Perils of Waking Up

For the purposes of this entry, The Suz = me, and my conscience = That Bitch.

THAT BITCH: Wake up, Suz! We've got things to do!
THE SUZ: No, we really don't.
THAT BITCH: You need to run errands! And clean!
THE SUZ: Nah. I can clean later.
THAT BITCH: You've slept long enough!
THE SUZ: I was up until 3. I'm allowed to sleep in.
THAT BITCH: We have work to do!
THE SUZ: It's the weekend! I don't have to work!
THAT BITCH: DID YOU SEE THE QUEUE, WOMAN?
THE SUZ: I can look at it later...
THAT BITCH: It's almost noon! Get your ass out of bed, pick the clothing up off the floor or I'LL NEVER LET YOU LIVE THIS DOWN.
THE SUZ: Fuck off.

[The Suz proceeds to sleep more.]

The Infamous Sausage Conversation

December 21, 2008: Mother, Suz, and Greg have a conversation that will live on forever.

[GREG is cooking sausage. This is following a rather odd conversation in which Greg said women weren't oppressed, Suz called Greg a douche, and somehow everyone went home chuckling]]
MOM: Do you want me to peel the skin off the sausage?
[pause]
SUZ: [starts snickering]
GREG: I'd...rather you didn't.
SUZ: [cracks up]
MOM: There's...there's some skin on the tip you really should remove...
SUZ: [spits water onto laptop screen]
GREG: ...
SUZ: SAUSAGE!!
[SUZ and MOM start cackling]
GREG: I'm starting to find this conversation offensive.
SUZ: OMG, I have to blog this.
MOM: I can't say anything without going into your damn blog!
SUZ: You're being immortalized!
MOM: God help me.
GREG: Can you do me a favor?
MOM: NO.
GREG: When the water boils, can you put the sausage in? AND DON'T EAT IT.
MOM: I can't promise it...I like sausages.
SUZ: [on the floor in hysterics, beet-red]
GREG: [stomps out]
[Whereupon the females roll around on the floor laughing for a good five minutes.]
[Greg comes back in to fetch his sausage]
MOM: Do you want me to snip a little bit off the end?
SUZ: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH--
GREG: How long did it take you to think up that one?
MOM: Want me to skin it?
SUZ: HHAHAHAHAHAHA!
GREG: NO!!!!!

And that is The Infamous Sausage Conversation.

Casey

This is Casey. She is performing her infamous Batbird trick.

She was hatched in April of '99, and she died this afternoon.

I knew she was sick. Mom told me she was taking her to the vet. She died on the way. Just lay down in the back of the box and closed her eyes. I guess that's the way to go, if you have to. Quick and easy.

Birds are quite a bit smarter than we give them credit for. Frankly, I've always suspected our cockatiels were smarter than our dogs. But that's neither here nor there.

Casey's personality can be summed up in one reference. Years ago, we briefly got my mother into the original Sims. She created a house and a family using us and our pets.

Casey was an angry black woman.

She loved my mother. Loooooooooooved her. She knew the way from the family room (where her cage was) to the den (where Mom worked on her projects), and if Mom didn't bring her in, then by God she'd get there herself. She'd hop to the floor and walk right down the hall and into the correct room, where she would scream until lifted up.

She never had much patience for me. Maybe she viewed me as competition. She had a love/hate relationship with my pet, Gabby (for whom my iPod is named) and maybe that transferred to me. If you think birds can't differentiate between people...Casey had a specific sound she made whenever she saw me.

It sounded a lot like ewwwwwwwwwww.

"Good morning, Casey."

"Ewwwwwww."

Walk by the cage: "Ewwwwwwwww."

She did not dig me. That was fine; I stayed away. She was a small bird, but to annoy her was to risk your own hide.

At one point, Mom was visiting her parents in Tarzana. We were speaking online and I told her Casey was moping.

"She needs to be cuddled," Mom said.

Ha, ha, ha. The hands of mere plebeians like myself would never touch the almighty Casey.

Then something changed.

The first time I came home after Gabby died, Casey actually leaped to the side of the cage to greet me. She hung out with me the entire week I was there - not a single ewwwwwww, just genuine affection. We puzzled over it, then and now. The only explanation anyone's come up with is that she simply associated me with Gabby, and maybe she missed her pal.

Or maybe she sensed I was upset and was just containing the ewwwws because she knew she had to repair her karma after years of terrorizing the parakeets. Who knows.

She never treated me with such friendliness again, but from thereafter there was a truce between us. She made the move down to San Diego, generally refrained from hissing at me unless I really bugged her, and even looked pleased to see me in the mornings when I uncovered her.

I think I liked her because she didn't like me. She was her own bird, plain and simple. Just a real personality.

Our other cockatiel, Sydney, is/was desperately in love with her. We have video of him attempting to woo her with his atrocious version of "Bette Davis Eyes." At points Casey looks at the camera, as if to say "Uh, help?" He never lets up. It's charming. Also, incredibly annoying.

Syd knew something was up this morning. He didn't bother her at all, which is unlike him.

There is another thing. My departed friend, Gabby, is the one who taught Casey how to speak (by "taught" I mean Casey mimicked her). Casey hasn't said much in recent years, but every now and then "pretty bird" slipped out, and I knew where she picked it up.

She was a link to Gabby, I guess. Gabby was my special girl. And now Gabby and Casey are gone.

Getting off-topic...

