the badbadivy experience

Tell me your kitchen disaster story, win $45 GC to Outback Steakhouse.

Also, check out my new pet blog!

Man, yesterday. Let me tell you, yesterday was one hell of a day.

It started out fine, the usual, getting posts written, etc. My MIL was supposed to be in town by 9 AM, but we hadn’t heard from her by about 11, so Mr. Ivy called her. She was in town, checked into her hotel, but hadn’t called us yet for whatever reason. She and Mr. Ivy arranged to meet for lunch at Waffle House. By the time we left the house it was 11:40 and Megs was out of school at 12:30. I hoped the service would be ultra fast.

No dice. When we got there, MIL said she was STILL waiting for service  for her coffee. Oy. I started thinking of how I could get Megs in time. Just then, MIL started shouting at the waitress.

“Hey! You’re giving away my coffee! I’m still waiting for my coffee!” Seriously, who yells at a Waffle House waitress? They hire the oldest and crustiest. I braced myself to get yelled at by the waitress, but she was nice, she came over and gave her coffee and we gave her our drink orders.

By the time she got back to take our food orders, it was 12:15. I decided I’d run home, grab Megs and then come back. I ordered my food, figuring I don’t mind cold food, and dashed home. Megs got home not too long after I got there, and I grabbed her up and we went back to Waffle House.

Megs decided she wanted a chocolate chip waffle, so there MIL goes again, shouting at the waitress. “Yoo hoo!!!” she shouted, “We need service over here!”

Ack. Ack. Ack. People that know me know I am exceptionally polite to servers. It drives me batshit crazy when people are rude to them- waitressing is a hard job and people treat servers exceptionally bad sometimes. Even if the service is not good, I am never rude. And the service wasn’t great at Waffle House yesterday, our server was slow and only seemed to be able to do one thing at a time, but still, no need to be rude.

So the waitress ordeal was finally over, MIL went back to the hotel for a nap and we went back home. I got my paycheck in the mail, so Aaron and I went over to the bank to deposit the checks (after 4, alas) and Megs stayed home and played on the computer.

When we got back, Mr. Ivy  said that the computer had shut down while Megs was using it. Well, that had happened to Heather when she was here last week, but it restarted right away. This time, it wouldn’t start. It would get to a screen where it asked did we want to start Windows in safe mode or normally, I’d choose one and the computer would just stop. Oh noooooooo.

So since it was after 5 by this time, I took it over to Best Buy and the Geek Squad. Luckily, I got this tech that really knew what he was doing and was really cool. He and I joked around while he was running a scan on my computer, and he really put me at ease. I hate, hate, HATE for other people to touch my computer. Especially when I don’t know them. But this guy was really cool.

He ran a scan on my computer and said it looked really good. He couldn’t figure out why my computer, which wouldn’t start at home, but naturally started up just fine at Best Buy, would do that. But then he said, “Wait, let me look at just one more thing.” He checked the temperature my computer was running at and was like, “A-ha! It’s running really hot. Let’s try cleaning it.”

Now, my fan had been running really loud for about 6 months, and lately it had been running pretty much constantly, so I totally believed the too hot theory. And it was pretty dusty when he opened it up, so I believed that it needed cleaned. But what he said when he came back from cleaning the computer, I was totally unprepared for.

“How many cats do you have?” he asked. Apparently when he was cleaning out my computer, hordes of cat hair evacuated. Ewwww. I was running my computer with a cat hair blanket and that’s not good. Computers like to be nice and cool, not insulated.

So he started the computer back up and for the first time in months, the fan ran quietly. Woot! Woot! Woot!

So I went back home. The MIL had come over for dinner, which I had long since missed. I plugged the computer back up and said, “Give me a minute to just email Kat Coble and I’ll be around to hang out.”

I opened up my email and saw that I had 21 emails from MCB. What the hell. It was a crapload of spam comments. Went to the site, it was running exceptionally slow. Yep, we were being attacked by spam commenters. Lovely.

So, I had a massive coronary, and then I chilled out and emailed people. Called Chris Wage who told me the only thing to do, really, was close comments, call Dreamhost, and wait it out. So I did that, except the calling Dreamhost part, because I couldn’t find a number to call them with and I could see MIL and Mr. Ivy were getting irritated with me.

And it all calmed down eventually. I played Whoonu with the family, tried to calm down, managed it (sort of), and the rest of the night went fine.

Hopefully today will be much, much more on an even keel.

