the passionate ailurophile

So Bare Escentuals is having a HUGE sale on their website.  I was happily snapping up some bargains, and was ready to check out, when I saw those damning words:  “sorry, we cannot ship to P.O. boxes at this time”.

That made me empty my cart and leave the site.  I guess I’ll just have to pay full price at the store or at another site  that sells the product.

As you may well know, I CANNOT GET ANY MAIL OR PACKAGES AT HOME.  Well, I guess I COULD, but it’s risky, because much of our stuff was getting lost or mis-delivered, due to the ineptitude of The Evil Post Office, FedEx, and now, UPS.  UPS used to be okay, but now not even they can get it right.

So when I shop online, I have only two choices for delivery – the P.O. box, or Mike’s work.  Normally, this is not a problem, but it would be a problem for him to get a box at work, addressed to him (because I don’t work there), with BARE ESCENTUALS all over it.  I know what the boxes look like.

Mike could certainly just tell tell the mail room dude, “it’s for my wife”, but how much you wanna bet the mail room dude will go “yeah, right, whatever”.  And then it’ll be all over the office in an hour that Mike had a box from a makeup company shipped to him at work.  Will he show up at work the next day in some RuPaul getup?  Granted, he’d never be able to pull it off anywhere near as well as RuPaul does, but still.  People, including his bosses, might hear about the makeup thing and think he’s “weird”, which is not a good thing in this economy.

It would be one thing is he had a box of industrial supplies shipped to him at work, but makeup? Nope. Can’t do it! Maybe none of this would happen, but I still won’t risk embarrassing him that way.

Hey, I have absolutely no problem with guys who want to make like RuPaul.  But many of them are still in the closet about it, and  have to be careful where they buy their female goodies and where they have them shipped to.  And no man who doesn’t want to make like RuPaul wants to even be remotely suspected of doing so.

So these companies need to ship to P.O. boxes already!  There is usually a reason why someone would use a P.O. box, and they often have no place else that is safe to have the order sent to.

So tonight this website lost a good-sized sale.  And I did let them know about it.

And it came today…we had it sent to his office, because that is the best way for it NOT to get lost in transit.  We can’t really get any deliveries here at home, and not everyone will ship to a P.O. box, but having stuff sent to a business works.

I’ve been eyeballing this thing since Virgin Mobile started having it earlier this year.  I am also impressed with the pricing, just $10 extra a month on top of one of their “Beyond Talk” plans.  I was paying $25 a month for this with my old phone, now it’s $35 a month with the BlackBerry.  Not a bad deal, people I know who are stuck with contracts are paying much more.  I refuse to have a contract, and swore I would only have a smartphone if I could get one without a contract.  Well, that time has finally come!

It’s gonna take some time for me to learn this thing.  Luckily, there exists a book called BlackBerry Curve For Dummies, and I bought it for my Kindle so I won’t have to wait for it.  I am serious need of such a book, as there is so much to this phone, the manuals that came with it are almost useless, and I need all the help I can get!

So far, I have Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare apps working on this thing, all have been tested.  This phone supposedly has GPS, so I should not have to search for venues when I check into places via Foursquare; we’ll see how that works when I actually go somewhere and try to use it.  It did find Murphy’s Cathouse, which is my house, so at least that part works.

It was nice to get my new toy today, as I had a rather annoying day.  We’re still living in the middle of a construction zone, the people next door have been hammering and banging away since the butt-crack of dawn, and it was driving me nuts!  Sounds like someone was beating on stainless steel drums all damned day! I would have gone out somewhere, but it was raining like hell, and I didn’t want to deal with that crap.

If the rain stops tomorrow, I might go out somewhere to watch the Red Sox game, drink beer, and play with my new toy.  The Sox are supposed to have an afternoon game tomorrow, maybe I’ll take the T into town somewhere to watch it, since we don’t have cable at home.

Which reminds me…does the MBTA have a BlackBerry app?  I sure could use one, so I can see the schedules.

Mike is such a good husband!  He doesn’t really understand why I want toys like this, but he gets them for me anyway!

Lots of STUPH!  Okay, over the weekend of August 7-8, we went up to Manchester for a couple of Fisher Cats games, including the second annual “Renew Your Wedding Vows Night” on Saturday the 7th.  That was a lot of fun; here’s the pic they took of us.  I know it’s small, but I stole it off of their website.  I am hoping that they will send everybody a nicer high-res version, as they did last year.  If they don’t get to it soon, I may just contact them and ask for one.

Also that weekend, we officially became Fisher Cats season ticket holders.  I hadn’t even known that they were on sale for next year yet, not until we saw an ad on the video board about a “season ticket table” on the concourse.  So we sought out said table, and signed up.  Mike and I had talked about doing this for a while now, as we go there so much as it is, and it really is our favorite ballpark.  We have a mini-plan there now for all Sunday home games, but we wanted more.  We also have our favorite seats, and it’s been frustrating to try to get them when we bought tickets not in the mini-plan.  Often we do, sometimes, we can’t.  So now we bought them, and we will hug them and love them and squeeze them and call them George.

