The Bee Hive

Sometime between yesterday morning and this morning, our freezer had an identity crisis. It decided it was a refrigerator, and that it would act accordingly.

So this morning, we had goddess-knows-how-many pounds of thawed food to figure out what to do with. I cooked up all the fake breakfast sausage and had FIVE pieces (yum!) along with a once-frozen blueberry waffle and some conveniently pre-thawed berries. We transferred as much of the food as would fit into the real fridge, and are feverishly making meal plans for the next several days to use up as much of the food as possible.

Even with good planning, though, we’re going to lose some food. So if anyone in the vicinity of near-north Nashville would like some thawed veggie burgers, veggie bratwurst, or veggie ground “beef”, or some formerly-frozen fruit, come on over. We’ll be cooking and feasting all day.

Share This

This afternoon as my coworker Duane and I were meeting downtown with the ad agency working on our new logo, a storm started kicking up outside. It was just beginning to rain as we got up to leave, and the wind was fierce. I, of course, was wearing a billowy skirt that hit just above the knee. That is, when the wind isn’t gusting — in the wind, it hits just above the shoulder.

Yes, my friends, I walked out of the agency’s office pulling a double-Marilyn — trying to keep my skirt from flying up both in front and in back — and failing miserably. The assistant creative director was gallantly walking me and Duane to my car, trying to cover me with his umbrella and remain chivalrous and composed while I nearly laughed myself into hysterics trying to keep my skirt below my thighs.

I’ve been laughing about it all the rest of the afternoon. But as soon as I got home, I changed into safe, reliable pajama pants.

Oy.

Share This

I’m kind of annoyed about the news that Home Depot is opening new stores aimed at women, but not nearly as annoyed as I am that they’re calling them “Her Depot.” I mean, seriously, wtf?

I worked at Home Depot some 12 years ago. I was a head cashier and worked at the special services desk, which was where large accounts and projects were tracked and managed. It was a pretty cool gig, mostly, despite the fact that I was only working there because I was making so little money as the head of the Language Laboratory at UIC. (Seriously, I was making, like $19K in a role that could be described as “head of a department at a fairly large state university”. It was ridiculous.) Even as draining as it was working a nearly full-time job on top of another full-time job, I enjoyed most of my time in the orange apron.

Also, if I may remind you, I own a house with my handyman husband, and said house has needed detailed attention from what amounts to nearly every aisle of the hardware store.

I mention those two things to let you know that I’ve spent more than my fair share of time within Home Depot stores.

And in all those hours upon hours of walking over hard concrete warehouse floors, I really haven’t noticed Home Depot having a problem pulling in female customers. They’re all over the store, though clearly there is a heavier concentration of women in the lighting, appliance, and garden areas. But even so, they’re there. And they’re buying.

So I’m just not seeing where there was this great need to spin off a store just for her. Which again reminds me of my other point: “Her Depot”? For serious? What kind of condescending shit is that?

I mean, not only is it condescending but it’s also short-sighted. It sounds like they’re looking to compete with the retail powerhouse that is Target, but they’re idiots if they 1) think men don’t shop at Target a lot; and/or 2) think men are going to be very eager to shop at “Her Depot.” Except maybe in gay irony or when coerced by the wife.

It’s just such bad decision-making all the way around. Kind of makes me want to go buy screws and power tools at Target, just out of spite.

HT: Consumerist

Share This

It’s hard not to be irritated with doctors in general right now.

Let me back up for a second. Ever since the rat problem in the back yard and the flea infestation in the house and all the cat sicknesses, and all the rest of it, Karsten has been having a lot of trouble sleeping. He hardly sleeps, and then when he does sleep, he’s been waking up with major anxiety attacks. You can imagine how, after a while, that would start to make you not want to sleep at all.

I’ve been trying to convince him to go to the doctor and get a prescription for Ambien or something similar. He’s willing to take something over the counter, but I foresee the possibility that this will turn into a fairly long-term arrangement and I feel like a doctor should be monitoring it.

But the problem is, doctors have had a history of misjudging and mistrusting Karsten, especially when he goes in asking for a prescription. They think he’s a drug addict, and this seems to be based partly on his somewhat non-conformist appearance and partly on the fact that he works in the arts. Once, when he was being examined for sinus problems, a doctor said “You’re a musician, so you’ve used a lot of cocaine, right?” while nodding his head at Karsten as if to encourage him to agree. When Karsten replied (somewhat indignantly, no doubt) that he’d never used cocaine at all, the doctor regarded him with a suspicious look and refused to give him any medication at all.

Another time, when our apartment neighbors back in San Jose were making our lives miserable (one actually spit in Karsten’s face) and we were both jittery wrecks, Karsten went to the doctor — a different doctor, of course — and asked for something to help calm his nerves, like Valium or something, because he couldn’t write at all. This doctor also asked about Karsten’s recreational drug use (none) and refused to give him anything stronger than what amounted to a placebo.

