Two Weddings and a Funeral

Highlights of my cousin's wedding in rural Maine:

• Before anything began, before even my first drink, I bent down to get something out of my purse and smashed my head into the back of a chair, so now I have a bruise on my forehead implying raucous drunkenness that never really came to fruition.
• My uncle leaning across the table to ask my sister "What's that between your BOOBS?" in reference to her tattoo.
• The early no-show for karaoke which resulted in my deaf cousin (the bride) stumbling through "Summer of '69" by herself until she was bailed out by the everyone present in a terrible cacophony of off-key singing
• All the cousins from my side of the family collaborating on Monster Mash (my choice)

So, in the spirit of Way Back Tuesday, I was going to tell the story of the first wedding I ever went to or something, but then all I could remember was something about some organza and champagne and being really really bored, so I decided to tell about the first funeral of someone I knew.

I was about 10 or 11, and the husband of the organist in our church passed away. It being a congregation of about twelve people, and my mom being the priest, this was one of the Adults In My Life, so I went to the memorial service, and my parents even let me go right up to the open casket in that whole "check out the body" time. I was interested to find out that dead people look a lot like alive people, but sleeping and with darker eyelashes, and I was leaning in to see what they smelled like, when I was also interested to discover that they talked like alive people too. Except that they talked about themselves in the third person.

Then, his wife answered him, and I realized that the voices were actually coming from behind me. Turning around, I discovered the organist and her husband standing behind me. I figured then that the thing in the casket must be one of those wax sculptures like we had seen in Ripley's Believe it or Not and the organist's husband had faked his death and then been so ballsy as to show up at his own funeral and talk about himself in the third person, and everyone was playing along.

My mom told me that he had an identical twin, and that was the man I met at the funeral, but I still think my explanation was better.



---
http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com

Haven't you ever heard the word jinx?

Did I say "Worst Road Trip Ever?" Right before leaving for a road trip? Did I really do that? How stupid am I?

Let's start last Friday night. When, as I may have mentioned, there was a storm in Chicago that knocked down a tree, which landed on my car. Or, to be more accurate, landed on a light pole, which landed on a power line, all of which then landed on my car. The city of Chicago decided that a live wire warranted a traffic cone and a grumpy police officer, who, when we asked if we could go look at the damage said "Sure. If you want to die." So, about 24 hours later, they finally shut off the power and rolled up the live wire. 24 hours after that they cut up the tree and the light pole and got it off our car. We looked at it, and seeing as how it wasn't smashed into little bits we were like "Eh. Could be worse." We took it to a mechanic who said "Shit, dudes. This really sucks. Like, a lot." Anyway, we have to have two doors, a side panel, a roof panel and the windshield replaced. Guess we're not driving that car to Maine.

Luckily, the insurance pays for a rental, and it's unlimited mileage in the United States. Go us. So, we load all our shit into a rental, including the first load of stuff for our new apartment in Nashville, since last stop on this trip is to be picking up keys to the new apartment and setting up bookshelves and then leaving.

Anyway, we're all loaded up, only running about an hour behind schedule on Wednesday morning, when we get a call from the president of our condo board. They're doing work on our air conditioning. We need to be around to sign something saying that the work went all right. This will be between 7am and 10am on Tuesday morning. If we're not there, we need to get a friend or neighbor to do it. If we can't do that, here's a piece of paper to sign saying that the work went fine. That's right, the work they haven't done yet. All right, whatever. We need to leave right now because we have a 10 hour drive ahead of us and there is no way we're getting a hold of any friends or neighbors at this moment, so we just have to hope that this doesn't mondo screw us. Bye now.

Drive drive drivey drive. Some 8 hours later, we get a call from the woman checking in on our cats. "Hey," she says, "I checked in on the cats, and they seem good and all, but the electricity was off and the air conditioning seemed to be off. Any idea what's up with that?" Turns out, they blew our electricity while working on the air conditioning. So now, we have to drive this 20 hour drive to Maine, spend two days there for a wedding, and drive 20 hours back in order to be there at 7 am on Tuesday so that we won't have signed off on saying they didn't screw anything up. Oh, but they did fix the electicity, so the cats are not currently boiling in the 95 degree heat.

