It's a Hard Dog Life

I’ve decided to start a revolution where we change the meaning of the phrase: “it’s a dog’s life.” I know back in the days it was meant to convey some poor underfed beast used only for his hunting abilities, and repeatedly kicked in the head and forced to sleep in a pile of hot coals…or whatever life was like back when being a dog sucked.

Now I’d kill for my dog’s life. Some people wonder what their dogs do all day while they’re gone. Well, since I’m never gone, it’s not such a mystery to yours truly. And the answer is: sleep and annoy the crap out of me.

I happen to think Cous Cous has it pretty good. She has someone home with her almost all day. The little beast that annoys her is gone most of the day at daycare, leaving her free to enjoy her bones without drool-covered claws invading her space.

At least four days a week she’s taken on mile-long walks where somebody cleans up after her and all she has to do is stay within six feet of said person on a leash.

Now, does that sound like the kind of life that would make you so miserable, you would resort to eating a comforter? Or shoes? Or a DRAWER? A freaking DRAWER? All while your owner, who feeds you and loves you and despite the fact that she crapped out that beast that annoys you, has otherwise practically let you run the house is sitting in the other room, blissfully unaware of your buried resentment at…at WHAT? What could this dog possibly have up her ass that makes her act out like this?

I’m proposing a Scared Straight movement for puppies. I haven’t worked all the kinks out, but I am sure it will be centered around making the wayward puppies of the world watch an endless loop of those Sarah McLachlan commercials, the ones with the poor dogs covered in bruises and cuts and missing limbs all while “Arms of the Angel” plays in the background?

Ohhh, you think me rushing you to poop when it’s 30 degrees out is abuse (I mean, really, when you’re staring down the barrel of 30-degree temperatures, do you need to spend 10 minutes finding the perfect poop spot? I would think whatever spot doesn’t involve your ass freezing to your legs is perfecto!), why don’t you watch yourself some Animal Rescue on Animal Planet?

One phrase I am not looking to eliminate: “ungrateful cur.”

Please Forgive Me, I Know Not What You Do!

So, this has been a rough couple of weeks and I am EXHAUSTED. And the more tired I get, the shorter my fuse. I stumbled across this article on Shine about ways to manage anger. I was particularly interested in #13, which suggests you write a forgiveness letter or e-mail.

In the midst of planning Wee ‘Burb’s first birthday party, during the first snowstorm of the year, after a week of helping Scott with his first trade show for his business, and you know, that whole job thing…Comcast insisted I switch over to their fancy schmancy new Infinity cable. We had this purty little banner floating across the screen INSISTING in big white letters that we need to switch immediately or our TV lives will go dark.

Days of frustration later, I STILL have the banner and my Tivo, Cornelius, has been rendered almost obsolete. So here is my forgiveness letter to Comcast.

Dear Comcast,


I forgive you.

I forgive you for putting the incorrect UFC up on your On Demand, forcing me to call and try to cancel the order…three times. I also forgive you for trying to send a signal to my TV once I got the actual UFC up in attempts to make it work on the high definition channel…that I was later informed doesn’t exist in my area.

It’s totally cool that I had a bunch of people over and I had to stand there on the phone with you…twice. I understand that On Demand doesn’t really mean on demand, so much as “whenever the hell you feel like it, if in fact the channel even exists in my area.” It’s also cool that you charge me the same whether those channels are there or not.

More importantly, I forgive you for the recent two-day circus you made me participate in while converting to your supposedly AWESOME new Xfinity program. Oh how you promoted this as the next coming of cable. It’s understandable that you overlooked the fact that it isn’t at all compatible with existing technology, and that you’ve rendered my brand new Tivo as useful as my Commodore 64.

I get it, you were super busy sending signals to channels that don’t exist. Focusing on things like compatibility with what you have informed me is “sometimes incompatible third-party technology” is hardly as important as giving me the golf channel in HD, but not anything in On Demand.

