I totally meant to do that.

And...I'm spent.

So, we did it! We closed (mostly) yesterday at 4 pm. Word to the wise: Don't schedule a closing of a house for the 11th hour on a Friday before a holiday. It ain't pretty. Everything went well with all the document signing stuff (aside from almost spraining my hand from signing my name so damn many times), but we were waiting on the finalized copy of the HUD-1 (the important document) from the lender, due to a last-minute technical error that had to be corrected. After the lawyer called the lender and was placed on hold for 15 minutes, he was told that said document could arrive 5 minutes or 3 hours from then. "Then" being 5:30 pm EST. Nobody was willing to be that patient on the eve of a holiday weekend, but knowing that we'd be homeless with 4 cats on the 27th, the sellers conferred privately with the lawyer and agreed to allow us to move in as if everything had closed normally. The loan had already funded, so it's not like there's a chance they won't get their money. Worst case scenario, some numbers get rearranged and we have to re-sign some stuff Tuesday.

We spent Friday night in our new (empty) house, played pool on OUR pool table (tee hee hee), and just kind of tried not to go into shock from the weirdness of it all. Going from a 2-bedroom 2nd floor apartment in almost downtown concrete Miami to a huge (to us) house tucked away amongst the trees, with a yard, and a garage, and responsibilities? Wow. It's almost too much to swallow.

Two neighbors have already stopped by and introduced themselves and seemed to be right nice folks. It was hard (for me) to leave to come back to Miami, even though it's just temporarily to pick up the kitties and clean the apartment. We probably won't make it back to Jax until Tuesday morning, so that means 3 more nights on an air mattress on the living room floor with the wall A/C unit blowing directly up my nose. Hurrah.

But man, will it be weird once we only live in Jax, not in both places. I know we're going to feel displaced and like we don't belong for a while, but as we settle in, I'm sure we'll adjust to being homeowners.

So, for those keeping track, this week's activities were as follows:

-on Monday rented a 26-ft truck and loaded it

-on Tuesday, drove that truck and our old Talon to Jax ($250 in diesel and $50 in gas, rental price not incl.)

-on Tuesday also unloaded big truck into rented storage unit in Jax

-on Wednesday, rented convertible and drove back to Miami ($70 in gas, $4 in post-sunburn aloe vera gel)

-on Thursday, rented 16-ft moving truck and loaded it

- GOT CLOSING DATE OF TOMORROW SET

- Friday drove truck and my car to Jax in time for closing ($190 in gas)

- attended never-ending closing

-unloaded truck into our new house

- saturday rented another car and drove back to Miami ($70 in gas)

And so here we are. We just have to get our old hooptie truck, his motorcycle, and our fleet of furbabies up to Jax and WE'RE DONE. I'll probably sleep for a week at that point.

WE HAVE A CLOSING DATE

And it's tomorrow. Friday, at 4 pm. Keep your fingers crossed.

We rented another truck, this one a mere 16 feet, to schlep the remaining 20% of our crap. We'll be departing in the morning, me in my car and the O.H. driving the moving truck. He was going to drive his motorcycle, but it looks like the weather won't cooperate.

So, if all goes well, WHICH IT WILL, we'll be spending our first night in our first house tomorrow. And hey, there's already a pool table there! Built-in entertainment on the first night! alllright!

Then we'll return to Miami Saturday, say "see ya" to our friends here, clean the apartment, pick up the kitties, and probably head back Sunday night. We'll see.

Start knocking on wood NOW.

Let 'er rip

Ok, so you know that cartoon where two guys are moving big, heavy pieces of furniture off of the truck using a ramp? And the one guy on the lower part of the ramp who is holding back the weight of the furniture says to the guy on the truck, "ok, you can let it go", meaning, "give me a little bit of the weight", and the guy on the truck says, "ok, you asked for it!"? And then the big piece of furniture slides down the ramp with the unfortunate guy (who really did ask for it) in front of it, and they both crash land at the bottom of the ramp in a heap of sticks, boxes, and bones? Yeah, that happened. Except for that last crashing part. And it was all in Spanish.