Whenever I’m bored or have writer’s block or anything else, really, I take a short break and play spades. It’s this online spades thing that came with my computer. So, this has happened several times lately and I really needed to bitch.

I bid one. Because, you know, I have shit for cards. My partner goes nil. Now, that’s understandable because you bid sight unseen. But when I bid one and you bid nil, don’t expect shit for coverage from me. I’ll do the best I can, but if I had a lot of high cards, I would have bid more than ONE.

There’s chat on the game, but it limits you to responses the game allows you.  So, today I bid one, my partner goes nil. I do the best I can covering this fool with my paltry and assorted queens and jacks, and then they lead spades. I had ONE spade, the king. So, what happens? Person to my left leads with a 4. My partner plays a 2. Person to my right plays their ace and I am forced to play my king, because it is the only spade I had.

Then the person to my right leads a 6 of spades. I throw the 9 of diamonds because, again, I’m out of spades. Player to my left throws a 3 and my partner is caught with the 9.

What does that asshat do? They chat:

Thanks partner

Nice cover

No

So I chat right back at them:

Nice try

It was luck

What I REALLY wanted to chat at them was something like:

YOU DUMB ASSHOLE! I ONLY HAD ONE FUCKING SPADE AND I HAD TO PLAY IT!

Of course, the game is too polite for that. My partner left the game immediately after that. Fucker. I don’t even know why I play spades on the computer, it irritates me so badly.

I can take damn near any conversation and relate an Eminem quote to it. I think I listen to too much rap.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been tagged for a meme. Thanks for caring, sadcox! Anyway, here’s how the meme works. You’re supposed to post 3 things you haven’t let go, but probably should. Sadcox posted things he seems to still be pissed about. Not all mine are gonna be things I’m still pissed about because I really don’t stay angry for all that long. Anyway, here we go.

Whether or not people like MCB. Y’all, this is killing me. I’m working my ass off to try to have the site be balanced, to make sure the comments are fairly policed, etc, etc, etc. And people still bitch. Every single day. I comment back to them, “Y’all, I’m doing the best I can!” And they still bitch. Seriously, what the hell. If this was a service everyone was paying for, then I could see the complaints.

But let one single comment go by and all of a sudden, I’m not fair. I’ve been accused of being best buds with Democommie, I’ve been accused of being best buds with #9. While there are aspects of both people that I really dig, I have never met either of them and due to their anonymous nature, probably never will. I’m not taking sides at MCB- ask Ginger, who has had one of her comments deleted by me. Ask my cousin Ron, who also has had a comment deleted by me. If I’d delete one of my best bud’s comments and my own cousin’s comments, does that sound like I’m the type to take sides? I’d delete my own mother’s comment (with relish, ha) if she violated the comment standards.

I think this is  the most I’ve written about anything in weeks. Can you tell it really bothers me? And that’s exactly why I need to let it go. It’s stupid. People are always going to bitch and moan, I just need to run MCB the way I and the other people on the “board” think it should be run. Because, really, if I can run it to please myself, then people should like it anyway. I’m a totally reasonable person.

My fear of “church people”.  Any blogger who has ever seen me at a meet-up can attest that I am not shy. I’m usually running around talking to everyone. I’m pretty self-confident, I recognize this as one of my strengths. So why was it, when I went to the minister’s house on Monday night, I sat and didn’t talk to anyone and had the stupidest answers to questions? Couldn’t think of a thing to say? Was painfully, painfully shy?

I’ll tell you why. Because I am afraid of church people. Now, plenty of bloggers go to church, but that’s okay with me, because I am not meeting them in a church setting. Put a whole bunch of Christians together and I’m terrified.

I can pinpoint exactly where this all started, too.  When I was about 5 or 6 years old, my mom went to a Baptist church. My dad didn’t go to church, because at the time he was either an atheist or agnostic. It was before he had his religious experience, which I must tell you guys about sometime, but now’s not the time. Anyway, Mom made me go to church. I hated it, y’all, because the other little girls were mean to me. They never sat with me. They made fun of my handmade dresses. (Which is a horrible shame because my mom is a wonderful seamstress and made me some really beautiful dresses. But because of these bitchy little girls, I shunned the dresses she made me. I’ll always feel bad about that.)

Anyway, one Sunday before we were to go to church, my grandma (yes, the one who died recently- the other one is an atheist) asked me why I was so grumpy and didn’t want to go to church. I told her it was because the other little girls didn’t want to sit with me. “Well, Ivy, they probably don’t sit with you because you haven’t approached them. Go sit with them, then they’ll sit with you.” I was dubious, but I figured it was worth a try.

