Work Work Work

I like to earn money, but the trouble is there always seems to be some work attached to it. You know, like the kind of work where you have to get up early, get ready and actually go someplace.
I prefer to get my writing assignments by e-mail, do them, return the finished job by e-mail and invoice by e-mail. I call them "pajama jobs."
Last week and this week I have been pressed into service by my alma mater.
It seems a journalism professor they have on staff is in East Texas dealing with her seriously ill daddy, so I am filling in as a rent-a-faculty.
I am helping journalism students publish their weekly newspaper, and by that I mean reading and editing their florid copy and weeding out the debris. Lots of debris.
With my car still in the shop, I am at the mercy of my friend Irene, a faculty member in the journalism department. She'll be picking me up and dragging me to school this morning at far too early an hour.
And I cannot slither out the door at 3:30 today, since I have no car and no skills with public transportation. So I'll be stuck all day in a room full of college students who worship at the altar of "to be" verbs.
Fortunately, some of them are nubile young coeds who call me Ms Zipdrive (not my actual last name, but you get the idea). That helps pass the time.
Paul my mechanic tells me my car will be ready by noon at the latest. I cannot believe it's taken him four days to accomplish everything, but I think he kept it this long just to justify the $1,500 repair order. In my next life I am going to be a mechanic. They seem to earn about the same as dentists or lawyers.
This week is almost shot and all I really wanted to do all week was daydream about my girlfriend. Late night and early morning telephone calls have put a sleep deprived, surreal quality on things, which kind of dulls the shock of having to be out somewhere working.
There's nothing like new romance to perk up the drudgery of having to earn a living.

Wednesday morning

I think I would be an excellent Olympian.
My sport would be curling.
Zed tells me her little town in Canada has two curling arenas (or rings or boxes or whatever they call them) and I could learn the basics there, then practice on my driveway during the summer.
I could definitely be ready by 2006, and my blogs would be infinitely more interesting.
When I won the gold, I could show those young whippersnappers how to stand for the national anthem without all that wiggling.
After I won the gold, I could open a curling studio in San Antonio and introduce Texans to the intricacies of this exciting sport. Any sport where you can hold a beer or smoke a cigarette while you do it is bound to be a hit in Texas.
I have already envisioned the endorsements:
"Lone Star Beer presents the Texas Curling Team."
"Pro Curling: brought to you by Zig Zag rolling papers."
My best friend Anna is a psychotherapist. Her husband is a chiropractor. Their son Andrei will likely own a hair salon when he is older. I want them to start a business combining all three, called The Clip and Chat and Crack House.
They can sponsor my curling team.
You might want to reblog on this for posterity, so you can say you were in on the ground floor.

Autoneurosis

Years ago in Mexico, Chevrolet tried to introduce the Chevy Nova to the Mexican car buying public. They wondered why nobody would buy this popular brand of compact car, until a Mexican marketing firm explained to them that in Spanish no va meant "it doesn't go."
On Sunday my car battery was apparently dead. No va.
On Monday, Paul my mechanic, rescued my car from the driveway and hauled it to his garage to fix.
I told him to do all the routine maintenance it would need for the year, belts, hoses fluids, brakes, tune up, whatever it needed. It was running fine, it just had a dead battery, was a tad sluggish and had a teeny-tiny oil leak.
Paul called today and said everything was diagnosed and they were ready to begin.
So I said, "How much is this gonna run me, Paul?"
Paul said, "Well, it wasn't the battery, it was the alternator. That's gonna cost ya. And you need a major tune up, so that'll be another hunnerd or so. The oil leak was a gasket, so we're gonna go 'head and change all of them. Then, ya ever get that timing belt changed? No? Well, we better oughtta change it before it breaks on ya. So that'll be labor intensive, but you know once we pull the timing belt, all the belts'll be easy to get to and change. Then if you change the belts, then your hoses oughtta be updated too, so we'll do them. And remember the oil change, oil and fuel filter."
"So what's it gonna cost me, Paul?"
"Well we can get you back on the road for only $1,527."
"$1,527? Ouch."
"Yeah, these Acuras will run forever, but they's expensive when you do have to get 'em fixed."
"Jeeze, I guess so! So will I get it out today, Paul?"
"Oh no, we'll have to order some parts from Acura, that'll take an afternoon."
"So when, tomorrow evening?"
"Uhh, Thursday afternoon at the latest."
"Okay, Paul."