Ok, so we spent the night in a hotel somewhere random, and drive drive drivey drive the next day. Get a call from our soon-to-be landlord in Nashville. Before he can say anything, I have to tell him that we won't be out there to pick up the keys on July 1st after all, because the whole road trip has been cut short. To keep things simple I just tell him it's because a tree fell on my car. "Oh, well that's all right," he says, "Because there have been storms here too, and the electricity has been in and out, plus there was a flood and the pipes burst in your building, so we had to replace all the pipes, which were lead anyway." At this point, I'm not really even taking in new levels of information. I just kind of say "Uh huh. Well that's good."

But, literally, while I'm talking to him the tarp on the truck in front of us comes loose, flies up, and a load of rocks flies off of it and all over the front of our rental car. So, right after "That's good," I yell "OH MY GOD!!!" and he's saying something about fixing up the apartment and I have to say "Uh huh. Uh huh. Sounds good. I have to go because a bunch of gravel just fell on me. Bye now."

We pull over, check out the damage, and it's just scratches, but we are fucking glad we're the anal people who bought that rental insurance crap because I'm pretty sure that God hates me at this point. We're in Vermont, about 2 hours from our destination, and all I wanted to do was turn around and go home. So, I call my dad, tell him that we're arriving at the hotel early, but I will not be speaking to anyone.

Arrive at this rural Maine ski chalet, which has hot showers, down mattresses and a really nice creamy pasta thingy for dinner and this morning I felt like a human being again.

---
http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com

Worst Road Trip Ever

So, this is in answer to an assignment from Jeff, who has one of the cooler site name/address combinations out there and wrote all about his crappy spring break last week and asked us to do the same.

Anyway, this was also a spring break, in my sophomore year of college, spring of 1999, and my roommate, my high school friend and I decided to join our three other friends for a road trip to Texas. Before leaving my mom informed me (mistakenly as it turns out) that my insurance did not cover any other drivers besides me, so if I let anyone drive my car and they so much as got a ticket, it was out of my pocket. So, we begin the 26 hour drive at about 6 p.m. with me behind the wheel the whole way.

That's all right though, because we get as far as Story City, Iowa when my car starts spewing black smoke, sputtering and swerving and I have to pull over to the nearest gas station and call AAA. The mechanic who comes is about four and a half feet tall and appears to have had his hand amputated and put back on incorrectly and he informs me that "cars ain't meant to be drived long distances at high speeds," and that I should have it towed in in the morning. So the next morning we tow it to Ames, where they replace two spark plugs and tell us we're good to go.

So, with a lot of caffeine and Twizzlers, I drive the rest of the 20 hours myself and collapse in a hotel room while the five other people go out to the pool. A couple hours later I'm awakened by the police pounding on the door. They inform me that while all my friends were out at the pool, my car was broken into. They smashed in my window and stole my stereo.

So, I spend the third day of my spring break (the first day was in Iowa, the second driving to Texas) getting my window replaced in some shady strip mall in the suburbs of Houston.

The middle part of the vacation went pretty well... we drove over the border into Mexico and bought some Chicklets from little Mexican children and drank Corona and felt all cultured and shit.

Then, on the drive home I saw a drunk driver weave in and out of traffic and drive right off the road and into a sign. At that point I decided it might be a good idea to let someone else drive for a few hours, no matter what the insurance said. So I let my roommate take over, gave her the keys at the gas station, and she promptly put the ignition key in the door and broke it off.

So, we had to call a 24 hour locksmith out to an Oklahoma gas station at 11 o'clock at night and I'm not even going to describe what that experience was like.

Houseboy and I are starting on a roadtrip ourselves tomorrow--out to my cousin's wedding in Maine and down to his family and around to Tennessee, etcetera... here's hoping it's better than that one was.


