Archive for July, 2009

So hard to find good help these days.

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

We had a very nice man come by and do a house repair for us on the weekend. This house repair was required because the wind decided to take a chunk of our siding off as it carried on it’s merry. It’s so nice when you get a pleasant hey, how are ya from Mother Nature, isn’t it?

Anyway, we were diligent little doobies and went through our insurance company to report it and obtain an estimate. Once the quote was obtained, it was decided that our pocketbooks should take the hit, rather than our insurance (through a rather dizzying calculation involving claim-free status times number of years versus actual price to get the job done, plus a multiplier for every strand of hair lost to angrily running fingers, divided by number of sleepless nights tallied against the number of moments spent feeling buyer’s remorse).

So we contracted the guy who gave the insurance company the estimate, and we were off to the races.

He turned up on Friday, as I was home sick and attempting not to feel like tortilla wrapped death. We weren’t expecting him that day. In fact, I thought he was just coming back to have another look at it, to make sure he knew what supplies he needed.

Nope. He was there to do the deal. I knew, given the fact that our house and the neighbour’s house are fairly close together, that this wasn’t going to be an easy task. Heck, if it were an easy job, I’d likely have strapped on my Mike Holmes and done it my damned self.

However – this fella seemed to have no problems with it. Done in a matter of 90 minutes. I went out and attempted to have a look at the repair job, in my less than healthy status. I asked him about a piece I saw that seemed un-levelled, but he indicated to me that it was a joint, so I let it go and went back in to my misery.

A while later, Buddy came home.

Him: They didn’t use the Styrofoam and insulation that we saved. Did they replace it?

Me: Hmm, I don’t know. I’ll call and ask.

How I ended up with a lady a) screaming in my ear b) throwing money at me and c) hanging up on me a short time later is still something of a mystery to me.

The phone call was very polite until I said “does the lack of that extra insulation have some impact on my house? Do I need to check with the insurance company?”

That’s what I said. I can only assume that what he heard: “I’m telllllllllllling on you!” I suspect this because (though they’d already cashed the cheque for the work) he immediately offered me my money back.

?

No, says I, I don’t want my money back. I just want the job done.

It was at this point that I received a stern lecture on how dangerous the work was, and how they couldn’t possibly go back up there, so I’d just have to take the money back (once the cheque cleared – ha, ha, ha) and find someone else to do it.

Dangerous? Sure. No doubt. But folks, that’s why I hired professionals. Because that’s what they get paid for. Right?

I was in the midst of telling him that if he’d been honest up front, we might’ve decided to go ahead and accept the risk of the lack of extra insulation in that part, or considered our options. But since he decided to hide it and avoid it, and then, when asked, react in an incredibly unprofessional (and defensive, to say the least) manner, well . . . the trust isn’t there.

It’s at this point that a woman yanks the phone from him, gets on with me and proceeds to start screaming at me. Seriously. Screaming. I was so surprised that involuntarily uttered an incredibly stiff and psychobabble-esque “You need to de-escalate your tone” before I could even blink. She proceeded to yell at me for about thirty seconds (again about the perils of fixing siding) and how I was putting her guys in danger and that I had no appreciation and as soon as the cheque clears she’ll send the money back to me.

All I could say was “How can you run a business like this? Where’s the customer service?”

The response was a resounding click as the line died.

Here is what I surmise. The nice man quoted on the job because he didn’t want to turn away business from an insurance company. The nice man really didn’t have any clue of how to do the job. The nice man just threw the siding back up and called it a day. And the nice man really, really, really doesn’t want the insurance company to know that he messed it up and truly, had no business quoting on the job in the first place.

After all was said and done, I felt very dirty. Used, even. Don’t get me wrong – if I’m pissed off about customer service, I’m not shy about saying so. I’ll even scream yell and browbeat along with the rest of them.

But in this case, I was calling to ask a question. And that question uncovered a whole lot of things that they didn’t want to own, clearly. There’s nothing worse than being pulled into drama when you’re really not trying.

So far, no cheque. Frankly, I’d be surprised if it ever showed up.

But really – I just wanna know why it’s so impossible to find a contractor who wasn’t born with a shy in his mouth and a ster in his kei.