We were at our storage facility in Jax, and we had to get my bar (yes, The Bar, the antique cigar display case from the 1920's that I luuuuuuurve and protect against damage with all my might) off of the back of our 24-foot moving truck in order to offload the rest of our crap. We had been smart enough to hire some labor in Miami to help load the truck, but when we arrived in Jax, it was just us two. So I was at the top of the ramp, and my other half (O.H.) was halfway down, pushing up so the bar didn't go flying down the ramp. I was holding the bar back, crouching down because it was really awkward and there was no good way to grip it. I was just about at that point that it was going to slip out of my grip when he said, "Sueltalo!" Which means, "Let it go!". So, I did. Apparently that was the WRONG thing to do, and I learned some very interesting Spanish words immediately after letting go of the bar. Which went flying down the ramp in rapid pursuit of my shocked (and awed) husband. Luckily, I apparently married Superman (albeit a very angry, Spanish-speaking[swearing] Superman), because he somehow managed to stop the runaway bar before it smashed into bits and/or crushed him. It's quite possible that it was the force of the swear words coming out of his mouth that stopped the bar.

Needless to say, we had a 'moment', that one where every marriage is tested. He shoots me a stinkeye look that says, "WOMAN, what the HELL is wrong with you, letting go of that bar like that?" And is met by my raised eyebrows that say, "ummm, you TOLD me to, Einstein." And just like that, the moment is over. For once, he cannot argue my logic. He DID tell me to let it go. What he didn't do is realize that I can't read his mind (I keep telling him, the letters are just too small), and know that he meant, "let it go JUST A LITTLE BIT". So ultimately, it was his goof that caused the debacle. Although I will acquiesce I should've been smart enough to second guess him and say, "really? Let it go? Completely?" Which I shall do from now on.

As a matter of fact, I'm going to second-guess everything he says now. That way I can't be blamed when he asks for something and I give it to him and he hurts himself.

O.H.: Pass me that steak knife, please.

me: Are you sure?

O.H. Yes, this steak is like shoe leather, and I'm not going to gnaw through it like a dog.

me: Only if you're really sure.

O.H. I'm sure.

me: Ok, but remember the bar incident...

O.H. (mutters various swear words in Spanish, begins gnawing on steak like a dog)

So this should be fun from now on.

Despite that very rough start, the rest of the unloading went very well and the two of us managed to pack that storage unit full by 8:00 pm. Without getting smooshed under any household items.

We still don't have a closing date, although we did the walk-through of the house today before returning to Miami. It was nice to see the place (almost) empty and (almost) free of 80's paraphernalia (gold light fixtures, gold-embellished ceiling fans, gold faucets...what, did Midas live here or something?).

So we still have about 20% of our stuff in Miami, and will need to schlep it up there sometime before Tuesday the 27th when our lease runs out. We also need to move a motorcycle, my car, and my old hooptie truck. Oh yeah, and 4 cats. Piece of cake.

Although we did have a nice ride from Jax to Miami today; the girl at the rental counter threatened to give me a PT Cruiser and I threatened to throw a temper tantrum right there in the airport. So she offered me a $20 upgrade to a Sebring convertible. Sweeeet! (She was actually very nice, no threatening involved. But a PT Cruiser? That's a threat no matter how nicely you offer it.) But convertibles should come with a bottle of sunscreen. Seriously. For idiots like me, who kid themselves that they can outrun a sunburn if they go fast enough.

Newsflash: you can't. I now most closely resemble a lobster, post-boil. AND I ALREADY PACKED MY DAMN ALOE. *sigh*. I can't complain...if this is the cost of escaping Miami, I shall happily pay it. As long as the sun doesn't do another cancer dance all over my shoulders, face, and neck, that is.

And one more thing.

I need to get this one off of my chest too: repurposed. It's a great word, and I'm all behind the concept of it. But every design show on HGTV is abusing it. And simultaneously misusing it.

If you take the table out of the living room, and turn it into a headboard, that is repurposing it. You have given it a new purpose. If you take a table out of the living room, and put it in the den, you are not repurposing it. The purpose is the same - it is still a table. You are just MOVING it.

