Oh mah holy hell y’all.

6:50 a.m. - Something is going “beeeeeep beeeeeep beeeeeep” in my ear. I crack my eyes open and reach for the alarm. Silly me, I committed to go to the track to run with Mr. Hot. What the fuck was I thinking? I can barely walk before coffee. I’m gonna run? Snort.

8:05 a.m. - Swigging water after our 12 revolutions of the track. Walk on the odd-numbers, run on the evens. We call it “old people’s interval training”. Today, though, we did 3/4 of the way around walking, 1 1/4 running. Yay us! And I never even fell over once! Shit - soccer destroyed my knees and my toes. (And did I mention? No coffee yet.)

8:30 a.m. - Shower. Breakfast. Grab some coffee.

9:00 a.m. - Attend a conference call covering “Career Planning”. Put phone on mute and say sarcastically to the presenter, “I already know what your career plan is for me. The freakin’ unemployment line! Bastard.”

9:50 a.m. - Flip the bird to the phone when the presenter uses that time worn phrase, “We finished early! I’m giving you 10 minutes of your life back!” Apparently we should all kiss his ass. The Hotfessional declines to do so and heads to the bathroom to pee.

9:51 a.m. - Begin working on my mid-year Performance Review. Go to get more coffee and figure out that the pot shut off and it’s lukewarm. Decide I’m too lazy to microwave a cup - and get a bottle of water instead. (Too lazy to microwave a cup of coffee. Obviously the whole running thing scrambled my flippin’ brain.)

10:00 a.m. - 5:45 p.m. - Participate in the Process call from Hell. Manage to get 3 bathroom breaks. Since the asshats decided that I was going to be the presenter, I had to have my laptop screen “shared” the entire time. No blog reading. No email reading. No fuckin’ Twittering. (I missed you!) I did manage, though, to finish the trim on a baby sweater and bonnet that I’m working on. And though I couldn’t tell them all how fucking stupid they were, I did stick my tongue out and make liberal use of my middle finger. On both hands.

5:45 p.m. - Hang up (until we reconvene tomorrow for round 183,276 283 17 4). Eat my ‘dinner’ of brown rice, green beans, and pine nuts. Feel like a squirrel.

6:30 p.m. - Sit on porch with Mr. Hot debating whether his 321 calorie glass of red wine (this is not a wine-glass glass, obviously) or my vodka/limeade (215.5 calories) is more satisfying. Of course, since I’m sure I won’t stop at one…it all depends on who has more willpower.

7:55 p.m. - Decide that I need (NEED) my internets fix and plop down on the couch to write this post.

8:06 p.m. - Remember that I left out a part. And I have to tell you all! Dudes!!!

While I was sitting there (around 5:00) trying not to stab my pen through my right eye (the left one was stabbed around 1:23 p.m. as near as I can tell), a car drove down the street. Light-greenish Subaru wagon with a cargo carrier on the top.

I saw this car yesterday while Mr. Hot was cutting grass. They stopped at the end of the driveway, as his back was turned to the street. I thought maybe they were trying to ask him directions. (Ohhhh, poor lost old people. If I wasn’t up on a phone call, I’d come help you!)

Since he wears earplugs when he cuts grass (and y’know, he was cutting.grass. With a loud.ass.mower), he couldn’t hear them, so they went on up the street. They turned around and went on back down the street. And - they were gone. (Bye bye!)

Sooooooooooo, annnnywayyyy, that was yesterday, right?

Today, the same car comes back! And stops. Right-the-fuck in front of my house! And they start taking pictures! Of the front of the house. Of the driveway. I’m completely dumbfounded by what I’m seeing. Stunned. Silent. (Shush. It does happen.)

Shortman was sitting next to me up in the office. I punch “Mute” on my phone and start pointing. And bouncing. “Get my binoculars, fast.” , I finally get my mouth to start working. (I’m going to take down this ass’s license plate number. WTF? Taking pictures of my house????) “Get ready to write this down.”

I try to follow the back end of this car. I bash my head on the window because of the angle I’m turning my head. The only way I could read the whole plate would be to punch out the screen and crawl onto the roof. Even though I considered it as an option, I figured I’d lose my cover if they came back by. (Or would they not notice a bald woman in a neon green tank top sitting on the roof spying on them?)

