THE SWEETEST FRISKY VIRGIN

Gentle Readers . . .  and Maxwell,

The Frisky Virgin has once again honored me with an award. If you aren't following Frisky yet, you should because she's a real sweetie.

You read that right.
My blog is lovely. 

This award comes with some conditions. These are the rules:

Link back to the person who gave you the award (already completed)
Complete the form below
Tell seven random things about yourself
Nominate 9 bloggers

QUESTIONS:

Name your favorite color
It depends. I prefer various shades of blue when I decorate a house. I like to wear red.
Name your favorite song
Why Don't We Do It In The Road

Name your favorite dessert
Frosted sugar cookies.
What pisses you off?
People who cheat on their spouses.
When you are upset you 
I sometimes cry, fret, bitch, and worry, and then I get over it. 
Your favorite pet
Faulkner, my smooth collie who died last year.
 Black or white?
Definitely black. I look wicked good in black.    
Everyday attitude
I'm the most cheerful depressed person I know. 
Your best feature
I'm tired of bragging about my bodacious ta-tas. I guess I'll say I have nice feet.   
Guilty pleasure
Blogging when I should be accomplishing other things.

Now I'm supposed to tell you seven random things about myself:

1. I didn't bring my white teddy bear with me when I moved. It was stupid because I still miss him.
2. When I was about 16 my mother told me I would never be able to hold down a job. It still haunts me, yet it's kind of funny because I've had some very tough jobs with deadlines to meet (newspaper reporter and editor) and I've been responsible for keeping people alive (healthcare).
3. I didn't major in journalism or healthcare and had no interest in working in either area.
4. I wear glasses and can't see a thing without them.
5. I'm pretty competitive and rather jealous of some people who accomplish shit I want to do.
6. I am a lot like Charlotte on Sex and the City, but I want to be Samantha.
7. I wanna get laid, but I won't hook up with somebody I don't know.

Now, the fun part. I am supposed to pass on this award to nine other bloggers:

1. A Mom Just Winging It 
2. Absorbing what I can
3. An Ordinary Life
4.  Conceive Writing
5. Diabeetus
6. Left Alone With A Full Moon
7. intriguedbeing
8. Lemons Don't Make Lemonade
9. Interwebs Fails
And a bonus baby -- 10. Atley 

Well, I'm afraid that's all the bloggy love I can handle for today. Thank you again to America's Friskiest Virgin. As for you nine bloggers who are now receiving the award, get yours ASAP. They're cluttering up my immaculate house. Congratulations!

 

 

Infinities of love,

Lola 

AMUSING TELEPHONE CONVERSATION

Gentle Readers,

I was in a grocery store recently and in the bread aisle, an older woman was talking on her cell phone very loudly, shouting I'M NOT ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE WHO'S GLUED TO MY PHONE LIKE THE REST OF AMERICA.

Mmmmmm o.k.Then would you please hang up and stop shouting? I could hear you from two aisles over, Madam.

Personally, I do not talk on my cell phone in public unless it's super important.

I think many of us could help stop noise pollution by waiting until we're at home to use the telephone.

Just a thought.

Infinities of love and silence,

Lola

KISSIN' COUSINS

Gentle Readers,

Do I have news for you!

Someone I Love has done more genealogical research and discovered that my dad's paternal grandparents were first cousins who married. Now, I realize that it used to be fairly common for cousins to get it on, but it also sorta kinda makes us the product of

INCEST

It's also yet another way that we are similar to British royalty because for the longest time they were very big on marrying their cousins. Victoria and Albert? First cousins. 

The marrying cousins thing really didn't start to come to an end until, let's see, I think it was George V and Queen Mary who said their children could choose the people they wanted to marry -- as long as it wasn't Wallis Simpson. 

Anybody but Wallis Simpson.

Infinities of love,

Lola

CANCELLATION TRIALS & TRIBULATIONS

Gentle Readers,

Last week I told you about all my new techno stuff in  TECH NO GEEK.       