Which, I know, doesn't sound as cool as "repurposing", but as we all know, I'd rather be accurate than cool. Obviously, I've given up on cool.

This is kind of what our entire apartment looks like now. Except scatter a bunch of random cats and tools everywhere. And termites. They're swarming again, I think as a reminder from the cosmos as to why we're going through the pain of moving.

Actually, if it were just neat stacks of carefully labeled boxes, I might not feel so overwhelmed. But it's half boxes, half the usual mess. Which is no fun to begin with even when you don't have to vault over cardboard to navigate it. So the boxes have not added to my typically poor balance and navigation skills. Expect bruised shin pictures in the near future. (There's something to look forward to, eh? Gotta keep the readers coming back for more.)

And still no closing date. Supposedly** we should know by Wednesday the 21st or so (you know, that date we were supposed to be closing on) if we can schedule the close, or if they would like to harangue us some more about the loan. I particularly like when they ask for a tax return you've already submitted, then insist that it needs to be signed - even though it was submitted electronically to the IRS, which mean it's unsigned. If it's good enough for the IRS, it should be good enough for them. But apparently not. I'm terrified they're going to call the whole thing off because on one of my documents the ink faded a bit and an "a" looks like an "o" or something and they think I'm applying for a laan instead of loan. I'm pretty sure that would throw them off.

**I just reminded myself of another peeve word: supposedly. It's not "Supposively" or "Supposably". It's SUP-POSE-ED-LEE. You can use a little memory trick to remember that. Sup = to dine; pose = act like a model, and Ed and Lee are first cousins twice removed. See, isn't that easy? Just think distant relatives acting like models eating! Oh wait. Models don't eat. Nevermind, that ruined the whole thing. You'll just have to learn to pronounce it like the rest of us did - IN THE FOURTH GRADE.

Ooh, and how about "hypnotize"? I can't remember the last time somebody said that word and didn't say "hypmatize". Luckily, this word doesn't happen often in conversations with me, as it probably would have a hypnotic effect on me and I might go into a trance and do something rude and un-Libra-ish, like tell them they really ought to look into that speech impediment of theirs.

Notice I said "theirs", not "there's" or "they'res". I think the whole world needs to review that particular lesson. Theirs = belongs to them. There's = there is. They're = they are. Why is this so difficult?

Same goes for posessives vs. plurals. I cannot count the number of times co-workers of mine have (mortifyingly) sent emails to potential customers that start with "Guy's - ". How embarassing. For all of us. To indicate multiples of something, just add an "s". A plain old "s". Guys. That means more than one guy. If you use an apostrophe, it then indicates the posessive - something that belongs to the guy. (That guy's dog bit me!) There's lots of other cases and conditions that I'm not going to teach you; if you're capable of reading this blog, you're capable of looking up spelling and grammar rules too. I (rather cattily) suggest you do it. Meow. I do try to give the benefit of the doubt - I fat-finger the keyboard too and occasionally miss an apostrophe. It happens. But if you do it more than once, I'm on to you.

I told you this would be a neverending topic with me. Especially when I'm pissy from packing.

For my animal lovin' friends

I know that if you're a friend of mine, you gotta be down with the furry guys. Here's an article that had some surprising information about pets eating people food.

'People foods' that can kill your pet

Think it can't hurt to share your snacks with your pet? Think again. From chocolate to raisins, here's what not to feed Fido - even if he begs.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/24544541/from/ET/

that's all I have to say about that.

I had to take 4 flights yesterday to get to the customer location, do my demo, then get back home. Four. And the head honcho "didn't feel well" and didn't show up for the demo.

Four flights.

In one day.

the next time somebody says I have a 'glamorous job'...

I just spent the last 3 hours in the malodorous armpit of a complete stranger. Or so it seems. Ok, he was across the aisle from me, but those little wavy stink lines that were radiating out from him were wafting right up my nose.

