i has a happy

i hate my job. yes, it's a strong opening to a blog. and i'm terrifically fond of saying 'hate is a wasteful emotion'. but i don't know that there is another appropriate word that conveys my actual feelings. 'strongly dislike' just doesn't sound as good. i work from home. i sit in my home office, in street clothes, without shoes on, and type on a computer all day long. i sell things in a chat environment. i am a salesperson. i am good at it. and i hate it.

it's not the job itself. i love the product, i love interacting with people, and i like most of the people i work with. but, i can't lie - typing nonstop for hours and hours on end everyday pisses me (and my wrists) off. like right now, i'm typing recreationally. i take breaks. like i'm about to stop to get more soda. but when i'm working, i can't stop. i have to chat with up to three people at one time, and i have to answer each of them within like 20 fucking seconds. have you tried keeping up three different conversations at once? literally at the same time? and answering fast, like they were the only people you are talking to?

most of you will say 'no, that's ridiculous'. at least one of you will nod your head knowingly and share in my pain. what makes this more fun *sarcasm* is that i'm batshit crazy. i may have mentioned that before. it makes me all irrational and angry and mad at inanimate objects like my computer. it causes me to yell obscenities at customers who cannot hear me. or throw things. i do prefer throwing things. awesome husband repeatedly tries to get me to keep like stuffed animals in the room to throw when i have the urge.

he just doesn't get that if it doesn't break, it's not helping.

so i try not to throw things. but our cordless phone doesn't work *perfectly*. and there is a funny rattling noise in our remote control. um, and i broke my cell once. but only once.

seriously, i'm quitting my job. in this economy. i'm keeping it as long as i can possibly stand, to make a few extra dollars before i dedicate all my time to making bags and cases and shit (http://rule42custom.com if you're interested in seeing what i'd rather be doing). luckily i have an awesome husband and mom who will be working and making money to replace the money i no longer can make. being batshit crazy and all. i can't even hold a job that's located in my house. seriously.

so. the point is that i can be having the shittiest day. the kind of day that no amount of new found glory, billy joel, less than jake, or bouncing souls can help. the kind of day where you think 'i need a drink after work' but then can't even find the desire/energy/will to leave the house and get a drink. or make dinner. or take a shower. you get the idea: i'm crazy enough that one of those 'bad days' will ruin me for like three days in a row.

but i'm having this shittiest day. and my shift ends at 4pm. now, i don't know how, but samantha seems to have this sixth sense about when my work day is done. she doesn't do this everyday either. she did it today, and i totally needed it. it was just after 4. i had gotten rid of those rotten, non-buying customers with stupid questions and logged out of all that dumb shit i need for work. i closed everything on my screen that was work related and leaned back for a minute. and here comes samantha, jumping up on my desk (using an open filing drawer as a step up) meowing and all purry and she just rams her little kitteh head into mine.

then she proceeds to lay down (covering my schedule for the rest of the week, i might add) and looks at me with cute kitteh eyes, still purring like a tractor, and starts kneading on my desk. (if you're not a cat person, kneading or making muffins is when they flex their little claws into something, alternating from right paw to left and back and forth. and they push their paw into it. they kneaded their mother's belly near the nipples to stimulate milk flow when they were babies, so this is a super happy, comfortable, content, loving thing.) then she mews and jumps onto my chest, curls up under my chin with her front paws and head on my shoulder, and keeps rubbing on my chin and cheek and any part of me she can butt her head into, all the while digging her muffin-making claws into my shoulder.

it *almost* makes the shittiest day better. it certainly helps an awful lot. it's scientifically proven that petting a cat can lower your blood pressure and stress levels. now while samantha cannot negate the kind of stress that batshit crazy causes, she sure does make me feel like the best person in the world, at least for a little while.

am i offensive or offended?

i just got back from a short week in new york. we stay at my in-law's house, which is kind of weird to me. i mean, i lived there for a short time when i was 17 and had been kicked out of my house. but back then i was a thin, know it all, cocky, insane 17 year old with a new boyfriend and my adult life ahead of me. i was still stealing condoms and having sex in cars. now i'm 30 years old, a thick, insecure, fucking crazy big girl who sort of owns her own home. i have not stolen anything or had sex in a car in a very, very long time. i'm a 'grown up' now. and i find it super strange staying over other people's homes.

