CafeChatNoir

First, I’ll be perfectly honest – I thought JD Salinger was already dead. But hey, that’s what you get when you become a recluse.

I read Catcher in the Rye in high school. I didn’t have to read it for a class, though. (It’s weird, it seems most of my English classes didn’t have the traditional reading lists, and every year I’d get, “Didn’t you read this last year?” “No.”  Made college fun, too.)

But, I read it anyway. Personally, I found it to be a victim of the hype. It seriously had zero impact on me.  This could be an indicator that I was a complete unfeeling bitch at the time, but all I remember thinking was, “Your life sucks, we get it.”  I really could not fathom what the big deal was over the whole thing.

Whatever your point may have been JD, it was lost on me.  Sorry about that.

Despite the somewhat unfortunate name, the iPad looks incredibly cool.

From what I can tell, it looks a bit like a cross between a Kindle and an iPhone, which again – incredibly cool. However, having no need for a Kindle or an iPhone, I also have no need for a combination of the two. But I almost wish I did, cause damn, it is shiny! The price points run from $499 to $829 right now, but I do wonder when it will change. (Maybe it’s just me, but it seems that Apple tends lower their price points pretty quickly. Could be my imagination though.)

But, if you’re an AT&T subscriber, enjoy your bandwidth while you have it, because they are once again partnering with AT&T, and I just
can’t say I have any faith in AT&T to be able to keep up with the demand if this thing turns out to be really popular.

Still…SHINY!!!

As you know, I am the Chairman and CEO of “Keep Grandma Out Of A Nursing Home, Inc.” Like any startup, the first 18 months were hell – one cranky client, no suppliers, on call 24/7 and spending most of my time beating my head into a wall and tearing my hair out. Then, things finally started to come together, reliable help was found, I get to sleep through the night again, and things are running almost in a manner that could be considered “smooth”. This is the point in the business cycle where another enterprise comes along and buys me out for a ridiculous sum of money.

UnitedHeath and HCA – I’m looking at you guys. You both made some nice profits last year, and after all – I am your competition! Let the bidding wars begin.

In other news, my neighbor just called and asked, “So, do you know where your dog is?” “Um, I’m betting he’s not in the backyard like I think he is…” Seems the side gate blew open and he had himself a little adventure. At least he doesn’t go far afield when this happens, and it was just a matter of opening the door and saying, “Ohh, Moxley?” and he was back in and barking at the cats.

ProTip: If you have less than great depth perception, and lack grace & coordination – stay away from things that can hit you in the head – like doors. My temple is STILL hurting from whacking my head on the door yesterday. (Seriously, how the hell do you walk into a door?)

Cause I’m not feeling it just yet. Could just be the sucky weather reports for the next couple days, but it’s just not been a whole lot better than 2009.

The back window in my car has decided that it doesn’t want to work anymore, which would normally be something that I’d simply leave alone for another time, but unfortunately, the window is open about an inch and a half, and as such, actually needs to be tended to. So, I’m looking at being carless for a couple days and that annoys me, too.

There was a 6.1 magnitude aftershock in Haiti today. WTF, Mother Nature, didn’t have enough fun with the first one?

It’s sounding more and more like the health care legislation may be dead, so yay, I can look forward to my premiums continuing to rise unabated, despite my decent health and fabulous looks, and then being cancelled if I ever have to actually use it.

I have taken to turning off the ringer on the phone in my bedroom and leaving my cell phone downstairs at night because I’m done with answering tax question calls from my grandmother at 3AM. (She has a little problem with boundaries and bothering to look at clocks.) I’m pretty sure this makes me a bad person, but I need sleep to effectively be the CEO of “Keep Grandma out of a Nursing Home, Inc.” and she certainly has no problems picking up the phone during the day.

On the upside, the animals are all quite well. Carmen decided to have herself a good old fashioned feline crazy this morning and was chasing me, the dog, invisible bugs, and anything else that caught her eye. However, the Christmas tree is a little worse for the wear for her fun this morning. She is happily sleeping on my lap as I type this, which thrills Moxley to no end, because it means she is not in his crate. He was not having a super awesome time this afternoon as he couldn’t sleep in his crate because Carmen was in it (why he won’t just walk in and sit on her is beyond me) and Lily kept trying to sleep on his tail and feet. (She LOVES him and is also just a little obsessed with his feet.)