This trip did not have an auspicious beginning. The most obvious reason being that it's a Sunday trip. I try to avoid these like the dentist. They don't PAY me to work on Sunday, so why should I? So I report to Delta airlines for check-in on my way to Ottawa via Atlanta, and there's a guy in the check-in line getting pissy. Seems that there was this other guy, we'll call him Cokey (I seriously think he snorted something 5 minutes prior to stepping in line, he was twitching and jumpy and just generally annoying), who was in line before I got there, but had stepped to the side to pack (and re-pack) his 7 suitcases or so. Immediately after I got in line, another gentlemen (Mr. Pissy) stepped in line behind me. When Cokey tried to resume his original place in line in front of me, Mr. Pissy got, well, pissy. He started shifting his weight from one foot to the other and making small huffing noises of indignation and trying to get someone to agree with him that Cokey was just trying to skip places in the line. Frankly, I just couldn't give a shit less.

Cokey turns around and says, "what's the problem man?" to which Mr. Pissy does not respond. So Cokey is twitching and jerking in line ahead of me, and the ticket agent says, "next". At which point Mr. Pissy POKES me in the shoulder with something (finger? travel documents?) and says, "it was your turn, you should go!" To which I can only respond, "PLEASE DON'T POKE ME. It's his turn, he was here before me." Then I had to repeat the last part, because Mr. Pissy was ESL. I'm kinda glad he's ESL and there was a chance he didn't understand the "DON'T POKE ME" part because I immediately felt bad for saying it. I didn't yell it or anything, but I just felt bad. This is what happens when you're too Libra, boys and girls. Then I worried that I was being a poor ambassador, and he was going to return to Africa and tell everybody that Americans are racist jerks. Not that he'd be the first, but I don't want to be the cause of it. But dammit, you shouldn't poke me. Thus began my odyssey.

Then in the security line, there were women saying goodbye, and the one who was flying was just weeping and weeping and holding onto the younger, prettier one who wasn't. So when the weeper walked away, she didn't walk - she did the runway walk! No kidding. Still sniffling and wiping tears from her eyes, she sashayed down that first-class aisle like she OWNED it. Could've been wearing couture with that walk. Michael Kors. Dior. Chanel. Not that it's of any importance, but it was just incongruous enough to get my attention. And it provided an interesting visual to the audio track I was getting from Cokey defending his right to carry his "diabetes meds" (sure, sure) through the security checkpoint.

About this time, I look at my ticket which says I'm seated in 44F, which I saw earlier online and learned that it's a window seat (I like aisle) right in front of the bathrooms. This is what happens when you fly your non-preferred carrier and book late. They punish you. So I ask the agent at the gate to please please please reseat me in any aisle that does not have a direct view of the toilets. Bless his little heart, he did. But not before Cokey showed up at my gate and inserted himself between me and the agent and tried to demand his attention.

Unfortunately, that seat was across from the aforementioned odoriferous little man. Who seemed nice enough, looked like that quiet advanced statistics professor we all had in college. I think he was possibly Chinese. When my eyes weren't watering from the almost visible odor, I was intrigued by what he was doing - he was tapping repeatedly on different parts of his body with his fingers, and moving his hands strangely in the air. Dude was doing energy work! Which is cool. I'm down with the woo-woo stuff. I just prefer mine unscented. With every wave of his hand, he was wafting armpit all over the damn plane. Oh, and he took off his shoes AND SOCKS too. I hope he enjoyed his energy.

You're probably thinking, "J - why are you recounting every blasted moment of this trip?" Well, let me tell you. It's because I had to sit in that position, on the runway, next to Dr. Stinky McEnergy, for about an hour and a half while Delta diddled around with some alleged "fuel gauge malfunction'. And consequently, miss my connection to Ottawa. So once we were in flight, I had another 2.5 hours to enjoy this. Then another half hour when we landed and didn't have a gate. He was also a slurper. Thanks again for the Bose headphones, Dad. You've made the world a safer place for my fellow travelers, when I can't hear them.

You do all know what Delta stands for, right? Doesn't Ever Leave The Airport.

But all's well that ends well - almost. I'm in the Atlanta Hilton now, sitting on a nice cushy bed, with a steak and bleu cheese salad next to me. Sounds great, except I have to get up in 4 hours, get to the airport, take 2 flights to get to Ottawa, do my demo, then take 2 flights to get home.

I'm gonna go charge those headphone batteries.

