Vomitorium

Apparently we're all slackers over here at KISTNB. Aside from Twinkie, that is. He can ALWAYS be assured of producing, at least when it comes to bodily fluids.

The other week, a horrific project known as Curaflo aka "PIPE LINING PROJECT OF DOOM THAT WILL CAUSE MASS DISRUPTION OF YOUR LIFE" began in the condo. Which meant Twinkie was shuttled off to Cat Camp (not to be confused with Fat Camp, as my parents chose to feed him about eleventy-twelve cans of cat food daily) so as not to cause mass havoc with the workers. Sadly, the project did not go as planned, and Twinkie returned before it was completed. But QD digresses.

Anyhow, Twinkie found cat camp to be ALL TOO MUCH for his sensitive digestive tract. From the HORROR OF HORRORS, neighboring cats, to the MASSIVE QUANTITIES OF GIBLETS consumed, it was just horribly disturbing.

That and god forbid, the litter boxes were, oh, twenty feet apart from one another, instead of their normal convenient side-by-side configuration. Can we all see where this is going?

So my parents leave town for a weekend, the same weekend that Paperpusher leaves town. Leaving yours truly to care for ALL CATS. In the confusion, Queen Dweeb forgets her own cat for a day. OH YES SHE DOES.

Have we mentioned this is a very productive cat? Sir poops-a-lot should not be forgotten, oh no. The next day, in a panic, racing over to the parental compound, heart beating rapidly in fear of what's to come, our faithful heroine cracks open the basement door....and the STENCH. OH HELLS NO.

You could smell it all the way up the stairs. Worse than the carvel cake/fish combination, a fetid, warm mix of cat turd and vomit wafted up the stairs. Trust me. Not a smell anyone wants to come home to. ESPECIALLY NOT MY CLEAN FREAK PARENTS.

Slowly, creeping down the stairs, as if, by taking smaller steps, one could will the incipient piles of puke away, finally, the corner is rounded. And the horror begins. Ever seen the Exorcist? Think Twinkie has.

Six piles of vomit. One lovely trail of puke, as if someone was TERRIFIED of the aforementioned vomitorium and attempted to escape, leaving said trail. THREE PILES OF POOP, RIGHT NEXT TO THE LITTERBOX (what? it's not good enough for you, pal?) and a nice trail o' whiz down the WALL where SOMEBODY MISSED THE BOX.

The other litterbox? Untouched. Sparkling clean, really.

Luckily, the carpet is getting replaced this week, so I wasn't too concerned with stains, but the REEK. THE FOUL AROMA. An entire bottle of oxyclean, 2 rolls of paper towels, one pitcher of hot water and 1 canister of lysol wipes later, the basement was satisfactorily disinfected. Only took AN HOUR OR SO.

Oh, Twinkie. No more cat camp for you. Twinkie was banished from the parental compound shortly thereafter.

In Which I Relearn a Valuable Lesson

I am a slow learner.

I get a call from a friend of mine, saying that she thinks her relationship is ending. Lady is sad and upset, convinced that this relationship is leading nowhere. It's typical reasons that boil down to the fact that neither party is happy and that they are not compatible. No arguing that - you can't force something that isn't there. Sad and hard for those involved, but not an unheard of situation.

This is when I make my mistake. I join Lady in a tremendous bitch-fest about the Boy. Because there is nothing I love more than bitchfests. I know this is a mistake when it's happening, but I can't help it, the bitch just does itself. Not only is the bitching wrong and. . .bitchy, but its like McDonald's - satisfying at the time, but afterwards I feel sullied and greasy and hungry for more like 5 minutes later.

The thing is, I learned this lesson in high school. Here is a sample:

HS Girl: sobbing, "I hate him! He's so evil! We are breaking up!"
HS Me: supportive yet also gleefully abitching "Totally! He's a dumbass. He totally cheated on you and gets drunk with all his friends and pukes on people and I hate his stupid hair! He looks like an ape! Do it!"
HS Girl: "I will, he's so dumb. It's over! Totally! His hair is totally awful."
Two Weeks Later. . .
HS Girl: starry-eyed "I love him! He's so amazing! Doesn't he have the best hair? We will be together FOREVER!"
HS Me: stupidly sighs "Er. . . totally awesome. But. .. didn't he get drunk/puke on your mom/hook up with your sister/shoplift you gifts from Sears?"
HS Girl: slit-eyed "You are just jealous of us because we are so in love! Why did you try to break us up?"
HS Me: sighing and sarcastic, "Yes, you're right. I am jealous that my Prince hasn't come and that I, too, can't have sex in the back of his mom's Previa and get stolen items from Sears."
HS Girl: annoyingly, smugly "True love is unconditional - you'll find out someday*"
HS Me: apparently not learning valuable lesson

*let me point out here that my boyfriend in high school? Made a mix tape for me of all Mariah Carey songs and wrote me a poem using all the song lyrics. I started calling him GayBoyfriend after that. So maybe I didn't know from high school lurve.