So I went into the classroom and they were all sitting together on a pew. I went over and sat beside them. They all got up and moved to another pew. I was mortified. “Oh, Grandma,” I thought. “You were wrong.”

I decided then and there that I would never go to church as soon as I was old enough not to be forced to go. And I didn’t, for a very long time. Recent events have made me believe that it is important for me to go to church, but I still hate it. I am trying really hard to try to make friends within the church, but I have been unable to so far. I need to get over the little Baptist bitches, and just go in there with my usual self and make some friends, but it’s hard, really, really hard. Maybe now that I’ve written it all out, I can do so. But maybe not. It’s hard to say.

Wow, this is getting long. Okay, right on to the third thing.

Smoking. That’s right, bitches, I smoke and there’s nothing you can do about it.  I can’t tell you how many people stumble onto my Stumble Upon profile, which has a picture of me smoking, and they message me and tell me to quit smoking. When people do that, my completely contrary nature makes me want to smoke until my dying day. But really, I know that smoking is not doing me any favors. At all.

Okay, it might be good for one thing. Picture it. It’s about 5 o’clock, too early to start dinner, but the kids are whining. “What’s for dinner?” That usually breaks them out into a fight, and if I’m lucky, Mr. Ivy will start yelling and the dog will start barking and I decide I want to kill someone.

That’s where the smoking comes in handy. I don’t smoke inside my house, so I go outside. If it’s too horribly bad and there’s someone responsible over the age of 12 inside the house, I can hold the door closed and get about 6 minutes of relative peace. Sure, I could do that when I’m not smoking, but a cigarette works as a timer.

Yeah, I’m making excuses. A poor excuse is better than none, right? Ha. It gets harder to breathe every day. The older I get, the worse my lungs are, and that sucks. I need to quit smoking. I have a prescription for Chantix sitting on my desk, but ever since it was written, I’ve been too broke to afford to get it filled. I’ve been saving my money, and I’m about 3/4ths of the way there now. I can do this. I just have to gather up my cojones and  just do it. But it’s hard to let go of, and that’s why it’s on my list.

Now for the tagging. I like

Kat Coble

Kate O

and Kathy T for this meme.  Chosen because these are 3 bitches that can really tell a story, and I’d be interested to see what stuff they can’t let go of.

PS: A pox on WordPress for putting these word count thingies on here. 1234 words? You’re making me self-concious here, WordPress.  (final count: 1243)

Comments on Uncle’s “Ivy’s considering getting a gun” post? Feel free to comment here.

Then nothing will. If I had ANY stitching skills whatsoever, I would so be making this for you.

Megs was crying last night. I finally got it out of her that she had suffered with a toothache all day but her teacher wouldn’t let her go to the nurse, for whatever reason. So I kept her home this morning and took her to a dentist. Dr. Marvo Odds, for those of you that live in La Vergne and want to go see a nice dentist.

She has to go to a pediatric dentist and have 2 teeth pulled and space maintainers put in. For those of you that are keeping track, yes, I was already wiped out financially by Jim’s surgery and funeral expenses related to my grandma’s death. How am I going to come up with the money for this? It’s a mystery, but I will figure it out. I always do.

Here’s why I am praising God anyway. Because in the last year sometime I read about a kid that died because he needed to have a tooth pulled and it was not taken care of. People were running around talking about what a horrible mother he had because she didn’t take care of her kid. Well, Megs isn’t going to die and people aren’t going to run around calling me a horrible mother. Well, people might call me a horrible mother anyway since this is the first time she has ever been to a dentist. Keep in mind we’ve been some poor mofos and dental care is really low on our list of things to take care of. I know, stupid, but since our dental insurance covers pretty much nothing, we’re struggling just to catch up.

Anyway, we’ve caught her bad tooth in time, so she’s not going to die, and that’s good. And I’m sure we’ll figure out a way to pay for it, like I said, I always do. So, I’m praising God anyway, even though I’m adding some suck to the list of suck that has occurred in my life lately.

And, really, things have GOT to get better now, right? Right?

Megs and Nate are building hideouts in my living room. Ya know, Megs is a good artist, I thought she might become an artist when she grows up. Or, she’s great at math, maybe she’ll become a rocket scientist. But now I think she’s going to be a Realtor. Why?

She said, “I got a really good deal on the cat’s old hideout. $1000 a month for a downtown loft? You can’t beat that, and it’s convenient to everything.”