grrgoyl

This past weekend it was -8 degrees in Denver. MINUS EIGHT DEGREES. I was obsessed, as I am every year, with draft-proofing our house with the cheap, generally ineffective measures available at Lowe's -- until the tragic news story of a family of four found dead of monoxide poisoning in their home. MyFriendDeb said these fancy new houses being built are so well insulated that it's much more of a threat, whereas our older, leakier home paradoxically is much safer. After that I decided I'd rather just put on an extra sweatshirt to combat the chill. We made an emergency run to Target Sunday for a space heater for the bird, the only creature Tery is really concerned about staying properly warm.



We've decided the next time we have a large cash windfall (ha) we're looking into getting some better windows. Cuz dayum.

I contented myself instead with putting up a black-out curtain over the balcony door, the largest culprit. It does a fantastic job of keeping out cold. Unfortunately, it works equally well at keeping out light. Deb would never tolerate such a measure, afflicted as she is with seasonal affective disorder (which is actually year-round).

The nice thing about -8 degrees in Denver is the 6% humidity, which means the snow covering my car when I got out of work Sunday morning was as dry as fine desert sand. Fell away with barely a touch. That's what I love about Denver.

I don't let the cold get me down. When we bought our Christmas tree it was literally 70 degrees and we wore shorts. THAT'S fucking depressing, if you're as concerned about global warming as I am.

We're also concerned about pipes bursting, mostly because for the first time we have two empty units below us (and when you walk barefoot in our place you can tell. I used to think our place should be warmer with heat rising from Kent's place underneath us. Now I see the difference. We miss you, Kent). I highly doubt the families have the heat turned on. Whereas I can't blame them for not wanting to pay to heat an empty apartment, if the pipes burst they'll have one hell of a mess on their hands. We'll fortunately only suffer the inconvenience of being without water.

However, the bottom unit, which belongs to the elderly woman who went to a nursing home, has had the inner door wide open for weeks now (outer storm door closed and locked). I've called the property company no less than three times about it. They keep saying they're having trouble reaching the family. So if pipes DO burst, the off-site families most likely won't be reachable for that either, in which case we WILL have a problem on our hands.

Again, it's mostly my inability to control the rest of the world that's the real source of my frustration. That and the unbelievable depths of stupidity and inconsideration the rest of the world is capable of.

~*~

I mentioned a few posts ago how this Christmas is cursed. My poor sister who had her boyfriend's gift stolen didn't get a scrap of sympathy from the seller, who basically said, "It's not my fault since you didn't ask for insurance. And no, I can't knock a couple of dollars off another one for you." I'm an occasional eBay seller and that really surprised me. I personally would have tried to work with her a little bit, even if she wasn't my sister. As a buyer, at that point I would have said "Sayonara, bitch, and thanks for nothing" but Amy was so convinced this was the perfect gift for him that she swallowed her pride and ordered a second one.

(For the record, this is what she was trying to buy:



Yeah, nothing special about it, except Amy's boyfriend I guess really likes beer and finds that tag line humorous. But the price of the auction with shipping came close to $20, both times, just because it's framed up all nice (because lord knows it would be unbearably tacky to hang just a bare beer ad). Except it's not even an original, just a laser inkjet printout of the ad, making $40 an outrageous price. The auction it turns out doesn't claim to be an original, but holy rip-offs, Batman, it takes some stones to charge that much for a fucking photocopy. Twice.)

I had ordered three things from asseenontvguys.com. The package came quickly, sadly containing two things I hadn't ordered and missing one thing I had. They fixed the problem quickly, but still. I thought I was safe from going anywhere near a shipping facility until some time in January.

I thought I had finished my shopping finally, when I received the email that my order for my other sister's present had been cancelled by the Amazon seller -- forcing me to track it down elsewhere.

I hope Christmas gets here before anything else goes wrong.

~*~

Watching Nobel Son has reawakened my obsession with Alan, which was never really dead, just waning a bit. I've been rewatching all my old favorites, even ordered Truly, Madly, Deeply from eBay (a film that didn't particularly impress me back when I wasn't sure how far my love for him would take me).

Via my f-list, I wandered over to check out this video of Alan signing autographs after Jimmy Kimmel. The video itself isn't as interesting as the comment section, wherein I felt the need to defend him to someone snidely mocking his aging features. "Yep, and if you're honest, you dream of having half his sex appeal when you're his age" I smacked them down.