So. Our pack number diminishes yet again. It has not been a good year for my family. We've lost relatives and pets...it's just been...a lot...it always stings, to lose someone, but Casey is sadly the latest slap 2009 has taken at us. Lest anyone think I'm complaining, please note I'm not. It's just been a shit year for us. Thanksgiving is going to be bittersweet.

I'm off to bed. I hope she doesn't haunt me. The last thing I need is to wake up with a shadowy yellow figure whispering ewwwwwwwwwwww in my ear.

Rest in peace, pretty bird. Say hi to Gabby for me.

Dippers

I went to a party in Newport last night.

I will spare you all the intricate, behind-the-scenes drama (involving exes, shared friends, and general ridiculousness). My gal pal and I got there around eight. Drinking and eating commenced.

At some point there was a hot tub excursion. I found myself forced into a borrowed swimsuit and all but shoved in (I must admit, it was quite nice); watched all manner of weirdness, and then climbed out around 12 because dammit, I was tired.

I remember climbing onto a couch (after drying off and changing, of course - I'm not that inconsiderate) and dozing off for awhile. People came and went. I think someone nodded off at the pool table.

At five, I roused myself enough to drive home. I was sober at that point, just very tired. They start ticketing at seven or eight in Newport, and if I went back to sleep I wouldn't be able to get up to move the car in time. So we headed up to the beachfront parking lot to head back to Orange.

And we stood there.

With 98% of the Newport residents either asleep or respectably passed out, it was very quiet and very, very dark. All the stars were out, shining down on a black void that I certainly hope was the ocean (if it wasn't, well, we've got bigger problems than 2012). The surf crashed in the background.

"Look," my gal pal said, "I can see the Dippers!"

I live in a well-lit area. I haven't seen the Dippers since...I don't remember when.

We held very still for a few seconds, just taking it all in.

"Those parties aren't fun anymore," she said.

"No," I agreed. I'd been thinking that the majority of the night. It's always good to see the pals, but something...something was off. Something was different.

Maybe it's me.

Still, standing out there with just the darkness and the ocean, reminded that there is still true beauty in the world, made me think the evening, while flawed, was completely worth it.

Deep (or not) Thoughts

I am relaxing on the couch, watching The Office and 30 Rock.

In The Office, Dunder-Mifflin is facing bankruptcy. This is something of a familiar subject to me. Source Interlink was having nightmarish money problems in the months leading up to my layoff. The sensible thing to happen at The Office is to start taking out characters left and right...I doubt that'll happen. They will Find A Way.

Source didn't. And I was laid off.

It's strange for me to be at a company that's doing well, where joblessness isn't around every corner (well, it is in my head, but that's just me). I just got so used to impending doom that normalcy is...I don't know...unnatural?

I guess I'm getting a bit introspective because it's That Time of Year, where you reflect on what's gone on and what might yet come. I haven't decided what 2009 will go down as. A lot has changed for me this year.

Sorry. This entry got off-track. I am not much more deep thoughts, really; I prefer to see the humor in life and chuckle my way through it. Sometimes that's not possible. But sitting here contemplating everything that's gone on this year is spooking me just a bit. As recently as five months ago I imagined I'd be spending my November in San Diego with my parents. The day before my interview I'd taken a bunch of boxes down to their house - preparing to move back in after my lease was up. I love my parents very much. I think we'd have made the best of the situation.

Yet here I am, sitting on Cleveland - the couch I bought myself (and his companion chair, Quagmire) - with my feet propped up on the coffee table, still in the apartment I loved enough to stay in after a former roommate's family bought her a house.

For tonight, anyway, I count myself very lucky.

(Random insane rants will return tomorrow, I'm sure.)

(I FUCKING LOVE COMMAS!)

Feh

I hate those nights where I become so embroiled in a campaign that I forget what time it is. Invariably, by the time I glance at the clock, it's too late to beat the traffic.

Sigh.

Anyway, I'm posting from work at six PM because I don't feel like battling traffic. Or much of anything else. Sadly, there isn't much to do out here; no bookstores or libraries to kill time in, and I don't really feel like overloading on caffeine from Starbucks at this hour. So I sit. And twiddle my thumbs. I guess I could head to Quizno's and get lunch for tomorrow...

I find it mildly infuriating that I could spend hours sitting in traffic to go seven miles...or zip down the five to San Diego and eat dinner with my parents. By the time I hit the typical problem areas in SD, it'll be cleared up.

Hmmm.

(I won't do it. It'll mean another insane drive in the morning.)

Feh. I'll just start bringing stuff to Bucks with me, I guess. Right now I'll limp home.

Serendipity

Today is my ex's birthday.

We haven't spoken for a year. I didn't wish him happy birthday last November. I certainly have no intention of wishing him one this year (in case you didn't realize, it was a bad ending [okay, several bad endings]).

But it's his birthday today. It occurred to me while I was out for a walk.

I turned on South Park when I got back. It's "Kenny Dies." There's a particularly rousing moment where Cartman convinces Congress to overturn a ban on stem cell research...via a musical rendition of "Heat of the Moment."

We watched that episode together and agreed on the absolute awesomeness of that song. Somehow, we decided it would be our song. We didn't decide whether it was the South Park version or the official recording from Asia. I believe they were interchangeable.

And so it was.

It proved sadly fortuitous ("I never meant to be so bad to you/One thing I thought that I would never do"), but that's another story. My life's been much better without him in it. Still, whenever we heard this song we'd smile, whether we were fighting or getting along.

Just seems odd that the song comes up on this day, of all days.

I'm still not calling him.

But the song played, and I smiled.

I guess that's something.