Dear Honeyface With Taco Night Panties

What’s Good

Shit I did this week:

Bitched incessantly about having to walk up (and down) five flights of stairs at my new office (many times per day). Probably worked explicit stairs-complaints and veiled stairs-complaints into a dozen discrete conversations with my boss. Then, in a move nobody could have anticipated, I mentioned that the dude who wrote The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo died of cardiac arrest after schlepping up stairs at his office one day when the elevator was broken. I don’t want to throw around the word “heroine”, but I’m definitely sort of William Wallace-ing left, right, and center.

Read The Stranger (Camus) for probably the 10th time and spent about an hour comparing it to various Melville works. In my head. For no reason.

Full-tilt decorated my house for Halloween.

Googled my new neighbor and found that he was convicted of arson back in ‘93.

Found and bought one of my favorite comedies (Blind Date; Bruce Willis) at a used bookstore. Got to the counter and it was A DOLLAR, so I experienced that Double-Rainbow sort of existential and highly-animated joy.

That just about covers the bulk of it.

Captain’s Log

Two nights ago, my grandfather called me in hysterics from the nursing home and told me that one of the nurses , in an attempt to murder him, poured water into his sleep apnea mask and he nearly drowned. He’s 84 and remarkably coherent, but he’s got a touch of dementia and is getting over a UTI. Don’t know whether you guys are aware, but UTIs kick dementia up several notches.

So I went to the nursing home the next day and the entire lower half of his face was red and irritated and he repeated the story again, verbatim. He also said that the nurses “stole” his phone afterward.

So I went to the admin office and the nurses from the prior night came in and, sure enough, one of them did somehow put water into the tube of his sleep mask. She said she immediately noticed and was getting the mask, but he “panicked” and started just tugging at the mask wildly, which made it worse. She further said that they did “have to take his phone” because he called 911 several times afterwards.

So I’ll ask you guys to imagine being 84 years old with DEFCON 1 dementia (from the UTI) and almost drowning because some fool poured water into a sleep mask that seems like something out of a macabre Vincent Price film and then have your only line to the outside world taken from you. I, for one, would go fully apeshit.

I explained this to everyone in the room and received a choir of apologies. Then I asked why I wasn’t called. The Admin said my grandfather’s wife was number one on the phone tree and she answered, so they didn’t need to bother me. Well, I called bullshit on that and asked her to check his chart to see if Barbara had in fact been called. Oops. Looks like no call was made to Barbara or anyone else. No, no, no, they weren’t trying to cover it up. It’s just that it was a hectic night. I could understand that, right?

So blah, blah, blah, et cetera, I was back there two hours later with a lawyer and all of them had signed a statement about that incident and all of them were informed that I will be called and his motherfucking phone will not ever EVER ever be taken from him.

Please forgive the typos. I’m on my phone.

Middle Name Meme

Marie.

Swing Low, Sweet Ask Box

Because I still cannot answer ask box questions (unless I don’t capitalize any letters in my answer) and I can’t remove the ask box, consider this its Out Of Order sign.

Deliver Me

I’ve somehow pulled a muscle in my back while sitting at my desk and I have to work another four hours. Also, no medicine of any sort.

So I thought random back spasms were only for the elderly, but it looks like they kick in around age 30. Be careful, kids.

TGIFuuuuck

The following is based on true events.

Mom: You really need to keep a close eye on Bowie when you’re walking him because Sylvia’s aunt lost her chihuahua to a hawk last week.

Me: You told me that ages ago, Mom.

Mom: No, that was about someone else’s dog. This is a separate incident.

Me: It’s implausible that you should know so many people who know so many people with tiny dogs that’ve been abducted by birds of prey, Mom. It’s an urban legend. Or, you know, a rural legend.

Mom: Kristin, I am telling you these things do happen. Be on your guard.

Me: On my guard? You know I won’t be on my guard. If anything I’ll have a panic attack every time I walk Bowie.

Mom: No, no, honey, don’t panic. Just … be watchful.

Me: You know what, I’m taking a fatalistic approach to this, so I’m not going to be watchful or on guard. I’m going to walk my dog like a normal person and if he’s abducted by a hawk, a Gryphon, or a dragon, I’m going to have to reconcile that and move on.

Nighty Night

Be excellent to each other.

What’s Good

1. Just had fourthmeal and I’ll thank you not to judge me.

2. My mother called a few minutes ago to express annoyance that her neighbor had planted marigolds; she said, “Marigolds are really just weeds, but nobody’s been bold enough to declare them weeds.”

3. On the way home from Taco Bell, I heard an old Richard Marx song and thought it was damn-near poignant.

So that’s pretty much all that’s crackin’ around here, tonight.

9to5Life Asked

Which orphan from Little Orphan Annie would you rather be?

A: Whichever one has the father with the most heinous drinking and drug addiction, because I could METHOD THE FUCK out of that character. Otherwise, dibs on the one with the bounciest ringlets.

(Ask box still won’t let me answer from message)