So yeah 2010 – I’m just not impressed so far. We’re stuck with each other for 11+ more months, so let’s get it together, shall we?

You stepped in it again, basically telling an impoverished country that they have no one to blame but themselves for a horrid natural disaster.  Uncaring, unfeeling, and most certainly, unChristian to say the least.

Why couldn’t you have said something like this?

“First, what a terrible tragedy to befall the Haitians.  They are in our prayers.

Second, given that I can marshal some pretty impressive resources with a snap of my fingers, here’s what we’re gonna do.  First,we’re gonna charter some bigassed airplanes.  The biggest that can land at the Port Au Prince airport.  The first one we’re gonna load up with doctors and medical supplies.  The second one will have MRE’s, bottled water and water purification kits.  Third one will be new, clean clothes.  (No Tennessee Lane Kiffin shirts, either.)  The fourth one, we’re gonna go clear out the entire stock of tents and camping equipment at REI, cause a tent is still better than nothing.  And generators.  And we’ll grab some of those kids that work at REI so we’ve got people who know how to put the tents together.

Once we’ve got everyone fed, safe and in clean socks and underwear, we’re gonna start sending planes filled with building equipment and as many retired Seabees as we can get our hands on and start fixing things.”

But no, you decided to go with the, “It’s your own damn fault for making a pact with Satan” approach.  Yeah, I guess you could have easily gone either way.

I woke up this morning in a house that was still standing, in a town that has an actual working infrastructure, I can easily locate all my friends and family, and I can just walk to my kitchen and get myself a cup of coffee and lunch.

I’m light years ahead of the folks in Haiti today. I cannot even imagine what you would do when you lose everything – and to top it all off, there’s nowhere you can go because everything else is destroyed too.  Where do you even start?  Hope someone has an extra tent and that there is some food somewhere that isn’t under a collapsed building?  How do you even decide it’s worth it to go on, especially somewhere like Haiti, where life was no great shakes to begin with?

Yeah, my cranky furnace and tempremental toilet handles really aren’t much of an issue.

Yeah, I know, it’s technically Tuesday, but the muse is still on PHX time.

– Carmen is about 91% back to normal. She still looks at the ceiling fans with a suspicious eye, but is back to hanging out in the living room, and decided food was the winner in the fear of ceiling fan vs. eating in the bedroom. It may seem silly that it worried me as much as it did, but it’s just a tiny bit heartbreaking to not be able to explain that the ceiling fan is not a predator. Lily still looks at the ceiling fans and then looks at me with an expression of, “Seriously, I don’t get the issue here.” Or it’s, “WTF, why is the fan off?” I’m not quite sure which it is.

– Is it wrong that when I come in and want to know where the kittens are I say, “Where are my single ladies?!” and then sing a few bars from Beyonce’s Single Ladies song? They do show up when I sing it. (And I use the term “singing” loosely.)

– Sharyn* called today, and I’ll admit my first thought when seeing her number on the Caller ID was, “WTF has my grandmother done???” Yes, I know I’m going to hell for that. But, it was just an update. First being that the hot water heater is ON – and to expect some calls about that. (I couldn’t even get her to voluntarily leave it on when we stayed with her. So I just turned it on and didn’t tell her.) But, she’s not been super great about showering of late, for several understandable reasons that I am completely speculating upon because she won’t actually tell anyone:

a) Afraid she’ll fall & hurt herself
b) Not like she’s out running a marathon
c) Doesn’t give a rat’s ass, cause she’s 87 years old
d) Hot water costs money

But Sharyn is getting her a shower seat (the shower has a built in bench, but she could quite easily slide right off it it – hell, *I* could slide off it were I not paying attention) and will be there so my grandmother knows if she has any issues, help is immediately there. (And as Sharyn said, “Hell, if she wants me to get naked too, I’ll do it.” God bless this woman.)

Additionally, we’d previously talked about Meals on Wheels for more hot food options**, but they’re kind of insistent on “coming in & helping” and my grandmother just is NOT comfortable having strangers about (which I think is a good thing) and Sharyn did a little more poking around and one of the local hospitals does a pretty kick ass meal plan that can be picked up, which is better for all helping out. Given my grandmother’s good financial situation***, it will cost……$4 a meal. Christ, our Chinese takeout tonight cost way more than that. And she was reading one of the menus to me – Swiss steak, mashed potatoes, green beans, salad & milk. Hell, where do *I* sign up for that?

