Grandfathers and Kenny Rodgers

Those of you who know me in real life know how much I adored my grandfather and that I was completely  devastated was when he died.  I wasn’t devastated that he died, the man suffered so much and was in such pain that in a way, I was actually thankful for his passing (although no matter how many times I say that I still think it sounds HORRIBLE, even if it is the true).  No, what broke my heart about the situation was that my grandmother, cousins and aunts were by his side in Chicago and I was here in Texas.

Yes, I know that there really wasn’t a lot I could do about that and that airplane tickets at that particular moment in time were in no way financially feasible for me, but I still feel awful about it.  My aunt pointed out that he “waited” to hear my voice before he died.  My sister had just been up there for a visit, my mother had just left there to come live with me, my aunts and cousins were there daily, the only one who had not said goodbye was me.

Honestly, the only reason I called the house that night was because it was my grandfather’s birthday.  I knew that he couldn’t talk to me, but I still wanted him to know that I called.  I don’t know why it was so important to me that I called to say “Happy Birthday” and part of me still wonders if it was the right thing to say, but it was. 

Even though my grandfather had not moved in a great while and had been unconscious for days, Gina held the phone to his ear and I told him how much I loved him and how I much I wanted to be there with him and wished him a Happy Birthday.  It still sounds somehow inappropriate to me; wishing someone who is dying a Happy Birthday.  I  wonder to this day if that was just the tackiest thing imaginable and there was some” last conversation with someone you love” etiquette lesson that I somehow missed, but it was all I could come up with to say.

So, I said what I needed to say and when I was done, I heard my aunt in the background saying “He’s kicking his legs!!!”.  He had not moved in days and at the sound of my voice, the last person that he loved who had not yet said goodbye to him, he moved his legs.  An hour later I got the call that he had died.

So, on Monday when I was in my car and flipping from station to station I paused on something I would never usually listen to.  The classic country station was playing “Lucille” by Kenny Rodgers and I started laughing so hard that I actually had to pull my car over.

The reason I was laughing and crying like some kind of idiot?  Whenever a Kenny Rodgers song came on the radio (and that was quite often in the late 70’s early 80’s) my grandfather used to announce to everyone within earshot that “That son-of-a-bitch should have sang ‘Lucille’ and died“, and let me tell you….he was pretty damn serious about the whole thing. 

Oh…and I always wondered how in the hell someone could have 400 children, but apparently, for 30 freaking years, I have been singing the wrong damn lyrics to this song.  It’s not “400 children”, it’s “4 hungry children”.  Yeah..somewhere my grandfather is laughing his ass off at me

Oy Vey

Is it wrong that I’ve spent the better part of an hour trying to get senior management to re-evaluate that pesky “no consuming vast quantities of pinot noir at work” policy? 

Is it also wrong that since I was told there would be no repealing of the workplace prohibition that I spent another 30 minutes trying to convince my boss that drinking sangria on our lunch hour is beneficial to our health as sangria contains much fruit and therefore prevents scurvy?

The Ham Police

Holy Jabeezus Motherfucker! I just watched two grown men have complete and total breakdowns in a grocery store. No, they were not upset over the sub-prime mortgage crisis, nor were they upset that Heath Ledger was dead or that insurgents and/or sherpas were surely planning attacks on Baltimore any day now…they were actually calling up various media outlets over ham. Yes…ham.

Because I generally live in my own little world and don’t think of anything as practical as say…actually bringing something for lunch with me into the office so I wouldn’t have to go out and forage for food in the rain and freezing cold, I ran over to the grocery store about 5 blocks from my office to grab something to eat. In a normal persons existence this would take 5 minutes and be completely uneventful. I, however, get delayed by the Ham Police.

I grabbed a grilled chicken sandwich and a diet coke and get in the “Express” line, which was probably my first mistake because at this particular grocery store, the “Express” line always moves approximately 92.658 times slower than the “regular” checkout line. Seeing as how I apparently live in a constant state of delusion I guessed that this wasn’t going to take all that long and I’d be on my way back to the office in no time, since there were only two people in line in front of me.

Why do I bother evaluating situations at all? They NEVER turn out how I (reasonably) expect them to.