And, dammit, tomorrow night’s game will be the LAST time that I will ever have to stand in line with the general riff-raff to get a bobblehead when they are giving them away.  It’s Kevin Youkilis bobblehead night, and I’m going to be there ASAP to get mine!  But as full season ticket holders, we get to jump the line and get the goods 30 minutes before the general riff-raff.  Neener, neener, neener.

Last Thursday, we went to a concert at the Fisher Cats ballpark – 1964 – The Tribute.  This is a Beatles tribute band, and they were awesome.  Don’t tell anyone, but I would have gladly paid more than the ten bucks that the tickets each cost for this show.  And we probably will; in January they are returning to Manchester to play at the Palace Theatre.  We plan on being there.

This past Sunday, we went to the PawSox game.  It was fun seeing Red Soxer Dustin Pedroia doing a rehab sting, but frankly, this is NOT our favorite ballpark.  It’s okay, but we’ve agreed that Pawtucket is a shit town, and most of the rest of Rhode Island isn’t that great, either.  Plus, they are too kid-centric at that ballpark; they only give out their bobbleheads to kids 14 and under.  Everyone else gives them to fans of all ages, as long as they arrive in time to get one.  I don’t think we’ll miss McCoy Stadium all the much should we not bother to go back next year.  We will be too busy with our Fisher Cats season tickets, anyway.

One thing I WILL miss about going down that way is the British Beer Company.  We had been stopping at the one in Walpole, MA, on the way home from the PawSox, as it’s pretty much on the way.  Another sucky thing about Pawtucket is that there are really no decent restaurants there; I guess if you want a good meal in the Ocean State, you have to go into Providence, where we’ve found that you have to take out a bank loan to park.  Who do they think they are, Boston?  And half of the decent places offer only valet parking, which I absolutely HATE.  I think you know why, I’m not about to turn over the Cat-mobile keys to some pimply teenager who looks like he just got his license yesterday, to park it in some unknown and possibly illegal space, where it could be towed and then cause more problems for us.  No thanks.  Self-park at a reasonable fee, no blocking, no having to give keys to an attendant, or we just don’t go there.

So the BBC in MA has become our go-to place when we are down that way.  Great food, great beer selection.  The only annoying thing about the trip there was getting gas on the way; we stopped at this Mobil station and the receipt printer at the pump seemed to be busted; this sort of thing annoys Mike more than it does me. But it annoys me when he bitches about it as if it were some serious tragedy.

So we’re going to the Fisher Cats game tomorrow night.  Since it is a weeknight game, I’m going up on the bus, and Mike will meet me there.  Makes more sense than his getting out of work early, coming home to get me, and then going back the way he came, past his work, to get to Manchester.  When we have season tickets next year, I am going to need a discounted buss pass, which they do offer.

Well, that’s about it for the moment!

Yep.  Another weird dream!

I have recurring dreams in which I’m forever trying to get out of going to school.  Why, I don’t know, because I haven’t been to school in 15 years.  In the dreams, I am almost always wearing a Catholic school uniform (I spent nine years in Catholic school back in the day).  And I’m almost always sneaking regular clothes and makeup into my backpack, then I’d find a place to change.  After that I’d usually go to a bar.

I’m never sure how old I am in these dreams, because the bartenders always serve me, never asking to see my I.D.  But I’m always living at home with my parents, who are the ones forcing me to go to school.

Anyhoo, in this particular dream, I was cheating at Foursquare.  My phone does not have GPS, so it’s easy to cheat if I wanted to (but in real life, I don’t cheat).  I was sitting at this bar called Quigley’s, which was a real place that I used to hang out in when I lived and worked in Washington, D.C.  I don’t know if it’s even there anymore.  But I was drinking a beer and checking-into school, so that my parents would think that I was there.  Another weird thing – in the dreams, I never get in trouble for cutting school.

Back in the days when I was still wearing a school uniform, there were no cell phones, no Foursquare, no Facebook or Twitter – hell, Al Gore hadn’t even invented the internet yet.  Even more weirdness.

No doubt you’ve all heard the big news story – this flight attendant dude cusses out an obnoxious customer, grabs a beer from the airplane galley, and exit the plane in a “blaze of glory”.  According to a story on MSNBC, many laud this guy as a hero, for doing what most of us want to do at one point or another in our working lives.

Well, I can’t say I’ve taken it that far, but once I came pretty close.  Some of you long-time readers know of The Applebee’s Saga, but for you newbies (welcome to all new Facebook friends!), I will relate the tale again, something I really never get tired of doing.

Years ago, Mike was a grad student at MIT, and I was working a series of shit  jobs, one of said jobs as a cook at the local Crapplebee’s in our shit town.  This place was a hellhole from the get-go, but I tried to make it work, we needed the money.