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If I live

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

If I live to be a thousand, I will never understand why they make tortilla chips in that awful triangular shape. Since it doesn’t really fit handily into the mouth, you’re forced to try and wedge it in sideways, which means that a) you look like a complete and total pig trying to stuff an unseemly amount of food into your gob and b) you scratch the roof of your mouth.

Can we remove ALL disincentives from our junk food-dining, please?

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Clotheshorsing around.

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

I don’t know Stacy London. In fact, I could count on two hands the number of episodes I’ve watched of any wear-this-ish shows of any stripe.

And yet. Yesterday, because of Stacy London, I walked into a reasonably expensive store and totally pwnd it.

How is this possible, you ask? How did you turn an erstwhile snooty salesperson into a woman who, blinking rapidly in shock, said “Thank you for taking me along!”?

Well, what have I learned from not watching Stacy, and yet inheriting Stacy-laws from the ether?

• Size doesn’t matter - fit matters.

• Choose your clothes to suit your body, not to suit the fashion.

• Empire waists, done right, are not the devil’s tool for big-busted women. You can wear it and not look like a sow, twelve months gone.

• Spending a little extra money on clothing that you will love and will stand the test of time (and changing fashions) is not frivolous. It’s a smart investment.

All that, and somehow, the ability to walk into this store and, in twenty minutes time, walk out with an entire outfit that not only suits my body, but also suits my personality to a T.

Seriously.

It’s perfect.

It was all the saleswoman could do to scurry behind me as I tried, adjusted, suggested and requested my way into this outfit.

Awesome. So I was telling my-friend-the-groom about my shopping rockstar status. We talk on gmail, as there is a geographical issue. He’s way down there in one of those San-cities and I’m up here. And, like lo so many grooms before him, he’s a bit behind schedule on clothes.

Him: I still have yet to do that. I’m going clothes shopping with Kristen’s favorite gay
Me: good choice
we’re struggling with the suit on the hetero side
I can’t tell if Buddy would look hawt in a suit jacket, or if he’d look like an affronted wet cat. Because it ain’t natural.

I’ve conquered clothing for myself. Now, we just have to sort Buddy out.

Posted in Being a girl, Getting older, Happiness, buddy | 2 Comments »

Livin’

Monday, July 20th, 2009

I imagine that you can tell I’ve been swamped by my utter absence from the intarweb. This generally only happens when I’m running too quickly to formulate a thought from start to finish. Oh, sure I’ll manage the front end of it, with things like: “Hmm, that was a great recipe, I should share it.” Or worse, I’ll arrive at some kind of mental conclusion about something, but won’t have the time or the energy to say exactly how I arrived at any given spot. Thusly, I’ll get the back end of a thought: “ . . . and that’s how we can solve the energy crisis with a simple three-step process!”

I have been accomplishing a number of things, however. I’m starting to suspect that accomplishing thoughts and accomplishing things are items that cannot be done at the same time. Or at least, not done by me.

However, I did find a family doctor for Buddy and I. (no easy task, I assure you. Kudos to my fellow Manitobans for actually using the IntarWeb for “Rate my MD”. Very helpful, you lot.)

I also hunted down a resolution to the fact that The Great and Windy Summer of ’09 had taken a good chunk of siding off the western portion of my house.

It’s amazing how many of these little tasks clutter my mind on a daily basis. I have come to believe that some portion of my brain is dedicated to slowly driving me mad with a waspish litany of tasks that have not been touched.

This has the dual effect of the intended results (insanity) and triggering my inner mule into true digging-in-of-the-heels. Which then, of course, means nothing gets done, but I get to quietly resolve to gibbering in the corner as the litany does its trick.

However, I’ve also come to recognize that the only way to survive this maelstrom of incomplete, unstarted or impossible tasks is to skim. Grab your mental fishing net (on the days you have any energy left at all for visualization exercises), and do a light run across the top. As the most heavily weighted tend to float their ironic little arses to the surface, it’ll be the critical ones you do. The rest? Well, they’ll continue to lurk underwater until they become disasters themselves.

It’s survival mode, but hey – it’s also survival.

Posted in Odds and Sods, Thunks, family | 2 Comments »

The *real* reason I blog.