I forgive you for sending me directions to hook up to my Tivo that didn’t work. And I forgive you for taking five days to send me a tech to fix my caveman-like third-party technology. And please, don’t feel at all bad for sending me a tech who didn’t know Tivo, and didn’t have the part for the Tivo I had.

It was wrong of me to expect that the work order describing the kind of Tivo I had would move that tech to bring the equipment necessary. I understand the stress of not having that part was probably what made the tech lie to my face and tell me my Tivo was working, while secretly hooking everything up through a small cable box remote. It was my fault for trusting him when he told me he was all done, not being aware the whole time Tivo was on channel 3. I never was good at seeing the trick behind the magic.

I should have known it’s like when Wee ‘Burb says “all done” when she sits at the table and baby birds me for more. Clearly he was just proud of a new phrase he’d learned. I was hasty to believe he was actually completing the task. My bad.

Comcast, please accept my heartfelt forgiveness for bothering you again to ask that you bring the tech back to complete the task that was not, actually, “all done.” Forgive me also for telling you what I thought of the tech who refused to call me back.

And you must accept my sincere desire for amends when I screamed at you at howler monkey levels when you told me that occasionally certain techs are unfamiliar with said “third-party technology.” I understand you were just trying to drive home the fact that I do not own a Comcast DVR, as you have humbly suggested I do each time I call you for service. We talk a lot, I should have caught on by now.

Me insisting that if the work order mentions specific “third-party technology” I am unintelligent enough to own, that tech should be familiar with said technology and have the parts to make said technology compatible with your next generation god-like technology was just my anger talking. I’d missed an entire episode of Dr Phil by then. And it was one of the housewives admitting she was knocked up. Emotions were high.

While we are listing my faults, I should not have laughed and mocked the woman when she called to set up a new tech to come for the following day. She was just being nice when she asked when I had to be at work, so when I said at 9 and she said her appointments started at 9:30 and I mockingly shouted “then why did you ASK me what time I had to be there?”…well, that was more anger talking. I had to watch Live TV. I can’t be held accountable for the things I say when I can’t fast forward commercials.

It’s that same lack of Tivo that made me roll my eyes and storm off when you sent me TWO techs the next day who promised they were familiar with Tivo and then told me they didn’t know I had a dual tuner Tivo. Again, I should not have assumed that fact being written on the work order meant that information was imparted. It was my own ignorance that led me to believe your techs could read.

Please try to forgive me for looking up Direct TV while your techs fumbled around and finally informed me that they’d “rigged it” so my dual tuners could work, only one tuner could only record channels 1-22. I know I should be grateful for any tuner that could bring me back to Dr Phil, even though it will be nearly impossible now for me to catch up on the housewives and their drama. I should not have said that I pay enough where I should be able to have Tivo work exactly as it did before you brought this New Light into the cable world.

Lastly, I want to thank you for making it up to me by sending me several On Demand movie gift certificates (I understand now those can not be used in HD and will plan accordingly). It was kind of you to send me ones to mail with my bill, despite the fact that I’ve set up my account to be paid electronically.

And the $30 off of my bill per month for the next year (the introductory rate any new Comcast customer gets before you give them the add-ons necessary to make “third-party technology” work) absolutely makes up for everything that happened in those two days and the fact that I still can’t work my Tivo half of the time.

I only hope this letter serves as the same kind of peace sign you’ve given me.

All my love,


StephanieinSuburbia

Hidey-Ho, Neighborinos!

So I have a crazy busy week this week preparing for Wee 'Burb's first birthday, among other priorities. Instead of posting my random thoughts or using some posts I've saved for a rainy day, I thought I'd introduce you to a few bloggers I love.

Notice I said a few. If your name is not on this list, it does not mean I don't think you're immeasurably awesome. And to that end, I'd love if you guys linked to your blogs and/or a favorite post of yours in the Comments section here.

