Category: Crankypantsing

Crankypantsing, Photography

Things!  In!  Bags!

Shelly

Water! Fountains! In! Bags!

Sink! In! A! Bag!

The Friday of finals week, a coworker took it upon herself to clean out the department fridge, without warning anyone. Usually the departmental secretary would send out an email on Monday, warning everyone to mark their food, then send another warning email the day before. This time there was no warning.

That would have been annoying enough. However my container of hummus was thrown out. I didn’t take a lunch the next Monday, thinking I had something to eat at work. Nope. I also had no money, not that it mattered, because the cafeteria was closed for the semester break.

Annoying, right? But that wasn’t the worst part. The coworker who cleaned out the fridge dumped food down the disposal. The disposal in our kitchen can’t deal with actual food. The sink has now been completely blocked for almost two weeks, along with the two water fountains that share the same drain.

So not only did she throw out people’s food, but now we’re having to hike to find water for the tea kettle and coffee pots.

Someone needs to tell her to stay the hell out of the kitchen, because she’s a damn menace.

Crankypantsing

Hurry Up and Wait

Shelly

I had a strange dream the other morning. I woke up then went back to sleep, which seems to be when most of my bizarre dreams happen.

My whole immediate family were living in my mom’s house, which is biggish, but not big enough for eleven people. I mean, there’s only on bathroom, for crying out loud. Totally ridiculous. Also, my ex-step-father was living there, in the present. I have no idea why.

In my dream, we all went to the local Renaissance fair, held in the town’s historic district. ALL OF US. At the fair, my niece disappeared. We thought she’d wandered off, but we came to the conclusion she’d been abducted. We tried to call the police, to report it, but I was the only one with a cellphone, and my phone had disappeared. We finally put two and two together and decided that my niece had grabbed my phone, as she was being abducted, because she’s a smart cookie that way.

So instead of calling the police, we decided to go home and wait for my niece to call us. Which she eventually did. And when she called, all she wanted to do was discuss random minutia, like what the kidnapper had fed her for lunch and what color she wanted to dye her hair next. I finally got her attention by telling her that she was going to run down my phone battery, if she didn’t hurry up and tell us where she was.

She told us that the Magenta Lady had kidnapped her, because she wanted a girl of her own. I have no idea who the hell the Magenta Lady is, but in my dream it made perfect sense, and it was actually a good thing. We knew the Magenta Lady wouldn’t hurt my niece. Also we knew where to find her. Also also, this information made rescuing my niece less of an emergency.

And that meant that the second half of the dream involved my whole family, who were all living in one house, trying to decide whose room my niece would stay in, after she was rescued. (Um, how about the one she was staying in before she was kidnapped? PLOT HOLE, AHOY!) After much arguing, my room was chosen. That meant that I had to clear out a whole bunch of crap, because I am–in dreams as in real life–a junior-league hoarder.

We spent all day boxing up junk and carrying it down to the car, to take to Goodwill, at which point my ex-step-father had a damn melt-down about how long it was taking us. He wanted us to hurry the hell up. Okayfine, but every time I took a box of junk down to the car, my mom had to go through it and take 2/3 of the things back out again. I yelled right back at my ex-step-father that it was not my fault we were late. I was bringing things out of the house as fast as I could, and my mom was taking them back to the house just as fast. It was like packing sand down a rat giant hole.

So then my ex-step-father stomped back into the house and locked himself in the bathroom. At which point I woke up.

That last part of the dream, where my ex-step-father yelled at everyone for taking too long to get in the car, and then having a melt-down and stomping back into the house and locking himself in the bathroom? Every. Single. Morning. He would yell at us for making him late for work, and then as soon as we were all in the car, he’d go back in the house and use the bathroom. Totally ridiculous, and it used to piss me right the hell off.

Crankypantsing

What?

Shelly

All Photos-3232

I came home to this on my front door. My lease isn’t up until
September. Also who the hell gives zero effective notice that their lease is due for renewal? The office closed at 5:00pm. I got off work at 5:00pm. How was I supposed to contact them today?

I have to assume they put this on my door by mistake, and that it should have been placed on someone else’s door. I have to call the office tomorrow, though, to make sure, which does not make me brimful of happiness.

What a pain in my ass!

Crankypantsing, Genealogy, Pets

Piglet the Genealogist

Shelly

Piglet the Genealogist

I spent all day working on resolving ONE problem on my error list. Frustrating doesn’t even begin to describe it.

And the reason I was at home playing amateur genealogist, instead of at work where I belonged? Last night the lower section of Franny’s incision started to get a little oozy. I was afraid it had gotten infected or that she was having a reaction to the stitches, so I stayed home today so I could take her to the vet to get checked out. Verdict: seroma. Not an infection, and not a problem with the stitches, so we’re still on track to have everything removed on Thursday morning.

