Weblog 344
September 16, 2012~ 1:30 am
Here I am, well past midnight and dragging ass. It's NOT been a good week.... (except for my husband, who is always such a sweetie to me and despite the fact that he always thinks he's adding to my miseries, he's NOT. He's the best.) Truth is, I'm just plumb wore out.
I'm on some kind of a ledge... or a plateau or something, and can't seem to progress beyond that point. (In fact, I thought I'd just chuck this whole blogging business and simply use the internet to keep up with news and movie reviews.)
But tonight, since a co-worker set up an Hotmail account for Wayne and he had several unread emails when he logged in for the first time today, I tried to get a version of 'Hotmail' this evening that will make them viewable. (With Windows Live and my browser version, I now know that will NEVER happen; it's simply not possible to open them. They just sit there.) After he went home tonight, I got good and fired up. Iengaged again with this blasted machine... as well as all manner of internet stuff.
The emails are THERE... but the scripts running on the page will not translate to my old software. There's no 'open sesame'... so fukkit.
That whole fiasco had me installing a compatible old version of ((((gulp)))) MSN Messenger which completely CLOGGED my registry with JUNK. I'd installed it a few times in the past, but always rued the day and ended up plucking it out, like an offending eyeball. My machine's been cleaned now, so 'so long, good riddence' to Hotmail... (it's part of the Windows LIVE crap anyway and I've shaken the dust from my sandals with THAT pile of miscreated malarky.) Now I'm tired......
(Not pretty tired either, like the Parrish painting, though I love the colors in that) ....but I'm just as 'out of it'. It all started Friday with an appointment with the local gas company. They'd set up a 'mandatory check' to come in and check out my meter as well as the connections coming into the house. (After two letters and two 'robo-calls' on my home phone, each threatening MORE bad stuff if they couldn't gain entrance) I'd set the time for after 4:30 pm: they were to call my cell phone before they came. No call. We were supposed to be joining Holly and Gary and the kiddoes for our pizza evening, so by 5:20 I called the company to reaffirm they'd be coming. "Oh yes, you're scheduled for today, but they're having equipment problems." "Will they call me if they can't make it?" "Yes they will." "How late might they be?" "Well.... they work until 10 p.m." Ugh.
I called my son-in-law to cancel pizza night and Wayne went out to get us a couple of Subways for dinner. We waited. And waited. No call..... No Columbia Gas man at the door.
A completely wasted evening. Wayne finally went home at 9:00.
We entertained ourselves by watching old VHS tapes I'd made of our trips to West Point in the 1990's when son Matt was a cadet there. One part of our old 'home movies' featured Matt wearing his full regalia as he stood by a door and demonstrated for the parents the way two cadets have to YELL the day's dress code and count down the minutes till the others HAVE to be up and out and ready. I mean RED-IN-THE-FACE-VEINS-POPPING-OUT screaming. This was so TOTALLY bizarre, coming as it did on the heels of my filming Matt reading a somber poem in to an auditorium audience called, 'Wrong'. It was very understated... and very 'serious'.
The sudden contrast made us both laugh so hard, that I-- with a full bladder at that point, lost all control and pissed myself through jeans and all. LOL!!!.... COMPLETELY DRENCHED and couldn't stop! (Pitiful. I am an 'OLD'.)
(It's kind of tough to admit that the 'height of my evening' was wetting myself like a two year old. LOL!!!)
Saturday was better. We watched ......
It's WONDERFUL. Truthful..... uncomfortable..... insightful and very, very hypnotic to watch. It's the story of a marriage breaking up between two intellectual writers with two young sons caught in the middle of their mess. Jeff Daniels is INSUFFERABLY self-important, and Laura Linney much more sympathetic, but certainly not without failings of her own. What distinguishes the two is the way she sees her own faults, while Daniels remains self-deluded throughout. He's a rip-roaring BORE.
The older son admires his father to a fault, the younger son is simply angry... but BOTH boys act out in inappropriate ways while under everything rides the fears, the broken hopes, the treasured memories of the past.
The same fine young actor who in a few years time would be cast as Mark Zuckerberg, is vulnerably perfect in this earlier film. Absolutely believable. It's his memory of the one thing that scared him as a child: a huge squid and an equally huge whale in a museum display he remembered as being the most terrifying thing to him.
The shot shown above where he confronts that representation of life's 'scary stuff', is very poignant. He's looking at two dynamic, bigger-than-life creatures locked in a battle to the death and this time, seen through pained, adolescent eyes, it's not two sea leviathans, it's his parents. A brilliant metaphor shown near the ending of a film I thoroughly enjoyed, start to finish. It's life at its prickliest... and somehow, this weekend, it was just what the doctor ordered.
September 17, 2012~ 6:15 pm
SUCCESS!!!! (See? When you forget about a thing that's nagging at you, sometimes it just solves itself.)
That's the kind of peacefulness I feel at this moment..."Mission Accomplished" ... (Yah... right ... thought so last year too.)