Fifteen hundred fucking bucks? For that I could fly to Ontario, pick up Zed and we could spend the weekend having champagne and room service at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco.

Last time I took my car in, I said, "Paul, do whatever it needs, but call me if it's more than $700."
It was $69.
Looks like I need to remember that trick next time.

Ross the Intern from Jay Leno

Whoops, on Jay Leno's Olympics coverage, turns out that big dyke Ross the intern is a male. A true-to-life Androgynous Pat, I thought for sure he was a she.
Tonight Jay used the 'he' pronoun when introducing 'him,' so I guess she's a guy after all.
What a total queen, in that case. No wonder he was saying he was in love with Michelle Kwan. He is a he. And he loves her in the same way any queen might love Barbra Streisand, for instance.
I hope my mother was watching him. She just loves to wonder if people are male or female.
Meanwhile, Canadian gold medal winning skaters Sale and Pelletier were also on Jay Leno's show tonight, and they gave him a very cool Roots varsity style jacket with the team Canada logo in it.
And Roots Canada (not Roots USA, there is no Roots USA) made the American uniforms, too.
Canada has basically made these Olympics their own showcase.
I am trying to convince Zed that I engineered the whole thing with my incessant Olympics pro-Canada blogs.

Olympics Ice Dancing

That ain't no sport.
The Canadian woman ice dancer was totally hot, but she and her partner both fell down at the end of their long program.
The Russians just creep me out. The Italians were very odd indeed.
It's a messy event- people falling over, tripping, crappy music.
The French won the gold, gee, just how the crooked judges planned it all along.
I'd rather watch Curling for Loonies.

Making Lemonade

I lead a charmed life.
Yesterday I went out to discover my car was comatose, and instead of worrying I went out shopping, then to dinner.
This morning I called my mechanic Paul, and not only did he come pick it up for free, he didn't even annoy me by ringing the doorbell and making me fill out a repair order.
To celebrate not being able to leave the house (I could walk but I don't want to ruin my lazy American reputation) I have tuned into ABC's "All My Children" for the first time in a year or more. It's really gone downhill. Brooke is now apparently engaged to Edmund. How gross is she with that wobbly mucklemouth? One more facelift and she'll be wearing a goatee.
Zed has a holiday from work today.
Something Canadian, like Honourable Municipality Day of Courtesy. They all stay home and practice being polite. Something like that, she was kind of vague when she explained it to me.
I see I am out of bread, so I'll have to walk to the store and get some eventually.
I can no longer patronize the corner store because Apu the Pakistani owner and I had some words a few months ago when he wanted a blank check before he'd let me pump gas.
I think I may have used the term 'Punjabi idiot' and told him I'd never give him another cent of my business. Oh, well. He sells stale bread anyway.
As it turns out, I do have some fresh lemons so I do plan to make some lemonade. May as well make the best of being homebound.

Reblog Haiku

So many entries
Very few reblog comments
Makes me so forlorn

Hinting doesn't help
Alas, nor does demanding
Perhaps a contest?

I question myself
What would Ms Jill Matrix do?
I'm reblog clueless

Sad Monday morning
Car's conked out, so are reblogs
Nobody feeds back

Where's haiku Kelly?
She has forsaken me, why?
Why, I do not know.