Proctor THIS

For the morbidly curious among us, my aforementioned tetchiness burbled up when several merely quasi-awful events collided. To set the stage, I was sleep-deprived. We all know how ugly that is.

Then, I have to blow away everything on my weensy 80G hard drive to plunk a 40G vm image (that doesn't function the way I need it to - it's too slow to actually do a demo on) there, that may or may not need to be used in the poorly defined 'test' on day 3 (see below).

I'm already working myself up into a lather, when all of a sudden there's little crunchy things rolling around on my tongue that weren't part of anything I had eaten. That's right, I broke a porcelain tooth cap. One of two, right in the front. BROKE it. On absolutely nothing at all. So now I have a great big chipped tooth, with my real (very sensitive) tooth peeking out at the bottom. And I probably won't be able to make it to the dentist for another full week, thanks to my travel schedule. Good times.

Keep in mind that all of this is taking place at our yearly sales kickoff, which is supposed to be a rah-rah session held at a resort on the CA coast. We (sales) were all told we'd be tested on "something". A "scenario". Which as it turns out, was nothing more than a one-page description of a (fake) potential client company, and an outline of the issues they are currently facing. Our mission? Make a 20-minute presentation to them on my company's solutions. Ok, you might be thinking, "20 minutes? That doesn't sound so hard." Here's why this assignment sucked.

A typical presentation from my team runs between 1.5 - 2 hours. They are only scheduled after a thorough discovery session has occurred, wherein we grill them within an inch of their lives over all angles of IT and the project at hand. I can assure you we come up with more than a one-page summary on the average discovery. During this discovery call, we also set the stage for what kind of presentation we will be doing based on who will be in the room- sales, technical, or a combination of both.

Now you have an idea of the real process behind a sales call, and the amount of preparation and knowledge needed to do a good job. In comparison, our nasty little 'test' gave us incomplete background information, no opportunity to perform our own discovery, and most importantly, NO DIRECTION ON WHAT KIND OF PRESENTATION WAS EXPECTED. And we received our scenarios less than 24 hours before the test, and were required to attend the awards banquet that night. (When exactly are we supposed to prepare this?) So, with only 20 minutes to present, dare I try to go into the product and demo? I daren't. Believing that we are elevating ourselves to the "solution sell" (which is the kool-aid we're supposed to be drinking), and not the technically-targeted product show and tell, I did what I thought was the right thing by keeping it meta and covering the fake company's pain points and talking them through how my company would address and alleviate those issues. I ran out of time (20 minutes? I'm not even warmed up.), but otherwise, thought I did a reasonably good job. IF indeed they were looking for a solution sell. If they were hoping for a demo, I'm sure they were disappointed. I got a whiff of that feeling when they asked me to show what I was talking about (which I quickly did). But given the fact that they didn't #*(&%ing SPECIFY what/how we were to demo, HOW THE *&*% SHOULD I KNOW?

Not to mention that there was also apparently a point system to score us. Do you think they told us exactly what points they'd be scoring on? Nay. On how many points there are total? Nay. On how many are needed to pass? Nay. Just the threat of this test on the 3rd day of our kickoff (can you say "Buzzkill", boys and girls?), no time to prepare, a pseudo-intimidating testing situation (dark room, mysterious scoring sheets), and an email sent hours later with this less-than-enlightening message:

Congratulations, you have passed your exam at the
Sales Conference with a score of 27 points. The total required to pass is
24 points. This was an acceptable performance and please focus on the
feedback received from your test panel for continued improvement.

Am I the only person this throws into a homicidal rage? Perhaps. But it's just not right, man. It ain't right. I could paraphrase the whole thing thusly:

Them: You need to demonstrate, uh, stuff, like,
the way we envision it in our heads.

Me (suspiciously, confusedly):
ooookaaaaaaaaaayyyyy...

Them: Here is the information we provide you
with: "Horseradish green plastic plum tart
handle bot nono ish."

Me: ummm...

Them: You've barely passed. Your test result is:
weather.

As teenagers with text-enabled phones say, "WTF??"

So, yes. I'm tetchy, salty, owly, and d.) all of the above. And shall remain so until vindicated.