While we were at the vet, Piglet decided to get on my laptop (um, literally) and do a little genealogical research of his own. I came home to find he’d been familiarizing himself with Legacy Family Tree.

Crankypantsing, Genealogy

Unpossible Things

Shelly

One of the many areas where Family Tree Maker is a big, fat slacker is error reports. I ran an error report in Legacy Family Tree, and it was 40+ pages long, with about 10 errors per page.

After working for 8 hours, I had 5 errors resolved. At this rate, data clean-up is going to take me the rest of my life.

One of the errors is something I should have caught as I was entering the information. A child (Thomas) was allegedly born several years after the father’s death. Either the father’s death date is wrong, or the son’s birth date is wrong, or both. Or the father is not actually the father. Possible, but there is no reason to suspect that’s the explanation.  Much more likely that the dates are incorrect. 

Unpossible

In trying to clean up the problem, I came across hundreds of family trees at Ancestry and Rootsweb containing the impossible dates. Do people not logic-check their work?

Turns out, it looks like the father probably died in 1645, making Thomas’ 1644 birth date reasonable. There are other problems with the screenshot, though. Additional children (Edward and George? I have no idea if they are legit. Likely not.) and several duplicates. Additionally, I think Sarah and Phebe may be the same person.

Crankypantsing, Pets, Photography

Seven Days Post-op

Shelly

Seven Days Post-op

The incision looks pretty good, I think. Frances is over the whole cone thing, but she’s being a trooper.

The histopathology report is finally back. The vet called this afternoon with the results. One tumor was malignant, but they gave it a grade 1 and the margins were good, so I’m cautiously optimistic that it hasn’t metastasized.  Frances will need a second surgery to remove the remaining tumors, and that’s scheduled for next Wednesday. 

In the meantime, we’re finding ways to entertain ourselves. There are few things more ridiculous as a dog in a cone trying to get carrot slices out of a treat ball. 

Cookie ball + cone of shame = cheap entertainment for one of us #dogs #pitbulls #pitbullterriers #coneofshame

Also, because I haven’t spent enough time sitting on my ass, waiting for other people, I got up at 6am so I could get a shower and run to the grocery store before maintenance came to fix some stuff in my apartment. And then I rushed home to put away groceries and frantically clean the bathroom and kitchen. And then I say on my ass all day and waited. And waited. And waited. 

Maybe they’ll show up on Friday?

Crankypantsing, Photography

Cleaning All the Things

Shelly

Window #windows

HAND (Housing and Neighborhood Development) inspections for my apartment complex were yesterday. They inspect every five years or so, I think? They’re concerned with making sure rental properties are up to code and habitable, so they check smoke detectors, make sure fire extinguishers are up to date, test sinks, tubs, showers, exhaust fans, etc., and check all egress points (doors and especially bedroom windows). It doesn’t take long, but it’s nice if your apartment or house doesn’t look like it was struck by a tornado. Which mine did, after weeks of frantic arting.

So I’ve spent every waking moment since last Thursday deep cleaning ALL THE THINGS. Under sinks, closets, drawers. I took several carloads of stuff to Goodwill, several more went to the recycling center, and somehow I still had a huge mountain of crap to take to the trash dumpsters. I also washed windows (gross!), cleaned the patio, did a huge pile of laundry, vacuumed and re-vacuumed and shampooed carpets, scrubbed floors, rearranged the bedroom (see above! Now with turquoise curtains!), moved around some paintings, and cleaned, sorted, and rearranged some of the junk stored in my work room.

I am tired of cleaning. Everything hurts. The best (and by best, I mean worst) part was moving things back into the bedroom after emptying it and putting down the rug that had been in the living room. Because rugs on top of carpet are a pain in the ass and will shift if you even look at them sideways, I had to make sure to completely lift the furniture in the air, instead of sliding it across the floor. Do you know how difficult it is to lift and carry a full size mattress all by yourself? I don’t think my back will ever recover. And also to do all that while not tripping over whichever cat has decided that that’s the perfect time to get under your feet.

But it’s done now, and everything is sparkling clean. I also devised a Piglet-proof window treatment for the bedroom that doesn’t look like ass. No more waking up at 3am to a cat mangling the blinds.

Crankypantsing

Totally Unacceptable

Shelly

For the love of God, if you are a doctor or work in a medical office, DO NOT leave a message for a patient to contact your office, on a Friday, and then not get back to the patient after she leaves a return message. 

Because now I have to spend all friggin’ weekend worrying about what the hell you wanted to talk to me about. 

Livid doesn’t even begin to describe it.