And my friend Suzy
Absent without leave, she is
No reblogs from her

Greybird is sleeping
That must be the reason why
Reblog's spider webbed

And my sweet Zeddie
She blames a browser problem
Reblogs clog things up

What am I to do?
I write and write and write more
I abhor vacuums

Toronto

Did anyone catch the Simpsons visiting Toronto last night?
Homer Simpson called Canada "America, Junior."
Getting off the bus behind them when they arrived in Toronto were a Royal Canadian Mountie, a hockey player and Sasquatch.
A Canadian graffiti artist was tagging a wall with an admonition to "OBEY THE RULES."
As they rode through the city, they saw a building called the Dodger's War Memorial.
Bart and his pal ended up on the set of "Curling for Loonies."
Poor Canada.
Even the Oscars allowed the South Park song "Blame Canada" to be nominated for an Academy Award, the heckling has become so all-American.
Just because they talk funny and they have little forest animals on their coins and Pokemon holograms on their 20's, is that any reason to dog them?
Just because they gave the world Anne Murray, Celine Dion, Alanis Morissette, Jim Carrey, Tom Green and Alex Trebec doesn't mean they are all dweebs.
Just because the Francophone Quebeckers want to secede and the rest of Canada think they are assholes doesn't mean the Americans should heckle them.
Just because they eat poutine and use peameal instead of cornmeal doesn't mean they deserve all the disrespect.
My Ontarioan girlfriend was trying to explain why she hated Alberta, and she slipped and said, "It's the Texas of Canada."
Seems a fair amount of Canadians think we Americans are loud, rude, violent, racist, gun happy and obnoxious. And forget what they think of Texans. We frighten them.
But get those Canucks near an all-American Walmart and they shop for bargains like a pack of rabid beavers.
They are a polite bunch, the Canucks.
My girlfriend is so polite, I can never tell when she's objecting to something.
I called her after work one day and discovered she'd had a bad day. The conversation went something like this:
"What happened, Sweetie?"
"Oh, a coworker was rather unpleasant."
"What did she do?"
"She was behaving in a very unpleasant manner."
"Why?"
"I am not sure, I think it may be hormonal."
"So, did you confront her?"
"Oh, Gosh no."
"Why not?"
"Oh, we just don't do that here."

Reliable Car

Yesterday I hopped into my always-reliable car to run some errands and it clicked when I turned the key. Dead. No radio, no powerlocks, just dead.
I added some water to the battery and it was still dead when I tried to start it.
That was the extent of my auto repairing expertise.
So I had to call my friend Elaine to come get me.
She drives a 1973 VW bug with 4 dented fenders, 3 paint colors, a sagging headliner, bumpers tied on with wire and 4 different tire brands. She also earns $65,000 a year, so go figure why she keeps the little deathtrap.
Riding in her car on the freeway made me finger the St. Christopher medal I wear and sort of sneakily make the sign of the cross a few times.
Now I know why some people kiss the ground when they arrive home safely.
And one more thing. It's never a good thing to have one's car arrive at the mechanic's by tow truck. Woe is me.

Dog Blog

My new next door neighbor, who moved in over the holidays and I still haven't met, seems to be a bit of an idiot.
On Friday I awoke to the sound of a dog howling. Judging from the depth and volume of the howl, it had to be a large dog, and it had to be close by.
My office is in the back section of my house, and I noticed the relentless howling was even louder there.
It was getting more annoying by the hour, so I peered through the blinds and there locked behind the neighbor's gate was a full grown Springer Spaniel.
The howling became so regular, I was able to ignore it and forget about the dog all morning.
When I went out that afternoon on an errand, I returned to find the dog loose in my front yard. She was eyeing me as I drove up, so I figured I'd better try to be friendly so I could catch her for the neighbor.
Turns out she was very friendly and sweet. So, I told her to wait and I ran inside in search of something with which to tie her to the neighbor's front porch. What do I know, I am a cat person, so I grabbed an 8 foot extension cord.
I tied one end to her collar and secured the other half to the neighbor's front porch railing.
I went to get her a bowl of water, and when I returned the cord was broken and she was three houses down, playing with a mutt.
I called her and she came, so we went to my garage to look for rope. I found an 8' length of white rope and retied her, then took her back to the neighbor's porch.
As I left her and went back to lock my garage, she came trotting up again, with a 2' length of rope dangling from her collar.
Desperate and without anything sturdy enough to hold her, I spied the clothesline in my back yard and fetched some wire cutters. Just as I had cut the clothesline down, the neighbor's buddy or brother or drug dealer showed up and asked if I knew where the dog was. I said she's here, I was going to tie her up with my clothesline.
So I ended up taking her next door and the idiot said, "Maybe you should have tied her up, she might run loose from you."
He didn't even thank me for taking 45 minutes to try to secure her.
While I was out back dealing with the damn dog, I missed a package delivery from Zed.
Anyway, the neighbor finally got home and I noticed he was now keeping the dog on his screened-in porch.
I eyed the thin screening and chuckled to myself.
I woke up this morning to silence and looked through the blinds to see my neighbor's truck gone and a huge hole in one of the screens.
Looks like she refuses to live with an idiot.