Take my breath away

Have I ever mentioned that I have seasonal allergies? Yes, from spring to fall. My only break is winter when I’ll end up with the flu instead. I ended up getting a job at school and the first day I’m going to meet everyone I work with I wake up with an itchy, swollen, watery, glassy, bloodshot eye. Nice huh?

This isn’t actually that bad. It’s usually worse but somehow I managed to stop myself from rubbing and scratching my eyes before it got REALLY bad. After having a conversation with my Aunt about allergies I have surrendered to the world of over the counter drugs and bought some Zyrtec-D. We are going to the land of Lincoln (Illinois) for Sugarmomma’s family reunion. This is truly a rural small town community where everyone knows each other and you’re either a farmer or you work in one of the businesses in town. My allergies are always out of control when we go there. Sneezing with no exaggeration 50 times in a row, or last year for no reason at all my eye wouldn’t stop itching and was so bloodshot it looked like it was bleeding and was swollen to half it’s size. Of course there are all the other discomforts of allergies that worsen when visiting there like the stuffy nose, watery eyes, itchy throat, itchy nose. So in an attempt to not be completely miserable there I decided to try the Zyrtec. I have to say that so far it’s amazing. I thought I’d try a couple days off since I’m going to be on it for 24 hours a day for several days starting tomorrow. I hope it works this good when we are in allergyville tomorrow. I usually go the all natural route which works fairly good, until I get to the real country side. I can tell a big difference not taking the Zyrtec.

I decided to tackle the basement today for two reasons. One is I can’t find some recipes of my mom’s that I want to use and thought they might be down there. Two, since we had an obscene amount of rain and our basement had some flooding issues and I saw mold down there I wanted to finish mopping the basement with bleach water to make sure it gets stopped before a major outbreak happens and the house in condemned. After moving some boxes around and transferring some of the contents into a plastic bin I found an antique camera from Sugarmomma’s grandpa completely covered in mold. The box stunk like mold, mildew, mustiness. That makes me so crabby and sad to see that covered in black furry mold. It was a really cool camera that still worked and still had film and now it might be ruined. After being down there for 15-20 minutes I could feel the dampness getting to me. The stuffiness set in and I just felt like I couldn’t breathe down there. How scary that it can have an affect so quickly. I bleached the floors and walls as well as the wood on the staircase and got the hell outta there as quickly as I could.

Horrible

I swore I wasn’t going to be one of those horrible bloggers who updated a mere few times a year and I’m afraid I’m turning into that blogger already. I am going to really try to get all my thoughts out there for all zero readers to read instead of just thinking them over in my head and never posting them.

So much to catch up on. Sugarmomma turned 30! Had a big party and had father in law and step mom were in town and staying with us. I’m exhausted. The week leading up the the party both of us of course get sick. I also have horrible allergies from spring through fall. So not being able to breath and wanting to rip my eyes out of me face scratch them with sandpaper and scour them with scalding water while sneezing so hard I pee and have snot dripping down my face is not the most productive way to get ready for a party. It was a lot of work but I think it turned out pretty good for my first “real” party.

Our new neighbors coincidentally had a party the same day. The last girl in the group was turning “21″. Most normal people go OUT TO THE BARS when they turn 21, but not our neighbors. No, instead they have a party at home and terrorize us until the wee hours of the morning with stink and loudness. There were cars everywhere, people everywhere, loudness everywhere, the stench of beer mixed with cigarette smoke was everywhere. It was a long night. Sugarmomma found this in our mailbox two days later.
We don’t think Alisha works. We think only one of the four people next door work, Marissa works while her two roommates and boyfriend hang out with the dog and play video games all day. Alisha can be seen sitting in her car and talking on her cell phone while smoking cigarettes for hours every. I think she is in there smoking pot cause she doesn’t seem the quickest when you talk to her and we have overheard (we think it was her) saying that she is Sssooo high.

