Rock On

I went to a band rehearsal today with my husband and daughter. Before I worked at the factory I worked with my husband at the Olive Garden. One of the other people that worked there is the lead singer in a band called Avalanche. They used to have a web site, but I can't find it now. I found another band called Avalanche somewhere near Berlin NH, but that's not the Avalanche I know. My Avalanche is a good band, but they are trapped in the 70's. They might play some 'new' songs from the early 80's, but mostly it's old songs from Black Sabbath and Van Halen and other loud rock bands. They had their practice session in the drummer's basement. It sounded good, but really loud. It didn't make my ears bleed or anything, but it was loud.

That wasn't the first time I heard Avalanche. We had the band come out and play for us twice. The first time was in the middle of summer. We decided to have a party to celebrate the 1st anniversary of the Flood of 93. We had the band come out and play right in our back yard. They could hear the band a mile away. People thought we were insane I'm sure. They might have been right. It was probably the hottest day of the year and the band was set up right in the middle of the yard, right in the sun. The band was miserable, but we replaced their sweat with beer so they didn't complain too much.

The second time we had the band come out was a lot better. I don't remember exactly when we had the second concert, a year or two after the first one. We waited until the fall, when it was cooler. Plus that time we didn't have it in the back yard in the middle of town. We had it on some property my brother owns near the river. It was much better. We had a keg (or was it two) and hard liquor. My husband didn't want any drunks messing with the keg, so he set it up inside and drilled a hole in the side of the house. He ran a hose to the hole and mounted a beer tapper right on the side of the house. People couldn't believe beer would actually come out of the tapper until they walked up and pulled the lever and beer poured out onto their shoes.

Buff

Before I started working for the phone company I worked in a factory. I wasn't in very good shape. I'm still not in very good shape. After I started working there I started to feel better. I was like a marionette with loose strings, all floppy and uncoordinated, then someone pulled all the strings back into place. I wasn't ready to enter any body building competitions or anything, but I was stronger and had more stamina.

Working for the phone company is having a similar effect. Not quiet the same, but similar. It's not my bicepts or abs that are bulging. It's my tongue. In the factory I could go for hours without talking. At the phone company I'm constantly flapping my jaws. My tongue is constantly working. It feels like my tongue has already increased by about 2 tongue sizes. If this continues, in a few more months my tongue won't fit in my mouth anymore.

Happy Happy Joy Joy!

I am doing the happy dance to end all happy dances. I was so bummed out yesterday about my laptop breaking down. Before I had to leave for work my husband called the store where he bought it and asked them about fixing it. They said it could be a couple of things. Maybe the power switch broke, maybe there was something wrong with the hard-drive, maybe it was the battery's fault. The battery had been bad from the day we brought it home, but the technician said sometimes the battery just goes evil (like in the story on QSW) and won't let the laptop turn on. He said it would cost $35 just for them to look at it, and they wouldn't even be able to look at it for at least 5 days. After they finally got around to looking at it they might end up having to order parts and that could take another week or two for delivery. So I was totally bummed out.

Imagine my horror when I saw my laptop carrying case sitting on the end table when I got home last night. I always try to be optimistic, so I thought maybe he had dropped off the laptop and just took the case home. Then I lifted up the corner of the case and could feel that the laptop was still in there. Great, I thought, it's not even in the shop yet. That means it's going to be another day without my little plastic bundle of joy. Then my husband told me the good news. No, the great news, the breaking news, the better than 'You just won the lottery' news. My laptop is fixed! Hooray! He said the technician just popped out the battery and plugged it in and it came right on. It was the evil battery from hell. They even fixed the 'function' key that had been wobbling around like a baby tooth right before it falls out. We're on a waiting list to get a new battery now, but it works fine with just a gaping hole in the side where the battery should be.

Oh My god!!!!!

I really have to get off my butt and blog more now. I just noticed that my favorite blog, Quick Shtick Writing, has this blog linked on the front page because I have that blog linked here. So now I have a potentially huge audience. More than just my mom and sister at least. And of course, my laptop picked this moment to break. I tried to start it this morning and it wouldn't turn on at all. It didn't do anything. I think the switch that turns it on is broken, and I hope that can be fixed. I'm afraid my husband might decide it's just too old to spend any money on. Also, of course, I was just getting ready to back everything up this week, but hadn't quite gotten around to it yet. That sucks big time. It reminds me of when my last laptop bit the dust. That time I was lucky, I had just finished backing everything up. Everything except my diary, of course, so the one thing I really treasured on that laptop was lost forever.