After all this, I think it’s pretty understandable that he’s reluctant to go in asking for a prescription for sleeping pills.

But I suggested that he explain his state of mind, explain what’s been going on, and ask the doctor for a recommendation. If the doctor refuses to prescribe something, I said maybe he should offer to take a blood test to prove he doesn’t use drugs. He actually seemed comforted by having that card to play and it sounds like he’s going to go.

Has anyone else ever received this kind of suspicious treatment from doctors? If so, what do you do to ensure the outcome you’re hoping for?

Share This

Our area lost power for a while last night. Turns out it was birds. Weird.

ETA: Oh, and I also want to say that people have no freakin’ clue how to drive when the power is out. When stoplight intersections have no power, people barrel right through. We had to drive out of the neighborhood to find food, and it was a white-knuckle experience getting through the intersections. Idiots.

Share This

When my coworker Jennifer and I went to lunch today, the parking lot at our lunch destination was totally full but we finally noticed someone backing out of a space so Jennifer pulled up and waited. At the last minute another car zoomed in and took the space, despite Jennifer’s honking to indicate we were waiting. I unlocked the door to get out, but Jennifer put her hand on my arm to stop me. So as the driver got out of her car, I rolled down the window and shouted that we were waiting for that space. The bitch snapped back at me that we didn’t own the parking lot, or some rude shit like that. I yelled back, she yelled back, whatever. I felt like smacking her upside the head at least, but Jennifer was clearly more in the mood to move on.

So Jennifer drove on, and I tried to shake off my anger, but I was left with bewilderment. What made this woman so sure we wouldn’t key her car and/or slash her tires? I mean obviously we didn’t, but how could she know that we wouldn’t? Maybe we looked too wholesome to worry about, but I don’t know: even if I were the kind of self-centered selfish asshole who felt I could do something like what that woman did, I still wouldn’t do it because the risk of retaliation seems too high.

But I’ll tell you what: I really really wanted to come up with some devious thing to do to her car that would have been cleverly annoying. You know, nothing permanently damaging (what she did wasn’t permanently damaging to us, after all), just something that would have been a nuisance for her (what she did WAS a nuisance, after all). But I guess I’m just not that clever. (Annoying, on the other hand, perhaps.)

The moment is well past, of course, but I’m curious to hear your thoughts and ideas. What would you have done? Or what would you like to have done?

Share This

Just got back from a hot, sticky run in the hot, sticky heat, and in my delirium and shaky state, I managed to break the end of a plug off in the Treo’s headset jack. Great. I managed to get the end of the plug out of the Treo, but the headphone is shot now, unless anyone can reassure me that I can replace a plug on the end of a headset cord and have it sound OK.

Share This

him: I need to see a movie with lots of explosions and death.
me: Oh, did you call your dad?

Share This

Courtesy of Digg, I present to you the top 10 worst lyrics ever, as rated by BBC 6 Music.

U2, Toto, Duran Duran, and Oasis all made the list.

But are there worse examples? I can’t think of any offhand that are truly awful, but one springs to mind because of how much it missed the mark. In Dwight Yoakam’s “Ain’t That Lonely Yet” he sings:

Once there was this spider in my bed
Got caught up in her web
Of love and lies
Spun her chains around my heart and soul…

Aah! It bugs me every damn time I hear it. Spun her chains? Since when do spiders spin chains? I mean, he could have gone for the extra internal rhyme with “bed/web” and done “Spun her threads around…” or even gone suggestive and used “Wrapped her legs around…” or probably dozens of other possibilities, but “chains”? Bad. So bad.

What lyrics bug you?

Share This

I happened across this video clip from some guy’s radio talk show in which he was skewering the song “Ticks” by Brad Paisley. Now Brad Paisley isn’t my favorite artist or anything, but he’s talented and pretty clever, and his fans understand him. So what the host was suggesting in his bit seemed really off to me. I decided to let him know. Here’s what I wrote:

Hey, just a random commenter taking a moment to provide feedback on your “Dumbest country song ever” video pertaining to Brad Paisley’s song “Ticks.” I assume, based on your set of videos and your user name, that you are the host of the show, so I’ll direct my comments to you.

I know you were probably just mining for material, but your skewering of Brad Paisley’s song “Ticks” couldn’t be more off. I think you really missed the mark on this one. I mean, I get that it sounds incredibly stupid when you take it out of context and all that, and I also get that you need to do that kind of thing for comedy every once in a while. But how much of a sense of irony does it take to realize that the “wink wink” intimacy suggested by saying “I’d like to check you for ticks” is completely tongue-in-cheek?

It may be that you need the context of knowing that Brad Paisley is known for this type of offbeat humor in his songs. But still, I don’t think it’s missed by the average country listener that what Paisley is actually proposing has little to do with ticks and much more to do with closely exploring the naked body of the person being addressed by the lyrics.