I’m not one to judge people based on what is in their grocery carts (okay…I totally am) but I found it very strange that the two men in front of me were purchasing what appeared to be about 27 whole pigs worth of ham. We’re talking about those giant hams with the bone in them that you see at Easter or Arbor Day or whatever holiday demands that somebody’s grandmother bake a ham.

I tried to imagine why anyone would need that much ham, and the only thing I can figure out is that these two gentlemen were perhaps planning on converting to Islam and wanted one last bacon binge before it was officially forbidden. Kind of like stuffing yourself before a fast only with religious ramifications and lots and lots of ham.

Whatever the reason, it seemed that not only could these two not get enough of the hammy goodness, they wanted it at a very specific price and god help the hapless checkout clerk who dare to defy them, because when Kenny the Checkout Boy (I have no idea if this is his name or not, but that’s what I’m going to call him) told them that their total was $186.32…these two LOST THEIR SHIT.

There was much screaming about per-pound pricing and frenzied calculating on cellphone calculators and very loud demands for the grocery store manager to rectify the situation, all while a terrified Kenny the Checkout Boy huddled in a corner, frantically calling for backup while the Ham Police just kept on with their rampage.

It would take entirely too long to recount the entire conversation, so I’m just going to tell you a few of the gems that the Ham Police came up with.

* “You can’t just charge whatever you want for ham. There’s a system!” – um…I thought the whole point of a free market society was that yeah…you can pretty much charge whatever you want. I was also unaware that there was a special system for pricing ham.

* “I’m going to call the BBC and report you” – seeing as how neither member of the Ham Police were British, I can only guess that they were going to call the BBB (Better Business Bureau) and not the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation).

“Son, I fought for this country and now I want to buy this ham.” – Holy Shit….this is too fantastic for words. I’m not sure what the first part of this sentence has to do with the second part of this sentence, but this is pretty much where I lost my shit and starting laughing like an idiot, much to the displeasure of the Ham Police.

*”Wait until I tell them at church about this. You will loose all of your customers then” – HUH? Does everyone at their church shop at this particular grocery store or are they planning on the demise of the entire chain of grocery stores?

Someone please explain to me why I can’t even run out to get a damn sandwich without the wackjobs coming out of the woodwork?

Blogging for Choice

Today is the 35th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that legalized abortion in this country and in the process of doing so saved the lives of thousands of women from the unsafe practices utilized prior to this decision.  Today, hundreds of blogs, just like this one are taking part in Bloggers for Choice day and explaining why they vote Pro-Choice.

Why I vote Pro-Choice:

* I believe in the intelligence of women to decide what is best for them, their families and their health.

* I believe that no one, not political leaders, spiritual leaders, or even some random person with an overzealous opinion has the right to decide what I do with MY body.  Period.

* I believe that abortions will always be available to the wealthy and that enacting anti-choice legislation will leave lower and middle income women in the position to seek out dangerous, potentially lethal alternatives to the safe and affordable practices available today.

* I vote Pro-Choice because in the 5 years I worked in Security for Planned Parenthood, I saw unimaginable things done in the name of the anti-choice movement.  I’m sorry, but no pro-choice activist has ever blown up a building or killed a doctor or a clinic receptionist…can the anti-choice faction say the same?   I can say for certain that this is not the case, having seen the aftermath of some of these very things  with my own eyes.

* I vote Pro-Choice because I find it ironic that the fate of my uterus is being determined by an overwhelmingly male dominated government.  Hell, these are the same idiots who decided that Viagra could be covered by insurance, but that Birth Control Pills could not be.

*Because I honestly believe that if abortion is made illegal that it probably won’t be long before emergency contraception, comprehensive sex education (not just abstinence only, faith based education) and birth control are made illegal as well.

Okay, I’ll be back with the attempts at humor tomorrow…shut the hell up…it’s one day a year and I can get up on my soapbox if I want to, although admittedly, I’m never NOT up on this particular soapbox.

Since Michelle Asked….

It’s been a while since I’ve done this and since Michelle requested it (how much do I love that I’m getting blog requests?!?!), I now present you with Random Crap People Entered into Various Search Engines that Brought them to this Blog…

Raoul Said - Well, if it’s the same Raoul from my Indian IT Department, he told you to evacuate the fucking building and stop giving him shit already.  Okay, I’m kind of paraphrasing what Raoul actually said, but I’m pretty sure that this is what he was thinking.