If you read the entry above, you know what a disaster our Friday night turned into, waiting 5 1/2 hours for the Columbia Gas man and sure enough, when I got home today and was sitting at my computer- teeth OUT, barefoot, make-up off -wearing a ratty old housecoat, my front bangs in a curler -the phone rang. "Hello?" "Columbia Gas here- are you home?" "Yes." "I'll be there in 10 minutes." LOL!!!!
I flew up the stairs, threw on some jeans and a top, pulled the curler out of my hair, grabbed my teeth out of their Polident soak and without rinsing, JAMMED THEM RIGHT IN MY MOUTH! (*I do not advise you to ever do this. It burns like holy f*ck.)
Ten minutes minutes later the fella was at the front door and the checking took all of 5 minutes. No leaks. Everything fine.
"You have insurance on your gas lines? These pipes look pretty old." "Yes!" I said, "I have insurance on my gasline and my waterline and I STILL get constant mailings saying I'm uninsured and I'd better buy some." (He said nothing.) "See you in 2 or 3 years," he said, ignoring that. "Yah. That's what they told me 10 months ago when you sent a sub-contractor to do this very same check." He gave me a puzzled look and told me to have a nice evening.
All's well that ends well, however.... and no more threatening ROBO-calls from the gas company.
And allow me to introduce you to
My mother's OXYGEN TANK. You know, it's not the easiest thing to push that critter around, even with me manning the tank and mum walking beside me with her wheeled walker, but the LADIES OF TABLE 6 once again cheered me tremendously. They NAMED the thing 'Charlie'. "Oh, here comes Kay and Charlie now...." as we slowly made our way on Sunday evening into the dining room. Mum chuckled and I thought how sweet it was to add a bit of joking around to what must be (knowing my mother) 'embarrassing'. She's been self-conscious her whole life, and just because she's 92 doesn't mean she has any tougher skin than she's ever had, but those ladies making light of it allowed her to feel more at ease.
I couldn't wait to tell Wayne about 'Charlie' today when he called me at work. (Hold on, though. What he heard was far funnier.)
Telephone speech has no punctuation, so when I said- "Those ladies call her oxygen tank, 'Charlie'"...
he heard, "Those ladies call her 'OXYGEN TANK CHARLIE'!"
AND HE HOWLED!!!!
Once I realized what he was laughing at I couldn't stop howling myself. "HERE COMES 'OXYGEN TANK CHARLIE'!" LOL!! He thought it was pretty neat the way they can tease and banter with one another; somehow I don't think mum would find it as amusing, but who knows?
She told me she hasn't smoked for "years and years...." and doesn't see why she'd need that stuff now, when the truth is, she smoked for 76 years and only quit when she went to assisted living not quite 3 years ago. Ah memory..... what a trickster you are.
***
(Return To Weekly Archives)
Here I am, well past midnight and dragging ass. It's NOT been a good week.... (except for my husband, who is always such a sweetie to me and despite the fact that he always thinks he's adding to my miseries, he's NOT. He's the best.) Truth is, I'm just plumb wore out.
I'm on some kind of a ledge... or a plateau or something, and can't seem to progress beyond that point. (In fact, I thought I'd just chuck this whole blogging business and simply use the internet to keep up with news and movie reviews.)
But tonight, since a co-worker set up an Hotmail account for Wayne and he had several unread emails when he logged in for the first time today, I tried to get a version of 'Hotmail' this evening that will make them viewable. (With Windows Live and my browser version, I now know that will NEVER happen; it's simply not possible to open them. They just sit there.) After he went home tonight, I got good and fired up. Iengaged again with this blasted machine... as well as all manner of internet stuff.
The emails are THERE... but the scripts running on the page will not translate to my old software. There's no 'open sesame'... so fukkit.
That whole fiasco had me installing a compatible old version of ((((gulp)))) MSN Messenger which completely CLOGGED my registry with JUNK. I'd installed it a few times in the past, but always rued the day and ended up plucking it out, like an offending eyeball. My machine's been cleaned now, so 'so long, good riddence' to Hotmail... (it's part of the Windows LIVE crap anyway and I've shaken the dust from my sandals with THAT pile of miscreated malarky.) Now I'm tired......
(Not pretty tired either, like the Parrish painting, though I love the colors in that) ....but I'm just as 'out of it'. It all started Friday with an appointment with the local gas company. They'd set up a 'mandatory check' to come in and check out my meter as well as the connections coming into the house. (After two letters and two 'robo-calls' on my home phone, each threatening MORE bad stuff if they couldn't gain entrance) I'd set the time for after 4:30 pm: they were to call my cell phone before they came. No call. We were supposed to be joining Holly and Gary and the kiddoes for our pizza evening, so by 5:20 I called the company to reaffirm they'd be coming. "Oh yes, you're scheduled for today, but they're having equipment problems." "Will they call me if they can't make it?" "Yes they will." "How late might they be?" "Well.... they work until 10 p.m." Ugh.
I called my son-in-law to cancel pizza night and Wayne went out to get us a couple of Subways for dinner. We waited. And waited. No call..... No Columbia Gas man at the door.
A completely wasted evening. Wayne finally went home at 9:00.
