Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity.

For the first time ever, I think, I am sitting in our front “parlor” while typing and surfing on my PowerBook. I love this room of our house. It’s a shame that it’s the least used room in the house because it has the most comfortable furniture in it. It also has the piano, which I play at least once a day, but I never just relax in the room. It’s a welcome change of pace.

So Earl is upstairs with iTunes cranked, I’m chatting with my blog friend Terry on iChat and just enjoying a quiet Saturday night.

It’s night like this where I start to get all philosophical. “Am I happy where I am in life right now?” “Do I know what I’m doing?” “Do I know where I’m going?” I’m happy to say that I can answer with an unquestionable ‘yes’ to all those questions and more. I’m eating healthier. I’m taking steps to make myself more valuable career-wise. I’m feeling better about the way I look. I’m feeling more confident. I’m working on coming out of my shell a little further.

The best is yet to come.

Let’s make the afternoon better. I just found a CD for the ride back to the office. “80’s Dance Party”. Selected tracks include:

• “Back To Life”, Soul II Soul featuring Caron Wheeler
• “Head To Toe”, Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam
• “Tell It To My Heart”, Taylor Dayne. As an aside, I NEED this video, very hot men in it.
• “I Can’t Wait”, Nu Shooz.
• “Don’t Disturb This Groove”, The System.

Now that’s the way to kick off a Friday afternoon.

I should be full of joy because today is Friday but instead of I’m finding that I’m a little short on patience today. I really don’t know what made my mood head in this direction today, but I’m finding that I’m failing at attempts to set this crankiness aside and to just get on with it.

Now that I think about it, I know what’s put me in this mood. In my job I work closely with a montrosity of a phone company whose name rhymes with horizon. Once part of Ma Bell, they’ve inherited, spindled, folded and mutilated any records that may have been coherent back in the good old days. They have directory listings for a 212 phone number with the address “New York, MA” as the city. They frequently change the “business rules”, the industry agreed upon guidelines that all telephone communications are suppose to operate under, without warning or notice. They revel in their tunnel vision, if you don’t put “install a jack” when requesting new service, they’ll leave the bare wires hanging in some old woman’s basement, it’s up the old lady to do the rest. In short, they live up to the slogan in that old Laugh In with Ernastine the operator, “We’re the phone company, we don’t have to care.”

Today’s project involves getting phone service to a brand new house, in a brand new McMansion development on a newly built street. In 80 characters or less, I have to describe where this house is and give them as much information as possible. (In the telecommunications industry, spelling out complete words is a sign of weakness, and no they don’t accept l33t sp3@k.) I gave VZ (the favored abbreviation for this company) the name of the three closest cross streets. I got back “NEED NEAR TN ON SAME” which translates to they need someone else’s phone number on the same street as the location I am referencing.

When I explained, as briefly as possible (“ONLY HSE ON ST”) that it’s the first house on a brand new street and requested a NEW ADDR, I apparently pissed someone off because they dared use an exclamation point, using up a precious byte. “NEED NEAR TN ON SAME!”

So now we are at a crossroads. I’m not budging and the overpaid union slacker on the other end isn’t budging either. But at the very least, writing about the tale has improved my mood ten-fold and made me realize just how ridiculous it is to waste time and energy on “VZ”. I’ve got better things to do.

Happy Friday.

Earl and I have been trying to give network television a second chance this winter and have added a few shows to the TiVo over the past couple of weeks.

Medium. My current favorite show, Medium freaks me out a little bit when she’s dreaming some bad things, but I love the cinematography, the actors, the writing and the overall production. Top notch. Let’s hope they don’t jump it over a shark, because NBC has a good thing going.

Will and Grace. I wish I could say that I love this show all over again but it has become very, very weak. Sean Hayes running around naked, Debra Messing’s ever present clavicle and very cheap, re-hashed one-liners do not a show make. And don’t get me started on that old fartbag Rosario. What the hell happened to her? Sadly, we’d rather watch the early years of W&G on Lifetime.

Courting Alex. I like to think of this show as Dharma’s grown-up dream. Jenna Elfman is Jenna Elfman and Earl and I have giggled at each episode at least once. One thing I must say is that I do not think her boyfriend on the show is as hot as the cast off from her office (the guy that wears glasses). Now he’s hot. The boyfriend’s teeth look alarmingly big and/or fake. He reminds me of Dionne Warwick when he smiles. And that’s not good.

How I Met Your Mother. I was kind of wavering on this show when we first watched it last week, but this past episode we both found quite entertaining in a fun sort of way. In a frightening way, Earl and I found our relationship identifies well with “Marshall” and “Band Camp Girl”. And the swords on the wall that were highlighted last week totally rock, Earl and I are thinking of having a duel one weekend.