Working My Fingers To The Bone

Work has been great. A lot better than working at the factory I had been working in. I get to sit in the air conditioning, typing on the computer all day. No more steel toed shoes, earplugs, or safety glasses. I actually have long fingernails now. I don't remember ever having such nice looking fingernails. I actuall went out and bought a bottle of fingernail polish. A real classy red. I'm not exactly very experienced painting my nails, and they ended up looking kind of sloppy, but they were sure red.

I knew working at the phone company would provide lots of blogging material, and I was right. There is one thing that is a pet peeve of mine already. I hate it when people call from the bathroom. The last thing I want to hear while I'm working is a toilet flushing. Is getting that phone number really so important you can't wait until you leave the restroom?

Also, it would really be nice if people would roll up their car window before calling 411. It may not seem that loud to you, but it makes it really hard for the operator to hear what you're saying. If you don't mind repeating yourself three or four times, and then getting the wrong number anyway, go ahead and leave the window down. Just don't say I didn't warn you.

Today I had a really mean customer. She wanted a number for an Alzheimer group in California. She said some general area, and then said Los Angeles. Two listings came up, one in Los Angeles but the first one was in some other nearby city. I read off the first one, and the lady immediately started whining about wanting one in Los Angeles. I explained to her there were two and the second one was in Los Angeles. Then she started bitching at me for reading off the first one instead of skipping straight to the one in Los Angeles. I don't know anything about California. She said some general area, and then Los Angeles, so for all I knew the first one might be the one she wanted. She kept whining and bitching about it, asking me if I was stupid. I wasn't going to listen to her attitude, so I just hit a button while she was in mid bitch and sent her a number for the Los Angeles listing. It wasn't until I was already hitting the send button that I realized I was sending her the Los Angeles Alzheimers group that was for Spanish speaking people. Then I felt better. Deal with that you crabby old lady.

Some people I want to do that kind of thing to on purpose. People can be real mean to the operators. I need a city to look for a listing in, and I don't know how to spell every city in every state in the United States. If you don't know how to spell the city don't act like I'm a retard because I don't know it either. I also don't know how to spell these restaurants with Mexican names. Is it Los or Las, La or Le, Il or El? And for God's sake, I'm not Mexican. I don't speak Spanish. People call in looking for a Mexican restaurant with a long, complicated name, and blurt it out real fast so I can't even tell how many syllables are in the name, much less how many words there are in the name. Then if I ask them to repeat it they rattle it off the same way. Then, when I have to ask them how to spell it, they blurt out all the letters so I still can't tell what the words are. Then I have to break it down and ask them 'Could you repeat how to spell the first word? And how is the second word spelled?' I wish these people would just pick up a phone book.

Another pet peeve of mine is people who call up and want a listing that I can't find, and then they say they've called 50 times and always gotten the number before. I want to ask them why they didn't write down the number oh, say, the other 50 times they got the number. If it's a place you've had to call 50 times already maybe you should have it on your speed dial or something. Leave us poor operators alone.

My Girl

Well, I have a daughter already!!!!!

We never did get in touch with the social workers. We found our daughter all by ourselves. A neighbor's friend ran away and/or got kicked out of her house. She says she was kicked out, her mother and step father say she ran away. Either way, she was homeless. We talked with her, and decided to unofficially adopt her. She's 17, a little older than my husband had expected, but exactly what I wanted. She has issues, but what 17-year-old doesn't? She is old enough that she can decide if she wants to go back home or not. Her mom can't force her to go back home. She decided she would rather stay with us. The pool table in the basement probably helped.

We're fighting to get her into high school. Not that she doesn't want to go, but apparently her mother has to sign papers to enroll her in the local high school and she doesn't seem anxious to help. Her mother won't even let her go home and get any of her clothes. Even if we are able to get her enrolled, I don't know what grade she will be in. She should be a senior, but she didn't do very well in school last year so I don't know if she has enough credits to graduate or not. It looks like if she takes all the necessary classes, takes a night class, and goes to summer school next summer, she might be able to graduate at the end of summer. Either that or she could just be a junior again and be able to take some elective courses that she would enjoy instead of a bunch of boring math and English classes.

I would rather have her take an extra year and enjoy herself instead of having all the stress and pressure of trying to fit everything into one year. Partly just so she would enjoy going to school instead of hating every minute of it, and partly just so I know she won't be leaving home so soon. She doesn't want to go to college. She has different plans for her future. Her goal is to be a tattoo artist and body piercing technician. My husband isn't very impressed with this career choice.