the house

Check out the house updates on my Great White Ghetto Blog. (WordPress: You are NO good for posting pictures!)

the grrrrrattitude

Everyone is posting on their blogs about how thankful they are for everything. Not to be outdone, I have decided to do the same. This has nothing to do with the fact that today I have felt nothing but contempt for life and I think a little bit of thinking about the good things in my life might be good for me.

1. Alone time. I just went to the temple. (I’m thankful for the temple.) I’m going to a movie in just a second. (I’m thankful for movies.) I will only pay $3.00  for the movie. (I am especially thankful for the cheap theaters.)
2. Papa Bear. I am thankful for a boyfriend who, although he may not understand my need for the occasional night of alone time where I must absolutely not see or touch anybody possible, he does respect it. He is good.
3. My house. I will not lie to you. This house is my favorite house ever. It is incredibly frustrating that nothing works (yet). I haven’t taken a normal shower since I’ve been here. My furnace doesn’t work so it’s been freezing. But the house is teaching me patience, it’s bringing me and the Bear together (I think), and every day I find something else to be grateful for. Like #4…
4. I’m grateful for my fireplace. My house is freezing and the hot water doesn’t work. Cold showers + cold house = cold pretty much all the time. But my fireplace functions normally, as we discovered yesterday. I love that it’s an actual wood burning fireplace and not a flipper switcher fireplace. I will never throw away a piece of paper in the trash for as long as I live here. And snuggling in front of a fire is about the best experience ever.
5. Jerry Seinfeld. I recently got the first season of Seinfeld on DVD. I’m not sure why, but Jerry Seinfeld is my most favorite comedian of all time. He’s clean and doesn’t drop the F bomb every two seconds and real. And I love him. I love that show. Good times.
6. I am grateful that I don’t have the same problems that the clients in our office have. This house has left me a little bit financially strapped. True story! But I look at the clients that come in, hear the stories that people call in, and my heart goes out to them. Still, I feel so grateful to be in the situation I’m in. However strapped and stressed it is, I can pinpoint several people who have it worse than I do. I hope I can make their lives better.

And that is all. Now I’m going to a movie and need to get a sandwich or a bucket of chicken to sneak in.

can you handle the truth?

I work for attorneys. I love my job. I really do. It is stress and makes me want to scream and people are crazy, but I like it. I think this is because I am a yellow and like pretty much most things. The red in me gets frustrated. The yellow in me wonders what is bugging Red so much. I don’t know what it is about law offices that strikes me as being so interesting. It could be that pretty much everyone is crazy, but the truth is I love my bosses.

Attorneys all love each other. The only people that my bosses will talk to without knowing who they are and what they want are other attorneys. My typical phone call routine is: “Law Office, this is Brittany, how may I help you? No, the attorney is unavailable at the moment. Can I help you with something?” If it’s a client, I try to help. If I can’t help, I take a message. If it’s an attorney, I snicker awkwardly and say, “Oh yes, Mr. Whatsaface, he actually is in.” I will then buzz my boss, tell him an attorney is on the phone, and a half an hour of school-girl-type giggling can be heard for the next half an hour.

Then there was the one time that I was at lunch with a friend. My two bosses were walking ahead of us and my friend says to me, “They are a pretty cute couple. Look how happy they look together.” I just laughed. I did not tell my friend they are my bosses, two married (to women) men. It would just ruin it. I did tell my boss, who looked at my other boss, who told me my friend is hereby unwelcome at the office. But pretty sure I caught a special glimpse pass between the two of them.

Attorneys are quirky. I recall working at a law firm a few years ago where my boss told me that no one should ever listen to country music. He then amended his statement, a special twinkle in his eye, as follows: “Except for Shania Twain. She can really sing, Brittany. She can really sing.” He made himself mixed tapes of every obnoxiously good old-man song ever. I have the fondest memories of sitting outside his office, listening to him sing along to Hamilton, Joe, Frank & Reynolds, Hall & Oates, and Gordon Lightfoot. His favorite of all time was Mamma Mia! but Shania held his heart.

(It goes without saying that when I got divorced, this is the attorney I went to first. And I’ll be darned if he didn’t give me a big hug and sit and talk with me for a good hour and a half about everything. Good fella.)

Attorneys like money. They do. Particularly more than the average person does, I think. My boss told us at staff meeting one day that he goes into the parking lot sometimes and weaves around the cars looking for change people have dropped. After a particularly good day of this vagabond-like behavior, he said, “I should take everyone out to lunch.” He never did. And by “everyone,” as it turns out, he meant “just me.”

So pretty much I’m feeling gross because I just wrote a blog about attorneys while I’m at work, all consumed with attorney-type stuff. I’m going to go home and shower. The end.

had it

I am blogging at the moment because I have had it. I just called a client to get copies of some documents that were not in the file they brought in. She insisted that she put them in there. I said “Okay, I’ll just have to double check because I couldn’t see them.” She said, “Okay, well gosh! Stop fighting with me about it!” and burst into flames. I mean… uh, tears.

