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My Profile
Gift from Hil Part 2 - 2014-12-30
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1:07 a.m. - 2012-04-29
'Stupid is as stupid does.'- Forrest Gump And boy howdy, I've been doing stupid really well recently. Menopause muddle has me by the short and curlies, or would if I had enough left to grab onto. Among the more mystifying and seemingly pointless body changes being inflicted on me by this run-amok system shutdown is the disappearance of my Eve's thicket. Not that it was ever much of a thicket anyhow, but I was rather fond of my sparse girl garden. Now it looks as though my pubes have jumped ship with my last few working brain cells and have disappeared over the horizon. Occasionally I amuse myself with a mental picture of them relaxing on a beach in Tahiti, but it's more likely there's a wee tuft of pubic hair and some seriously confused grey matter wandering around Bayonne, NJ wondering how they got there and where the fuck the rest of me is. That question I can answer. Pube-less, brainless me is right here in Casa Stupido. A name change was necessary; the only sage thing around here these days is the dusty container of it in the back of my spice cabinet. (Sage, not a taste I particularly care for. Nor do I like the smell and am likely the only witch in the world who refuses to use sage smudges in ritual.) I know I am here in the House of Stupid, more particularly here in my office because of the pashminas hanging in the windows. "Pashminas? But LA, you spoke recently about how you were putting up new mini-blinds." That, my friends, is a sad, sad tale. Or freaking hilarious. Depends on how much sympathy you have for ex-Mensa members who've gone rogue idiot. Right now on my dining room table is the THIRD set of mini-blinds I've gotten in the last week. Had some problems with my math. The ability to take accurate measurements, like my pubes, has mysteriously gone AWOL. Honestly the first screw-up could happen to anyone. I measured the inside dimension of the window opening. 31". Off to the Evil Empire Super Center I went and purchased blinds for the three windows I was redoing. I get home with the shiny new blinds, come in here, take down the valance and its rod, and grandly rip down the first Roman shade. I do battle with the cobwebs and am finally victorious. Windex the hell out of the filthy glass. Happily unbox the first set of blinds, untangle the 2 miles of cord, attach the twirly stick that makes the slats move, climb up on the stepstool and...the goddamn thing was too big. Oh, for certain the window is 31", but the brackets which I'd deliberately left in place when I repainted and redecorated my office four years ago because putting up mini-blind brackets is a humongous honking pain in the rump were mounted off-set a little. Why? I don't know. The previous owner put the brackets in and tracking down Karen Jenns just to ask her why she did such a dopey thing seemed a bit stalker-ish and rude. Anyway, there I was with a bare naked window and a too big mini-blind. This was the day after the terrible nightmare and I wasn't firing on all cylinders anyway so I couldn't decide whether to try to move the bracket or go back to Hellmart and exchange the blinds for ones that would fit the brackets rather than the windows. Aside from putting the stepstool back in the kitchen I left the mess like it was and sat down and had a good cry. The next day Mick is with me when I took the yardstick and measured the width between the brackets. Looked like 29". Okey-doke. He takes me to the store, the blinds are exchanged. We go to Five Guys for dinner. When we get home it's late. By this time I'm tired of the bare naked window but truly lack the ambition to do anything more that day and decide to put the blinds up in the morning. So. Next morning I come in here, take down the valance and rod, and grandly rip down another Roman shade, this one on the middle window. Cobwebs, windex, unbox blind, cord, twirly stick, yadda, yadda. Up on the stepstool to install blind #1 and...the goddamn thing is too short. I kid you not. This time I didn't bother to put the stepstool back before I had my cry. Now I've got TWO bare naked windows, it's freezing cold in here because they're crap 3-season porch windows and the single pane doesn't do diddly squat the hold back the weather outside or keep any climate control in, the ex is stumbling around up by the tool shed and I feel completely exposed, without window coverings my office is a fricken terrarium. So I'm sitting here crying in my terrarium feeling like a goddamn gecko, a goddamn stupid gecko, a goddamn, I'm-so-simpleminded-I-can't-operate-a-stinking-measuring stick stupid gecko. I finally get ahold of myself enough to realize I can hang curtains over the naked windows using the valance rods. It'll do until I can exchange the blinds again. YAY! Off to the cellar I went to dig around in the cabinet where all the stray linens live and was confronted with a bigger and better than ever Laundry Mountain! It's completely blocking the cabinet. This is where my weepy frustration gives way to anger and I stomp around in a circle for a few minutes doing the Rumplestiltskin rage dance. One of the cats is taking a long and smelly crap in the litter box over by the water heater and is looking at me with the haughty disdain that only cats taking a dump can pull off. So I'm feeling totally stupid, totally pissed-off and now I smell like cat poo. I give the crapping cat the finger and go back upstairs. Where in the heat of my smelly rage it dawns on me I own all the pashminas in the tri-state area and what is a pashmina but a large swath of fabric that with the help of a few clothespins would make a dandy temporary window covering? I grabbed a few pashminas and some clothespins and go back into my freezing cold naked windowed office. Up went the pashminas, down went my blood pressure. This morning Mick and I made the walk of shame back into Hellmart and exchanged the blinds again. Then we had lunch with Mick's parents. Then Wolf's best buddy Mack came over for his first visit since last August. Then Mick came back from a bike ride looking like Death. The man has no moderation, none. And I, feeling a superstitious dread and really not wanting to find out if there's somehow been yet another fuck-up with the stupid mini-blinds left them in their boxes and spent the rest of the day watching a couple subtitled French films and season 6 of 'Weeds'. So that's where I'm at, kids. Bereft of brains, bald of nethers, hostess and ringmaster to two teenaged goofballs, scold to my demented 50-something husband who seems bent on making me a widow with his antics on his mountain bike, and pretending my pashmina-ed windows are an homage to my gypsy heritage instead of a make-do solution for my ineptitude with a yardstick. Tomorrow I will brave the breach of nekkid window frames and badly installed brackets, and try installing the stupid 30" blinds. Wish me luck. Oh, btw, if you run across my brains and my lady fur would you mind telling them to come home, please? Thanks.
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