not MY family, obvs. i mean, i have no issue staying at my dad's apartment. i'd probably be okay staying with my brother, if i could find room to sleep there. um... actually, i'd probably be uncomfortable staying with any other family members (no offense to family members reading this - i'm crazy.). like, at rev. bobdad's house, i take a shower when i need to take a shower. i make a phone call at my leisure. at my brother's house, if i needed more toilet paper in the bathroom, i'd dig around until i found more.

almost anywhere else, i'm uncomfortable. like, not terribly - i can carry on a conversation, eat food, get my own soda, etc. but i wouldn't take a shower without announcing i'm about to take a shower, just in case anyone else in the house who lives there regularly needs the bathroom. i swear i still get a funny look from my dad-in-law every time i do that. and sometimes i still ask my awesome husband to get me a soda or whatever from the kitchen. i guess old habits die hard - i was a 'guest' in that house for a long time. it's still awesome husband's house to me. i remember watching movies in that basement, or playing magic on the patio. i remember sitting on the porch painting wood boxes (omg, don't ask. it was a phase.). but it was always HIS house - not someplace that i was 100% welcome.

when you read etiquette books and shit, they usually talk about it being the host/ess's job to make you feel welcome and comfortable in their home. it's not their fault - mom- and dad-in-law - that i'm not comfortable. they are super welcoming, and are great hosts (even to the point of handing over the keys to the second car so we don't have to rent while we're visiting). it's just that i'm literally batshit crazy. i sometimes wonder if i offend them by asking if it's okay that i shower now, like if i make them feel like they're *not* good hosts.

now, i can tell you about a group of people i do offend - pretentious fucks in huntington village. while in new york, i went to a hibachi grill called tomo with awesome husband, my brother, and his girlfriend. we got dressed in our nice going-out clothes and did our hair and everything.

now, just for a bit of background: i have pink hair. like, not all pink, but mostly pink. i also have both my nostrils pierced and two piercings in my lip. and 8g ear jewelry. awesome husband has a terrorist-like beard and 1/2" tunnels in his ears. my brother also has holes in his ears, like 00g i think. and his girlfriend has her septum, nostril, and lip pierced. and like 3/4" plugs in her ears. oh, and we're all visibly tattooed. some of us more than others. if you're keeping count, that's 7 facial piercings, multiple large holes in our ears, and at least 17 visible tattoos.

but we looked sharp: all button down plaid shirts for the boys, and us chicks had on our little black dresses with a cardigan. we looked super cute, if i do say so myself. and we had reservations for a hibachi table, which sometimes have a long wait. there were like 10+ people waiting for hibachi tables when we checked in for our reservations. we only had to wait like 6 minutes to get seated - yum! almost dinner time!

so we sit at one end of the table: awesome husband, myself, girlfriend, and my brother. a moment later, they lead a group of 5 to share our hibachi table. they had been waiting for a while to get a hibachi table. they sat down looking happy. picked up their menus, smiled, looked around, smiling, looked at us.

looked at us. looked down at their menus. looked at us. looked at each other. had a hushed conversation. then got up and moved to a non-hibachi table.

i mean, they were WAITING for a hibachi table. why would they just get up and head to a normal table after seeing us and their menus? i mean, the menu at the normal table is the same. so either they changed their mind after seeing the grill (?) or after seeing us.

awesome husband and my brother thought it was funny: they're offensive to people! girlfriend and i were actually *offended*. okay, i get it - there were a lot of piercings and tats across the four of us. but it's not like we're dirty filthy hippies with shit between our toes. it's not like awesome husband had a chicken bone sticking through his terrorist beard. i mean, i was showing a bit more cleavage than i normally do, but i'd think that would attract people, not repel them. (if you think it may be repelling people, please let me know so i stop parading my tits around)

and it's not like we were in some small, conservative town. it was the fucking VILLAGE. it was huntington village, where there are more bars like per person than anywhere else aside from iceland or some shit like that. there were drunk fucks wandering around everywhere, and it looked like there was some shit going down at chesterfield's, since there were suffolk cop cars parked in the middle of the street and people standing at the entrance. i don't even get that many looks at disney. well, from parents at least. kids seem to be entranced by my pink hair. i was at a steakhouse the night before where the least pricey steak is still almost $30 - a fancy place - with my pink hair and metal-y face and didn't get strange looks. i certainly didn't scare anyone away.