Christina at Hungry Meets Healthy wrote a hilarious post about going shrimping with the boys. She not only has a great sense of adventure, she has some AMAZING recipes.

Kristy at Pampers and Pinot writes very honestly about having anxiety around dating her husband. You can always count on Kristy to tell it like it is, and she also features a lot of her other writing here.

I've mentioned my next buddy, LambAround, here before. Where we had a bit of a face-off on embarassing domestic disasters. But it was this post about creepy Singamajigs where I knew we were simpatico.

Kristen at Happily Ever After writes very honestly about not knowing what to write about here.

Mommy is Teething is another blog where I always can relate. This is a great post about the challenges of meeting other Mommies. I wrote about this myself when I was trying to meet other working moms. Since I wrote that post, I have been better at reaching out to my friends who have kids, trying to get over feeling like I am bothering them. But it's still a challenge. Postcards from Parenthood also wrote about this awkwardness and solved the problem by ordering Thumb Cards, which I still need to get more info on.

Picking a favorite post at Itzy's Kitchen is a bit like picking between chocolate and wine. Her recipes are amazing! This is but one of my favorites. She almost makes me wish I lived near her to take exercise classes. Almost.

Again, please link here to your blog and don't feel dissed if you're not on this list! I follow about 50 blogs, and I try to comment on most of them as often as possible, so lots of love to all of you!

Have a great week! If by chance I make it through this week and the birthday party, I shall chat with you all next week! Meanwhile, please visit these blogs and send them some love!

The Fifth Circle of Hell

You guys, I haven’t seen this much traffic in Suburbia since we hosted the golf tournament last summer. It’s frightening to realize that one street closing can cause such traffic Armageddon. And it does not help at all that said traffic is being re-routed through rotaries.

Some of you may know rotaries. You may know them as “traffic circles” or “roundabouts.” I have more colorful phrases for them, but around here they are called rotaries and they are just plain absurd.

Here’s the deal: the rotary has a purpose. It’s meant to manage traffic in an area that can not otherwise be easily served by a stop light or four-way stop sign. It’s essentially a large circle with (usually) two lanes that features (usually) 4 or more exits. If you are exiting at the nearest road, you take the outside lane and dart through. If you are going through the rotary to one of the further exits, you stay in your left lane.

These are not necessary for where we live. At all. But for some reason, Suburbia decided that they just…I don’t know. Look cool? Save money? I truly do not know. What I do know is, they suck. Let’s be honest, 90% of the population can’t handle a simple merge onto a highway, much less make a quick decision when faced with four routes to choose from in a big circle.

I’ve studiously avoided the rotaries as much as possible. But now because they are building a hospital on my usual route and it took me 6 minutes to get a left turn light, I am forced to take the rotary. As a result, I am pretty sure Wee ‘Burb’s first full sentence is going to be a string of expletives, followed by her mimicking the sound of a horn.

The lanes are clearly marked, if you are going straight (yes, because somehow going straight is an option in this messed up version of a rotary), you go in one lane. If you are curving, you go in another.

I’m not without sympathy here. A confession: when I discovered these in MA, I would do about anything to avoid them. I would go miles out of my way just to make sure that I did not have to enter the vortex of speeding cars. But I was 16, a new driver, and I got over it. And when I did have to face it, I followed the logical setup and nobody died.

Mostly, people just stop and stare for a minute or two. Occasionally, a car in the rotary thinks the one merging on to the rotary has the right of way and stops for a minute or two.

But a few weeks ago I saw, hands down, the most insane and idiotic thing I have EVER witnessed…for sure with rotaries, possibly with all driving in general. This person in front of me stopped dead to look at the signs, presumably. And then realizing they had missed their exit, they backed up!!!

Let me slow this down for you: they backed up…on a circle! It’s a circle!

You will, I promise, get to your desired destination. You will not, I promise, be stuck like in European Vacation pointing out: “Look, kids, Big Ben!”

I think I may need to start walking to the grocery store.