Chinese Puking Fetish – What the fuck?!?!  Okay, we all know from previous “Random Search Engine Craziness” entries that for whatever reason I get an ungodly amount of traffic from people searching out pictures of Chinese people vomiting, but give me a break…this has now reached the official “Fetish” status?  Are you the same people who are into auto-erotic asphyxiation?

Assault Wheelchair – This has to be my favorite search ever.  I’m getting these images in my head of some guy who looks like Stephen Hawkins decked out with a Rambo headband with rocket launchers affixed to his wheelchair being dropped out of an airplane in the middle of Afghanistan or someplace similar to fight insurgents.  This would make a great Naked Gun-esque movie and I demand a percentage of the royalties when someone steals this idea and makes a gazillion dollars from the movie rights.

Chinese Albino Midget – Sweet Screaming Monkeys!!!  I cannot begin to explain how terrified I am by the very thought of Chinese Albino Midgets.  What?  Regular midgets aren’t freaky enough for you?!?!?  I know, I know…I’m probably on some Midget Empowerment groups hit list by now, but I can’t help it…I’m afraid of Midgets.  There, I said it. Hi, I’m Claudia and I’m unreasonably terrified of midgets.  Perhaps there’s a 12 step program out there for me….or maybe since we’re dealing with midgets it’s only a 6 step program…or a stepstool program…or a slight incline program.  Yes, I am well aware of the fact that I’m probably going to hell and when I get there I will find that the whole damn place is run by midgets.

I Wanna Eat Healthy – Yeah…and I want a BMW.  Oh, you mean we’re not just sharing random things we want out of life?  Sorry…my mistake.  Now excuse me while I go eat a Bacon Cheeseburger with Extra Crispy Fries.

Dog Peeing on Pillows – Well, Max the Wonder Puppy has never peed on any of my pillows, however he has totally peed on my head.  As far as advice goes, perhaps you should consider switching shampoos or going to a higher thread count for your pillowcases, maybe this is what your dog trying to voice his objection to.  Then again, it’s entirely possibly that your dog just hates you. 

And, since I’m too lazy to actually list all the different searches that are some variation of the word “Boobs” (72 totally search entries this past week) I’m just going to state for the record that yes, I’m sure there are pictures of my boobs floating around somewhere thanks to my tendency to get drunk and flash people and no, I am not going to post them here.

Oh…and since I’m officially disgusted with Dear Abby, Ann Landers and their ilk, I’m toying with the idea of a weekly advice column here at Whirlwind of Crazy, because I totally rock at giving advice (just not taking it).  So, submit your questions…anything you want…and I’ll start answering them. 

You can ask anything…want to talk about your bizzaro sexual preferences?  Cool.  Want to know what kind of hair products you should use…I can totally help.  Need a killer recipe for a dinner party…got you covered.  Want to talk about Albino Midgets…you’re on your own, you sick, twisted fuck.

Send submissions to claudia_michele @ sbcglobal.net.

About Husbands

 I was talking to a group of women today, and as it usually does, the conversation turned to talk of husbands.  I guess I hang out with too many guys or maybe I just have an odd marriage, because it struck me as strange that not one of these women had a single nice thing to say about the men they married.  This is a group of intelligent, attractive, successful women and apparently each and every one of them managed to marry (in their estimation) un-ambitious, inconsiderate, infantile and in some cases, down right mean men.

I suspect that this probably isn’t the case. How realistic is it to believe that every single one of these women basically married someone that they can’t stand to be around?  If that is the case, why the hell did they choose to marry these men in the first place?  Were they really that desperate for companionship?  Were they just marrying out of convenience because someone proposed?  Were they suffering from the dreaded (and in my opinion bullshit) “fear of ending up alone” syndrome?  Were they using marriage as some kind of financial security plan (i.e. the I don’t need a 401(k), I have a husband retirement plan)?  I don’t get it.

