I’m sort of getting tired of working every single day.  I’m supposed to work Monday through Friday, 7:00 AM to 4:00 PM - I’m supposed to be one of them.  But this one project I’m working on right now is having troubles.  And while I am lucky enough to not have to actually work on the troubles, I still have to be participating in the conference calls where we discuss testing and strategy and where the unlucky people who are actually fixing the problems get to give their status.

Last weekend, it started at 10:00 PM on Friday and went until 2:00 AM Saturday.  The next time was 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM Saturday.  Then from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM Sunday.

This weekend, so far, it was 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM on Friday, 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM and then 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM on Saturday, and today I’m scheduled for a 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM and then 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM today.  That’s a minimum.

It doesn’t give me a lot of time to actually have a weekend.  I have to squeeze the essentials in where I can and be happy we actually had a few hours to entertain friends last night.

I’m sort of tired of working every single day, even if it’s only for a few hours.  I have two days of vacation coming up at the end of next week.  It can’t get here sooner.  But, trust me, if it looks like I’m going to have to work on those days, too, I will reschedule.  I need some work-free days!

Back in June of aught-six, I made a post about Bob Dylan.  You can go read it here. 

Go ahead - I’ll wait.

Hmm, hmmm, hmm, la, la, la.

You’re back?  OK.  Well, I believe I FINALLY found the place to start with Bob Dylan.  I was listening to my iTunes Genius and it chose a Dylan song.  I would not normally head in that direction so that’s a prime example of why I love iTunes Genius!  Anyway, I digress.

I have been having just the hardest time with one area of my life.  It involves so much abuse and unfairness and I am helpless to do anything about it at this point, except to stew and make myself miserable.  Well, enter Bob Dylan singing “Positively 4th Street”.  There are portions of this song that are DEAD ON to how I’m feeling right now!  And you know what?  I figure if Bob Dylan got to the point where he was feeling this way and still went on to become who he did, I guess I can hang in there until I can make things better.

And now I’ll leave you with some of the most caustic, appropriate lyrics I’ve heard in ages.

Positively 4th Street - Bob Dylan

Yes, I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
You’d know what a drag it is
To see you

iTunes’ new Genius feature. 

Love, love, love it!  It does an incredible job of figuring out a set of songs that would make a really groovy mix disc and it often finds songs on my iTunes that I didn’t know I had or didn’t know well, if at all.  I am really impressed with this new feature.

It’s genius!

Oh, hey, what a good name for it!

Now, I’ve read a few reviews that were not as glowing, but I think the key is that I have just a ton of music that I really, really like on my iTunes.  It’s like my mother-in-law always told me - if you always buy things you really like, they will always match.  Of course, she was talking about furnishings, but I think it applies in this situation, too.  So if your Genius is not floating your boat, I’d check your ballast.  You’re probably carrying a lot of crap you don’t really like.

It’s just about 11:30 on a Friday night.  Just 30 minutes ago, I was sleeping soundly, albeit not in the right place, but soundly nonetheless.  Since then, I have spent 20 minutes on a conference call and made a new pot of coffee, because in 30 minutes, I have to be on conference call #2.

Do I know how to party on a Friday or what??  Woo!!!

UPDATE: It is now almost 2:00 AM.  I just finished up with the midnight conference call.  After 2 cups of coffee and several glasses of water, can I tell you how hard it was to stay on that call for almost 2 hours?? 

Something has been bothering me lately.  I have been hearing reports on the news that credit card companies are scrutinizing purchases made on credit cards and, in some cases, lowering the credit limit of the card holders if purchases are considered “risky”, like groceries or medical expenses.

First of all, let me say that when my identity was stolen because I used my debit card and my checking account got wiped out, I switched to credit cards for all daily expenses because of the greater protection against identity theft.  So, at this point, I must certainly be considered risky, right?  Except that we have stopped using credit cards altogether (except for gas) and pay cash for everything because we’re ON A BUDGET.

But regardless of all of that, the next thing you’re told about your credit limits is that, if you approach or exceed your credit limit, it affects your credit score.

And then after they tell you all of this, they follow it up with the grandiose advise of:  “So watch out for that.” Seriously, I heard that all on the news the other day.  No suggestions of what to do if that happens to you, not even a website to go to that may help with your plight.  So if you, like me, are ignorant of the finer points of traversing the slippery financial/credit slope, and you are suddenly faced with reduced credit limits (which, thankfully, has not happened to me yet - as far as I know!) and negatively affected credit scores, you’re sort of screwed.

This is really a fun time we’re living in.  The only advice I’ve heard is that if you have a job, do your best to keep it.  Now I don’t know about you, but job security is always in the back of my mind.  I work for a mid- to large-size company.  They have a bottom line.  That often includes layoffs.  What do I do to ensure that I keep my job?  Try really hard to do well, I suppose.

You know, we were beginning to seriously consider selling our house and moving into something much smaller.  There are two people and six cats living in a 4000-sq. ft. home with four bedrooms.  We just don’t need that much space any more.  But now, we can’t move because we couldn’t get enough money for our house.  So we’re stuck in a large house with a very large mortgage payment.  Doesn’t make it easy to pay down those credit cards and bolster the credit score!

