Monday, September 10, 2012

Good Bye Awful August; Hello Serendipitous September


If you read my last post, you know August was kind of a bust.  September, however, is looking up.

This past Friday I went out for burgers and pie with a friend.  I usually get custard pie.  It’s one of the few places I’ve found where you can always get it.  Friday, though, I felt like changing it up a little and ordered coconut cream.  When I got to my table with my food, I looked and saw not coconut, but chocolate cream pie.  Oh no!  They got my order wrong!  I hate that.  But I took a second to think…what’s the worst that can happen if I don’t send the pie back?  I eat a slice of delicious chocolate pie?  Well fuck me, that sounds pretty damn good!  So I honeybadgered on and ate the fuck out of that chocolate pie.

And so started the trend of saying “to hell with it!” and going with the flow.

Next, after a weekend of camping, I suggested to my friend that we stop for food somewhere between the site and my house.  I actually was in the mood for In & Out Burger, but my friend suggested the Jack in the Box just down the road.  Fuck it!  Let’s go to Jack in the Box.  We wound up running in to a guy from the camping event and hung out for a while.  Now I have plans to go camping again next weekend.  (and he’s promised me craft beer and bourbon!)

But wait!  It gets better!

On Friday, my camping buddy asked about our plans for Sunday.  I just needed to deliver some cupcakes and pick up some brewing supplies, but otherwise just needed to make time to eat.  “My brother does sound for various touring musicians,” my friend said to me.  And so that’s how I wound up backstage at a Willie Nelson concert looking at nude pictures of the sound guy’s wife.  Yep, that happened.

Rule 6: Say yes like a honeybadger.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

I Call Do-Over on August


August was not kind to me.

First, a visit from my former best friend turned into an inferno of suck when he started acting like a giant douchecanoe so I put his ass back on a plane to Texas.  We haven’t spoken since.  He behaved like so much of a jerk that our friendship is beyond repair.  We’re not friends who are arguing; we’re no longer friends.

Right before I sent him packing, we were in Lake Tahoe for a couple of days where I apparently I laid down in the Unholy Lair of Bloodsucking Fiends.  Go do a quick Google image search for “bedbug bites.”  I’ll wait here.  Back?  I looked far worse than anything you just viewed.  Stress and anger kept the reaction down for a few days, but when it hit it was all at once and miserable.
This is what I imagine was happening while I slept

I painted my body with Caladryl and took 50mg of Benedryl before going to bed only to wake up four hours later itching like mad.  50 more of Benedryl and four and a half hours of sleep and I’m up again now with enough bites on my face that my right eyelid is swollen enough to partially obstruct my vision.  My doctor’s office offered to see me in two weeks.  Luckily I work in a clinic and they offered to see me in two hours.  I walked in and an ER Physician’s first words to me were, “You’re getting seen for that today, right?”  No one I worked with…doctors, nurses, EMTs, Public Health…had ever seen a case of bedbugs that bad.  I got a steroid injection on the spot and a bottle of Prednisone to take home.

My hands were so swollen I couldn’t even cook dinner for myself.  I had a filet mignon (that I was going to cook for the douchenugget) thawed out in the refrigerator but all I could manage to pull together was mac and cheese from a box.  It was a miserable several days until the itching subsided.
My friends yelled at me for not calling them to bring me real food.

A week later, my cat got sick.

Now I have to pay for cat ultrasounds and cat lab tests and cat antibiotics.  Super.  And it’s the shitty cat I don’t care about.  Awesome.  Three vet visits and $600 later, she’s all, “I don’t know what you were worried about.  I’m totes fine now.”  My cat’s a teenaged girl.  And kind of a bitch.
This is what my cat would look like as a person.

Shitty work drama ensues.  I won’t bore you with the details, but know that much obnoxiousness was afoot in my workplace.
Someone even came after my Rio Red Swingline stapler.  No lie.

Finally, August 31 was my birthday.  It’s been a horrid month.  Surely things will look up on my birthday.  It’s my birthday!  Nope.  My friends all bail on game night because they didn’t realize it was my birthday…understandable since I’d had my party three weeks earlier when my shitty ex-friend was in town.  No problem.  I’ll just walk to the Italian place around the corner and have a beer and some pasta…maybe some cheesecake for dessert, and then I’ll come home and watch some Dexter on my laptop.  But that was not to be…
That's probably every patrol car in town.

While I was waiting for my food, a dude came in acting erratically and going back and forth to the bathroom.  I thought about calling the cops but he came and sat down a few feet from me.  Instead, I scoped out the place to see who would be useful if we needed to subdue this guy.  Military training, HUA!  Meanwhile, my food comes and I take one delicious bite of my fettuccine alfredo before a half dozen police storm in, some with assault rifles, all with weapons drawn.  They yell, “Get out!  Get out!  Get out!” so I do.  Fuck.  All I wanted to do was to have a nice quiet dinner on my birthday.  Dammit.

So yeah, any month that starts with losing a friend and ends with a SWAT team interrupting my birthday dinner can suck it.
Happy Birthday!  Now get on the ground!