---
http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com

I'm a Job-Aholic

Not a work-aholic, you understand. Though I dabbled in those waters as well (thank you Staffing Services, for teaching me the ways of the 100-hour work week, and thank you Religious Organization for introducing me to TMJ and weekly migraines. Love you both.) No, it turns out I'm just addicted to having a job. Here I am, first day out in jobless land and I'm about to tear my hair out already. I woke up promptly at 6 a.m. I watched the end of a movie about a spelling bee (on mute because Houseboy slept soundly next to me. Guess how exciting a movie about a spelling bee is on mute. Very Very Exciting). Then I went for a run. Now I'm writing a blog. Next I'm going to take my car in to get repaired because a tree fell on it this weekend. After that I might just drop by my job and see if any data needs analyzing. You know. Because I'm free. Yikes. Are those bugs under my skin?

Anyway, I realized that (except for three torturous months of unemployment after my master's degree) I've had a job since I was 12 years old. Here's the list in chronological order:

Babysitting (of course) (1991-1996)
Answering phones at a funeral home (1992-1993)
Filing at a doctor's office (1993-1994)
Lifeguard (1994-1995)
Pizza delivery driver (1995-1997)
Teacher's Assistant at a Montessori School (1997-1998)
Retail Whatever at Eastern Mountain Sports in Burnsville Mall (1998-1999)
Americans with Disabilities Act Tutor (1999-2001)
Data Entry at Blue Cross Blue Shield (1999-1999)
Retail Whatever at Levi's in Mall of America (1999-2001)
Postal Clerk (2000-2000)
Personal Care Attendant (2001-2001)
Retail Whatever at Cheapo Records (2001-2001)
Teacher's Assistant at local schools (2002-2003)
School Counselor at local Catholic school (2002-2003)
Supportive Services at local community organization (2003-2004)
Bitch of the Month at Staffing Services (2004-2005)
Whipping Girl at Religious Organization (2005-2007)
Awesomesest Researcher Ever at Government Organization (2006-2009)

Obviously a lot of those jobs ran concurrent.

Anyway, I'm on now to get my PhD in Education Policy at Vanderbilt, starting in August, and I'll be doing a fellowship at the same time, so I guess I'll have enough work to do when the time comes and I should enjoy these few months off. Not to mention figure out how to move three bedrooms full of accumulated crap into one and a half bedrooms seven hours away. Hm... maybe that can be the next data analysis project.

---
http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com

Last Day at Work Bitches!

That's right, I'm about to enter the Life of Leisure. Otherwise known as, the Life of the Unemployed. Or the Life of the Perpetual Student. Whatever you call it, I won't be in a cubicle 40 to 45 hours a week anymore. And would you believe it, it's making me a little nostalgic?

These khaki walls with their kind of weird feathery wing pattern, except for the one that I covered with an old piece of cloth in a fit of Pimp My Cubicle one day... the 27 green pushpins, 28 red pushpins, 9 black pushpins, 13 blue pushpins, 20 yellow pushpins, 46 white pushpins and 2 silver pushpins that held up little pieces of paper I wrote quotes on in funny fonts I made up because I was supposed to be reading the most boringest proposals to provide research services ever... my little box of googly eyes and army men (there's an explanation for that*)... the time I had my window wide open and a bird flew right into it, just narrowly missing flying right into my face at about 40 miles an hour... my drawer full of every kind of pain reliever, band-aid, contact solution, "feminine product," candy, mint, tea, barrettes, kleenex, soup, crackers, change of underwear, firearms, collapseable emergency shelter and, of course, mascara...

Plus, I'll miss having to type my social security number into the timeclock in the morning because they never did get my ID card to swipe right, and I'll miss putting "smbpasswd" into my UNIX portal every six months and I'll miss how Microsoft Office 2007 makes even pressing the Start button take 20 minutes, and I'll miss how the entire organization is in massive re-org mode and the head of our office just got laid off and was supposed to be leaving on July 3rd, but then just up and left today, and how at least every 10 minutes someone makes a joke about how they're going to be homeless and their children will starve....

Oh wait.

Fuck this.

ANTELOPE OUT!!

---

*Not really.

http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com