I've garnered quite a little fan club from this (well, two people), which makes me happy. Mostly because I'm still having trouble convincing Tery of his appeal. I was sharing in the Rickman love with one of them when she made the observation, "If I met him in real life I'd be resisting the urge to rape him or something." Whoa, stalker girl. That's going a bit too far. If I ever were lucky enough to meet him, I'd have trouble making eye contact, never mind considering anything remotely sexual. I think he'd be enormously intimidating in reality, between the English reserve and his built-in gravitas.

Via the same F-list person, Alan might be apartment hunting in Manhattan. I'm not sure how this was deduced from the pictures posted, but it's thrilling all the same. My theory is he's getting lonely with Daniel stuck in New York for months and can't wait any longer for him to come home to London (no disrespect to Alan's actual partner, of course).

Speaking of Daniel, this one is for my Equus peeps (from the Gypsy of the Year awards, where Equus won the top fundraiser position):



~*~

Tery got the word today that their sister vet hospital had to fire both their medical director and hospital manager, for letting a girl known to have hepatitis C (and possibly a drug user) live on the premises (where narcotics are kept) for an unknown length of time. Which I feel really puts my fifteen-minute Heelys practice into sharp perspective, not that we'll say as much to Tery's medical director.

~*~

Finally, Kitten Mitten has suddenly, after two years living here, noticed the ledge that runs around our kitchen to separate it from the living room.



Here are more to give you a better idea:



She really is the most beautiful cat in all the world.

It seems like my weekends before going on vacation are always the most eventful.

Friday night I was going to have an embarrassingly easy night -- nothing hospitalized at all, five dogs to walk and one cat.

Then around 10 pm someone rang the doorbell - never my favorite thing. I dashed upstairs and saw what looked like three teenage boys on the front porch, cupping their hands to the window to see in.

"What do you need?" I hollered through the thick door.

"My dog's hurt!" one of them answered.

"We're closed," I told them, "There's a 24-hour place on the sign on the wall."

I then retreated into Tery's office to watch their departure on the security camera. It was surprisingly long in coming for a medical emergency. I watched the kids roam around the lot, one of them speaking on a cell phone, another walking the length of the building down to the fence surrounding the exercise yard, another just lingering by my car.

I could see at least one more in the SUV, but no sign of anyone else or even a dog for that matter, as the windows were tinted darker than what seemed legal.

I didn't like it, not one little bit.

I tried peeking through the blinds to get a license plate. They must have seen me, because they immediately trotted back to the door and started pounding.

I went back, repeating, "There are no doctors here. We're closed. There's an emergency facility listed on the sign," and I tried pointing in the appropriate direction, since they really seemed to be having a hard time understanding.

They hung around another five minutes after that. Just as I was speaking to the police, they suddenly jumped into the SUV and drove off.

Despite me saying, "Oh never mind, they're leaving," a black & white actually pulled up within five minutes.

I invited the officer in to view the security tape. Naturally the remote's batteries were dead, and navigating the menus with the buttons on the machine was tricky enough without a cop staring at me and the suspects getting farther away with each passing second.

I finally brought up the footage and we watched it together. His first comment was, "They look like gang members, don't they?" The term "gang member" to me evokes images of tattoos, leather and unconcealed weapons. These kids, in their baggy sky blue T-shirts and khakis, could have been a local church group on a field trip to my untrained eye, except for the skulking suspiciously around the building part. It was the matching shades of blue that made him arrive at this conclusion. I learn something new every day.

We watched it right to the point where they hightailed it suddenly for no apparent reason. They actually backed the vehicle straight up to one of the cameras in a K-turn, but disappointingly the quality is nowhere close to good enough to read the plate (even after I fiddled with some of the monitor settings tonight in a last-ditch effort to break the case wide open).

He said he believed they were a gang looking for hospitals to break into, and that "when it heats up, they hit everybody." He took my statement, which I felt was kind of lame given I had only really seen them face-to-face through the heavily frosted glass of the door. All I could say for sure was one had shoulder-length blond hair. Oh, and of course the white SUV with tinted windows -- I realized driving into work tonight that white SUVs are incredibly common, followed closely by white SUVs with tinted windows. (Scientific study: On the way home at 5 am I counted 25 white SUVs, and that was an extremely random sample. Ten of them were on the hospital's street -- it's practically the official car of South Sheridan. Five of them were on our street, three more in our parking lot alone.)