I suppose it’s a good thing that we have the house we have.  That way, if any or all of our kids find themselves desperate, they have a place to live.

Fun times, folks.

I have many people to blame for what happened to me this morning.  I refuse to take any of the credit blame.  I refuse, I say!

If you read this, you may decide that I am in some serious need of mental help but maybe not. 

First, let me lay the blame.  I blame the Dixie Corporation, I blame Eddie Izzard, I blame my husband and my son, Jesse.  I could also throw some blame at my high school but that may be stretching it a bit.  So I’ll just stay with the current list of responsible parties.

Here’s the summary of my story.

This morning, I got in the shower.  I washed my hair and rinsed it out.  I turned off the water, got out of the shower, and grabbed a towel.  Mid-drying, I decided that I should probably actually wash, so I turned the water back on, got back in the shower and finished up. 

And here’s where the blame comes in for the slip-up.

1.  The Dixie Corporation.  I like to have those little 3 oz. bathroom cups for using to take my nighttime medicine or for swishing out after tooth brushing.  But there are very few times when I can find pretty or grown-up bathroom cups for my cup holder.  I usually find only silly or childish cups.  The last ones I got were the worst - they are baby book pictures of various animals, with their names spelled out in three different languages - English, French and Spanish.  Thus begins the blame - the French words on my bathroom cups.

2.  Eddie Izzard.  One of my favorite stand-up routines is Dress to Kill by Eddie Izzard.  Part of that routine involves him using a lot of French terms.  He does a bit about the only French phrases he learned in school and they were about a cat on a chair, a mouse under a table, and a monkey on a branch.  Thus continues the blame - the routine where he talks about a monkey and a branch in French.

3.  My husband and son, Jesse.  I have a very fond memory of the family having a discussion about how to pronounce the French version of the lyrics to “Love is Blue”.  I had the sheet music and it had the French lyrics on it.  I won’t try to explain the whole situation but it was funny and fun and I just really like that memory.  Thus ends the blame.

This is how they all combined.  When I went into the bathroom this morning to brush my teeth prior to my shower, I glanced down at the bathroom cups sitting on the counter.  I thought of the one with the monkey on it and how it says “singe” as the French word for monkey.  That reminded me, as it always does, of the Eddie Izzard sketch about the monkey on the branch.  I tried to formulate what he says in French in my head and realized that I don’t know what the French word for “and” is, but I knew that my son, who studied French in high school and college, would easily know it, which made me remember the discussion from years ago about how to pronounce the “Love is Blue” French lyrics.  And I got distracted.

After washing my hair, I rinsed it, which is the very same motion that I use when I do the very last thing in the shower every day, which is to rinse the conditioner out of my hair.  My mind was distracted with all thoughts French, and I switched onto auto-pilot to take care of the morning shower.  Only my auto-pilot decided that, once I had rinsed my hair, my shower was done and it made me turn around, turn off the water, and grab a towel.

So there.  I may actually need mental help, but for me, there was a logical explanation of why I took a 2 minute shower first thing this morning.  And none of it is my fault.

P.S.  I still do not know the French word for “and”.  And for that, I blame my high school, who only offered Spanish as a foreign language!  See what I did there?  I blamed them anyway even though I said I wasn’t going to!  Ha!!

Our grande dame cat, Phoebe, who turned 14 in April, has a hard time keeping up with her grooming.  We didn’t know the extent of the problem until after our cat, Phranc, died a couple of years ago.  Turns out, Phranc was the one keeping Phoebe clean!  As the years have gone by, it’s gotten harder and harder to keep Phoebe groomed until she reached the point where she was just a bundle of mats.  I couldn’t comb them out without hurting her - A LOT - and I didn’t know what to do.  Here’s what the poor baby looked like:

I finally found a mobile groomer and she came over last night.  She was wonderful with Phoebe and I think she did a really good job on her.  She had a lot she had to do - Phoebe was a mess!  Phoebe got a bath and a shave.  Here’s what she looks like now:

The spots that are the most bald are where the biggest mats were. 

She seemed a little disoriented last night and the other cats walk around her like she’s an alien, but I think she’s feeling better without all that matted fur.  Poor Phoebe!

Apparently, I have become a victim of my own nasal congestion.

I had a cold for a week when it turned into a nasty, painful, gross sinus infection.  I got some antibiotics on Friday but it’s not getting a lot better.  The pain is gone but the congestion will not let go.  I have borderline high blood pressure so I knew I couldn’t take over-the-counter decongestants.  I thought that it would be better if I used nasal spray decongestants.

But there is this insidious thing called Rebound Congestion, brought on by the abuse of nasal spray decongestants!  Folks, I had unwittingly become an addict!  All I knew was that it was taking more and more to get me to the place where I needed to be.  Does that sound like addiction to you??  Yikes!

Now I’m going cold turkey.  This is truly suffering, my friends.  I cannot breathe, which means that I can’t really eat, I can’t talk (hey - that is NOT a good thing - stop that!), and I can’t sleep without my nasal spray decongestants!!  But I must persevere!

All I can say at this point is that if you go near my SinuCleanse, I will cut you!