I’m very glad she found this, cause she has been cooking up things to take over to my grandmother, which is awesome, but I’m really glad to have this off her plate (so to speak) because I do worry that she’s doing too much already, despite her protestations to the contrary.

* The angel sent from heaven to Sun City to prevent me from tossing my grandmother into the middle of traffic on Bell Road.
** My grandmother would live on sandwiches & ice cream if left to her own devices. I am at the point of “Whatever the hell she wants” but I am outvoted, LOL. She will eat *anything* you put in front of her, but will never admit that she’d like anything beyond sandwiches & ice cream. As I have said before, she’s taken self deprivation to an art form.
*** I have told my grandmother on more than a few occasions that if I had her resources at her age, I’d be ordering Lobster Thermador & a Cabana Boy every night. I will be getting the contact info for this hospital meal plan and a nice donation will be made so they can help a few more people who *can’t* afford it, because frankly, she’s being ridiculously undercharged for this service.

And it would seem that it’s Carmen. Yesterday morning I heard her go skittering off the little food table in the bedroom and under the bed. Didn’t really think anything of it, as she’s not always graceful and she splits her time about 50/50 between under the bed and on the bed.

What I did not realize until later was that apparently she looked at the ceiling fan and went “OMG, spinning blades of death from above!” I figured this out when she wouldn’t come into the living room, and when she got near the entry to the room, she wouldn’t take her eyes off the ceiling fan…

She will come into the living room briefly and look up and then decide, “Um, no, this isn’t working for me” and back to the dining room she goes. Other than that, she’s acting completely normally. With the bedroom, she’s now splitting her time between the walk-in closet and under the bed with the dog.

I really, REALLY hope she can get over this soon, because
a) I will need to have the fans on when summer comes around,
b) I miss having my lapcats, cause Lily is enjoying the dining room with Carmen, and
c) I don’t want her to be scared for the rest of her life – she’s too sweet to be scared.

Christ, in what I can only describe as being seriously self obsessed, the Australian arm of the fast food chain Kentucky Fried Chicken has had to withdraw an advertisement after accusations of racial insensitivity from AMERICANS who saw the ad on the internet.

It showed a white cricket fan trying to pacify a group of rowdy West Indian fans by handing around fried chicken.

Good grief, way to be morally superior and absolutely idiotic at the same time for not being able to take into account the fact that THE REST OF THE WORLD ISN’T LIKE US, and not everyone is offended by the same things we may be offended by.

Oh and the fact that the team in question WASN’T FROM the deep south of the US*, and therefore any unfortunate stereotypes of African Americans & fried chicken most likely don’t even apply in the first place.

I will not even enter the debate over KFC itself. It’s awesome in it’s own perfect way. (The number of times I have sent out SO’s or family members for a 3 piece with mashed potatoes & coleslaw when I’m feeling under the weather is proof itself.)

*I’m not saying that there aren’t cricket clubs in the states that are considered the “deep south” of the US. I have no doubt that there are cricket clubs all over the United States. But this ad didn’t have a team from Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina or any other state that might be considered the “deep south” in the United States. It was the WEST freakin INDIES.

About 20 minutes ago the power went out. At last check there were 3500 customers without power in the area because a circuit breaker apparently did it’s job and broke. Estimated time of restoration? 5:00PM, which isn’t too bad, except for the fact that it is 38 degrees out and it’s a tad chilly to not have heat. Gas furnaces are great, unfortunately the blower requires electricity.

This is why I begged my mother to put in a gas oven/range when she remodeled the kitchen. I could at least reheat my lunch that way. We do at least have hot water, so I can continue to make coffee. (Lunch will be Christmas chocolates.)

The dog is rather unnerved by the silence and has gone outside to look for squirrels to bark at. The cats simply don’t give a damn.

As if that wasn’t fun enough, the handle on one of the toilets just broke off in my hand. I went through the spare parts inventory and it seems I managed to break a piece we don’t have an extra part for.

Maybe it’s just time to start pouring Jamesons in the coffee…