My Bro and Me

I'm sitting here in the wee early hours of the morning, going through my usual banter with my brother.

Brother: This sucks.

Me: You suck.

Brother: I'd rather be poked in the eye with a stick.

Me: You are a poke in the eye with a stick.

Brother: You suck.

Me:  Look who's talking, loser.

Brother: I'm going to bed.

Me: It's about time. Leave me alone.

Of course you have to understand that all this is punctuated with laughter, including snorting because it's stoopid early. We love each other, really. Promise. We are two totally sarcastic idiots, and we spend most of our days trying to outwit one another. I think I won this morning.

Just a slice of life, courtesy of Me. Capital M.

Tweet

Petco Lets Animals Die In Flood

I live in NY, near Binghamton. If you haven't heard by now - our area was flooded this past week. We had a lot of rain from tropical storm Lee - which caused historical flooding throughout Broome County.

There is a Petco in Johnson City, NY. It's in a plaza that houses a few stores - Toys R' Us, Party City, Christmas Tree Shops - to name a few. This plaza has been flooded a few times, most memorably in the Flood of 2006. Keep that in mind as you read what I have to say.

We had had heavy rains that started the night of the 6th. By noon on the 7th of September, the schools were being dismissed and many areas of Broome County were bring evacuated. Highways were being shut down, some were losing power, and almost every store in the area was closing. Including Petco.

The one difference here is that Petco shut their doors - and left the animals inside to drown. We have several pet stores around here, but Petco obviously takes the cake. Pet Depot was flooded too - and were out rescuing the animals, kayaking them out of the store if necessary.

Pet Depot rescue, Vestal NY

Petco's response includes so much spin - it's making me dizzy.

They claim that:
"The flooding was not from the Susquehanna River itself but from a back up in the town’s sewage/drainage system."

Petco is between the blue sign and the red brick

Does it look like that to you? We had record flooding in areas that had never seen water. The places that usually flood saw much more water than normal. Anyone with half a brain could have figured out that Petco would flood. Businesses are required to have insurance, right? Then the insurance people would have surely told the company that the area was prone to flooding. And to place the burden of responsibility on the Johnson City? Shameful.

In the second paragraph of the blog entry, Petco says:
 "We want to stress that this was not carelessness on our associates’ behalf, but a communications lapse from the city to the store in evacuations orders."

Yet in the next paragraph they say:
 "We have a hotline for associates to use if they ever feel an animal is in danger and no calls were made to the hotline suggesting that the associates feared flooding would impact the store and endanger the animals."

So...were the employees careless, or weren't they? Is it their fault they didn't call, or Petco's fault for not making the decision themselves? Surely someone from Petco was aware of the flooding.

The thing that makes me the most angry is this gem:
 "An associate went by to check the store at 11:45 p.m. on Wednesday night and there were no signs of flooding or a flood warning in effect."

Are you kidding me? We had flood warnings in effect from the night before. The night before, people. By 11pm Wednesday night, the place had to have been flooded - so how could an employee check on it? And there were most certainly flood warnings in effect by 11pm.

I myself live in an area that never floods, yet I had 6 inches of water in my basement. So a flood-prone area.....you do the math.

Road at the bottom of my street

Shame on Petco for being so careless and irresponsible. Shame on them for not just issuing a simple apology. A nice heartfelt "I'm sorry" would have worked wonders. So now there is a Boycott Petco page on facebook. I believe there's a demonstration/protest coming up, and I'll be there. The local news is all over this, and I'm hoping national news will pick it up.

Articles can be found at WBNG, and Press and Sun Bulletin.

Hey, Petco...did you get the cash out?

Tweet

Smoke And Mirrors

In case you haven't noticed, I hath completed my bloggy makeover. You like?

Anyhoo - I was browsing my Yahoo news stories and came across a most excellent article. It's about a lady who has sworn off mirrors for a year. Yes, you heard me right. No mirrors for one year.

Let me link her and her blog real quick like. The blog is called Mirror, Mirror....OFF The Wall, and her name is Kjerstin Gruys. Here is the Yahoo article I read.