I can only get the first three numbers - I think they’re 096. I think it’s a Michigan plate. But then the new Michigan plates have the letters first. So maybe it’s not a Michigan plate. Or my binoculars are cheap…

Or I’m just freakin’ blind.

(I did stab that left eye earlier.)

So the car goes down the street and then turns around and drives REALLY slow back past my house. I have my useless-ass binoculars trained on the car. There’s a giant Lab in the backseat and a giant woman in the passenger side.

Annnnnnnd.

That’s it. They drove away. With pictures of my house!

Y’all? I have to say it again. What the fuck?

—-8:38 p.m. - I can’t figure it out. So I decide to go pour that second drink. Damn. I’m gonna have to run again in the morning. —-

The pretty new washer has been delivered. Funny thing though. After the Sears delivery guys were through carrying out the broken one and carrying in the improved version (and they hooked everything up, too!) - they handed Mr. Hot a bag of bolts.

Really big bolts.

They told him that they were the “stabilizing bolts” that should be used in case we ever need to move Washer Version 2.0.

Move? As in from one house to another? ……………… Huh.

Well fuck a duck and make him quack. No one gave us any bolts when we bought Version 1.0. in 2002. And we moved that sucker twice. Y’know what y’all? The bolts stabilize the washer drum. And it was the washer drum that broke last week. Hmmmmm. Methinks maybe the washer would have lasted longer if someone had given.us.the.stupid.bolts. the first time!

I’m smart that way. Cause and Effect. I see it.

I am not, however, all that intelligent in the way of volunteering for projects. Like the process development team I bitched about here? Last week, while I was in Chicago, I spent 12 hours over two days trapped in a conference room with these people. Face-to-face.

They didn’t even supply coffee or chocolate. Seriously. Like they expected me to be able to think?

We went through this process with a fine toothed comb. Turned it upside down and rightside out. We ripped it to pieces and put it back together. We made it black and white, then gray, then pretty pastel colors. (Puke. I changed it back to gray.)

Today, I got an email invitation to two more meetings with this group. The first is from 10 a-freakin’-m to 6 you’ve-got-to-be-shitting-me p.m. Tomorrow. The next one? Wednesday from 9:30 (yes!!!! in the morning) to 6. AGAIN.

I’m not going to Chicago for those though. I’m going to sit right here in my office (which you can check out at Blissfully Domestic in my “Working from Home” articles - Part 1 and Part 2) with my own coffee and chocolate stash. I’m going to put my phone on mute and make snide comments and rude sounds when someone says something I don’t like. I’ll probably repeatedly (and then again for good measure) flip them the bird.

Cause and effect? Volunteer = Work your ass off and get no chocolate. (for me) Cause and effect for them? Piss off Hotfessional = being blogged about in disparaging manner.

But right this very instant, I’m going to go get ready to meet Sonia Sunshine and Nancy for dinner. We’re going to make Nancy tell us all about BlogHer and hope that she doesn’t fall asleep in her hummus.

—- And if they talk me into it, you may get pictures of me pretending to be Demi Moore. —-

Last night, Mr. Hot and I were sitting on the couch watching Daniel Craig in Casino Royale. (Why yes, we’re a bit behind in our movie watching.) Oh mah holy hell y’all…I’d heard the whispers about the chiseling of this new Bond guy’s abs, and his arms, and his legs…but {{swoon}} - fuck a duck. He’s gorgeous.

Um, wait, that’s not where this post was going. Shall we start over?

So, we’re watching this movie. Mr. Hot gets up to refill his Big Gulp cup wine glass with some nice red from the box in the garage. (Shut up. It’s more economical in bulk.) When he opened the door out to the garage, he paused. He looked back at me and then looked out in the garage again.

“Hey, Hot. The lights were on in the car. Y’know, how when you open the door and the dome light comes on? Then it kinda fades out after a while? Well, it was on, and then while I was standing here, it faded out.”

“Hmmmm. My purse is in the house, right?”

I got up from the couch and checked. Yes. Purse in kitchen and wallet accounted for. Checkbook accounted for.

“Check for your mp3 player, Mr. Hot. It was in the glove box.”

“Yes, it’s here. The dog’s leash is here. The Spartan window flag is here. Nothing seems to be missing, but that’s weird.”