so anyway. us gals were offended that some squares thought us offensive. we're probably too sensitive though. i mean, i may have mentioned that i'm batshit crazy - that usually comes with a bit of paranoia at times. so that may have contributed to it.

but the boys laughed, we died a little inside, and they seated a family of three with us (lots of elbow room). i made awesome husband take a photo of us gals, and the nice young man that had sat across the hibachi grill from us offered to take a picture of the four of us. the complete opposite of being offended or scared or disgusted or whatever with us - he was offering to look at us more than he had to by taking a photo. there wasn't any prolonged conversation, but they didn't give us fucked up looks, walk away from the table, or rush away from us. we ordered our food, had the hibachi grill guy make his onion volcano and flip zucchini into our mouths (i did not catch mine), and shoveled our delicious food into our mouths (i was the only one who rocked the chopsticks - i ROCKED THEM I TELL YOU. i actually have my own pair of chopsticks with a fancy case. be jealous.). the other family got up to leave, with a smile and a wave, and we went about our business.

awesome husband made a point to give those square fucks a nasty look as we walked out. i hope they cried about missing out on the hibachi experience over some fucking facial jewelry and body art.

life, the universe... cats

some of you may not know it, but i have three cats. well, 'we' have three cats. they're not all mine; i can share. especially since i can't clean the litter boxes because of my asthma. which is almost non-existent now - EXCEPT when i'm in the room while the litter boxes are being cleaned.

i also don't usually clean up cat vomit. if i wanted to clean spit up or vomit, i'd have a kid.

anyway, we have three cats. the oldest is taylor/hot rod/ghengis cat depending who you ask. he belongs to us all - myself, my mom, my brother, and now my awesome husband. but i really think he's mine. we have no idea where he came from - the story i got from my stepdad was the cat at the bar he frequented had kittens. when we first got him, he was a teeny thing, all grey stripes and no tail (that's right - no tail). we also had a german shepherd whom we did not know how would react to the cat (dessert?). so for the first few weeks we had him, taylor was confined to my room: litter box, toys, food and water dishes. all of it. and he would squint at me and mew, rubbing on my face and purring like a tractor. he'd sleep with me every night, laid out across my neck with his little grey nose tucked behind my earlobe. no joke. we were bff.

the first time taylor met our german shepherd, he took a swipe at the 75+ pound dog and showed him who was boss: taylor. then my stepdad proceeded to make taylor an outside cat (which i don't approve of personally) and taylor was king of the neighborhood: terrorizing rodents, killing mockingbirds, and bullying the english bulldog who lived a block over. he was awesome. at his prime fighting weight, he was about 10 pounds, and had been known to fight and kill harbor rats his size. mysterious puncture wounds - small raccoon or large squirrel? - would prompt last minute vet visits. three year rabies vaccinations would be renewed every two. and when he was moved to a new home in lindenhurst, the neighbors suddenly stopped seeing mice.

that all was a long time ago. taylor is now 15, he'll be 16 this september. he weighs somewhere around 8 or 9 pounds, and is in kidney failure. he seems to have lost a bit of his sight, and appears to be almost completely deaf. you can walk right up behind him, and he has no idea. the other cats sneak past him and startle him. i'm constantly yelling at my awesome husband and my mom not to scare him - i'm terrified that he might have some kind of kitty heart attack. he still purrs like a tractor, though.

then we have piglet. she's my baby - i rescued her from babylon town shelter and picked her up on my 25th birthday. she'll be 6 this september. piglet, her sister, and her mother were removed from a home where the owner only fed them popcorn. she was about 6 months old and 6 pounds when we brought her home. she's a dilute calico with pretty green eyes. she was not used to being held when we got her, and she still doesn't do well with it after all this time. right after she was spayed, she developed pneumonia (which i still blame on north shore animal league - i brought them a healthy, purring, happy rescued kitten, and got back a sick to the point of almost dying kitten. i should have paid the extra $100 to have the surgery done by my vet. lesson learned.). thankfully, i convinced north shore to treat her at no cost.