What I also don’t get is how in the hell their husbands put up with it.  How do these guys go through life being told (verbally or otherwise) that nothing they do is good enough…that they are just not good enough?  That has to be so exhausting after a while.  How do they wake up every morning and look at the woman next to them, knowing that she’s just going to start bitching and complaining about every little thing they do and not want to jab a pencil through her ear and into her brain?

Don’t get me wrong, Nick is by no means perfect, but here’s the thing…neither am I.  Sure, I bitch when he doesn’t help me around the house, and I think I’m entitled to bitch about it.  But, he bitches when I loose receipts or spend too much money and he can’t balance the checkbook and he’s completely justified in bitching about it.  Honestly, there are days that I want to kill him, but there are more days where I think he’s a saint for putting up with my crazy ass.

I never want to turn into one of those women, and I don’t think I ever will be, but if I notice myself falling into that trap there are a couple of things I need to remember:

*There’s not a day that’s gone by in the past 13 years that he hasn’t made me laugh. 

*He always lets me order the spinach dip.

*He puts up with the chaos, the uncertainty, the frustration of living with someone with depression and OCD, who can’t function without Crazy Pills.  He does this without complaint and with his whole heart.

*He thinks I’m stronger, smarter and more beautiful than I really am.

*He puts up with my dysfunctional, annoying and sometimes downright scary family.

*Even though he says it disturbs him, he secretly loves how obsessed I am with Max.

*When I crumble into a million little pieces, he knows how to put me back together again.

*He always calls me on my bullshit…and he’s almost always right about it.

*He doesn’t understand it, but accepts my need to have the right kind of stemware for different drinks, matching china, the perfect flatware.

*He Tivo’s crap about serial killers, voodoo and other insane things not because he wants to watch it, but because he knows I do, then he laughs about my “fascination with the macabre”.

*He cleans, vacuums and dusts the bedroom when my Lupus is bad because he knows I can’t stand being sick in a room that isn’t perfectly clean.

*He can’t say the word “Abominable” and this cracks me up.

*He doesn’t complain (too much) when I put my cold feet on him to warm up during the night.

*He would always defend me if I needed it, but is smart enough to know and never threatened by the fact that 99.9% of the time, I can take care of myself.

*He brings me milkshakes at inconvenient times just because I asked.

Yeah….I guess I don’t have it so bad.

Quick…Call 911 – You’re Fired

I don’t even know where to start.  I swear to god this shit only happens to me and that I was put on this planet for some kind of cosmic amusement or something because that is the only explanation for why these things happen to me. Although perhaps this has something to do with why that nun told my mother that I had been “sent from hell to torment her” when I was 7…maybe it’s payback for that.

**

What am I babbling on about you ask?  Well, let me ask you this…have you ever tried to fire someone only to have them call 911?  Yeah, I didn’t think so…I, however, have had that exact thing happen.  Before you even ask, no I didn’t assault anyone nor did I set anything on fire…this dialing of emergency services was not only totally unwarranted, but completely unrelated to anything I did.

**

Where to begin….let’s see….previous management hired a staffing coordinator – we’ll just refer to her as Ghetto Bitch or GB for short, cause ya know…it’s accurate.  Well, GB had some issues and by issues I mean that our client called us and informed us that she was never to set foot in their offices again under penalty of death and/or dismemberment.  This was by no means the only reason for GB’s termination, she was also crazy, incompetent, unethical, unintelligent and lazy as hell. The call we received from our client just gave us the documentation/reason we were waiting for.

**

As a somewhat unrelated side note, but to further my claims of GB’s unintelligence she once decided to swap out her (older and not working) computer for another computer in our office that no one used.  Keep in mind that this newer computer also had a brand new, flat panel monitor and GB had a giant monitor from approximately 1987.  She switches the CPU and then proceeds to plug her old monitor into the new CPU.  I asked her why she didn’t want the newer monitor and her response was “Because I already have everything saved on this screen”.  The hell?

**

Needless to say, I was confused by this.  That is until I looked at her monitor and realized that she saved all of her files directly to her desktop and was under the impression that they were actually saved on the screen rather than on the hard drive and that if she got a new monitor she would no longer have these files. No amount of explanation on my part could convince her otherwise.

