See that gorgeous woman in that photo? That would be my beloved cousin, Baby Jane. She comments here as Janie and just so happens to be one of my favorite people on this big ole ball we call earth. LOVE her. When we were younger I threatened all of my guy friends with bodily harm if they disrespected or hurt her. Although she never lived in Pittsburgh, we were always the best of friends and would visit often.
But the best part of being friends with Janie is that she would write letters. Often. Handwritten, long and funny letters would show up and my asshole self would rarely return the sentiment. While it might have bothered her, she never let on, instead just writing another letter to tell me about a boy she liked or how school was or to share a fantasy about our shared crush, Sylvester Stalone.
(What? DO NOT JUDGE. We were teenagers in the 80′s and Sly was ripped in First Blood, Rambo and the brazillion Rocky movies. Oh how we adored him. Besides, we have extremely different taste in men what with Janie loving smooth pretty boys while I was loving big hairy men and Sly was the only one we could agree on. Stalone had the power to unite, people! Sigh.)
Where was I? Oh yes, I was mentioning that Jane was a terrific pen pal. Some things never change. Recently when my mail arrived there was the unmistakable handwriting addressing the letter to me. Right there on my front stoop I did the happy girl wiggle and probably squeeeeed. Loudly.
The dogs had to pee so I quickly got into the house, got them outside and then tore into Jane’s letter. It thrilled me that she wrote again.
I need to see her again. Soon. I mean, the woman’s laugh is infectious. And I miss it. Besides, Florida isn’t that far.
Testing…1…2…awwww, fuck, I think my damn feed isn’t going out again.
Sigh.
Last weekend I had the pleasure of spending time with Donnie Van Donnie’s family. Drove about five hours on Friday up to the middle of nowhere (across the PA line into the woods of New York). It was exactly what I needed…to do a whole lot of nothing.
Well, I did love on this little pup:
And I did go for a walk with two boys…one 10 and one five. A few paces from the house we found a shovel and apparently that is quite entertaining to those of the male persuasion. Also interesting? Their fascination with, and love of, a hatchet. Due to it being the first day of deer season in NY we couldn’t walk too terribly far, just around the pond and over to a line of pine trees, but it was still fun listening to those two talk and watching them work together to dig a hole. When I went back to the house to go get my camera they hid in the tress to scare me upon my return. Fortunately the dog gave them away or I would have had nightmares and had to beat the kids. Yes, I am totally a chickenshit and yes, everything shows up in my dreams.
Maybe it was the inevitable worm find that made digging the hole all worthwhile?
One of the guys (Amish Henry who went with us to a football game) shot a deer. It was the first time I watched a deer being skinned and beheaded. It didn’t disturb me like I thought it might. Actually, the whole process was quite educational and not gross. Maybe because Henry was quick and clean, I don’t know. All I know is that at one point Donnie stepped into the view of my camera to give me the shocker. Coz we are classy like that.
Donnie also has a sheep on his property that I was intrigued by. She was incredibly shy and would run if you looked at her too long so I couldn’t get close to get a decent photo, but she sure did eat a bunch of grass. Wonder if I could just borrow her long enough for her to get my grass manageable. Hmmmm.
I needed the getaway, but my two boys get sad when they see me packing. They are so pathetic when the realize I am preparing to go away. See? Pathetic:
(Yes, the previous owners put orange carpet in my bedroom. No, I haven’t done a damn thing about it. Hush!)
This year, like all years past, I have so very much to be thankful for. I started to wrote a list of things that I am thankful for, but life just has too much awesomeness to capture in a blog list. Of course family and friends would be on the list, as would my dogs and my house, but after that where does one draw the line? Especially when there is stuff like this Muppets video to make me smile and give thanks that there are such talented and creative people in the world…
Or watch here
Hope your Thanksgiving is magnificent. Know that I am thankful for you!
Aunt Tinkle was born on November 23rd many moons ago.
My Mom was born on November 24th many more moons ago.
I love my Aunt dearly.
I miss my Mudder desperately.
Ξ November 4th, 2009 | → 21 Comments | ∇ work |
In my last post I mentioned one of the things making me not all WAHOO about writing over here is the fact that Midnight Cliff was mentioned in a lawsuit. Although I probably shouldn’t talk about this here, I can’t imagine that anything is especially private so what the hell.