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

Truth time - The real reason I blog is because I’ve got a horrible memory when it comes to sequences of events. As a result, I can never remember what year things happened, or even what month. As me for a specific date and I’m likely to crumble in front of you.

This is fine, since I’m not normally required to retain this information for work, or family life. But when it comes to paperwork? Oh lawdy.

Where have you lived in the past five years? Please list all, including the date you moved in and the date you moved out.

Where have you worked? Please list all places of employment for the past eight years.

When were you married? When were you divorced? At what point did your fiancé move in?

Do you understand that if I didn’t blog, I wouldn’t have the answers to these things? I’d be unable to acquire a passport, unable to obtain security clearance for jobs, incapable of changing my insurance information. DO YOU REALIZE I’D BE TOTALLY LOCKED INTO MY OWN HOME IF I DIDN’T BLOG ABOUT THESE THINGS?

Posted in Thunks, metablog, out of the archives | 2 Comments »

Still learning.

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

It’s a funny thing, that you can live all your life in the same body and never notice things about it.

You know what I learned today? I learned that if I am stressed or feeling overworked, my body seems to involuntarily force  my hand to rest on my forehead. Repeatedly. And now that I know this about me, I keep catching myself doing it. And cussing. And then doing it again.

This is one of those times where self-awareness is not a good thing.

Posted in Getting older, Odds and Sods, work | 2 Comments »

Happiness: a shoddy bill of goods

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

Before you leap all over me because of the title, let me ask you this: Have you heard/said/thought the following at any point in your adult life?

“I just don’t understand why I’m not happy. I have a great job, great family, I love my kids*, my husband, my house and my friends. Everything is great. So why am I miserable? There must be something wrong with me.”

If you haven’t ever encountered this, you can stop reading now, Pollyanna. Clearly you’re not living in the same world as the rest of us. Everyone I know has said or thought some variant of this at some point. You? You’re some kind of freak of nature. While this state of being is brilliant for you, it’s pretty crappy for the rest of us. Just move along on your happy little rainbow road and let the rest of us chew on this, will ya? Ta.

Okay - now that she’s gone, we can really talk.

I’ve been contemplating the answer to this question for a while, because I’ve also been contemplating the question itself. I love my partner and my kids and my family/friends and my work (yes, even that) - and everything is great.

So what’s wrong with me? Why am I still, in turns, cranky, tired, stressed and irritable in and amongst my happiness? Why are there weeds in my life’s garden?

I chewed on this for quite a while. I contemplated how to fix myself. I’ve arranged for Buddy and I to have time to ourselves, I’ve given myself mini-rewards of books, pedicures, nights out with the girls and more.

And do you know? Those were all lovely moments. But they somehow failed to be the magic bullet that put me back into permanent happiness. And as each of these instances failed to produce the expected results, I’ve become increasingly frustrated and annoyed with myself - why can’t I just BE happy, damnit?

I cannot believe how long it took me to figure out the answer to this. I cannot believe that I’ve lived my whole life without stumbling upon this. I cannot believe how many of us seem to be equally trapped in the never-ending cycle of unmet expectations and self-loathing.

The answer is obvious. The answer is clear. The answer is so simple, it’s almost breathtaking in it’s resemblance to a zen garden. A zen garden  is a lot of nothing, with a few rocks and maybe a few other odds and ends that, put together, create a pleasing whole.

Those rocks? Those sparsely applied bits and bobs that make it a garden, instead of an oddly dysfunctional desert? That’s happiness.

Happiness was never meant to be a constant state. Just as an overabundance of rocks would turn a garden into a quarry, an overabundance of happiness turns your life into as grey and stilted a landscape as the lack of it does.

We know this. We all intellectually understand that the highs and lows of life are what make us feel and experience and appreciate.

It seems like we’re all okay with the fact that life has it’s moments of good and bad, and that the people are going to have good days and bad days. But it seems like we’ve lost the capacity to apply that expectation to ourselves. We expect ourselves to be happy all the time when life is good.

But you know? Life can be good without turning us into automatons - glazed eyes fixed forever onto the future, our mouths contorted in some kind of rictus of joy. In fact, that’s reality.