We entertained ourselves by watching old VHS tapes I'd made of our trips to West Point in the 1990's when son Matt was a cadet there. One part of our old 'home movies' featured Matt wearing his full regalia as he stood by a door and demonstrated for the parents the way two cadets have to YELL the day's dress code and count down the minutes till the others HAVE to be up and out and ready. I mean RED-IN-THE-FACE-VEINS-POPPING-OUT screaming. This was so TOTALLY bizarre, coming as it did on the heels of my filming Matt reading a somber poem in to an auditorium audience called, 'Wrong'. It was very understated... and very 'serious'.
The sudden contrast made us both laugh so hard, that I-- with a full bladder at that point, lost all control and pissed myself through jeans and all. LOL!!!.... COMPLETELY DRENCHED and couldn't stop! (Pitiful. I am an 'OLD'.)
(It's kind of tough to admit that the 'height of my evening' was wetting myself like a two year old. LOL!!!)
Saturday was better. We watched ......
It's WONDERFUL. Truthful..... uncomfortable..... insightful and very, very hypnotic to watch. It's the story of a marriage breaking up between two intellectual writers with two young sons caught in the middle of their mess. Jeff Daniels is INSUFFERABLY self-important, and Laura Linney much more sympathetic, but certainly not without failings of her own. What distinguishes the two is the way she sees her own faults, while Daniels remains self-deluded throughout. He's a rip-roaring BORE.
The older son admires his father to a fault, the younger son is simply angry... but BOTH boys act out in inappropriate ways while under everything rides the fears, the broken hopes, the treasured memories of the past.
The same fine young actor who in a few years time would be cast as Mark Zuckerberg, is vulnerably perfect in this earlier film. Absolutely believable. It's his memory of the one thing that scared him as a child: a huge squid and an equally huge whale in a museum display he remembered as being the most terrifying thing to him.
The shot shown above where he confronts that representation of life's 'scary stuff', is very poignant. He's looking at two dynamic, bigger-than-life creatures locked in a battle to the death and this time, seen through pained, adolescent eyes, it's not two sea leviathans, it's his parents. A brilliant metaphor shown near the ending of a film I thoroughly enjoyed, start to finish. It's life at its prickliest... and somehow, this weekend, it was just what the doctor ordered.
September 17, 2012~ 6:15 pm
SUCCESS!!!! (See? When you forget about a thing that's nagging at you, sometimes it just solves itself.)
That's the kind of peacefulness I feel at this moment..."Mission Accomplished" ... (Yah... right ... thought so last year too.)
If you read the entry above, you know what a disaster our Friday night turned into, waiting 5 1/2 hours for the Columbia Gas man and sure enough, when I got home today and was sitting at my computer- teeth OUT, barefoot, make-up off -wearing a ratty old housecoat, my front bangs in a curler -the phone rang. "Hello?" "Columbia Gas here- are you home?" "Yes." "I'll be there in 10 minutes." LOL!!!!
I flew up the stairs, threw on some jeans and a top, pulled the curler out of my hair, grabbed my teeth out of their Polident soak and without rinsing, JAMMED THEM RIGHT IN MY MOUTH! (*I do not advise you to ever do this. It burns like holy f*ck.)
Ten minutes minutes later the fella was at the front door and the checking took all of 5 minutes. No leaks. Everything fine.
"You have insurance on your gas lines? These pipes look pretty old." "Yes!" I said, "I have insurance on my gasline and my waterline and I STILL get constant mailings saying I'm uninsured and I'd better buy some." (He said nothing.) "See you in 2 or 3 years," he said, ignoring that. "Yah. That's what they told me 10 months ago when you sent a sub-contractor to do this very same check." He gave me a puzzled look and told me to have a nice evening.
All's well that ends well, however.... and no more threatening ROBO-calls from the gas company.
And allow me to introduce you to
My mother's OXYGEN TANK. You know, it's not the easiest thing to push that critter around, even with me manning the tank and mum walking beside me with her wheeled walker, but the LADIES OF TABLE 6 once again cheered me tremendously. They NAMED the thing 'Charlie'. "Oh, here comes Kay and Charlie now...." as we slowly made our way on Sunday evening into the dining room. Mum chuckled and I thought how sweet it was to add a bit of joking around to what must be (knowing my mother) 'embarrassing'. She's been self-conscious her whole life, and just because she's 92 doesn't mean she has any tougher skin than she's ever had, but those ladies making light of it allowed her to feel more at ease.
I couldn't wait to tell Wayne about 'Charlie' today when he called me at work. (Hold on, though. What he heard was far funnier.)
Telephone speech has no punctuation, so when I said- "Those ladies call her oxygen tank, 'Charlie'"...
he heard, "Those ladies call her 'OXYGEN TANK CHARLIE'!"
Once I realized what he was laughing at I couldn't stop howling myself. "HERE COMES 'OXYGEN TANK CHARLIE'!" LOL!! He thought it was pretty neat the way they can tease and banter with one another; somehow I don't think mum would find it as amusing, but who knows?
She told me she hasn't smoked for "years and years...." and doesn't see why she'd need that stuff now, when the truth is, she smoked for 76 years and only quit when she went to assisted living not quite 3 years ago. Ah memory..... what a trickster you are.
(Return To Weekly Archives)
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