"Bitter, party of one, your table is ready."

Okay, so a work-related shituation has left me feeling a wee bit owly. I admit it. I am salty like popcorn right about now. So, in this frame of mind, I have decided to bring to you my twit list. This is a list of malapropisms, incorrect idioms, mispronunciations, and abused analogies. While sometimes it's funny to hear these errors being committed, it's usually just annoying to those of us who actually PAID to go to school and learn this stuff, yet have to listen to our language being butchered by one of our own. As a country whose inhabitants are now being referred to (unsurprisingly, by the French) as "hamburger-eating invasion monkeys", the U.S. already has enough to be embarassed about. If you're ESL, you get a free pass. But please learn from this list, lest I decide to mock you the next time you tell me you're "fustrated". Gah.

So, obviously, first on our list (in no particular order) is people who omit the first "r" out of the word "frustrated". It is not FUS-trated. It is FRUS-trated. Pay attention. Because it's ironically frustrating to those of us who have to listen to you.

And when something on your body is itchy, you do not "itch" it. You "scratch" it. It's already itchy, see? So why would you itch something that's already itchy? Seems kind of obvious to me, but I've lost count of how many people say, "I need to itch my eye" or whatever. Scratch it.

In the car today, my co-friend (this is my new term for cool coworkers that you actually like as people, but don't want to assume they'll put you in their 'friend' category just yet) J mentioned how a former coworker of his used to butcher the phrase "moot point". Of course, he'd say, "mute point". To which J would hilariously reply, "what?" and make the I-can't-hear-you-cupping-the-ear motion. Which then would prompt another, louder repetition of "IT'S A MUTE POINT". To which J would again, say "Eh?". It's "MOOT", people. Like a cow spitting at the end of "moo". Moooooo-t.

Irregardless. This word, technically, does not exist. To argue my point, define the word "regardless". It means something to the effect of "in spite of", correct? Correct. Webster says. So, then, define for me "irregardless". Can't do it, can ya? Didn't think so. That's because it MAKES NO SENSE.

I'd like to ferret out the origin of some of these misunderstandings. Especially when "ferret out" turned into "fare out" recently amongst certain members of my team at work. That's just laziness, really. Would pronouncing the extra syllable kill you? The shame of it is, it's not that they don't want to pronounce an extra syllable, they really just don't understand the phrase. Embarassing.

When one sees things that are outside of the normal field of vision, it is "peripheral"
(pə-ˈri-f(ə-)rəl) vision. For those who don't understand that, it's "PER-IF-ER-AL". Not "peripheal" (PER-IF-EE-AL).

For all intents and purposes, this blog is where I can come to say these things. Not "for all intensive purposes" or "for all intense and purposes".

I'm glad I'm writing all of this and not saying it, because it might make my larynx hurt. Which, incidentally, is pronounced "LAR-INKS". Not "LAR-NICKS". I was at a great party this weekend, playing board games, when a heated debate arose about the pronunciation of this word. Interestingly, I had never heard it mispronounced before. Although I suppose the lack of the occurrence of the word "larynx" in casual conversation is not surprising. Those who swore it was pronounced "LAR-NICKS" believed it to be true because a doctor had pronounced it that way. Let's just hope that doctor was not performing a laryngectomy.

Granted, everybody makes mistakes. However, mistaking the word "granted" for "granite"? You know who you are.

Oh, and there's only two syllables in "Realtor". REEL-TOR. Why do I hear "REEL-A-TOR" from scads of people, most of whom are actually working in realty-related fields? Maybe I'm just a stickler. That's probably a safe assumption, now that I think of it. I'm definitely a stickler.

Do I even need to go into "nu-cu-lar"? Didn't think so. Could somebody please send that link to W.? Nevermind. There's no getting that toothpaste back in the tube now.

Oh well, it's a dog-eat-dog world. Not, as Snoop would have us all think, a "doggy-dog" world.

This is definitely only a partial list... I have many more, but we all know what my memory is like these days. And it's probably a mercy that I don't have all of them just festering beneath the surface, because who knows how tetchy I'd be then?