The Bitter Pill

You guys, something really weird happened to me. It’s kind of related to my recent blogging about what I am to understand is called Momnesia: basically me losing my marbles one day at a time.

So in June, you may recall that my husband hired me a housekeeper for the day to clean for my birthday party. And a few weeks later, I had what I attributed to a Momnesia moment. I thought I renewed some medication, went looking for it, and couldn’t find it.

Now it’s not a big deal, I dismissed it at the time. Because they’re basically just very low-grade anti-anxiety pills that I was prescribed for sleep when I was pregnant. I take them a few times a month on evenings I know I am going to be laying there staring at the ceiling listing all the things I’ve yet to do and all the time I should have spent doing said things. Am I the only one?

Anyway, these pills are awesome because they don’t put me to sleep, they literally just relax me enough where I can fall asleep on my own. But I am not so groggy that I can’t get up to soothe a very needy Wee ‘Burb in the middle of the night if need be.

Anyway, so I looked for them one night, and figured I just hadn’t refilled them. But since I couldn’t find the bottle, I just kind of blew it off and moved on. I have to confess, I was also afraid if I had refilled them and lost them, then calling to get another refill would put me on some list. Maybe it’s being the daughter of a woman who works in chemical dependency, I don’t know, but I fear ANYONE thinking I have some sort of issue with any mood-altering substance.

Case in point, after I had Wee ‘Burb, they put me on Vicodin. Which I hated, by the way. I don’t get how people can become addicted to falling asleep mid-sentence and waking up feeling hung over.

But anyway, so it said No Refills on the bottle. So I go to my two-week appointment and my doc is like “wow, Stephanie, you didn’t refill your Vicodin? You’re just taking Ibuprofen two weeks after having this baby?”

And I’m like deer in the headlights “but the bottle said no refills!”

Seriously, she stared at me like I had just spontaneously given birth to a twin they thought Wee ‘Burb had absorbed or something. And she informs me that it is only written that way so they can keep track of refills and make sure you’re not abusing it.

So I get yelled at for not taking meds, just in case you think the point of this post is that I was jonesin’ for some drugs and found them missing.

Since Wee ‘Burb has been mobile and I’m planning her first birthday and helping Scott with a new business while he constantly travels, I did need those pills, though. After three nights of not sleeping, I called Target and begged them to refill it. That was two weeks ago. I picked them up relatively without incident, other than that Target sucks my will to live with their construction and inability to actually refill a prescription within the timeframe given on the phone.

The other morning I get a call from Target saying my medication has been refilled. I inform them I picked it up two weeks ago. The pharmacist is puzzled, as you see someone called that morning requesting a refill. I asked if maybe it was an automatic refill request? She said no, they had a phone call request. Then she shrugs it off and goes “they must have just hit the wrong numbers.”

Ok, lots wrong with this scenario. First of all, have you used those automated systems? It’s kind of hard to punch in the wrong numbers because after you punch in said numbers, it says something like “please verify the first three letters of the last name are XYZ.” It also asks for a phone number to call when the prescription is ready. So if you did indeed make a mistake, those prompts would usually guide a person in error to start over. Right?

Second, why are they not more concerned that it’s two weeks and I’m refilling this prescription? I mean I get that it’s not some habit-forming pain-killer and all, but considering I need to turn over my fingerprints and first-born child to get Sudafed, you would think someone trying to refill a prescription two weeks after getting a whole bottle would maybe raise a few eyebrows.

I’m just confused why the woman at Target wasn’t more concerned. I’m trying not to blow this out of proportion, because if someone stole it and if they were trying to do something criminal with it, the joke’s on them. It’s something prescribed to preggos, so it’s not going to have hot street value, I’m just guessing.

But I also kind of feel violated that it’s possible someone was in my house stealing my medication. I’m not convinced it was the housekeeper because I don’t want to believe that of someone who does this job professionally. I know people who immediately blame “the help” when anything goes wrong in their house, and I do not want to be that person.

