in civilization where I could get networks over the air, by golly I'd tell them to take their dish and cram it. 

Some day.

I'm looking forward to next week at The Asylum. Mr. Happy Merry Sunshine will be gone all week. I'll be busy, but that heavy stressy cloud that hangs over our office will hopefully be gone. Maybe I'll burn some incense and chant a little while he's gone. Infuse the air with some positive energy... or something.

Do they sell Aura of Bosshole Remover in a can? (Bosshole: my new favorite word, learned from a Twitter friend.)

I suspect.. and my suspicions are based on gut feelings and bits of overheard conversation, that while Himself is out on sales calls next week, he's secretly looking for a new job. 

A girl can hope.

Anywho....

The Amazon just got home from work and was here for about 30 seconds before giving me the 15 year old attitude eye roll (she'll be 25 this month.. when does it stop????) so I'm gonna go hide in the bedroom. 

My job uses up all my patience these days. I don't have any left for anything else. 

Ya'll have a good weekend. I'm going to try to get through one more day without killing anyone. 

Later Taters!

Dead Appliances and David Boreanaz

I finally gave up hope on the vacuum cleaner. I did everything I knew how to do to try to fix it, which wasn't much, then said the heck with it and spent most of the grocery money on a new one.

It's still sitting in the box in the middle of the living room floor.

Then? The t.v. died. Well, not the t.v. but the satellite box. It was working fine until they called and said our stuff was obsolete and sent us new boxes. T.A. installed ours, then after about a week it quit for a couple of hours. Yesterday it died and stayed dead. They're coming out on Friday We've been streaming movies and old shows from Netflix through T.A.'s Wii for the time being.

I'll be watching a lot of this:

Don't judge me.

Angel was all about helping the helpless, reckon he can fix my satellite box?

In other news...

Bossman just keeps on getting caught in major booboos. I don't know if it's Karma, God's awesome sense of humor or the physical manifestation of Bossman's deeply buried guilty conscience, but I'm enjoying the show.

He will be out of the office for the entirety of next week and I can work all the overtime I want to stay caught up. To say I'm giddy with anticipation of a jerk free five days would be the understatement of the year.

Back at the trailer...

Ma's been riding the crazy train again. She keeps asking me if I'm still moving out, what home I'm putting her in and if I'm going to live the little pink trailer or stick her in it.

I have no idea where she's getting the little pink trailer from. I'd never live in a pink trailer. I'm not a huge fan of pink.

Anywho...

It's Humpday ya'll, but I'm already too tired this week to hump it. Hell.. just do what you gotta do to get through it.

Ya'll have a good one.

Later Taters!

Mac and Cheese Sophistication

It's a quiet Monday morning at The Asylum. The big heads managers are all in their meeting discussing anything but business, Lulu's on her fourth personal phone call for the day (we've been here a whole hour) and I'm looking busy. It's the first working day of the month and we're all at the mercy of the accounting department, waiting for them to get closed out.

Normally I would be getting all my filing caught up right now, but I don't have any. I predict there will be a lot of me sitting around and looking like I'm a brick shy of a load for most of the day.

In an effort to be more "professional" and less "unsophisticated" (the latter being one of Bossman's stabs from a few weeks ago.. he's such a turd head) I ordered myself a new business bag doohickey. I've been carrying my bottled water and my thermos in a Wally World shopping bag (trying to be eco-friendly) along with my purse. I'll admit, it looks a little erm... hillbilly chic.. but it did the trick. Now that I'm uber paranoid about my job (but not paranoid enough to not blog from work, it seems) I decided I should invest in another option. I ordered myself a nice over the shoulder number that will hold my thermos and bottled water along with the files, employee manual, mini recorder and digital camera I'm now toting to work with me every day.

It's like I'm going in to battle on a daily basis or somechit.

Anywho...

It was on sale, I had a coupon code, there was free shipping and I got it through ebates, so I'll get 8% back (wee!) I ended up paying like $23 (not including the ebate.) I was so proud of myself. Then, this morning I went to see if it had shipped (impatient? Me? naaah!) and it was on sale for 20% MORE off.

Dang it.

I also ordered Pupzilla and the gang some Frontline through a link I got from the animal shelter and got a discount. Did you know that if you have multiple dogs, you don't have to buy a separate box for each size? If you buy a box of the Xtra large size, you can dose it out with a syringe and end up paying way less money. There's a dosing chart here. It's a little more trouble but dang, that stuff is expensive.

Due to all the recent, extra purchases, we'll be eating a lot of this for the next two weeks:

Ya'll have a good one. Let's kick this Monday in the shins and show it who's boss.

We'll talk again soon.

Later Taters!!