You're Doing It Wrong

I have a number of blogs I read on a regular basis. I’m going to make a list hopefully before we go on vacation. But I know what’s it’s like to someone doesn’t post for awhile — but geez, even doing a half-assed job at blogging takes a lot of time. I’ve been trying to get the rest of this CREEM magazine stuff together forever but I’m working on the holiday newsletter and actually doing some creative writing so the blog suffers … .

Today I’m going to tell you about pit juice as in underarm product. I have a particular product I use by Tom’s of Maine and it’s the only thing I will use. It’s not the plain deodorant which clearly doesn’t work and is not better than nothing. It’s the anti-perspirant & deodorant. One time I needed a refill and Bob couldn’t find it so he bought some regular brand in its “aloe vera” version since that sounded half natural and I swear after I used it I couldn’t get my armpits wet in the shower. Sorry, but I don’t think it’s healthy to have completely dry armpits. (I know, isn’t this a swell topic?)

Last time I needed my product I ordered it from Fred Meyer and for reasons I don’t understand it took about 2 months for the order to come through and at the end I was rolling a dry canister under my arms in pure desperation. This time I gave myself a good headstart and I brought in my bottle to the health products counter so we’d have all the correct product numbers and apparently that gal took my info and went on the never-ending coffee break because a month later when I check on the progress of my order: no one knew nothing.

I started all over and then checked in a couple of weeks ago and we seemed to be on track so then I checked again last week and the lady said that there was a huge display and why didn’t I just buy it from the huge display? Well, I checked the huge display and my stuff wasn’t there and at this point the huge display wasn’t even there anymore. “Sure it is,” she says, “I’ll show you.” And we march over to the huge display: but it’s not there any more. It’s gone. Completely gone along with the gallons of mythical product that I want. She checks in the back and swears she will call me with the info on my product.

No call.

This morning I logged into Toms of Maine.com and ordered 3 bottles. It should be here by the end of the week. Eff Fred Meyer, Hazel Dell.

Yesterday I ran some errands including going to Home Despot to get some replacement lights for our front of the house motion detector which has been off forever. When Dad and Erin were here they looked at it and Dad bought some replacement bulbs but they didn’t fit so I ran in to HD with the old bulb to see if I could find the right size.

In the parking lot a giant seagull stood on the hood of a white pickup truck and pecked at its reflection in the windshield. It was really creepy. For a second I wondered if it was the truck owner’s pet. And if seagulls are that stupid, why we don’t see them on car windshields all the time.

I found my replacement bulbs and they have self-check at HD now so I got out of there in record time. I decided to fix the bulbs the minute I got home otherwise they would sit on the counter forever. Dad showed me how to get the contraption open so that wasn’t an ordeal but the minute I touched the bulb (which I was holding in a dishtowel) prongs to the thingey, the bulb would go on and immediately become molten freaking hot so I couldn’t get it in there properly. The person who designed this thing should be flogged without mercy. I tried several things to turn the unit off and nothing worked. If you’re wondering why I didn’t just switch it off — you’ll have to ask Uncle Joey about that.

I called Dad for tips and we eventually figured the best plan was to shut off the breaker so off to the basement I went and after several switch-go back out and up the stairs and check: no-go back down and try another switch — I turned off every switch and it WAS STILL ON. Then I had to find a flashlight so I could find my way back to the dark basement and turn everything back on. Long before this point I decided this was a large, time consuming pain in the ass for one little thing which I believe is a metaphor for our entire existence.

I checked the shop to see if there was an additional box in there and there was and I turned off everything in that one, replaced my light bulbs, reassembled everything and then turned everything back on. The light has been burning ever since. I don’t know how to make it a motion detector again and frankly, I’m bored with the project. The goal was to have a light there and it’s there: all the time.

Can I please complain about the traffic? I hate commuting anyway and two nights in a row there was an accident on I-5 NB. Last night it took 45 minutes and it was yoga night which means I didn’t even leave downtown until 7:15. Tonight it took an hour.

Also, Mr. Angry Honking Truck Driver: Dude, there were at least 10 open car lengths behind me and only 2 in front of me so I don’t know what you were thinking speeding up like I’m going to yield to you in front of me.