But getting new stuff meant I had to cancel some old stuff. The new cell phone was no problem because of Rad and because I simply went from one AT&T phone to another.

But installing a U-Verse package meant I had to cancel my old satellite TV provider and internet service.

So I called the satellite people. We'll call them DirectFuckMe. The guy I got on the phone simply would not shut up and let me cancel the service. I didn't shout; I didn't curse. But I did end up becoming rather angry and speaking to him quite strongly, as in, My DVR hasn't worked properly for months and you people kept telling me it was my fault and you wouldn't do anything about it and then the AT&T guy told me today that your stuff had never been hooked up properly.

Mr. DirectFuckMe actually had the nerve to tell me that he isn't "you people," that he has a name and it's Shit Head, and that I never talked to him so it wasn't his fault.

Then he tried to rip me off by telling me if I didn't cancel for another month that it would save me money on what I have to pay per month ($20) to finish off my contract, which ends in September. I said, How can paying for another month at $79 cost less?

He said, Blah blah blah blah something something something.

I said, Just cancel it right now.

He finally obeyed.

Them I had to call Shamcast to cancel the internet. I've been unhappy with them because they called me a couple of months ago and said they were sending out someone to upgrade my modem free of charge and the cost of my service would actually go down.

HA! I say HA!

Almost every day the internet went out after the upgrade and I had to unplug everything and plug it back in, not easy when one is hampered by a broken back. Furthermore, although the cost of the internet service went down by about a dollar, they added some other cost, so the total cost went up.

But I was prepared when I called Shamcast because of my experience with DirectFuckMe. When Shamcast inquired why I was canceling, I answered, I am giving away all my belongings and entering a convent.

He said he didn't even know there were convents in the United States anymore. I assured him there were.

He said I was due for a refund.

No argument.

Problem solved.

I'm going to use the entering a convent excuse from now on.

In fact, afterwards I felt so freaking brilliant I'm surprised my head could fit through the door.

Infinities of love and nunneries,

Lola

P.S. AT&T also gave me a $200 rebate for getting the U-Verse package, which more than covers the cost of the $60 I still owe DirectFuckMe for canceling my contract with them.

TECH NO GEEK

Gentle Readers,

I admit it: I am not exactly a technological genius.

I can do the basics. I blog, text, email, google, jabber on my cell phone, poke people on Facebook, and have a Web site I created.

But currently I am on technological overload.

I had the same cell phone for several years. I loved it, but it was starting to fall apart. So I went to the AT&T store where nice, polite young Rad always helps me. I was due for a free upgrade on my telephone, so I got the same kind of phone Rad has.

The telephone is very nice. I have been told it will even do the laundry -- if only I can find the correct spot to tap tap.

And because of my dissatisfaction with my TV and internet providers, I decided to sign up for a U-Verse package, which was installed two days ago.

I could operate the old remote for my television in the dark, and now I'm learning how to use a new remote and I have to become accustomed to a different channel guide and different ways of setting up my close personal friend DVR.

I now have wireless internet, which I particularly wanted so I could make more use of my laptop. The computer is running well. But my laptop is so old that it can't do much on the internet. Rad says I need a new laptop. He told me to go to Wal-Mart and get an HP. I told Rad that Wal-Mart is Satan and I can't go there. Besides, I can't afford a new laptop.

I have also regressed in the sense that I now have a land line in addition to my cell. So my fax machine is hooked up and Someone I Love can send me the math problems she doesn't know how to do. I shall solve them and fax them back to her.

(The part about doing the math problems is a joke. She's getting her Ph.D. in math. I have no comprehension of what she does, but I'll never admit it to her. I have told her for years that it wouldn't be fair to the other kiddies if I helped her with her math.)

I'm very happy I got the U-Verse package. Everything -- TV, wireless internet, land line, new cell phone -- costs the same as my old cell phone, internet, and TV combined. Plus, the new stuff does so many things the old stuff couldn't do -- if only I can figure out how to use it all.

