Chicken Butt

Tax Day or Where is that F'n form?

I have a 5pm Appointment with my guy at H&R Block. I spent all my time between meetings today hunting for some missing tax documents. Though I found my missing property tax bill from last year, I could not find this year's form. Luckily most forms can be found online these days. I searched the physical and virtual today before resorting to calling the companies. Turns out there are none for 2011; not enough interest to require a form. I think they should send a notice that says, "You are not receiving a 1099 this year, even though you did get one last year." Like a "This page intentionally left blank" notice.

Fingers crossed I have everything for once. I have a basket in my office where I stick all my tax docs in theory, this year I was not consistent in that. Wish me luck.

Here is a picture of a wreath I started in February and stalled when I ran out of pins and then my dad got sick.

March 15 already?

I wore Capri pants today in the warm weather. I like the show Terriers so far on Netflix instant watch. What else? Oh yeah, my dad was in the hospital because he has a shit-ton of blood clots in his lungs. Pulmonary emboli to use the medical term. We took him to the ER on March 1 because he could not catch his breath. His BP was 209/136, actually I think the lower number was higher but that is the number that stuck in my head the first day. He also has congestive heart failure. He is home now. Until last night I was sleeping outside his room so I could put his oxygen back in when it came out in his sleep. He goes for a sleep study next week for his sleep apnea. It has been a really long fifteen days. I don't think he understands how sick he is.

I meant to just post a poor quality pic of some felt daffodils I made. I finally tried Pinterest. Love it.

Sleep tight...

Arhhh! Went to Bed Bath & Beyond this week and now I've got the willies. There were bed bug related products all over the store; sprays and mattress encasements and who knows what else. Then last night there was a beetle on my pillow when I went to bed. I panicked and crushed it in a tissue and flushed it. It was black, so I'm pretty sure it wasn't a bed bug, but maybe I'm wrong! Sure every internet description and picture shows as brown, but what if there is an Illinois sub-species that is black? And a slightly different shape? I should have captured and kept it. I had dreams of infestation all night. Shudder Shudder.

I think I have to go on a bed bug hunt tonight. It was really hard to crush in the tissue. Nothing I read talked about how crunchy they are. Maybe it was a tick? Gah! Sometimes it's hard to be a grown up.

Update September 16: It must have been a random beetle. I found no evidence of bed bugs anywhere. What a relief!

Smart now

Bought an iPhone today. See you when I've conquered Angry Birds and Plants vs. Zombies.

To be continued...

I am in a foul fucking mood because of work. I worked most of the weekend and then was too tired to do anything for the remainder. So it is Monday and shit is still going wrong and the work from this weekend was mostly time wasted due to errors completely outside my control. (Even those things which are supposed to be within my control are not because no one ever does what I ask them to do.) </rant>

Wow, that just burbled out. I'm not going to talk about that though. There have been a few things on my mind and I hope to exorcise them now. In no particular order:

• I like the Avon smooth minerals mascara better than the Maybelline Great Lashes. Thanks for the tip Karen.
• Too many Novels are actually just Volume One these days. I'm getting really tired of coming to the last 75 pages of a book and realizing there is no way the plot will be done before I run out of pages. I like series, I really do. I do not like when I read 500 pages under the impression that what I'm reading is a self-contained story and then it just ends before any plot elements are resolved. Tolkien got it right with LoTR; Three volumes that sort of have end points that make sense, but since I know there are three books I am not surprised when Fellowship ends right at Gandalf's death. These three are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head.*
  
  1. A Discover of Witches**: I finished this book this weekend and it pissed me off so much I'm not sure I'll read the concluding "novel" if it ever comes out. This is a big fucking book and I enjoyed reading it, nothing I read in the book flap told me it was just part 1. I knew I was in trouble with two new characters that seem to be important to the overall plot were introduced in about the last 75 pages. Unless the second book is spec-fucking-tacular there should have been major editing here. And if there turns out to be a third I'm boycotting the author for good.
  2. All-Clear by Willis**: I finally decided to start the second part of a book I read last year, Blackout. I really like Connie Willis, but not all of her books equally. Again, I didn't know until I was almost finished with Blackout that there was a second book. I normally would reread the first book in preparation for the second, but it was a very long first book that I didn't particularly enjoy reading the first time around. When I read the acknowledgments searching for clues I had missed about this 2 part story I saw her thanking everyone for helping her through the insanity of one book turning into two. So far I'm wishing someone had made her sit down and edit. There are too many people, plots, jumping from place to place. And so far in All-Clear it seems like it could easily have been edited into just one book if the characters hadn't decided they needed to keep important secrets from one another for no good reason. I have little patience for plots that would have been over before they began if people had just been honest from the start. It's not like she needed to bump the page count up.
  3. Leviathan by Westerfeld**: This one got me too. The first whole books ends up just introducing the main characters and getting them in place. The boom! The end. Again, I had no clue this was just part 1. At least part 2 I was prepared, but still it didn't feel like enough happened in either to really hand together as a story on it's own. Both are just beginning and middle.