Denika called me today to try and set up a payment plan for my “deliquintile” credit card. I was confused and not understanding her mumbles asked her to repeat what she had stated and I also asked what credit card this was for. She said let me just get some information to verify I’m talking to the right person. Did you live on County line or is it country lane? I was like no, never, I never lived there. She asked me again if I lived in Roger, Wisconsin on county road? I said NO I never lived there. What credit card is this for? She asked if I was Common first name, Common last name with the middle initial of “S”? I said no I was Common first name, Common last name with the middle initial “R”. She said oh ok and hung up on me. What the fuck kind of bullshit is that? Is this some kind of a scam or should I be worried that people are trying to steal my identity, or am I going to have to deal with this bullshit because my common name gets on some sort of “list”?  Then you call my house about 68 times within 3 weeks and when I finally answer and deal with your WRONG information you don’t even apologize AND hang up on ME! I should be the one doing the hanging up bitch.

And lastly, school is over. I worked my ass off and got a fucking B+ in English. That pisses me off so much. I am probably one of the smartest and more talented writers in the class and I got a fuckingB+. My hard work paid off for the rest of my classes with A’s. For the first time in my life I got an A in MATH. My professor told me I should consider going into mathematics, that I really have a good understanding of how things work not just what I’m supposed to do on the surface of things. That was a huge shock but also really nice to hear. I never got enouragement growing up nor did I get compliments much so it’s hard to accept it as much as I crave that kind of feedback.

I really liked my communications professor and I’m sad she doesn’t teach any other classes. She was nice enough to write a letter of recommendation for me for a scholarship I applied for and ended up getting. I wanted to say how much I enjoyed her two classes and was going to miss her but there were a bunch of students around us who were all rushing about and I was rushing and I had to get studying for another exam. I hate feeling like there is unfinished business.

Last week I FINALLY picked all my classes for the fall semester. I am going to take a psychology class which I’m really looking forward to. However, I am scared because I got a job in the student services office and I’m worried about not having as much time to work on school. I really don’t want to have my grades affected, but I also can’t keep being jobless forever. I start working in July so I only have a few days of freedom left. We are going to travel next week for Sugarmomma’s family reunion and then will have a few days before I start working. I am going to their office retreat this friday. I’ll have to explain the whole situation afterwards in a new post, but I’m really dreading it. Help.

Dinner

I came home after spending all $150 worth of target gift cards I had on cat litter, Dawn, toilet paper,zantac, and tongs, and was so ravenously hungry that I ate a huge plate of bag salad. Complete with the stem in it, yum. Followed by a half a bag of cool ranch Doritos. Now I’m going to fall into a diabetic coma for an hour or so and when I wake up I’ll try and keep my eyes open and focused long enough to simplify polynomial long division <gag>.

Blizzard of 2008

Yesterday the whole state was canceled due to weather. Most of the state was hit with a nasty snow storm that produced up to 20 inches of snow. That’s right 20. We only got about 16-18 inches. I thought it was going to continue snowing throughout the night and the today but it didn’t.

At 10pm last night I realized that I had to go to class the next morning and that I hadn’t read the chapter and taken notes for our quiz. I stayed up to almost 1am preparing all my notes.

The best part of wakin’ up,it was not like that here. I was woken up in the morning to the sounds of sugarmomma shoveling outside the bedroom window, little nieces yelling and laughing, toothbrushes that sing songs, cords being hit against the wall in a fury to get ready on time and have your hair straightened, nieces that want to show you their rash but you can’t understand what they are saying because they are missing all four front teeth, and best of all: the sound of sugarmomma’s coat zipper slapping into the sides of the dryer over and over because she can’t stand wearing a damp coat and has to dry it immediately after shoveling. 

Paint Whore

This is what I have been for the last two and half weeks. First the kitchen, see previous post. Now the bedroom. We decided on a light blue color. But to avoid tragedies like the kitchen I decide to put a coat of primer on. It’s like putting the thickest oil you can find on your walls. You drip it on the floor and it dries within seconds before you can wipe it. By the time you get down off your ladder or make shift ladder and start wiping it up it’s half dried and you just make a giant smear instead of a little drip. So you finally finish and try to clean up and thinking some HOT water will melt away the oil you realize that it just makes it easier to smear around and you make an even larger mess than what you started with, so you throw it all away and waste some more money at the hardware store buying all new supplies.