He shut the garage door and I started drooling all over again we went back to the movie. I pushed the little nagging thought that some stranger had been in my garage to the back of my mind. After all, if someone had tried to steal something from the car, they didn’t find anything worth taking. Nothing obvious was missing from the garage itself. They didn’t come into the house and kill us all. And the garage door was shut now, so we were all fine.

Besides, Daniel Craig had his shirt off again.

After the movie, I was sitting out on the front porch smoking my “before bed” cigarette waiting for the dog to finish his business and fantasizing about meeting up with Daniel Craig sometime giving Mr. Hot “cookies”. The car horn honked. Once. The car in the garage. (Queue the Twilight Zone music here.)

Now, I don’t scare easily, and I ALWAYS look for the “everyday” explanation behind things like this. It’s not that I don’t believe in “unexplained” phenomena - but like UFOs are Unidentified Flying Objects - unidentified and unexplained don’t necessarily mean ghosts and little green men from Mars. I crave a provable, repeatable reason for shit. Blame 20 years of education (no, it didn’t take me that long to graduate from high school smartie-pants) spent primarily studying math and science.

But y’all? Fuckin’ strange. And creepy. (Again, queue the music.)

I decided that something must have gotten INTO the car. Some stray cat maybe. Or a possum. Something went into the garage while the door was up, crawled into the car since the windows were down, and hit something that turned the dome light on. Now, since Mr. Hot had shut the door, the poor creature was stuck in there - and decided to beep the horn to let us know that he needed out. (Because, y’know, he had to pee and didn’t want to do it in my Avenger.)

Just about the time I was finishing this hypothesis and getting up to explain it all to Mr. Hot so that he could go find out what was in the car, he walked out. With a grin on his face.

“Did you hear the horn honk?”, he asked.

“Yes! There’s something stuck in the car isn’t there? I have it figured out though. Something got into the car when the garage was open and now it’s stuck….”

I tapered off as his grin got bigger. And I noticed his right hand was hidden behind his back.

“I went upstairs and was wondering what was in my back pocket…”

He started patting his ass to demonstrate.

“…and look what I found.”

He held up a set of car keys. With the remote door opener. That turns on the dome light when you unlock the doors. And beeps when you lock the doors.

That had been in his back pocket. Under his butt as he was getting up off the couch. To go fill his cup. Said action apparently triggered the “unlock” mechanism.

Patting his right asscheek apparently triggered the “lock” feature.

—- Now explain to me how he can hit that tiny little button correctly in those circumstances, but when we go to the grocery store and he tries to use the remote entry, he invariably sets off the panic alarm - causing every person in the lot to look at us like we’re idiots. —-
*Rod Serling - The Twilight Zone

We’re waiting to see which of his oblivious sons notices first.

 Loading …

—- My response? Oh mah holy hell, thank you and it’s about time. Facial hair is great on some men, but Mr. Hot? Meh. Plus, it burns. Snort. —-

I honestly don’t know which of these is the most painful:

• Sitting through a meeting rehashing something that you thought was agreed to months ago and then finding out, an hour into the meeting, that the other person didn’t understand the difference between “A” and “B”, and so now DOESN’T agree to anything. At all.
• Slamming your hand in the car door.
• Running out of vodka.
• An hour-long workout after taking two months off.

Can you guess which one of those four things I HAVEN’T faced today. No, seriously, y’all. There’s four very painful things up there. Guess which one hasn’t happened!

{{waiting}} {{waiting}} {{waiting}} {{waiting}} {{waiting}}

Okay! Who guessed that the Hotfessional has NOT slammed her hand in a car door?

ding ding ding ding ding!

You win.

Everything else? Yes.

Fuck a duck y’all.

I’ve been working with a team made up of process experts (kill.me.now.) since March. I “own” a document that covers this process from beginning to end - meaning I have to add/delete/change/spindle/mutilate the flowchart (remember those?) whenever someone from the team figures out that “X won’t work” or “Z can’t happen.”

This process is supposed to be completed/frozen/communicated/blessed/approved on Friday. I’ve spent the last three business days not reading blogs/not writing blogs/not twittering/not IM’ing/not spying on my neighbors, but working my ass off to get this thing finished. And I was almost there. I was soooooo close. I was moaning saying, “Yes! Yes! Yes! Don’t stop!”

And then, today, someone essentially said, “Five doesn’t equal five. Five really equals ten.” (Kinda like running out of batteries midstream having your three year old catch you in the act.)