• I think today's TeeFury t-shirt (will have to update this after today to get permanent link to March 28 Scooby Who design) would be much better if it showed Mickey instead of Tom Baker's doctor with K-9. ("Oh my God, I'm the tin dog!")
• I'm getting my annual urge to sew my own shirts. I bought some material over the weekend for a t-shirt pattern I've had for over a year. Also, I bought a cheap sewing machine (Singer Heavy Duty from Joanne's) so I can finally bring my Pfaff to the store for repairs. Considering it took 3 months to get a replacement foot I'm reluctant to let go of my machine to get the reverse lever fixed.)

* See how I set your expectations there? I'm going to talk about three books that are not properly novels, but should be labeled as parts of a larger whole. Just think how you'd feel if I said five books and then just stopped at two or three with no explanation.

** I'm too pissed off right now to even do proper notation and like to amazon. Take that bitches!

exorcise

Dyed eyelashes

My sister suggested I dye my eyelashes and now I'm slightly obsessed. I'm blond and I'm guessing my lashes get a little of the bleaching effect my eyebrows get from my zit cream. (I try to avoid my eyes, but I'm often very sleepy when I finally faces my face before bed.) Anyway, some of my lashes are all but transparent. But I don't wear much makeup. Lately I've been brushing some color into my brows and a bit of the same under my lower lashes. So I can see why she would suggest it.

Of course the first link I googled contained a warning that one should never, never ever dye their lashes because you'll go blind! Nice. 

So I thought maybe I should give mascara another try. But I hate clumps. And I always feel my lashes with mascara on. I think it might be what people mean when they say a mascara is heavy. At Walgreens there are so many brands but they all fall into these categories:

1. Lengthening
2. Thickening
3. Curling
4. Conditioning

Most have some combination of these. I don't think I like thick. I don't even care about length. My lashes aren't long, but I've never thought of them as stumpy either. If I want curl I can use the old fashioned metal curler doohicky. So is there anything out there that just puts a weightless coat of color on the last?

I've looked at a few makeup review sites, but they seem to like what looks clumpy and fake to me. I bought some Mabeline Great Lash because I've heard such good reviews over the years and didn't want to spend money when I really wasn't sure what I wanted. It feels clumpy and heavy and I've played with my lashes since applying it. Maybe the things I hate about mascara are the things that make it mascara.

Still, not really something I'm willing to lose my sight over. 

Stir crazy

I'm ready to go back to the office. The Blizzard of 2011 is a bust from my perspective. The wind was so fierce there was hardly any accumulation of snow on my balcony. Well there was, but not around the inch-marked paper tube I put out yesterday.
I couldn't get a focused pic last night. The snow was blowing in the door too fiercely.

I did get a relatively decent drift against my living room glass door.

I just got an email from my boss. We are asked to work from home again tomorrow. I'd rather not. Mainly because I'm almost out of Diet Coke and I already ate all the good groceries and leftover pizza from Salarnos.

Happy Birthday to me!

NephewTheFirst made me this video for my birthday:

I had a lovely day with my sis and nephews. I took the day off and barely felt guilty at all. (I worked at least 50 hours this week so there isn't a whole lot to feel guilty for, but it still felt weird. And I just peeked into my work email inbox, but I only opened a handful and didn't reply to any.)

Last year I made such a fuss about turning 40. This year it's no big deal. I just can't generate any drama over 41. So far my forties are going pretty well. (Knock wood.)

The one where these two things are not like the other

I got my replacement Dockers in record time and managed to crack up a few friends with my split pants story. I ordered the exact same pants I've been wearing for over a year now. I usually get them from Kohls. I ordered the same size, same color, same style from Docker's website. They are very different though. The legs are about 4 inches wider at the ankle than my remaining pair and the rise is shorter. They are closer to hip height than width.

Is it possible that months of wearing and washing has shrunk the ankles, lengthened the ass and stayed the same everywhere else? 

So please excuse my plumber's crack and bell-bottoms if you see me in work clothes. By the time I get them broken in they'll be ready to spontaneously split and show you more than you ever wanted to.

A marmalade of ponies

I was up way too late last night. That is two nights in a row I have gone to bed after 1AM. Making it miraculous I could get online again at 7am to work. I'm a self-destructive twat sometimes. On the other hand, I'm now a level 50 Hunter in WoW. For the Horde!!!

Tomorrow there is a work outing at Arlington Racetrack. I plan to go, but it depends on something getting resolved before I can log out and go. Fingers crossed. I love to bet on the ponies.

Title brought to you by The Rejectionist