So today temper tantrum went like this:

Put on painting clothes and shoes, move furniture again and trip on it several times, recover plastic on all furniture, remove cats from room, trip on plastic covering bed and then recover bed, get out piece of shit vacuum and trip on cord, begin vacuuming and remove dog and cat from room, trip on vacuum, finish vacuuming, since you don’t like the color and you want it lighter you get out old white paint from basement and get even more pissy while you realize that there are no buckets or any other meaningless containers to mix paint in, returning the the site of paint hideousness the crappy screwdriver I have won’t open the old paint can, instead it’s just unrolling the rolled edge of metal on the lid, throwing said screwdriver on the floor making a huge gouge and almost getting a hernia trying to pick myself up off the floor because I am so sore and tired from moving furniture and moving chairs and reaching to corners that I am weak and it takes almost all my energy to get up, get new screwdriver after tripping on rug in hallway, on the way back to paint cans realize that there is a trail of paint because I stepped in a drip and stomped it through half the house and now have to clean it up, after mixing paints and getting it all over gloves realize there is a cat hiding underneath the plastic on the desk and you have to take off the gloves pick up cat and remove from room and slam the door, half the hair that was on the cat is now on your shirt and falls into paint cans, after removing hair and mixing paint the music is cranked up so no one hears my moans of anger and disgust and stomping and slamming, finally after an hour of painting I decide that instead of waiting until tomorrow and going to get MORE supplies from hardware store and having to move and vacuum everything again I will paint the third coat tonight, so I wrap up all painting supplies in Plastic wrap so I don’t have to clean and wash it.  Now I wait and try to calm myself before beginning again.

I just want it over. No more plastic, moving furniture, cleaning up, running to store for one or two more things. I want a day off without having to do anything.

The moral is that painting is never as simple as it sounds. The preparation, process, and cleanup always take three times as long as you thought and three times the energy. Painting, tripping, and hair cause extreme crabbiness.

Flaming Sword

Almost the entire past week has been spent prepping and painting the  god damn kitchen. Sugarmomma and I decided that my winter break project would be to paint. A year ago February we moved in and had asked the landlord about painting and she said as long as it can be painted over it’s fine, she’d reimburse us for the paint. We are finally getting to it. For the kitchen we chose Flaming Sword, which looks nothing like that in real life. Do you remember the crayola crayon color Brick Red? That’s what it reminds me of. I’m not sure if you can really paint over that but too late. Flaming sword is the biggest flaming bitch of a color to paint. No one ever really taught me how to paint. I just kind of learned by experience. I have never painted with a dark color and I of course didn’t do it right. I put on 3 coats and it still looked crappy, streaky, BRIGHT red instead of the deep color it was supposed to be. After a trip to the hardware store and a lesson in how to paint I put on the 4th coat. Thank god it looks much better because I was about to shit my pants with frustration and worry that it would never be ok ever again.

Hypocratic Oath

Should I feel bad that I haven’t worked since the end of June and yet I am enjoying the day we set aside for the working class? Does this day even make any sense? I feel like a Hypocrite that I’m taking advantage of the day that is reserved as a special vacation day for those people who work so hard. Their one last day to enjoy the summer, one extra chance to go swimming, grill out, take the kids someplace special, go fishing, go “up north”, or go camping. So to escape the feelings of non-worthiness we are going to clean and go cut the grass at sugarmomma’s momma’s house. That will definitely make up for it!

Sugarmomma’s momma has dementia. Although she can still live by herself and is aware of her surroundings and capable of doing moderate activities. She can’t drive, cut the lawn, cook very well, organize and take her pills properly. So we are there several times a week helping out. You shouldn’t be 29 and having to take care of a parent already.

Happy not working day!