June 12, 2002
Work is really really stressful. We've got a contract deadline to meet within a month and all of the programmers are working horrendous hours and are all grumpy. I have the rest of the company pissed because the programmers can't drop everything and succumb to their every demand and I'm the messenger.
Yes, please. Kill the messenger! Lord knows, I need the insurance money.
I'm going crazy keeping track of everything they're doing and it always seems that when I'm almost to the point of being able to get on top of it that I'm surprised in a most unpleasant manner.
Then I say fuck it and go home.
Home, where the 2 year old whines, the 8 year old pukes mid-dinner, the husband grouses, and the woman falls asleep in a heap in the chair by 830 sharp.
It just never seems like there's time for anything fun or good. Last night, I was so tired I was just giggly and incoherent every time my husband attempted foreplay. I think he felt insulted. I was horny as a toad, but I was so tired and the whole idea of sex when I'm that tired is just hysterically funny to me. Maybe you have to experience that to know what I mean. I'd say maybe you would have to be there, but that's just too kinky even for me.
In my craziness, I've decided to hold a barbecue this weekend and have invited two people from work, neighbors we're befriending, and that's about it so far. I don't know what I was thinking. I guess I just figure we're probably going to barbecue anyhow, but it's pretty crazy to go that route when we're still in so many boxes.
I so have to go through my closet and just strip clothes off of hangers and give them away to goodwill. No, I just don't think I'm wearing that polyester blend thing again, thanks. No, the gardening shirt,which while kitchy for a while is just screaming "you're nearing 40 and wearing your mother's style of clothing because you're too lazy to cruise to Kmart and wear last year's fashion statement."
Indeed, I find it scary that the two stores I shop at the most both have "mart" in their names. Wal-mart is right on the edge of the big town near us and it's a got a combination grocery and the rest of the wal-mart goodies. It's an evil conglomerate, but it's a convenient, cheap conglomerate. K-mart is on the edge of the other nearby town and same thing: cheap, convenient, and evil.
My liberal tendencies have been sucked right out of my budget. I should be proud because I did sew myself some adorable kitchen curtains. (Admittedly, I bought the fabric at Wal-mart. In my defense, however, buying it at Joann's Fabrics would have cost me the scalp of my first-born.) The curtain ended up being a single large one with sunshine yellow background and chile peppers on it gathered in the middle with a big tie in a bow. It's adorable and homey and very country kitchen.
It also goes with the tabasco metal poster board, the jalapeno bottle with stopper (thanks, Sue!), and I went so far as to sew a large mat of the same fabric.
Suzy Home-Ec is what you can call me.
To supplant all the guilt for going "mart" I am growing a lovely organic garden and am warding out bunnies by setting my cats upon them and lining the sagebrush fenced off yard with used cat litter, which apparently they loathe. I am also using bloodmeal. No, I don't know how they make it and right now, I don't care. It keeps bunnies from eating vegetables and that's all I need to know. We have bunnies in large roving hourdes running through our yard, which while cute initially is problematic in light of the need to provide food for my family. I'm attempting the food thing anyhow, but am taking precautions.
I admit to being sad about the two baby bunnies that Cowboy the Wonderkitty killed because that first one was still alive when I found it. However, when I called a friend and asked what to do with it, she said the most merciful thing I could do was to step on its head because essentially once they've been caught by a cat or dog, they kill themselves with fright.
I kept looking at this poor thing, still capable of wiggling a little and I picked up a shovel and quietly slid it under a big sagebrush bush with the hopes that it would recover before Cowboy could figure out what I'd done with the prize he'd brought me. The other bunny I saw fleetingly, upside down in Cowboy's mouth flopping wildly as the cat hopped over the fence to avoid losing his prize to Mom. I finally got to see half the bunny later on the patio. Mike took the shovel to that half and buried it.
This living in the country thing after so many years in moderate suburbia, with scorpions and blackwidows under the house (thank you, Orkinman), bunnies running around at will (Get 'em, Cowboy!) , and sunshine yellow jalapeno curtains (*sigh* Walmart)provides a striking contrast to my other life as a IT Project Scheduling Manager in Corporate America.
I'm having a hard time with the incongruity of it all. I really need some quiet time where I can pray more and let God know that I'm here and working very hard to be someone he's proud of.
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