piglet was in the hospital for a week, in an oxygen tent. i remember thinking that it was lucky we'd only had her a couple of weeks, if i was going to lose her already - at least i wasn't too attached yet. thankfully, she pulled through, but not without lasting issues. she has chronic eye issues (mostly weeping, but some swelling from time to time) that her vet attributes to feline herpes, which is actually common in shelter cats. sadly, it's passed between cats who share dishes, litter boxes, and sleeping areas so it's almost certain that the other cats in our household have herpes as well. piglet is the only one with symptoms, though. we're currently treating her with l-lysine, which can help suppress the symptoms associated with feline herpes. i've found a formula that is mixed with a milk protein. it's like a thin peanut butter consistency, and she seems to like it. i've never been able to get her to actually take the l-lysine before, so we're all hoping that this helps with her herpes symptoms.

even after all this time, piglet is very skittish and often jumps at the slightest noise. she and taylor don't really get along, although piglet and samantha will cuddle all the time and clean each other. we still can't carry piglet or hold her for long periods of time, and she won't eat anything, really, aside from cat food. she doesn't like milk, butter, whipped cream, ice cream, chicken, steak, eggs, fish, pretzels, french fries, doritos, or any of the other human food that our other cats will eat. but she makes THE BEST cat noises - piglet has a ridiculous purr that you can hear across the room, and she purrs all the time! she chirps, too, i don't know how else to explain it. she makes this great little 'chirrrup' purry noise with her mouth closed - i've never, ever heard another cat do it. she doesn't cuddle or really sit on your lap, but she'll lie down next to you and touch you with just her paw, or stretch out a leg on yours: for piglet, that's cuddling.

and that brings us to samantha. i got her when we first moved to florida, in july 2006. she has never seen a shelter - her mother was rescued three days before giving birth. samantha has thankfully never gone wanting and doesn't know what it's like to be abandoned or unloved or mistreated. we got her at four months old, about four pounds of white fluff with a spikey tail who owned our place the second she jumped out of the crate. her and piglet did not get along from go - it took about a month for piglet to warm up to samantha and let sammy clean her. samantha was very subservient to piglet, and i think looked at piggy like another mom. samantha was not without her problems, though. early on, she had an upper respiratory infection that i took her to a new vet for. big mistake. long story short, i did not succeed in having the doctor's license revoked, but it does not take five adult vet techs to take blood from one four pound cat. they should not have continued trying for 45 minutes like they did, stressing sammy out - and stressing me out, since i could hear her crying but not see her. they should have given her back to me immediately when i asked, and not 'explained to me how vets work'. my baby sammy should not have been crying every time i tried to pick her up for the next 10 days because she was so bruised and sore. never take your pets to banfield unless the doctor comes highly recommended. i fucking hate them.

anyhoo, i found a COMPETENT vet who IS NOT an asshole, and we discovered that samantha has little to no sense of smell. we determined this by watching her try to drink bleach, lick the burning end of a cigarette, not flinch when we let gas from a lighter by ner nose, and other amusing antics. she also cannot find food under her face unless she sees it first - if you have a dog or cat, you know what i mean. they usually smell food and just eat it - they don't need to see it and then find it with their mouth to eat it. samantha does. other than that, she's pretty normal. crazy, but normal. she is cheap with her purrs and does not give them out freely, but when sammy turns it on her little belly rumbles and i love how it feels. she'll sit on my shoulder, and i can rest my ear on her belly. i also like listening to her breathe: even though she can't really smell, she tries and makes the best snuffling noises. when you call to her, she mews at you, jumps down from whatever she's sitting on, stretches, and then falls over, looking up at you. she routinely does this when you've just walked in the door carrying something - i think she's trying to trip me. samantha is part oriental shorthair - a notoriously talkative cat (not as bad as a siamese, but she's super vocal) and even after almost four years, i'm still learning to listen to her. sammy's not much of a kitten anymore - she's an adult cat now - but she's still my sammy baby.