So I know that agreeing with HS Girl is a bad idea, but I did it anyway. And took it to the next level. So when Lady came to me, I thought "we aren't in high school, she's committed to breaking up!"

Lady and Boy got back together. Of course. And the bitching? Bit me in the ass. This is the place where I could enumerate the 10,000 reasons why I was complaining, but I am learning my lesson. Though my brain is screaming at me to write these things down and am having a multiple personality bitchfest in my head, and now they are calling each other names. Anyway, she wrote me an e-mail about how I didn't understand love and she copied my husband. Appropriate.

In a fit of awesome, though, Husband wrote back and was all "My wife is not the only who thinks these things." Got my back, that one.

I do understand that by blogging about this, I am the one creating more drama. Because apparently I roll Blair Waldorf style, but without the awesome clothes.

So if you come to me with the fact that you are breaking up with your significant other, you will only hear murmurs and cliches from me.

Epilogue:

Lady wrote me back and apologized (but didn't copy Husband on that e-mail). She also let drop that I was right. I would say that I told you so, but I lost two crazies masquerading as friends, so it's a little bittersweet.

Street Meat

This has been a very frustrating day- problems with my internet connection, the continuing inability of our HVAC company to keep our system working properly, and that flouride goo the dentist gives you had all put me in a bit of a mood. But all of that frustration has been lifted, due to the arrival at my doorstep of a guy trying to sell me meat out of a truck.

I had the front door open, as I'm watering a patch of hopefully soon-to-be grass on my front lawn, so I couldn't ignore the tap on the door. There was a guy standing there, and parked behind him on the street was a van that said "Capital Meats" on it and was fully covered in pictures of meat. This is approximately how this conversation went (with my snarky asides in parentheses):

Guy: Hi, I'm with Capital Meats. We've just sold some meat to one of your neighbors (my ass you did), and we have some left over that we're trying to get rid of. Do you and your family eat steak and seafood?

Me: We don't cook much meat ourselves, so I don't think we'd be interested.

Guy: (Looks at my t-shirt) Are you a Redskins fan? (No- I hate them, but I wear the t-shirt to confuse people)

Me: Yes.

Guy: We just signed Sellers (semi-obscure fullback for the Redskins) to endorse us. And one other player. (Calls to other guy walking up the street)- JIMBO! (I swear) This guy's a Redskins fan!

JIMBO: Awwww yeeeeeaaahhhh. Aren't we all?

Guy: Who's the other Redskin that endorsed us. Sellers and.... ?

JIMBO: Jason Campbell (nationally known quarterback)

Guy: Right, Jason Cambell (my thought- you remember the obscure fullback but not the QB?)

Guy: Anyway, if you buy the steak, we'll throw in the seafood and chicken for FREE. (Wow- that must be top quality meat!- it's free!)

Me: Look, we just don't cook that much, so I'm not interested. Thanks though.

Guy: OK.

The guy walked away, and I took some pleasure in the fact that he had to walk through my sprinkler.

So that was an amusing enough interaction, but it only gets better. I called my wife, and while telling her about the street meat, I looked up Capital Meats on the web. The second listing on Google is a headline that says "don't buy from these people!" Here are a couple of excerpts from the complaint. I can't be nearly as funny as this person- and the emphases are mine:

"The men were in very baggy pants (enough that I could see their underwear) and they had gotten out of an old pick up truck with a freezer strapped to the back.

There is no way I would even buy meat from that shady looking pick-up truck- even if I did eat meat. The men proceeded to lay meat all over my porch (ew!!) and then he even tried to come in my house (even put his hand on the door and tried to open it) so he could see what kind of freezer I had. ...

I called their Baltimore office (where these salesman are from) to make a formal complaint. The lady who answered said she was the office manager... I asked about a policy of not ringing the bell of people who had a No Soliciting sign and she said she could not enforce that either because those signs are mostly for religious people.