**

At any rate…GB must have known her time with us was coming to an end what with all the closed door meetings, whispered conversations and multiple phone calls to HR.  Since she had been dropped off by her boyfriend and didn’t have transportation, we made the decision to have “the conversation” at the end of the day.

**

About 10:00 I hear GB on the phone with her mother and notice that she’s crying.  I don’t know why I did this (because I really didn’t care), but I asked her what was wrong.  She just kind of looked at me and shrugged her shoulders and went back to her conversation.  She was also packing up her desk and emptying the text messages out of her company issued cellphone.  Whatever.

**

I decide that I can’t sit here and listen to her crying and bitching to her mother any longer and decide to go downstairs for  some fresh air a cigarette.  On my way out the door my boss asks me if GB is crying and I inform her that yes, she is and that I don’t really know why.  No big deal…off I go to pollute the air step outside.

**

I get about 20 feet down the hall, over to the elevator and break my damn cigarette so I turn around and go back into the office for a replacement.  Keep in mind that this probably took 60 seconds at the most.

I walk back into my office where I see GB on the cellphone and my boss standing in front of her desk with this very odd look on her face.  I announce that I broke my cigarette and that I was just running in for a new one, but my boss kind of catches my eye and gives me this weird look and asks me to stay in the office with her.

**

This is when I notice that GB had been giving directions to our office to someone.  Well…about 20 seconds later, GB holds the phone out to us.  Never says a word, just holds the phone out and expects one of us to take it, so Sarah did.  At this point the nice 911 operator that GB had called informed us that he had dispatched paramedics and they should be here shortly.  So, I ask GB what was wrong and she starts talking to Jesus while clutching her chest and doing her best Fred Sanford impersonation.

**

I shit you not.  GB just up and called 911….never once mentioned to anyone in the office that something was wrong or even that she wasn’t feeling good….she just up and called 911.  WHO THE FUCK DOES THAT?!?!

**

Well, one fire truck, one emergency services truck, one ambulance and about 20 various HFD and EMS people later they carted GB’s ass off on a stretcher.  However in the process of getting her oversized carcass out of my office:

1) The issue somehow changed from having chest pains to abdominal pains

2) She all of the sudden claimed that she was dizzy, going to pass out, too weak to get her ass on the gurney

3) Then the issue changed from her having abdominal pains to her having pains “lower in her lady parts”.  (who the fuck calls them “lady parts”…this isn’t’ a Fergie song for fuck’s sake!  then again…perhaps “exploding va-jay-jay” isn’t appropriate either, and yet that was the diagnosis I came up with)

4) She leaned over my desk and attempted to vomit

5) I told her she’d damn well better puke in a trash can rather than on my desk

6) Informed the ambulance driver that he could take her to any hospital in the city other than the closest one to our office – which also happens to be the client who told us she could never come back there (not that she knew this yet).

**

We did debate firing her while she was being hauled out on the gurney but decided the conversation would probably be slightly more effective when she didn’t have an oxygen mask strapped to her face.  Then again, maybe not.  Perhaps this should be new company protocol…call someone into your office for the termination conversation and hand them an oxygen mask.

**

Oh…and here’s the kicker.  I called GB’s fiancé to tell him what was going on.  His response?  “Damn, why she have to go and do this shit now?  I’m on my way to meet my parole officer and I can’t get there yet because he’ll never believe that’s why I’m not coming to our appointment”.  Is that priceless or what?

Fuck off 2007

Yeah, I know….every other blog in the world is all about the New Year Resolutions and the Annual Recap and shit, but since I relish being contrary, you’re not going to get any of that from me.

Oh..you want an actual reason why I refuse to do these thing?  Let’s see, could it possibly be that 2007 SUCKED ASS?!?!  I lost a job, people close to me died, I broke a couple of toes, my mother moved in with me, I didn’t see my sister enough, I still have this goddamn Lupus and don’t even get me started on The Great Superbowl Debacle of 2007.

So, here’s hoping that next year is a much better year for us all and one that will provide me with countless mishaps that just beg to be blogged about.

Now…I need a nap in preparation of tonight’s Vodka Fest.

Happy New Year Everyone…I hope 2008 brings us all much happiness, lots of money, fantastic shoes on sale, continued health and the chance to sleep with grungy, tattooed Rockstars.