Basically my incredible company had one not white, female employee who gave both women and blacks a bad name. She would only do her job and never lend a hand with anyone else’s overwhelming workload. Even when doing her job she would cut corners or provide crappy service. When I started here almost 11 years ago she worked with a certain attitude that is so against everything I believe in and it never changed. While I won’t go into everything, let’s just say that I am surprised she kept her job as long as she did.
One thing I will mention is that no matter what normal stuff happens in her life she files a lawsuit (teen aged son got in a fight at school and she sued the school, used car had mechanical issues and she suited the dealer or mechanic or whatever…I never wanted details). The owner of my company owns the building we are in and in the winter we all take turns shoveling, salting, etc. Not this employee. In fact, if I notice it is getting slippy I say to myself, “Oh shit, someone had better salt before Bad Apple falls down and sues us.”
She is just that kind of person, going so far as joking about when we all hit the lottery’s Powerball she is going to sue us for more than her share even though she put in the same $2 we all did. You have no idea how much I hate that type of attitude.
ANYhow, the company terminated her in late September and it was no surprise that she filed a lawsuit. From what little I know she claimed racial bullshit because we kept two women who are white and haven’t worked here as long as she had (guess what…they are hard workers who take on multiple roles at the company!). Also claimed sexual harassment because the company knows about my blog and “encourages” me to post naked images of myself for customers and vendors to look at. (SUCH A LIE! None of my supervisors ever told me to post anything here…sexual or otherwise. I do my best to avoid talking about this site with coworkers and supervisors.)
I mean, I almost threw up when when I realized that because of her suit the big, important folks at my company now know of Midnight Cliff. While I always am all sunshine and rainbows about my job, this site still isn’t something that I wanted to share with executives. I mean, my bare breasts are on here! Aaack. Not cool that because of her they now know about it (because to the best of my knowledge they didn’t before the papers were filed!).
This blog is SO not something that I ever made Bad Apple look at, not something the company endorses. Midnight Cliff is MY little slice of the internet, not a corporate space. I’ve never mentioned my company name, never said a bad word about the place. And wouldn’t, because i love my job. When I write about a trade show I sing the praises of the location, the people, my job, etc. and might post a photo that was taken at the show, but never something that was taken while I was on the clock, never something that involved company logos of any type.
I just am so mad that Bad Apple was grasping at straws and pulling me into her bullshit. It isn’t like I ever asked her to give me HNT photos or anything, why would she trash me and risk my job in her anger at being let go? I mean grrrrrrrrrr!
:grr:
So you guys asked about the lawsuit. That is pretty much the gist of it. Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere. Yinz are stuck with me.
I haven’t written anything over here in close to a month. There are a variety of reasons why I haven’t written…too busy running around enjoying the fall, having nothing blog worthy to say, being named in a lawsuit that specifically references this little site of mine, just being lazy, etc.
ANYhow, I don’t even really know where to start these days. Just don’t know what to write about. I could tell you that I am too lazy to get out and rake my yard, but that photo above proves that point. I could recap my adventures in Florida when I stayed with Britt‘s family and attended Adam‘s party, but so many others gave much better recaps. I could tell you about my trip to Columbus the few days before I left for Florida, but it already seems like forever ago and most of what I find funny would get lost in the writing. I could tell you how Twitter is sucking the blogger from me, but most of you know the feeling.
WAIT! I know what I can tell you. The night I got back from Florida my neighbor told me there was a reporter snooping around my house, wanting to interview me for a story. Something about my Mom’s work with the Clean Water and Clean Air initiatives. Fortunately my (very hot) neighbor told the reporter that I probably wouldn’t be interested and that he shouldn’t be digging up painful memories since I’m still struggling with Mom’s death even three and a half years later. (I love my neighbor!)
I called the reporter, who left several business cards shoved in my door and in my mailbox, only to get voice mail. (insert happy girl wiggle here) A day later the reporter called back and left me a voice mail message saying that his story on air pollutants needed someone who had lost a loved one due to the environment and everyone he talked to told him that he should talk to me. Seems lots of folks that knew Mom and worked with her suggested he contact me.
Only problem is that I don’t feel that breast cancer is a direct result of air pollutants. And I don’t think that Mom’s decision not to take one of the meds (Tamoxifen) that could have kept the cancer from returning (to her brain, bones and lungs) was a result of the air. Or water.
Regardless, even if I did, I ain’t strong enough to be speaking on camera about my Mom’s death.
So there’s that. That is blog worthy, eh?