Life plus good things does not equal perpetual happiness, and trying to make it so is a fast way to mental mushroomhood. As soon as we stop pressuring ourselves to be happy all the time, we might just start to appreciate the nuances of contentment, peace, appreciation itself and even, perhaps, the journey in between those little nuggets of happiness.

*Presuming, of course, that you have kids. If not, just pretend the word isn’t in there. Ditto for anything else that clearly does not apply to you.

Posted in Being a girl, Happiness, Health, Rant, Thunks | 6 Comments »

Fifth of July.

Monday, July 6th, 2009

My mother’s birthday is the fifth of July. As such, Buddy and I meandered out to the general vicinity of Lake of the Woods - where my sister and her family have a nice little view of the lake and opportunities to spend a great deal of time on said lake.

Aside from the noseeums (tiny biting midges which, prior to being swarmed by them, Buddy declined to believe in) and the cramped (and snore-filled) sleeping arrangements, it was lovely. Beautiful weather, good food and good company.

The best part? Spending a few hours on the lake with Buddy, my sister and my mother. Fishing. Which is not something I usually do, or generally get all that excited about. I fish about once a year - tops. Which is odd, in a switched-at-birth kind of way. The rest of my family is comprised of avid fisherpersons. In point of fact, our birthday gift to my mother (by her request) was a tackle box and some swivels and jigs.

Not even kidding. My nephews, who were babies just yesterday, are now competent to drive boats on their own, fish on their own and even offered to throw me into their boat for a go-round.

It’s terrifying to think of these little infants suddenly being in total control of my life. On water. Cold, cold water.

But I digress.

Yesterday, I caught a lovely 16 inch walleye and my mother caught a smaller, but no less keepsy pickerel. After my brother-in-law kindly filleted the beasts on the dock, we hopped in our car and drove home, our bounty in a cooler with some ice and lake water.

And then we ate the little beasties for dinner with a nice, light, Mexican salad.

It’s here, in the preparing and eating of the fish, that you really catch my attention. The fact that I know exactly where it came from, where it was prepared and how it was prepared. The fact that it took less than six hours from catch to table. The fact that it took very little time to cook, and required very little enhancement to produce a beautiful, tasty, flaky and fresh dinner.

This is where you find my heart. And my fondness for fishing. Oddly, this is also where you find Buddy’s heart. Or stomach, at least. We’re truly fascinated by acquiring foodstuffs that are like this. We’re never going to be true locavores, as we like things like coffee and avocados and wine and beer. But wherever possible, it’s nice to be able to appreciate the difference between “shipped from X two weeks ago” and “found this morning”.

In short - a nice weekend. One that left us short on sleep and short on time for ourselves (as per usual), but still - we are learning to appreciate the little things that make a difference.

Including dinner. Maybe even especially dinner.

Posted in Happiness, Health, buddy, cooking, family | 1 Comment »

There are days.

Friday, July 3rd, 2009

There are days when I get tired. Tired of watching my children suffer transitions, and grief and uncertainty. Tired of watching Juniper try to maintain a vigilant eye on her chaotic visitation schedule, alternately convinced that she’s going to forget a visit with her mother, and troubled about spending time away from us.

Tired of Rosebud’s finely tuned awareness of her very orderly visitation schedule when things aren’t as reliable as they normally would be. She seems to know, to the very hour, when she’s supposed to be with her father, and when she’s supposed to be with us. When he goes out of town, she knows. And so, we know. I can handle the tantrums and the acting out, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to handle quiet sniffles of sadness emanating from the back of the car when she finds out that we’ll be picking her up from Our Lady of Daycare. Tired because I’m not enough, and because I have to be.

I get tired of being heartsore, watching them struggle. I get tired of putting band-aids on emotional boo-boos with reassurances and false cheer - both of which, I’m sure, are about as believable as a promise of ice cream for dinner.

I’m tired of not being able to plan our lives more than a few days in advance and I’m equally tired of having to plan our lives months in advance, always with the understanding that someone else, who has no goodwill for our relationship or our family, can pull the plug on plans at any given moment.

Tomorrow or the next day, I’ll stand back up and start trying again. But for this moment, I’m going to sit down on this here road of life and stare moodily off into nowhere.

Posted in Being a girl, In the mother/stepmother 'hood, Rant, divorce, family | 2 Comments »