The move is over

In the past week I have painted, cleaned, climbed ladders, hauled boxes, moved furniture alone, cursed, cried, laughed and ate my weight in pizza but it's official, we are home owners. Now if someone would just unpack all these boxes.

There are deer in the yard. And it takes me 45 minutes to get home from work but only 30 minutes to get there (why is that?).

We have no cable or internet (Hi new neighbors - you should secure your internet connection).

Bean scratched her nails to bloody lil pulps in the carrier on the way up here - she's fine now, and the plus is that she and Beej are best buddies now.

It's snowed everyday since we got here (not a lot mind you, but still SNOW!).

I don't know my new phone number.

When I drive home from work, I usually slam on the brakes when I get here because I'm always about to drive past it.

I have done no Christmas shopping and am starting to freak out.

I don't like being here alone at night with no curtains on the windows (and O&A talking about home invasions yesterday has just made me more uncomfortable).

California Tortilla is kinda gross.

I'm exhausted. So I'm off to bed - but we're here (and we're queer! We don't want anymore bears!) (which has also the ep we've been quoting since settlement -"let the bears pay the bear tax - I pay the Homer tax!" "that's the home owner tax, dad")

Night!

Who goes shopping at 4 AM?

So I'm sitting here all snuggly on the couch, catching up on DOOL, warm and happy under my heated throw, perusing the ads for "Black Friday" when I noticed that Kohls opens at 4 AM.

That's crazy talk!

Who is getting up that early to shop? What could you possibly need that would propel you out of your safe, warm bed to a store with a bunch of other lunatics? There is no deal in the universe that would get me out of bed that early.

I don't even like to get up to pee at 3 AM.

Giving the bird the bird

For as long as we've lived here (10 years!) Mr. Pants and I have spent Thanksgiving here in our PJs eating a humongous amount of food. No relatives, no arguments, no football. Just us, our cats, the parade (and me singing "I love a parade" repeatedly), the dog show and some Buffy episodes. We eat, go to bed and sleep Friday away.

TYPICALLY.

This year because we are moving on Monday the 26th - and because new job is making me work Wednesday (ALL DAY) and Friday (ALL DAY), we are cutting corners right and left.

The Turkey I lovingly brine? Is going to be a simple maple glazed turkey.

The stuffing that I bake my own bread for, cube and let get stale? Then cook up the aromatic veggies to make an awesome, delectable stuffing (I love stuffing -it's my favorite part of the meal) is being replaced by Stove Top.

The mashed sweet potato casserole with tiny lil' marshmallows on top? Is being replaced with some frozen candied sweet potatoes. (This side dish is my specialty - I used to work in a restaurant and when I first came up with it I presented it the head chef as "goo". Which stuck in the kitchen - and still to this day I call it goo.)

The pies (usually two or three) that I would labor over on Wednesday afternoon when I came home early from my old job have been replaced by a Sara Lee frozen job that was only $1.88 at the Wegmans! My dad would be so proud.

The veggies that I would marinate and roast on Thursday are off the menu too - replaced with a frozen veggie combo.

The shrimp I would normally steam in beer and old bay are gone too. Along with the Chutney spread and the beer cheese dip. Instead it'll probably be easy cheese on crackers (not really - I may throw together some apps on Wednesday night if Mr. Pants goes out drinking - maybe a fig goat cheese phyllo concoction.)

The only thing I'm keeping is the mandarin salad I would normally make.

I know I'll miss my typically Thanksgiving. Ever since my family became spread so far I've come to look forward to this easy day of great food and no stress. Even though the food won't be as good - Mr. Pants and I will still watch the parade, dog show and I didn't pack Buffy Season 2 for that reason - we'll still sit at the table and say what we're thankful for. We still feed the cats wet food and all fall into a weird slumber by 7 p.m. It stinks I'll have to get up early on Friday to go to work, but whatever... I'm off Monday and Thursday and Friday of the follow week - and by December 1st - we'll be set into our new home - I hope!

Of course last week I was bitching about XBoyfriend - he called the other day and I answered (Damn you long commute!) and he asked if he could come to our thanksgiving dinner. We had a screaming match about his drinking and then he hung up. I haven't heard from him since, but I can only imagine that he's going to show up here like nothing ever happened.

Of course I could use the help packing.

Leave me alone!

