The New England Society for Tea Fetishism

Would somebody please tell me why "Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead," a movie based on two minor characters from "Hamlet," is on the True Story Starz network? I mean, I know I've ingested a lot of NyQuil in the past few days, but seriously--is this logical? On Friday night I hopped into bed, then sneezed four times in a row and thought, "Wouldn't it just suck if I caught that cold that's been going around the office?" One self-fulfilling prophecy and three days later I'm sitting in Carrie's living room trying to get my drink on while mopping snot off of my upper lip. Just when I was sure it wasn't going to go any farther than a scratchy throat and a little congestion, BOOM! Mucus City. Although, I have been working six days a week and it gave me the perfect excuse to take today off and have an actual weekend, or what passes as a weekend for me lately. I had 13 hours of sleep last night and I'm feeling quite good. And Lost is on tonight. Shnoogins.

I have no funny anecdotes or stories to tell, unless you count the one where a sixteen-wheeler drove by me and there was an honest to god dummy strapped into the passenger seat, but that happened a few weeks ago and doesn't really count. I've found that working six days a week tends to make my brain rot more than usual and makes it even harder to keep track of the days. Wasn't it August last week?

There is a ginormous spider building a web on the outside of the window right in front of me. Her butt is at least half an inch long and she has brown stripes on her legs. Yes, her legs are thick enough for me to see stripes on them. We're cool, as long as she doesn't try any shenanigans and come inside. Also, there's a black lab relieving himself in the yard across the canal.

While I stood at the bus stop the other day, a school bus pulled up. "Strange," I thought, but I had heard that a few weeks before the city was short a bus or two and had to put a big yellow cheese-box on the road to pick people up. The door opened and the man driving yelled, "Did you miss the bus?" I said, "No, I'm fine, thank you." And because it was 7:30 in the morning and I'm not that quick on the uptake at that hour, it took me a second or two after he drove away to realize that he thought I was in high school. Of course, later that night as I walked home from work with a bag of groceries in my hand and a "My-day-started-at-6:20-this-morning-and-it's-still-not-over-so-don't-fuck-with-me" look on my face, a couple kids on bikes passed by me and one asked me "Can we help you, ma'am?" Help me with what? Did I look lost? Senile? So much for high school.

Work has been relentless. I worked six days last week. I'll work six more this week. Yesterday I didn't even have a lunch break, I just shoved a sandwich in my face in between entering data into an excel sheet. The annual open house is coming up. I don't even really know what that is, but apparently it's a lot of work to set up I guess I should just be greatful that they changed the date from Thanksgiving weekend to early October.

My dad is out of the hospital. Which is good. However, my mother talked to Renee, my dad's girlfriend, and she's about ready to throw him out. My mom told me a whole lot of stuff, but what it basically boils down to is that he's most likely on drugs again, what with the lying to Renee about strange things (like where he left his car) and the hanging out with Bob Reynolds which, if you know their history together, means nothing but trouble. Frankly I'm just too tired of the whole situation to really care anymore. Yeah, it pisses me off, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over him. His phone is turned off so it's not like I can even call him up and yell at him. I heard my Aunty Debbie offered him a room in her house out in Arizona. I hope he has enough sense left to take her up on it.

It's a better title than "Guess what I swallowed yesterday?" Or is it?
So guess what I swallowed yesterday? I, who formerly could not swallow any medication larger than a Sudafed (and even that was slow going), can now ingest a mighty mult-vitamin on the first try without resorting to chewing, chopping, or otherwise disassembling said pill. Still, I'm not able to dry swallow ten horse pills at a time like Amy, who will always and forever be my idol.

What troubles has she seen, you ask? For starters, I paid $18.75 for the most heinous scallop entree at Bocaccini last night. They do pizza pretty well. Seafood--not so much. I've eaten many a smooth and buttery bay and sea scallop in my life. They should not be stringy and totally flavorless. The flavor was added by an oily and bitter yellow sauce that concealed chunks something that looked a lot like pieces of squash. Imagine my surprise when I bit into one and found they were pieces of lemon peel. Is that traditional? Of course, since I'm a wuss I didn't complain. But really, it was horrible. Don't get the Scallops Oreganata at Bocaccini in Hampton Bays.