What??? My sign is to deter annoying, relentless salesman! I told her if they stood outside of my door ringing and ringing again, that I would call the cops. She proceeded to just talk over me, telling me she wouldn't let me speak bad about a great company (Everyone on my street hates to see that nasty truck pull up!!) that she has worked for for 6 years and she told me I must have a miserable life and hung up on me...

If this is such a great company, then the least they could do is update their POS trucks with coolers strapped to the back..."

Laying meat on the porch? If I didn't want street meat, I certainly don't want porch meat. I'm taking suggestions for how to mess with them if they ever come around again.

Name That Cyst!

I'm taking entries into my contest for NAME THAT CYST!

As it turns out, that searing, burning pain in my right side? Holla! It the Three Amigos, my new pals, the ovarian cysts.

Since I'm going to be living with them, I'm taking entries into the contest. Winner and prize to be announced on July 1.

I'll update this thread with the names & entries, and yes, fellow bloggers, you are totally allowed to enter. People who have given me names outside of here are allowed as well, I'm tracking who gave me which names first.

Cookie O' Puke

The other day for my totally awesome roommate's birthday I purchased a Carvel cake. Sadly, not Cookie Puss. Or Fudgie the Whale. Giant is low rent, and only offers lame Carvel confections festooned with eleventy pounds of brightly colored confetti icing. Then again, CARVEL is low rent. Have you SEEN those commercials? Cookie O' Puss? Hug Me Bear? How much crack was that guy smoking? Anyhow, I digress...

However, it was still Carvel, and nothing says low-rent birthday like cheaply made ice cream cakes, no? Especially EXTRUDED ice cream cakes. Seriously. Go watch those commercials. The ice cream? It comes out of a TUBE. Like EAZY CHEEZ. After birthday festivities, and consumption of one shared piece (thanks Topamax!), cake sat in the freezer with only one shared piece consumed for about a week or so before it was deemed delicious enough to consume (a.k.a. all other gelatos and ice creams had been eaten and damn if we were going out for more).

Said cake was far too hard to slice up (because I am a wuss with no arm strength), so it was left out on the dining room table to soften. We all see where this is going, right? No. Actually, we DID manage to rescue it before Twinkie set his beady little eyes on it that time, and some cake was served onto plates. But Carvel cake is a bit much for any one person to actually manage an entire piece of, so perhaps the better portion of a slice of cake was left on a plate. And left on the table, while in an ADD fit, perhaps I wandered off to, you know, talk to myself. Or shop online. Or not pick my stuff up off the floor. Or do anything BUT put the cake away.

Yeah....with a cat. A large, CONSTANTLY HUNGRY cat. Who proceeded, the very SECOND that we turned our backs, to scarf down the better portion of a slice of chocolate and vanilla ice cream cake, purring in delight the ENTIRE TIME. Might I add that the cake was festooned with blue confetti icing? I think that added to his enjoyment. Did I try to stop this at the very end, once I realized what was going on? No, I was laughing too hard, and trying to find my camera, to perhaps film this for youtube. Because I am a GOOD CAT PARENT.

About fifteen minutes later, the fateful sound of retching. "TWINKIE, NO!" Roommate gagging as the carpet is now decorated with hot fish chunks and ice cream. Can I tell you? Is a PLEASURE, cleaning hot fish bits from the carpet (also, I must note that pink salmon bits with blue confettis, VERY distubring. and very tough to get out of pale green carpet). May have thrown up in my mouth a bit from this one. Oh, Twinkie.

This was a prelude of what was to come. 36 hours later, toilets for all! Luckily for me, I have the digestive tract of DOOM, and everything runs through me at roughly the speed of light. Whilst agonizing in nature (nothing like laying in the bathroom wishing you were dead), hella fast. My roommate, however: "pooping like a goose." HAHAHAHA.

Thanks, Carvel! You brought down two people and one cat with one cake. AWESOME.

So You Look Like You're 12

I'm in the middle of a two-week leadership class, where I'm learning all about how to sell a vision of your office to your employees, how to "encourage the heart", blah blah blah.  I have picked up a few things that I can apply to my office, but for the most part it's been a bit more touchy-feely than I like.  However, as has been the case with my career since I came out of college ten years ago, I'm the youngest person in the room.  Not only that, but I look like I should still be in college, as a recent interaction with a trash-collector showed.  I've always been sensitive to this, and have become known in the class as the guy who jumps on anyone who makes sweeping generalizations about these "young kids" coming in to our agency.  