He said he'd have the cops on the beat looking. I said I was going to be there all night and asked for an increased presence. I then escorted him to the door with a dorky comment about this happening because I was going on vacation Monday, which he didn't respond to. Despite never so much as stealing a pack of gum in my life, cops make me inexplicably nervous -- like one verbal misstep and they'll start pistolwhipping me. And I've noticed, at least in my case, that the harder and the more consciously you attempt not to look suspicious, the more spectacularly you will fail.

I detailed the entire event to Tery, who forbade me to walk any dogs the next morning just in case the youts (movie reference, anyone?) came back and realized they might be able to jump the fence. She also ordered me to release Beowulf, the fairly ferocious German shepherd who nonetheless likes me, loose in the hospital at the first sign of additional shenanigans. Had I known I was in for such an adventure, I would have brought him upstairs with me the first time.

I beseeched the dogs, on this of all nights, not to bark without a damn good reason. But dogs are still whiny bitches, and don't care much if their sudden outburst at 2 am into an otherwise silent building is enough to give me heart palpitations. Stupid, stupid dogs (except Beowulf).

Not a terribly restful night followed, but there was no more sign of the youts - which I personally attribute to the presence of a mystery truck owner who has been parking here the past few weekends.

The first weekend I noticed him I kind of freaked out. Suddenly I looked at the monitor and there was this big blue Tundra parked so close behind my car it might have been touching it. I snuck around in the dark, trying to see if there was anyone inside. I did get a license plate on him, which I could see clearly from the doctor's office.

I called the police to have them check it out, because it seemed awfully peculiar -- I mean, just parked so damn close to my car when the whole lot was empty (not that he should be using the lot anyway, but sometimes people park here when Taco Junior across the street is full).

I went back through the security tape (what on earth did we do on the nght shift before security cameras?) and saw him park, get out and walk down the street. I noticed the vehicle was pretty tricked out, custom rims, shiny and clean. This man obviously loved his truck and, for some reason, deemed our parking lot (and more specifically two inches behind my beat-to-hell Honda) the safest place on the street.

I called the police back and cancelled the drive-by, believing him to be harmless. At 3 am when he was still there I started worrying a tad, like about how I was going to leave at the end of my shift if I turned out to be wrong. Then at 3:30 he disappeared, a little too late to be eating Mexican or even be at a bar (they both close by 2).

He's appeared every weekend since, always parking directly behind me and disappearing by 3:30. Tery doesn't like it, but it makes me feel safer -- makes it look like there's more than just me here in the hospital. After Friday night she wonders if he was in cahoots with my young visitors, but I argued if he was casing the joint, there were less conspicous locations.

Saturday night he was back. I also got tired of listening to Beowulf shuffling restlessly in his cage and let him out despite being sans shenanigans. I gave him free run of the entire hospital, and I must say, listening to him pacing back and forth upstairs soothed me more than ten alarm systems. He was my biggest fan, stopping by occasionally to snuffle my hair or let me pet him. Tery tells me the girls on the day shift are terrified to even open his cage (he growls at them), so he probably doesn't get too much exercise then.

I decided on the spot I would let him patrol like this every time he boards (which is more often than you'd think, his owner is constantly going on month-long business trips).

I'm mostly sharing this story so that people like kavieshana, who think my occasional anxiety working here is a bit of an overreaction, realize that sometimes it is very firmly based in reality.

~*~

Tomorrow, I am on vacation -- a three-day whirlwind trip to New York. There will be hooking up with my sister, the awesome minikitkatgirl and swankyfunk, much walking and experiencing of the City, and perhaps later on a taking in of Equus. I'm pretty damn excited, yo.

I couldn't say more about this yesterday as it all came together rather suddenly after a long day of trying to make it come together, and then it was time to nap and onto my second job -- and napping was no mean feat considering how excited I was.

I apologize to minikitkatgirl for subjecting her to an anxiety attack over the phone. As well I apologize to swankyfunk for doubting her.