And there's more: remember around last Christmas (or maybe it was two Christmases ago) when I couldn't shower for almost three days because every time we ran water upstairs it came out onto the floor of the bathroom in the basement? Happy days are here again. Our shower and upstairs sink are draining out the back of our downstairs toilet. The tile floor was covered in poo-water last night as it decided to overflow while Male Roommate A was gettin' down to business. Seriously, his butt almost got wet it rose up so fast. Speaking of poo, the dog in the yard across the canal is rolling around in something. Just thought I'd share.

It's a great day to welcome a house guest. My former suitemate is staying with us for a few days while she's in between leases or some such lovely inconvenience. The plumber is supposed to come today and check things out, we hope. The guys my landlord relies on aren't exactly reliable. I feel like stringing a sign across the door that reads, Welcome To Our Hovel, Michele! Sorry About The Poo Water.

I've been walking around with Led Zeppelin's "When the Levy Breaks" in my head for the past few days and it makes me feel like I'm going to go to a special place in hell. My next stop after blogging is the Red Cross web page to check out my donation options.

On my walk home the other day, as I turned onto the mangled dirt road that leads to my house, three kids were playing outside their house--two little boys and a little girl who, for reasons that have escaped me, was screaming bloody murder. One of the boys looked at me and the leaned over to the girl and said "Stop screaming, you'll scare the lady." Apparently I'm a lady now, and not in a "Lady Sarah was seen at the polo competition wearing a striking hat," kind of way, but in a "What are you, like 47?" kind of way. Le sigh.

Yesterday was the Day of the Gentlemanly Gentlemen. One of my neighbors gave me a ride to the bus stop, an older Guatamalan man who used to ride my bus stopped and chatted with me and complimented my duck (the plover necklace) and then a guy on the bus made sure the faulty air conditioner didn't drip dirty water all over me. Today was the Day of the Gentlemanly Gentlemen Who Really Want to Make Small Talk. Bus Man and I had a nice chat, and he gave me his newspaper because he was done with it. That was okay. Guatamalan Guy, while a very interesting and intelligent man, decided to walk me home when he saw me walking by the diner and talked pretty much nonstop. Why can't I meet a nice guy my own age who wants to pay that much attention to me? Am I on the wrong bus? Should I take the train instead? The mind boggles.

I didn't blog last weekend (well my weekend, which is Moday and Tuesday) because my mom came down to visit for a few days. I took her to the beach, which was wrapped in a kind of foggy haze when we got there, even though it was still sunny. It was like a dream, or like when they do flashbacks on soap operas and the edges of the screen are all fuzzed out. She'd never seen waves so big before, but after half an hour of standing in the breakers she came out with me. She almost drowned a couple of times, I'm sure, but she had blast. Later on her ankle swelled up and I kept thinking, "Crap, I broke my mother," but we figured out it was from the hole that she stepped into on the hotel lawn and not from bouncing around in the waves. I took her out to Montauk Point to see the freakin' gi-normous lighthouse and the cliffs, and we ate out threee times a day and just enjoyed each others' company.

My father, however, is not doing very well. He was sick to his stomach two weeks ago, and then a day or two later suddenly had excruciating back pain. He could barely walk and the emergency room wouldn't admit him because they didn't have his primary care physician's permission. When he got back home he couldn't walk up the stairs to his apartment. He called an ambulance and when they couldn't get him up they had to call the fire department. My father isn't morbidly obese or anything, but he's a big guy. Finally, he got admitted into Salem Hospital, where he still is (The bastard told his girlfriend not to call me because he didn't want me to worry about him, but he should know from the last time he was in the hospital that I will find out where he is and get pissed that he didn't call me). They don't know what's wrong with him, except that his spinal cord is inflamed, possibly from a bacterial infection. When I was seven he had a slipped disc. We had to put the sofa bed mattress on the floor in the living room because he couldn't get into his bed and he had to get around with a walker. He says that was nothing compared to the pain he's in now. He can't sit up, or even roll over. If it is a bacterial thing, he could be laid up for another five weeks while the antibiotics. It really sucks being so far away from home sometimes. There's nothing I can do for him, but at least I could keep him company. He must be bored out his mind seeing as he can't do much of anything except lie on his back.