i know that i get mad at my cats. when it's 5am and taylor is shouting at the door to be let out onto the patio. when samatha gets her claws stuck in the curtain and bites at me when i try to set her free. when piglet is sneaking up on taylor. but even just writing this makes me realize how blessed i am to have three amazing felines in my life. they bring me so much joy, and they love me as much as i love them. and i know it, when taylor sees me and shows me his belly so that i can rub it, or when samantha leaps into my lap while i'm trying to work, or when piglet cautiously climbs onto my lap and starts kneading my thigh. they're not perfect - but none of us are. and anyone who says that 'they're just animals' or that pets don't have souls or human-like emotions should come spend a day with my cats. and then you'll understand why they are not pets - they are family. and why i'm enough of a bitch that i can't even think about the fact that taylor is almost 16, and that he's sick, and that one day he won't be here anymore. why i'm tearing up right now, just thinking about it.

if you have a cat, then you'll know what i mean.

now i'm going to go grab my kittehs and cuddle down for the night.

the replacement

i had another blog ready to post. i was about to pull the trigger on it and thought to myself, 'is this too much?' it was ranty, and personal, and while it was a great example of me - it was a bit much. i don't know who all will be reading this ultimately, but not everyone who knows me really, really KNOWS me. as open of a book as my life is, i don't usually just randomly offer up the kind of info that was in that blog.

so i saved it. maybe i'll post it another time. maybe i won't introduce you all to 'steph gas, certifiably insane with paperwork to prove it' right away.

maybe instead we can talk about the weather. that's right - the weather.

i live in central florida. for those of you who slept through/failed/ignored geography, florida is a peninsula. like a huge dick poking out from the southeast part of these united states. one side has the atlantic ocean, the other the gulf of mexico. these different bodies of water have differing winds. when these winds meet each other, all hell breaks loose.

guess where they meet. right the fuck over our house.

no, i'm not exaggerating. and it's like e v e r y day during the summer months (in florida, that's from may to novemberish). so i'm minding my own business, sewing or working or reading twilight, and there's thunder rumbling in the distance.

'oh, good,' i think. 'the lawn was looking a bit dry.'

40 minutes later the windows are rattling, the cats may or may not be hiding, and i'm glued to the television seeing if there are any tornado watches.

and if there are, i sit with the remote in my hand, toggling between the local drunk meteorologist and the weather channel, muting it and shushing anyone in the vicinity every couple of minutes to see if i can determine whether or not that last rumble of thunder sounded like a freight train, because that's what they tell me a tornado sounds like.

the first time we had a tornado warning, it was february of 2007 - about 7 months after we moved to florida. we were living in an apartment complex, and it was about 4am, midweek. we both had to work that day, but the thunder woke me up. it was ridiculous! i turned on the weather and there was a tornado warning! (to refresh your memory - a watch means conditions are good for severe weather, while a warning means it's on, bitch, keep your fingers crossed). i was completely hysterical. i have lived through blizzards. nor'easters. hurricanes. ice storms. floods. even minor earthquakes. but a fucking TORNADO!?!? i had heard you should get in your tub under your mattress - but we have a sleep number bed - the thing's made of air! it breaks down into small pieces! i remember waking my awesome husband up, sitting on the edge of my bed with my sneakers on, not letting the cats out of the bedroom, and deciding that the closet in our bedroom was where we should hide (it was a walk in - no windows, no outside facing walls, plumbing from the bathroom on one side).

we were fine, of course. lake mary wasn't so lucky. and lake mary was about 40 miles from us. that's not that far... there was a tornado in celebration one time - that's like maybe 20 miles from our house. that's not far at all. fuck that.

we had storms again today. i was not surprised, but i am still pissed like every time it happens. you know another awesome thing about florida? fucking bugs. like cockroaches. they are huge. like i've seen new york roaches - those little german cockroaches, light brown and skinny and under an inch long. i don't like them, but i've killed them. a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

down here? i WISH we had german cockroaches. we have huge fucking american cockroaches and i also think i've seen the florida woods roaches too. they get literally two inches long. they are huge and dark brown to black and shiny and they are not afraid when you turn on a light. they like stop their little trek to wherever there were going, basically turn to look at you, and are like 'what? what the fuck you want? yeah, i'm walking up the wall over you bed, bitch, what you gonna do about it?' i swear i saw one flip me off once. and it's like having ants - they just wander in. in new york, roaches usually end up places where there is lots of food or lots of paper or places to hide - schools, factories, food warehouses (ew, but true), nasty houses, or nice apartments that you live in that happen to be right over the apartment of a crazy woman who's been stealing and hoarding people's mail (roaches love shit like that).