Once we all got in touch, minikitkatgirl very quickly found us three seats together, Orchestra, Row D (which is actually six rows from the stage thanks to stupid rows AAA and BBB. But ask me if I'm worried about two rows when I was prepared to sit in the mezzanine before this find). "Oh my god!" sister Amy exclaimed. "You'll be able to see the sweat on his..." "Balls?" I helpfully supplied. "I was going to say 'upper lip' but I suppose that's true too," she finished.

I've decided to embrace my inner perv. I want to see Harry Potter naked (or the "Potter peen" as minikitkatgirl put it). Think less of me if you will, I don't care. The only thing that could make the play better would be if Rickman played the psychiatrist (or better still, Rickman as Alan Strang, though I think that might be pushing the age envelope way past breaking point).

If people are wondering about my change of heart after all my whinging about poverty before, well, it's the difference between $150 for a seat at the back of the theater and $116 for a seat six rows from the stage. That's a difference I simply couldn't ignore, impending dentist appointments be damned.

I can relax now that we have the tickets. Now it's the simple matter of a plane ticket to New York, not nearly as challenging. But if you click below, you'll get to read my account of waiting in line for Lion King tickets when the show toured in Denver, and why I felt such unbearable pressure to buy Equus as soon as possible. (In my eyes at least) Lion King on tour was huge. Equus, with Dan Radcliffe, on Broadway, is COLOSSAL.

( ::The Circle of Life, or, the Queue of Eternity:: )

I'm going to see Equus..........: )

It's months like this I wish I could see into the future. If I could, I woudn't have dropped $500 on my car (all of it maintenance work on a day I was feeling particularly affectionate towards my Honda, that never gives me a moment's trouble despite only receiving the cheapest gas I can find by way of service), if I knew my dental bridge was going to fall out this week.

Looking back, I know the exact moment it happened -- my lunch seemed a bit crunchier than it should have been. But it wasn't until I brushed my teeth before bed that I noticed the huge gap. "Oh, damn. Now I'VE got a shit tooth," I told Tery. I'd like to point out my reaction was substantially subdued compared to her total wig-out upon noticing her tooth missing ("You're not flying to see your family in the morning," she pointed out. I maintained that it made no difference, since even if I were my family would never notice it). Then she said, "I can't be married to a shit-tooth." Ouch. (Although if you look closely you'll see it's not really a shit-tooth so much as a cyborg plate inserted over a socket of completely dead nerve endings, not nearly so gross to look at.)

Thank god my dentist office still remembers me. I loved my dentist, whom I visited extensively back when I had insurance. I suspect I won't love him nearly so much when I go back sans coverage, but at least he still has my x-rays.

So that expense is hanging over my head. I shouldn't have been surprised then when Equus tickets went on sale this week. $150 for cheap seats, on top of $250 just to fly to New York. Suddenly the event I would have killed to attend last year is looking a lot more...optional. I simply can't justify it, despite Tery's attempts to talk me into it. Her brother lives in New York and probably would go with me. But a.) for that amount of money I want to go with someone who would be every bit as excited as me, b.) with my luck Daniel Radcliffe would be sick or something the night I went and, c.) the cheap seats look really far from the stage on the map. There are just too many things that could go wrong, and for that amount of money I'm not willing to risk it.

It's a source of irritation to me, not only that I have to miss such an exciting show, but that in general most Broadway plays aren't available on DVD. Some argue that ticket sales would drop if people knew they could just buy the DVD later. I disagree. I think a live performance is an entirely different experience and the people who can feasibly indulge will continue to. But in the absence of a commercially produced DVD, I will seek out a bootleg and give my money to someone not connected with the production. Is that right? I don't think it is, but what other choice do I have? As I read on someone's blog, for most of us Broadway isn't just a few stops away on the subway, and I highly doubt Dan Radcliffe will be touring in Denver.

~*~

Finally, I weep for our educational system. I'd like to make it clear that I'm not exactly a geography wiz. But it still pained me when someone on the transcription board the other day asked "Are Japanese and Asian the same thing?" (the doc had used both terms to describe the same patient) Are you kidding me? I answered, a tad snarkily, "Ummmmm, Japan's a country and Asia is the continent that includes Japan, so yes." No response. A few others tried rephrasing it, but it wasn't until someone wrote "All Japanese are Asian, but not all Asian are Japanese" that this Einstein replied, "Thank you! That was confusing me below." Did the word "continent" throw you off? It frightens me that this person is responsible for medical documents.