Getting a day off for anything was like pulling teeth.  I had managed to snag tickets to both home games of the 1997 Red Sox playoffs, the first round.  Tickets were a lot cheaper back then, but it was still a bit of a stretch for us.  But we’ve skimped and saved and cut back on fun stuph for a long time, we felt we deserved a treat.  So I put in for the two days off, and made the mistake of telling the boss that we had the playoff tickets.  I guess I was just excited about it.  But looking back, I would have kept that under wraps.

Why?  Because the kitchen manager told me that I could have the days off.  But then, when the schedule went up, guess who was scheduled to work on those two days?  Yes, yours truly.  When I complained to the manager dude, he said that there was nothing he could do, and actually asked if he could have my tickets?  What a seriously large pair of gonads HE had!

I told him to stick it, that I was going to the games whether he gave me the time off or not, and if he wanted a full staff, he’d change the schedule, or else he’d be shirt-handed and have to *yikes* actually work the line himself.

We went to the games, the Sox were eliminated, but at least we got to go.

But it doesn’t end there.  Further down the road, one night there was a call for me from Beth Israel Hospital in Boston.  Mike, who I was not yet married to at the time, just a-shackin’ up, had suffered a heart attack at MIT and was at Beth Israel.  At first, the Crapplebee’s people were nice, told me to go and not to worry about work.  So I did.

He was in the CCU for almost a week.  When he finally came to and was moved to a regular room, I decided to call Crapplebee’s to return to work, because we needed the money.  I made it clear from the get-go that I only wanted to work part time, no closing for a while, not until Mike was up and about again.  They agreed to that, so I went back.

It didn’t take long to see what lying sacks of shit they were.  They promised just a few days a week, no late nights, they had me for closing every night that week!  It was just too much.  I was at the hospital in the daytime, working at night, and sleeping never.  The place closed at midnight, I was clocked out automatically at midnight, but was usually there until 1-2 AM cleaning (for free).

Then, one day at the hospital, the doctor wanted to release Mike.  We did not have a car at the time, so this would be time-consuming, I had to go home and get clothes and stuff, and then we’d have to go home in a cab.  I called Crapplebees, told them that I was needed because Mike was being released.  The new kitchen manager, some bitch named Gayle (the guy who tried to steal my Sox tickets had since left), said no, not unless I find my own replacement.  To appease her, I called the people who were not already working, both said no.  I could not blame them.  I called Gayle the Bitch back and told her, too bad, you knew my situation when you made the schedule, not my problem that you have me working almost 24/7.  I told her I was sorry I even agreed to come back.  She told me I had to come in anyway, and then I hung up on her.

I went and did what I had to do.  Then I went back to work the next night, the bitch hadn’t fired me because she needed her little slave.  But the working conditions got worse and worse.

It all came to a head on one Sunday night.  Gayle was not there; the manager on duty was some other jerk who hated me for taking time off for family issues and such.  For all I knew, his ass had to get behind the line when I wasn’t there.  Business was very slow, so slow that this manager cut half the wait staff, and sent everybody in the kitchen home except me and this new guy who was on his second day.  Even the dishwasher.  This pissed me off, because that meant more unpaid slavery (anything past midnight was unpaid, as I mentioned before).

Then it got busy.  So busy, that the manager jerk and the servers kept coming back and yelling at me for not getting the food out fast enough.  The new guy was useless, so I was pretty much working all of the stations, kind of like how Bugs Bunny played all nine positions in that cartoon, Baseball Bugs.  Too bad I’m not nearly as fast and adept as Bugs.

Something in me finally snapped.  In the middle of all of this mayhem, I quietly walked off the line, went to the back room, got my jacket and my bag, and then proceeded to walk out of the restaurant, right through the crowded dining room.  The jerk manager went after me, begging me to stay, promising that he’d do what he needed to do to help me.  Yeah, this was the same jerk who was yelling at me five minutes ago for not being fast enough, and encouraging his servers to do the same.

I stopped for a moment, turned around, and flipped him the bird, holding that hand as high in the air as possible.  I also loudly said the two words that go with bird-flipping.  I made sure that everyone in that dining room saw and heard it.  Then I turned around and walked out the door, head held high.

I needed a beer after that.  It never really occurred to me to grab a beer from the Crapplebee’s bar, and there would have been no way to get in there, grab one, and leave, without getting caught.  So I went to this Malden townie dive bar that was a block or two away, the Dockside, to have a beer.  Or two or nine.  At least they had Sam Adams Boston Lager on tap, that was good enough for me.  I drank, got drunk, and then called a cab to go home.

Although we needed the money, Mike was not angry at me for quitting the way I did.  He thought it was cool, he knew how badly I was being treated and agreed that they deserved it.  We’d figure out how to get by, it’s not like we needed to buy expensive modern couches or stuph like that.

And we did bounce back.  I got not one, but two new jobs the next week.  I worked both for a time, quit one of them and just worked the other one, and then quit that one due to being treated badly.  That’s another story that some of you already may know about.   But by then, Mike had finished his degree and had gotten a good job, so there was no need for me to deal with this crap any longer.

So, tonight, I will raise a good craft beer, in honor of Steven Slater.  He’s done what so many of us want to do.  I know exactly where he is coming from!