So… what does it say about you that your sense of humor is not as sophisticated as that of the average country listener?

Ooh, sorry, that one may have been a little below the belt. Might want to have someone check you for bruises.

- Kate O’Neill
Songwriter & Queen Bee
Honey Bowtie Music, Nashville, TN

Share This

Apparently, you can’t pack any aerosols that you don’t spray on your person, so my method lavender air freshener had to go. I gave the can to the two ticket agents, who were only too happy to take it and start spraying behind the ticket counter area. Glad to help.

Share This

I opened my MySpace messages this morning to find another charming missive:

youre beautiful.. we should get to know each other.. how is myspace treating you?

The picture on the profile is of, admittedly, a stunningly beautiful male. But I clicked through to read his profile, and here’s what it says:

(more…)

Share This

I got home from work, excited to tear into the crates from Plumgood with all the (hopefully) yummy produce and other stuff… only to find my empty totes from last week still at the back door and no new totes anywhere in sight.

I emailed customer service and let them know that I can only conclude that the driver didn’t follow my instructions to deliver to the back door, and that the new totes were stolen.

Grr.

And as a private “fuck you” to whoever stole the totes, I’m snickering at the fact that they got a bunch of tofu and produce rather than meat and fun junk food. Not that I can prove that people who steal prefer meat, but that’s the way my imagination prefers it as some sort of consolation.

Grr again.

Edit: It’s not as bad as all that, actually. The Plumgood driver just delivered our totes to our neighbors’ house. The customer service person who called me was apologetic and refunded the delivery charge. I still don’t know if we’ll use the service again, but we probably should — now we’ve gotten the kinks worked out!

Share This

Germantown & Salemtown friends,

After losing several bird feeders to theft a few months ago and taking elaborate measures to secure what remained, this morning Karsten and I discovered our bird feeder pole and remaining feeders were gone. Not only gone, but the thief or thieves apparently got frustrated trying to remove them intact and bent the pole back and forth to break it off near the ground.

And actually, we were forewarned: yesterday we found that a small feeder had been stolen from the south side of the house, and the handle on one of the secured feeders in the front yard was twisted, as if someone had tried to break it off from the pole.

Not only are we frustrated at the property loss (the last theft included about $60 worth of feeders — this time, the dollar value is more like $150), but it’s upsetting on a much more significant level: the feeders were a memorial of sorts to my father, who always loved feeding the birds in his own yard.

Anyway, I filed a police report, and I’m letting you all know so you can be aware of the trend. You probably already know to secure your possessions, but here’s a disappointing reminder to be extra cautious.

Take care and be safe,

- Kate O’ at [home address]

Share This

eBay took down one of my auctions — the Kate Spade bag — for some kind of infringement. Possibly trademark infringement, but I don’t know yet because I haven’t heard back from the katespade.com email address they gave me to contact about the whole thing.

Excuse me? This is just a little absurd. I’m obviously a totally small-time seller on eBay and it’s not like I’m passing off a fake as the real thing or anything like that. I absolutely need the money, and they freakin’ canceled my auction.

This is doing nothing to improve my mood, let me tell you. Grrr.

By the way, there’s less than one day left on the other auctions:
http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellersOtherItems&userid=kateoneill&include=0&since=-1&sort=3&rows=50

Share This

How do people who take frequent smoke breaks ever get anything done?

The window behind me is near a door where people congregate to smoke. I see the same people coming back many times throughout the day, lingering for what seems sometimes like 20 or even 30 minutes. I swear, some of these folks seem to be out there 8 or more times a day.

Meanwhile, I get up occasionally to get more water or a cup of coffee and I’m back at my desk within two minutes, tops. OK, unless I have to brew a fresh pot of coffee and then I wait just long enough to swap my mug for the carafe under the drip while it’s brewing, just to save time. (And of course, there’s the five minutes I’m spending writing this message.)

I’m not saying people shouldn’t take breaks, and I’m not saying I’m not a little more rushed lately than I wish I had to be, but 8 breaks of 20 minutes each? Dude, that’s pretty luxurious. And I still want to know how they manage to get anything done.

Share This

I’m supposed to be working on a proposal that will go before the Governance committee to get them to determine what the access cutoff date on the legacy system will be once we replace it with the new system. The basis of the proposal is how overallocated the portal team is — specifically the business analysts (of which I am one) — and how we simply won’t be able to accomplish the insane arbitrary deadline that’s been set (March 26, 2004).

It should be motivating, because I’m writing something that could save me a lot of frustration. But for some reason, it’s just demoralizing. I feel put upon having to spend time writing up detailed analysis of something anyone with half a brain could understand if I explained it for five minutes.

And the whole point of the proposal is that I have too much to do. So I find it absurd, in that inimitable corporate way, to spend so much time on something that has nothing to do with building the new system. Just sayin’.

Share This