And the rest of us were all, “Huh? But five DOES equal five. Five doesn’t equal ten. Five equaled five in April. And in May, and in June. What’s so fuckin’ different about July? Huh?”

So now, I have to change that mutha-effin’ document again - or jump out the window.

Which won’t kill me because I’m only on the second floor. That is, if I could open the window with the pain in my arms from the forty-twelve curls I did. Or if I could raise my leg high enough to get out onto the ledge after the seventy-eleven squats and lunges.

I can barely squat down to sit on the freakin’ toilet to, ehem, relieve myself. Which means I can’t drink beer or wine, because they make me have to pee. Every 10 minutes.

And I’m outta vodka.

—- Sigh. —-

Oh mah holy hell, y’all - where is the weekend going? Okay, it may be because I have done absolutely nothing but eat and read while sitting out in the gorgeous (finally!) weather - but I’ve neglected my reading and writing horribly.

My grill-master-slash-stud-muffin, Mr. Hot, provided us with grilled chicken, potatoes, and asparagus yesterday and then turkey burgers today. Someone needs to come over and roll me into the shower - I feel a bit like a beached whale. And I found a new mixer for my vodka - Minute Maid Orange/Tangerine (Light! Only 15-calories per serving!) - which also, by the way, mixes nicely with rum. (Or so that grill-master-slash-stud-muffin claims.)

Last night, the fireworks show brilliantly orchestrated by the fireman down the road (in his front yard) provided us our 4th entertainment - until the “Mayor” put a stop to it.

Wait, I’ve never told you about the “Mayor”? Well, he isn’t. But damned, he thinks he is. He is, in his own words, “A farmer, a retired engineer, a horse trainer, and a BORN-AGAIN CHRISTIAN.” And yes, that’s exactly how he says it. All-caps. Shout it out with me now, y’all. Amen. (Not that I have a problem with his religious beliefs - even though, as we’ll see, he doesn’t embody those beliefs, but the fact that he feels the need to announce his particular faith IN ALL CAPS? I have a problem with that.)

He has 15 acres, which happens to run behind every house the entire length of our road. His house and garage, however, are behind OUR backyard. (Lucky us!) We were working out there, one day soon after we moved in, and he accosted us with his speech. “I’ve got the most land of anyone around here and no one with less than 10 acres is considered a farm. I’m considered a farm. So I can burn brush. I can have animals. I hate any noise that isn’t related to maintaining my land. Don’t think you can use that firepit in your yard because I’ve got a barn over here. I’m a farmer, a retired engineer, a horse trainer and a BORN AGAIN CHRISTIAN.”

Mr. Hot and I nodded and walked off, shaking our heads.

Of course, we also checked the township bylaws about burning.

• Anyone with at least an acre (which we have) can burn with notice to the fire department.
• Said burning cannot last longer than 3 hours.

Period.

So, y’all know what we did, right? We used our firepit. Snort. Mr. Hot also kindly printed off the township regulations for the “Mayor”. Just in case he needed a refresher course.

Annnnyway, for the last two years, we’ve had no problems. Of course, we know that every time we sit out on the deck, or do something in our backyard, the “Mayor” and his wife, “Ruffie” are watching our every move. Sometimes I flash Mr. Hot a boob-shot while we’re out there or slip my hand down his pants - just in case the “Mayor” needs a cheap thrill.

He has been known to shoot dogs that come onto his property (as the people at the corner found out the hard way). He makes the mail carrier beep when they drop off his mail (apparently, he is so important that his mail cannot sit in the mailbox like the rest of us mortals’ mail). His wife has threatened another neighbor when the neighbor innocently offered to help muck out the horsebarn - “You come into my yard and I’ll shoot you.”

Oh, yes, the “Mayor” keeps an eye on the neighbors. Well, the ones on our side of the street anyway. So, every year, it’s a race to see if the fireman and friends can finish their state of the art fireworks show before the “Mayor” manages to get the police to come put a stop to it.

This show rivals anything that you would see at your local town’s festivities. Real fireworks - Dahlias, Peonies and Chrysanthemums, Phoenix & Birds and Glitter Palms. We sit out in our front yard and wait for the sun to set. Then we oooooh and ahhhhhhh and clap. Poopy the Puppy stays amazingly calm during the whole thing - although he does think it’s weird that we look into the sky and clap. I’m sure he thinks we’re clapping for him.