I dated a guy from the time I was 14 until 21. Not all 7 years straight through, but off and on. I can divide it up into a couple of set times - the catholic school years which involved a lot of sneaking out of the house at 3 AM, plotting how we would run off together while listening to the Cure and talking about how no one understood us. The drop out years - he dropped out of high school and my parents moved far enough away that it was hard for us to see each other. This consisted of me taking the train a lot and us fighting. The post high school years- I was half heartedly going to college, but mostly majoring in drinking - he was was well on his way to becoming a full fledged alcoholic. We split up with a whimper. One morning after a particularly booze filled evening we were sitting in Denny's, trying to decide when we would move to Vegas. He looked over at me and said "you know I'll always take care of you". Coming from a guy that I spent the better part of every night picking up after when he got bombed - I knew it wasn't true. He had cheated on me numerous times in the past and I was just so fucking sick of it and him. I told him I was going home to pack and I just never spoke to him again. To be fair he didn't really chase me down - by then we both kind of knew that it was the end of us.

We didn't talk for a long time. The internet is a dangerous thing sometimes. You can find just about anyone - even when it's not such a good idea. I sent a Christmas card. He called. We struck up an uneasy friendship.

He would call erratically, late at night - drunk and argumentative. Then the calls started coming from jail. Then rehab. Then jail. Then home. Where he'd be drunk and argumentative. Then jail. Then rehab. About 11 months ago they just stopped coming. He was in jail at the time - but he just stopped calling and writing. I didn't really mind.

Over the weekend I was talking to Violet about how I was going to purge all the letters he had ever sent me over the last 18 years. I didn't want to take that baggage with me to a new home - although I did debate (actually still going on) transcribing some of those letters on to here.

So imagine by surpise yesterday when I was getting out of the shower and I heard this on the machine I kinda freaked:
"I know you don't want to talk to me." [Correctamundo]. "I have to apologize to you for how I treated you in the past." [No you don't]. "I can't believe how I let myself get wrapped up with her [his crazy baby mama] again". See up until that sentence I thought maybe he was working his way up the steps and felt like he needed to actually apologize... Not that he wanted to bitch about his girlfriend. So I went back in to dry my hair. And in the 15 minutes it took me to do that he called 4 times and left more rambling messages including an odd "I'm coming to visit you in 2 weeks [no you're not].

I drove up to deliver my nephew's birthday gift and came home to a bunch of hang ups on the machine from his number.

So now I question - do I engage or not? I'm thinking he's drinking again - and I really don't have anything to say to him. Everything has been going so well - the job, the house, etc... I just don't want to deal with craziness right now.

Harry the Happy Homeowner

Mr. Pants and I found a house that we liked. We put in a bid. Someone else put in a bid. We raised our bid. We got the house. We make settlement either Nov 19th or 26th - we'll find out this week. Now comes the hard part.

Convincing our friends and family to help us paint and move.

The rich are different

I'm sorry it's been so long since my last entry. I was having a hard time deciding between my dream job and a job. It ended up that I didn't have to chose, as dream job claims they won't have the funding to create this position until the new fiscal year (in January). So with no choice left I went with a job.

A job involves me providing administrative support to the VP of sales. We sit approx. 2 feet from each other in room the size of a bathroom. He ignores me. The president of the company hates me. Everyone else seems rather nice, but the customers? They're different. The other day a man called up, rather frantic.

"I have a problem in my conservatory," he said.

Is it Colonel Mustard with the candle stick? Should I send Professor Plum?

I don't even know what a conservatory is.

I'm out of my league here.

What I'm addicted to

Lately I've been addicted to these things:

Reese's Elvis Cups - OMG! Super Yummy. Have been driving out to Walgreens daily to pick some up. If only I could find the bag of miniatures.

Guitar Hero - I am the epitome of unemployed. I spend my day in my underpants playing video games. I suck at this worst than any game I've every played, but I adore it. So far I can only get 5 stars on 1 song on easy, but I play it every day for hours.

I love these cats: Icanhascheezburger.com - even the odd writing doesn't bother me.

Simpsons stuff - I can not stop buying this crap. It doesn't help that Mr. Pants brought home a six pack of buzz cola, 2 character straws and an Apu Pen. I know the movie is going to suck diddly uck but I'm excited nonetheless.