On Friday we had a discussion about generations at work.  I think this is a crucial discussion to have, as there are great differences between the life experiences that have shaped different groups of people.  For example, the "veteran" generation is strongly influenced by World War II, and we Xers are influenced by the roaring 80s and the rapid development of technology.  OK, great.  This stuff is good to know.  But we were then presented with a list of how each generation likes to be treated.  This is where I started to lose my cool.  How can anyone make such gross generalizations about how individuals prefer to be treated?  Gen Xers apparently love status symbols like first-class upgrades and going on fancy retreats.  Really?  And apparently, veterans don't like public recognition.  So thanking them in public isn't appreciated?  Aren't these rather broad categories?  How on earth can they be lumping 20 years worth of births into one group with exactly the same preferences for rewards and motivations?

As the discussion concluded, I made my point that I didn't want to be typecast into any of these roles.  There was actually appplause from the rest of the room (public validation!  I like that!  But wait, Gen Y needs public validation, not X!  We just need fancy travel mugs!).  But if much of the room felt the same way, how do we teach this sticky subject?  I talked to the instructor after the discussion, and he said that they had tried four or five different ways of addressing this issue, none of which did they feel accurately depicts the problems.  Of course, since I complained about it, he then asked for my advice.  After doing a little research on the web...   I've got nothing.  Apparently this is the accepted way to teach generational differences.  Ugh.

So I ask the readers of this forum, who I know from personal experience can also pass for a few years younger than they are- have you had issues with this sort of type-casting in the past?  Any thoughts on how to better address this in the workplace?  I'd love to have some suggestions to make this a better discussion in future classes.  I don't want to be that guy who complains about everything and has no solutions.  But all I can fall back on is, don't look at my baby-face, listen to what I say.  Not much of a discussion.  Man, trying to improve things is hard work.

Rewelcoming Home Ownership

So, this isn't really a kvetch. Though I have much to kvetch about (low flying planes for photo opps! Swine flu frenzy!). HK and I bought a house (with all the awesomeness and scarededness and work that entails). Once we move in, we will be sans-Congressional representation (I will tell you what it's like, JL! I bet it's AWESOME). We are also moving to an area that borders a really nice neighborhood on three sides and . . .another neighborhood on the other side. HK calls it "real" and "urban." I call it "crack-heads" and "boarded-up buildings" and "Murray's is not that far away!." But anyway, we are excited. I can metro to work (red line, baby) and Brian can metro or drive. And it won't take him hours to get home anymore. So he can come home and see how many Gilmore Girls repeats I can watch in a row and question his love for me.

It's a 100-year-old row house. To suburban dwellers, would be considered small. To those people, houses with rooms aren't a big deal. And yards? The only question is SHOULD I GET A RIDING MOWER? To us, the pseudo-city-dwelling-wannabes, though, these things are new and shiny to us. To us, this tiny row house is palatial. I might have made references to Bill Gates when we looked at it. Because it has ROOMS and STAIRS and a YARD! Even a driveway for the complainers that don't like walking the 500 ft from the parking garage to our condo (whatever, just because you are carrying boxes and have small children who are running into the street and have a broken leg and our condo is a MAZE of despair, I still judge) (just kidding) (sort of). The inspection found nothing major, so we can feel assured that the house will not fall down around us while we sleep.

A word about the previous owners. They have a WALL of degrees. They both graduated from the AF Academy, they both have more than one masters (including things like electrical engineering and finance - that's just the husband) and the wife is now a doctor. I am hoping that the high achievement and intelligence genes infuse future children so that they can support us in our old age. Otherwise I am looking into hiring Future Children out as chimney sweeps and possibly give them a Cockney accent so I can retire.

Settlement is in a month and then we shall officially shed our state residencies and become residents of our constitutionally-appointed district of taxation and the only representation being strongly worded oppositions that are summarily dismissed. But we are less than two miles from where we are not represented. We can also welcome repairs that we both didn't miss at all from previous homeowning - shoveling, raking, cutting grass (well, we could do it with big scissors at this place, but still), gutters and all the rest.

Just talking about paint colors is stressing me out. But the house must be painted. The highly educated people we bought the house from have painted it in what I call "festive" and what HK calls "ow my EYES! the searing PAIN! SOB." Once this is accomplished, we may have more than two people over at a time! And be social!