like, in new york, you'd get ants and be like 'oh, noes, i have ants. i'll go get traps or whatever and get on with my life.' if a friend came over and was like, 'dude, there's an ant', you wouldn't be embarrassed and the friend wouldn't freak out because that happens, especially at certain times of the year. but if you popped over your boy's house and saw a fucking roach meander up the wall like he owns the place you'd be like 'what the FUCK, man? what is going on here? no, i don't want your taco bell - i'm out.'

like native floridians don't seem to get it - they're like ants down here. 'oh, a roach - hold on, i'll get it.' meanwhile i'm practically pissing my pants and trying to run out the house.

which brings me to a few nights ago. not all of you have seen my house, but i can affirm that while it may have a fine layer of cat hair over most things (there are three cats, no amount of sweeping or vacuuming can keep up with them) my house is not dirty or messy. i do not hide food in strange places or hoard other people's mail anywhere in my home. this particular night, i was having some trouble sleeping (this may have been a portent of sorts, looking back). i had taken off my glasses and was lying on my stomach, and my second pillow (they one i use to rest my arm on, because that's how i roll) needed to be adjusted. so i lifted my head and grabbed the pillow - it rests mostly on the wall, and part of it like bends onto the bed for my arm. so you can see the picture:

my bed. me, lying in it. my awesome husband, snoring. one pillow under my head, one mostly propped up on the wall RIGHT ABOVE MY HEAD. that's important - remember it.

so i lift my head and tug that pillow to get my arm on it, and i see like a shadow on the wall that seemed to come like from behind the pillow. i'm like, what the fuck? the television is on, but i didn't move anything there... and i look up, and the fucking shadow is still there.

that's when i realize it's not a fucking shadow.

i jumped out of bed screaming. mind you, people have to work tomorrow and it's like 1am. i flip on the light and taking a leisurely stroll up my wall RIGHT OVER WHERE MY HEAD WAS is a huge roach. he stopped and i think he looked back at me with a shit eating grin on his buggy little face. i screamed until my awesome husband woke up and kept pointing at the thing, like you do with a man who falls overboard, until my awesome husband came back armed with the can of raid and paper towels. (my awesome husband has no idea what 'quick like a bunny' means and has only one speed that he runs at. which made this seem like a long time.) then we had to strip the bed. then i had to change my pillow case since that nasty fucker was probably walking around on it. then we had to pull the bed out so i could be sure there wasn't some kind of fucking party going on under the bed. then i let my awesome husband go back to sleep, and i sat in bed, clutching the covers around me, until 2:45am when i finally started nodding off.

i fucking hate florida.

look who's blogging, too!

i've never blogged before. i get why people do it, and i even have read a few 'weblogs' in my time. i've never felt the need to share even more of my life than i normallly do. but now that i've entered my 30's, i find that there are some things that i want to share.

if you're reading this blog, i'm sure you already know me. you might know that i'm a crazy cat-mom with the best husband ever, living in florida. you may know that i'm certifiable, that i love to cook but love to eat even more, and that i'm fiercely loyal to my true friends.

but you might not know any more than that. you might wonder why i hate people so much, why i thank goddess every time it's friday, or why i don't have any photos that include any part of my body below my chest. i hope to sort a lot of that out, and have some fun along the way. now, i won't be able to compete with many blogs out there - i'm not as funny or sassy, or maybe my life is just too boring. but i think i'm fucking hysterical - in more ways than one - and hope to bring you along on the ride.

plan on reading blogs on the following awesometastic subjects:

*being a big girl (since we don't use the word 'fat' around here anymore)
*having special needs cats
*glimpses into mental illness, eg: being batshit crazy
*cooking and creating new recipes
*sewing ridiculous shit
*life, the universe, and everything
*books, music, movies, and more

i bet it rocks. i bet this blog will rock your face. look forward to more randomnosity and ramblings from yours truly, coming soon.