So, here I sit, head pounding, wishing I had a nice Valium or two. I realize this may sound paranoid, but I think the tech world is out to get me. Its glance at me quickly turns into a look of sheer disdain, kind of like the edge in the voice of the GPS lady as described in  ME 'N MY GEE PEE ESS. I know I'll learn how to do everything eventually. It's just that I want to do everything right now. At first, I couldn't even figure out how to answer a telephone call, and the directions do not include instructions for doing something as simple as answering a call. It turns out all I have to do is pick up the phone and say hello, is it me you're looking for? I don't have to press any buttons to answer.

And some day, some way, I will have a new laptop. But probably not this year because to put the icing on the fuckme cake, the school district has a teacher hiring freeze because of budgetary concerns. The district should hire me to fix their budgetary concerns. I bet they're already paying big bucks to consultants who are supposed to solve the problems. Hire me! Hire me! I can fix it all with three hands and a foot tied behind my back.

I'd start by making the schools more energy efficient. Makes sense, right? When I taught back in March, the AC was so cold that the students wore hooded sweatshirts and jackets to class and covered the registers with the literature text books. Why keep a building that cold? Waste, waste, waste.

Turn off the lights when you're not in a room. Turn off the computers when you don't need them.

Second, I'd cut all sports and offer private concerns the opportunity to rent the school gyms and stadiums and sponsor sports clubs. To participate, the kids would have to be enrolled in school, actually attend school, and have a GPA of at least 2.5.

I know cutting sports would make people insane, but they've already cut band and chorus classes, so cut the damn sports too, or at least insist that parents pay a fee if their kids participate in sports. I had to pay a fee every year for Favorite Young Man to play basketball, so it's not as if paying for playing is unprecedented.

Finally, I would cut transportation to magnet schools. If you want to send your kid to a magnet school, then you need to be responsible for getting your student there safely.

There. I think I just took at least 60 million off the budget.

Ah, well. I don't expect the school district will take me up on my offer to solve their budgetary concerns. I would make it all look very simple, which it is. School administrators prefer to make things seem complicated to justify their salaries, which are so much higher than what teachers earn.

Woe woe woe woe.

Infinities of love and woe,

Lola

SLEEP TIGHT

Gentle Readers,

I have a long-standing fear of bugs.

In fact, my fear goes back as far as I can remember, and I remember a lot (this is a warning to some people). As a small child, I had nightmares that bugs were crawling on me.

They stopped when I was a teenager, but when I was an adult, they started again, and after a nightmare about red ants crawling on me, I realized why I had the bugmares. It was because I was so itchy that it made me dream that something was crawling on me.

You see, I've had eczema since I was a baby, it subsided during my teenage years, and then returned - as it often does - when I reached my form of adulthood.

Although I've been plenty itchy this summer because of mosquito bites and the rashes that crop up on my always-fragile skin, I didn't have a summer bugmare until about two weeks ago when I woke up believing that bedbugs were crawling all over me.

After all, every time I turn on the news I hear about another posh place in New York City that had to be closed while they get rid of the bedbugs. Horror stories about bedbugs in hotels abound. Exterminators have scary advertisements that scream BEDBUGS ARE BACK.

Well, it just so happens I have been to a lot of those fancy-schmancy places in New York that now have bed bugs and I have been there within the past 10 to 15 years. I have also stayed in a number of hotels, and at one time or another, I employed an exterminator in houses I used to own.

I have every reason in the world to fear bedbugs.

Anyway, I did my bedbug research (I've already provided two links for you as you may have noticed, should you care to join me in my bedbugmares), and I've been watching for signs of bedbugs. Do I have even more bites that usual? No. Do I find little smears of blood on my sheets? No.

So I don't think I have bedbugs, yet, but if I get them, you will be the first to know.

After the exterminator.

Infinities of love,

Lola