Crumbs. We are on the fence on this one still. The dysfunctional family hits a little too close for comfort sometimes. (Just kidding Mom.)

Charmed. Buh bye. When you killed off Leo, just when everything was feeling normal in the Halliwell house, you lost two faithful viewers.

American Idol. Personally I’ve found this season boring but I’m saving this week’s episodes for the weekend. The most interesting thing I’ve looked forward to this season is whether Ryan has stubble on his face or not.

The West Wing. If it wasn’t for Allison Janney, this would have been dropped off the TiVo when they started the whole election campaign. Talk about killing a quality show in less than a season!

Judging Amy. Oh that’s right, the jackasses at CBS cancelled that one and have nothing to put in it’s place. Yes I’m still very bitter.

Four Kings. [insert cricket noises] Sorry, not TiVo worthy.

What a week it’s been and it’s only Thursday. My sister was home from Moscow for a couple of days and we got to hang out with my dad and his girlfriend on Tuesday night for dinner. My mom and my sister called last night to chat. Earl has been on two out of town business trips this week already and has promised to bless me with his presence tonight. In honor of this I am cooking supper as we speak. In our new crock pot that smells like it’s burning.

I don’t think you’re suppose to sit with a crock pot while it does it’s thing. I’m going to sit with this one for a little while to make sure it doesn’t go up in flames. When I first started it up it gave off this smell that was similar to the time an old boss dumped a cup of coffee on his desk, directly into his monitor.

At least dinner should be good; on the menu we have pork chops and sauerkraut basted in beer, mustard and brown sugar. Side dish includes lots of veggies*. Hopefully the charred electronics smell won’t be overpowering.

I’ve discovered that lots of veggies helps one stay healthy! I’m having fun wearing my “medium” clothes these days.

This afternoon when I arrived for lunch I heard a familiar, yet unwelcome sound coming from the kitchen. It was the gasping and wheezing of Tom’s water fountain. I forgot to fill it with water this morning before leaving for work.

Tom is the poster cat for “The Pampered Pet”. He gets his meals served two times a day in stunning stainless steel. He also has a water fountain that encourages more drinks of water by providing a playful water stream for him to sip from. His third such contraption, this one resembles a mushroom with water that slides down all sides so that he has a choice as to where to lick the water from. He usually opts for the back, closest to the wall. Apparently he is a private drinker.

The water fountain is relatively maintenance free; you have to clean it and change the filters periodically. You also have to keep the reservoir filled with water so it doesn’t run dry. It has the same type of motor found in a small aquarium pump.

I filled the water and found that it was still making that incessent slurping noise that was really getting on my nerves. So I had to take the whole thing apart and clean out the intake. Unfortunately Tom has a habit of chewing his kibble and then discarding it in the bowl part of his water fountain so there’s was some soggy Meow Mix obstructing the water flow. Once I had that under control everything was working fine.

Tom thanked me by making litter burying motions with his left paw towards the fountain. I guess he thinks that stuff is hot shit.

My work schedule is a little wonky this week as several group members are in training, leaving a skeleton crew behind. Naturally, I’m one of the bones. Because of this I really couldn’t get out and about for lunch today in case of a telecommunications tragedy, so I opted to sit in the lunch room at work, enjoy my serving of Progresso soup and do something I haven’t done in a long time.

I read the newspaper. I actually touched a newspaper, turned the pages and read the articles.

Normally I catch up with the day’s news online. I read the funnies, catch up on the latest world happenings and browse entertainment, all with a few clicks of the mouse on some strategically bookmarked web pages. It works well, I feel somewhat informed. But reading the newspaper was a fascinating exercise. For example, there’s a column where people write in with their medical concerns and a doctor responds, right there for all the world to see. Today’s medical problem had to do with a reader concerned with their ears turning red when they become embarassed. Apparently this affliction is causing them social distress and they want to know what they can do to prevent it. Instead of having the reader deal with the issue that is causing them embarassment, he opted for “better living through chemistry” and suggested she contact her family doctor for a beta blocking drug that she should take before she becomes embarassed. “Please wait before you insult my behavior, I need to take my Embarassax so my ears don’t turn red.”

Had I not read the newspaper today, I would not have known that 300 violent sex offenders are moving into one of the number of local prisons in this area. Now there’s something to look forward to, especially during my summer bike rides. (Earl and I use to live right down the street from this prison, and the prisoners would always yell and carry on while I rode by on my bike. The area where they air out the prisoners is right near the road.)

So while the news is not as immediate as the world wide web, it was a welcomed change of pace. I look forward to doing it again, maybe in a year or so.