At the same time, I don’t know of any other strangers that have been in my house.

It’s just kind of an ooky feeling. Has this happened to anyone before? Do I need to take further action or just brush it off and figure the person either made an error or didn’t get what they wanted and moved on?

Momnesia: The Sequel

I feel it’s important to document my moments of Momnesia so that whoever ultimately decides I belong in the padded cell will feel completely vindicated.

So, like many couples, Scott and I have a nightly ritual. Once we’ve put Wee ‘Burb to bed, we typically sit down with our Tivo, Cornelius. Named after Yukon Cornelius of Rudolph fame. This is our second Tivo, our first, Big Papi, having passed about 6 months ago.

Anyway, we go through and determine which shows we want to watch. Yes, we watch TV at night. We’re intellectual neophytes. We’ve embraced it.

So once we’re settled into a show and a good couch snuggle, we’ll usually hear the jingle of Cous Cous’ collar going downstairs. And then the “who will let the dog out” dance begins. It goes something like this:

Me: Cous is downstairs.

Him: Is she scratching?

Me: Not yet.

Him: Okay. [goes back to whatever magazine or Internet article he’s reading until seconds later, we hear scratching on the sliding door downstairs]

Me: Now she’s scratching.

Him: Mmmm. [His way of pretending if he just waits it out, I’ll go down and take care of it. Only he knows this ain’t happening because I have the distinct pleasure of being Cous Cous’ full-time caretaker during the day. Which means I feel after-dinner doody is his duty, ya know?]

Me: Okay, now she’s whining.

Him: Sigh. Groan. Fine! [Gets up and goes downstairs]

Because I am a very considerate wife, I hit pause on the Tivo. Yes, I force him to go into the cold of night to let the dog take her 50 years to find the perfect poop spot, but he won’t miss nary a second of Dr. Phil. I’ll take my Wife of the Year Award now, please.

Anyway, so the other night Scott was packing for a work trip and for some reason I end up feeling bad for him every time he goes on these trips, even though it’s me who ends up being the single Mom trying to care for the insane dog and even more insane (and now mobile) baby. So I heard her scratching and instead of waiting for him to come out and here her, I was nice enough to go down and take her out.

But before I did, I hit the pause button on the Tivo.

The TV wasn’t on.

I'm Baaaack!

Happy November, People! As I mentioned, last week was my anniversary. What I failed to mention was that Scott was out of town the whole week. Oh, and Wee 'Burb decided to run a fever that was high enough to force her to stay home with me, but not high enough where she wasn't wired at the idea of being home in an only partially-babyproofed house.

So that explains my absence.

We had an AMAZING anniversary celebration this weekend, though, including a much-needed night away from the feverishly normal Wee 'Burb. We ate at La Belle Vie, which is the closest Minnesota has, or ever will have sadly, to5-star cuisine. AMAZING! Let me just tell you this: I have issues with carcass. I can't eat anything when it's in the form it was when alive. No lobster, I have to hide during the Thanksgiving carving, and definitely no chicken wings. But I ate marrow, people. AND I LOVED IT!

Side note: wanna know how much I love my husband? A few years ago I actually hosted Thanksgiving, including sticking my hand in a turkey's ass, and washing it. WASHING A CARCASS! ON THE INSIDE!! Now that's love.

After our amazing dinner, we checked in to the Grand Hotel, where we were upgraded to a king-size suite. It had a TV in the bathtub. Not the bathroom, the bath TUB!

In addition to the complimentary bottle of champagne they sent us, we also enjoyed a small version of our cappucino souffle wedding cake from Buttercream Bakery.

Last, but certainly not least, after getting up WHENEVER WE FELT LIKE IT, we ate an amazing brunch at Hell's Kitchen where I had a ham, cheese and pear melt that almost made Scott irrelevant.

Anyway, I should be back on schedule this week, assuming Wee 'Burb doesn't sponteaneously combust.

What are you all up to?