Emotionally unstable as I am, I have difficulty with this kind of emotional instability in others. I choose to deal with it by looking adoringly at the following picture:

It’s my house! It’s a pretty little foreclosure (although 2,100 square feet is pretty big for just me) that I am getting for about $20,000 less than what I should be. As it turns out, the house we had in Logan technically is not mine (I was on the Deed but never on title), which means I am, for all intents and purposes, a first time home buyer. This means the government, bless its black little heart, wants to give me a whole bunch of money just for buying this precious little foreclosed house. If that scenario wasn’t perfect enough for you, Ogden is so ghetto that Ogden City wants to pay my down payment for me for actually wanting to buy a house in this sorry city.

Let’s add to that the fact that my real estate guy works in the office upstairs and got me a wicked sweet deal. I’m not going to lie. It’s got problems. (Let’s face it. It’s a foreclosure/short sale/house in Ogden.) The first being there are no appliances in the kitchen. Crud. Nope, just kidding. Problem solved. Real estate demigod is cutting me a check to cover the cost of appliances plus some “new tile” cash for–you guessed it! Ding ding! New tile! It’s a Christmas miracle.

And they lived happily ever after. With a big scary dog. And an alarm system.

scrooge behavior

I am struggling. I don’t like holidays. Unless Thanksgiving is considered a holiday. I like that one. But all the other ones… we can probably do without those. Let’s start with Halloween, since that is the one that is currently encroaching upon my life and choking me with its absurdness.

I don’t know how it happened but I started dating this guy a while back and he is not like me at all. I would say our primary difference can be encapsulated in the way each of us would handle the following situation:

Problem: You’re walking through the grocery store and see someone you know. Let’s say you don’t know them. Let’s say you saw each other once when you were five years old and you have a vague recollection of maybe seeing them once. And you could be mistaken.

Solution as per Steve: “Hey! It’s a guy I know!” Steve is usually happy to see anybody he recognizes as having seen before ever in his life, and will talk to them for many long times no matter what.

Solution as per Brittany: “Oh man. It’s someone I know.” Maybe I should leave. Maybe I don’t need to get groceries right now. Maybe they didn’t see me. Maybe I’ll hide. (I usually hide.)

So I am getting better as far as the sickness goes but I’m thinking this weekend will give me a little kick towards the sick side again. Steve, as Weber County MVP, knows everyone and everyone knows him. He came to be the Weber County MVP by being such a chipper, easy to get along with fella. Everyone loves him. That’s cool. That really is cool. I just wish he wouldn’t get invited to so many Halloween parties.

I haven’t been to a Halloween party in ages. I haven’t dressed up for Halloween since I was in elementary school. My Halloween plans over the last several years have included sitting in my pajamas watching a totally anti-Halloween movie, eating pizza with the lights off. The lights off, obviously, is an attempt to thwart trick-or-treaters from coming to my house. I usually rent a threatening-looking Rottweiler to sit on my front porch with a sign around its neck that reads: “I bite children. For no reason.”

But alas, plans change and I am apparently going to a Halloween party. TWO Halloween parties. For Steve’s friends. I hang with the awkward crowd who doesn’t have Halloween parties, I suppose. Not only that, but I am dressing up, and I am bringing a famously good seven layer bean dip to the event. Not only that, but the ingredients to compile said dip required an extra trip to the grocery store. Not only THAT, but we saw someone Steve knew at the grocery store and I had to make awkward conversation in front of the apple juice.

I’m waiting to feel better about this holiday but it’s not happening.

last of the “sick” posts

my diet for the next week and a half

I am really trying to be upbeat and positive about all of this. Truly I am. Today I woke up the same way I did Sunday—choking on my own spit. It was lovely. I called Papa Bear who took the morning off work to drive me to the clinic while I bawled my eyes out, sit with me in the waiting room while I bawled my eyes out, sat with me in my appointment while I bawled my eyes out, and took me to the pharmacy (while I bawled my eyes out) to get all of the prescriptions you see above (you guessed it, wibmeo). In case you wondered, I’m marrying him immediately. And chances are, I’ll bawl my eyes out.

ACK!

So after talking to my mom yesterday, I decided that my swollen tongue and throat and neck and eyes and face was a freak allergic reaction to one of the medicines I was taking that I have taken 25,000 times before. I went to the store and got Benadryl. I took the recommended dose (plus maybe an extra sip) and zonked out. The problem–for the past few days every time I have managed to fall asleep, I have woken up every ten minutes when I try to swallow and the pain wakes me up.