Last night, we called Shortman and 24 out to watch. About 20 minutes in, the finale started. About 3 minutes after the finale was over, the police car that we’d been half-expecting made its way down the road. SLOWLY… ever so slowly. We have a theory though. Since the firemen run this show, and the policemen around here know the “Mayor” by name*… they do the firemen the courtesy of calling to tell them, “Have your show done by 10:20 because we can’t stand him calling every three fucking minutes. Then we’ll come by and grab a hotdog so it looks good.”

But it’s fun while it lasts… and we don’t have to fight for a spot to put our blankets down.

—-*Yep. When Mr. Hot went to file a report about our stolen credit card number, he gave the officer our address and said, “I live behind the “Mayor”.” The cop looked up with pity in his eyes, slowly nodded his head, and bent back down to finish the report. Mr. Hot swears that he heard him whisper, “You poor sap.” —-

I have not been this emotionally wrung out and on the verge of sobbing uncontrollably since I was a thirteen year old girl who hated her nose, her parents, her brother and sister and her life.

It would be very easy to blame this on pre-menopausal hormones. It would be even easier to blame this on all of the changes I’ve gone through over the past three months. And both of those excuses very good reasons are true. But having someone to talk to and listen; listen to what I’m SAYING…not the words, but the feelings behind them would go so much further than being told that I’m the problem.

So that when I say, “I don’t feel comfortable in my own house anymore.” Instead of trying to pacify me with “That’s stupid.”, why not HEAR me and ask me, “Is there anything I can do?” Or better yet, say, “I understand.” Even if you don’t right then. But then THINK about what I’ve said and remember your psychology classes. Remember when I said, “I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by life right now”? That could have been a tip-off.

Maybe if you did that, I wouldn’t be sitting here crying right now and turning my head when you walk by so you won’t see me.

Maybe then I could tell you that I’m scared that my hair won’t grow back. That I’ll be forever wearing scarves and be afraid of unexpected visitors or having to meet strangers who ask if I’m covering my head for religious reasons or worse, because I have cancer.

I could tell you that I’m scared that I won’t find a job that I like when I lose this one in November. Or that I won’t find one at all. That I’m scared enough that I won’t be able to support the two people that I have been supporting for the past eleven years without adding another to the mix. Another whose contribution to this household has consisted of nothing more than something else to worry about.

Maybe I could tell you that it bothers me that you scream at our son for the smallest transgression, but that when 24 “forgets” AGAIN to check the water softener, you fill it up and never mention it to him.

I could tell you that instead of groping my tits or ass when I walk by, you’d get so much further if you offered to put lotion on my back or took me to dinner. Alone. Without me having to suggest it.

Maybe I could tell you that yelling when I don’t remember a rant you made two weeks ago about some political figure only makes me feel like you think I’m stupid, it doesn’t make me want to go read every article ever written on the topic. Although I’d really like to have an intelligent political conversation with you, because I think you’d be surprised at my opinion on things that are going on in the world.

I could tell you I’m not criticizing your ability to keep the house clean when I sweep the kitchen floor or MOVE the furniture to vacuum, it’s just that I do things differently and notice when there’s dust under the cedar chest. I could tell you I don’t MIND doing it, even if you just did it three days ago - because, y’know, I don’t cut an acre of grass every week in addition to cooking and cleaning and laundry and we have a dog and two cats and 4 people in this house.

Then you wouldn’t walk in here and find me in tears because you said that I’m not being myself and everyone notices that I’m walking on eggshells. That I’m “killing us” because I don’t say what’s on my mind.

Because if I could explain all of that to you, then we could laugh about the fact that my cheeks are wet and we’re out of tissues because those hormones went apeshit again just when I heard that song on the radio. We could celebrate my going out to get the mail without putting on a baseball cap in case someone drives by. We could smile and laugh when 24 brings his friends over for tacos instead of my wondering, “Am I being normal now? How about now?”

But, no, because you wouldn’t stop and think about what I said the day I told you that I was feeling overwhelmed by life, I am sitting up here crying again, and you’re down there banging things around to get ready to feed the masses. Or maybe I’m sitting here crying because you did think about it and just didn’t care.

—- I wasn’t going to post this, except my friend Candy sent me an email, “What good is having a blog if you can’t blog about it :)”. And since she needs to know what she’s getting into when we get married, I know she is exactly right, I did. Thanks sweetie. XX —-