I jumped on the computer about an hour ago to write you all a nice story about my Thanksgiving but first I decided to take care of a gift I needed to order and the farking corksmucker paypal order system wouldn’t work and kept telling me to try entering my information again. After the 4th time I felt like braining myself. I still feel like braining myself. Do computers really make our lives easier? By the way, I still haven’t straightened out my automatic billpay with verizon — another feature intended to make my life easier and it works if easier means spending 45 minutes on the computer trying to pay my bill, then calling to tell them I’m having a problem only to learn that if I have online billing, they can’t help me on the phone so I log back in and the computer tells me if I’m having problem with my online billing to please call. You can see why I’m a little agitated.

Enough about that.

Thanksgiving turned out excellent. We had the family here and had numerous fantastic meals, including the traditional Turkey Day chow. We did some Black Friday shopping — something I haven’t done in 100 years and it wasn’t as hideous as I’d imagined although we were already on our way back home by Noon. We had dinner and jazz at Salty’s, we went to the Portland Art Museum and we saw Sideways. Excellent time.

Bob was due home late tonight so we made our own dinners. I thought I’d kick back with some leftovers and cheap wine and watch the Desperate Housewives I taped last night. Then I remembered that I promised myself I would get in gear for our lodging needs for the big Germany trip coming up.

O.MI.GOD.

You think filling out online forms is tough? Try it in German. I had my massive German Dictionary in my lap laboriously translating word by word until I remembered there are websites that translate paragraphs. Hallelujah! Except it comes out sounding like crazy people. I had one reservation service. The other ones I had to wing on my own. One hotel had a form but apparently I wasn’t doing it right because I kept getting a page that I understood just enough of to get that I was doing it wrong. What knummer did they want? I used the info email with my crazy people translation from babelfish. We’ll see how I do.

I considered clarifying that we’re from a blue state but not sure how much they care. An Euro is an Euro.

When I was in college I was a huge heavy metal freak. I use “heavy metal” here to refer to just about anything hard rock. Def Leppard is the band I was insane about. This was before I had ever been to the Strip or any of the Hollywood rock clubs. I guess I was in training and there was no less heavy metal place on the planet than UCSB.

I used to go to this record store in Goleta on Hollister and buy all kinds of crazy records I had read about. One time the guy at the store asked me if I was friends with the band (“Savage Thrust”) and friends was a stretch but I did exchange a snail mail with someone in the band named Eddie who responded to my fan letter with a postcard of a butcher surounded by floating steaks and holding a huge string of sausages. It said “You Just Can’t Beat My Meat.” He signed it, “Kill the wusses.”

I read CREEM and CREEM Metal and [holy crap! I just did an online search to see if there was anything about the magazine and guess what? They’re back. Wow, here’s a link to the best Replacements Interview ever.] This development has me totally off topic on this post. I’ll save the CREEM stuff for another time.

Back to the heavy metal fixation. I used every excuse for dressing up to dress like a rocker chick. At UCSB. I hope you can grasp just how bizarre this was. When I was president of the sorority (you know, the heavy metal sorority – ha ha!) I made up a theme dinner — instead of “everybody wear white” or “toga” I had a “ten year reunion” dinner and you were supposed to dress as what you thought you’d be in ten years. I dressed as a rocker chick. MJ and Rowland dressed up as dead people.

Man, I didn’t get to a lot of odds and ends I needed to get done today. I did get to the candle party.

My email comes to two main accounts and I have spam filters on both of them. One of the spam filters changes the subject line so that I can filter the messages directly to the trash. The other spam filter, at the address that gets more spam, changes the body of the message but that doesn’t help me filter it when I get my mail. I figured out I could filter the spam using this other method that I don’t completely understand and won’t even try to explain but I have to go log into this webpage to see it. I haven’t checked it for about 2 weeks and this morning I logged in and there were 82 spams. It took forever to figure out how to delete them, too. I wasn’t about to do it message by message.

I know, a thrilling entry.

Maybe you’d be more interested to hear that the bean store has expanded into a bigger store that also serves food. We got up early Saturday, drove across town, and had breakfast before we stocked up on beans and grains. Bob got an omelete with pancakes *and* biscuits. It’s a good place.