So after sleeping for a record-breaing twenty minutes, I wake up and… what the… can’t breathe? That’s not normal. I’m usually able to do stuff like that. I call the clinic and, gasping for air, explain what’s happening. They tell me there’s a 2 hour wait and that if my throat is closed up I should go to the ER. I text my friend to see if he can come give me a blessing, which he does (THANK YOU!) and we drive down to the ER. My goal: To have health insurance the next time I go to the ER. At any rate, the diagnosis is I have strep. After two shots in my bum–one for penicillin and one steroid to make the swelling in my throat go away (the latter feeling akin to having chocolate chip cookie dough injected into my rear–comfort!), I’m on my way home.

And I don’t think I have to tell you what Papa Bear, the world’s most amazing manfriend ever, was doing during all of these shenanigans. Besides snuggling with me, sitting with me, holding my hand, running miscellaneous errands for me, going to my office to pick up work I can do from home, and hauling his precious little bottom from California back to Utah just so he could be available to do all of these things for me… he hasn’t really been much help at all.

fables

Love David Sedaris. Got back a few minutes ago from seeing him at Capitol Theatre. Nearly collapsed laughing so hard. He announced he has a book of fables coming out to a bookstore near you sometime next year. He told a few. One was sad but they were all mostly inappropriate and hilarious. He posed an excellent point. “I’m not sure someone with such low moral fiber should write a book of fables. I think it makes it worse to add animals.”

True story, Dave. Love you though.

Some lines (paraphrasedish, sorry Dave) I would like to forever remember:

• The waiter spoke soothingly to the kookaburra, the way one would talk to a small child… who happened to be wielding a knife.
• I didn’t see that uglyass bobcat show two forms of identification!
• I used to talk to my mom about [something] all the time, but I can’t now. Do you know why? Oh, because she is dead.
• My dad barged in the room wearing just his regular clothes he always wore whenever he was not at work–which is to say, his underpants.

I love him, and I love Hugh. Even though Hugh apparently doesn’t “get stuff.” They just seem like my type of people. That’s all.

willy night

I don’t have anything specific to blog about. Here are things that are going through my head at the moment (in no particular order):

• There are two camps of people in the world. 1) Those who love Will Ferrell and are probably going to Hell soonish, and 2) Those who hate Will Ferrell and should probably see a professional about this problem immediately. I belong to the first camp. I hope to see Will Ferrell there. I need to shake that man’s hand and thank him for the cowbell. And for Emiliooooooooooo! The mighty duck man!
• I’m watching the best of Will Ferrell. Speaking of Cowbell, Christopher Walken is about the most awesome freaking old dude ever. I could watch this video 100 times per day and never grow weary. I love that man more than life. If 2:45 to 2:53 is not the best eight seconds of your life, punch me in the face.
• Papa Bear Plug: For those of you who haven’t met him yet, let me just confirm what critics are saying. This boy gets two enthusiastic thumbs up at all times. I have been sick, exhausted, and disgusting-looking all week long. PB has come over to my house every day this week and just sat, snuggled, and/or watched my boring movies with me every second he has. His already super-protective sweet awesomeness has kicked into overdrive this week. I don’t feel it necessary to convince anyone I’m a huge baby when I don’t feel good. Despite this, every second Papa Bear has available he is spending it with me making sure I’m being taken care of. Love.
• You know the adage or whatever it’s called about having strength in numbers? This is crap. Am I the only one who feels strongest when I’m by myself? I find strength in solitude. Papa Bear is on a man trip. I swear he has more friends than anyone I have ever known. He is a celebrity in this town. So when he goes on man trips for the weekend, I take the opportunity to watch “The Best of Will Ferrell” and take myself out to eat. Am I alone here? I went to a Chinese Buffet and there is something about being by myself, sitting in a booth, eating copies amounts of spring rolls, reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies that just… fits me.
• It’s for that reason that being a girlfriend is very often difficult for me. I struggle with the codependency sometimes. I think I’ve got it all worked out now. Papa Bear can take out my garbage for me as long as he realizes that I could very well do it myself. He seems to understand that sometimes I need to pay for dinner. And before he makes a suggestion he very often prefaces it with my favorite words: “I’m not telling you what to do here, but…” It’s like magic.
• Enough about that, I’m going to David Sedaris tomorrow. I could not be more pleased with myself. I did try to find someone to go with because for some reason there is a very distinct and weird difference between going to a movie or Lucky Buffet by yourself and going to an event in a theater by yourself. Anyway, I couldn’t (find anyone). No one, anyway, that wanted to pay $40ish bucks for a ticket to go see someone whose books they have never read talk about stuff. I’ve never actually been to one of these types of things before. I’m just praying that he tells the story about the poop at a dinner party. So good. The man is a genius. I swear it to you.

Wow. Those were all about men. I’m going to go hug myself now.

wild things = worst. bad. anger. awful. more adjectives please.

As described to Marci: This movie held promise for the first eight minutes. Then the rest of the movie happened. That review should be apt to describe, but in case it doesn’t, this blog has the best review of this movie I have read. It echoes every single one of my feelings about this movie, except it doesn’t quite articulate how much I hated it.

HATE.