Now before you double you tee eff me about all this, hear me out.

I love to go out with my friends. I love to go on dates with my husband. I spend lots of time getting ready - makeup, hair, the works. I have just lost about 15 pounds total now, so I have found a whole new wardrobe lurking in the recesses of my basement. I have fun going out now - it's not torture anymore. So to sum up - I have fun going out. I get ready, and I am totally in love with myself. I dance, joke, smile - I live. I live.

Then I look in a mirror. And somehow, always - always! - the image I saw in my head does not match up with what I see.

How I feel vs. what I see

And it's all because I spent too much time reading beauty magazines as a child. Well, not only because - but you get it. The world does not think I am as beautiful as I think I am.


And to that I say - screw you world. I am beautiful. I am gorgeous. My husband adores me, my family loves me - and I need to learn how to do the same. Not because I want to stay overweight and unhealthy - but because I am tired of people I don't know telling me what to think about myself. I'm over it.

airbrushed - nobody looks like that!

So, I am seriously considering not using mirrors for a while. I need to reset how my brain works about myself. I am very curious to see what it does for me.I have a feeling I will learn to love myself - like I always should have.

Tweet

Hey, Verizon...Can You Hear Me Now?

It's official. I hate Verizon. Or maybe loathe is a better word. Detest? Hm.

Let me tell you a story.

About two weeks ago my Internet went out. It went out around 11 PM, right after a particularly loud and large thunderstorm. Kind of a normal thing to happen, right?

For me, not so much.

I call. I get told there's no problem with my Internet. I argue, I yell, I hang up, I call again, I yell some more, I get told there's no outage in my area, I yell a lot, I hang up again, I go to sleep, I wake up 2 hours later to put my son on the bus, and I call one more time. I finally get someone helpful and she tells me she'll call me back within the next 2 hours to let me know what's going on. She calls me back and guess what? I have an outage in my area. (Duh.) Wait, it gets better. The place that Verizon needs to go to fix this outage is contaminated by a chemical spill so the EPA has to come clean it up, and in about - oh say... 8 hours my Internet will be back up. I'm not even joking.

That was only the first bit of the story. (and yes, my Internet came back up) There's more, read on....................

So, about 5 days ago my Internet goes down. Again. And I was in the middle of playing World of Warcraft. Exactly. So...much to my (NOT) surprise - I call ye olde technical assistance department to see what the heck is going on and ask if there's a outage in my area.

First call: I get transferred to a department that is no longer in service.

Second call: After about 10 minutes on hold I finally get to speak to a human being. Well, i get to talk at a human being, I'm not so sure that he understands me all that well. Heck, I don't understand him all that well because I'm not well versed in that language of East Indian Accent. We go through all the usual measures - restart modem, reset modem, unplug cable, plug in cable, blah, blah, blah. Bear in mind I had to ask this guy to repeat everything at least twice.

Let me take a moment to point out that I'm not being racist. If you disagree, i don't really care. The fact is, if you can't speak understandable English, do not, I repeat - do not, get a job as a technical assistance representative. Don't. Go work in Billing and Collections, because nobody actually needs to understand you when you're asking them to give you money.

It got so bad, I hung up. I just....hung up on the guy. I couldn't take it anymore.

Call Three: I call back again, to be told by an automated voice that I could be better assisted by such and such a department. I get automatically transferred to a department that's closed. You heard me - closed.

Call Four: See Above.

Call Five: Please refer to Call Three, rinse and repeat for the next 4 calls.

Yeah, I'm just that stubborn.


Call Nine: I finally get through to an actual person that speaks passable English.

For a few blissfully ignorant moments I feel that my questions will be answered and I will resume the video game playing as soon as possible.

Then my little bubble is burst by only a few words. I'll relay my conversation here for you:

Verizon Guy : "I don't see any problem with your Internet connection, ma'am."

 Me: " if there's no problem with the Internet then howcome I can't access the..uh...Internet."

VG: "Did you reset your modem?"

Me: "Yup. And before you ask, I restarted it too. I also unplugged my cable, waited 30 seconds and plugged it back in. I've tried everything."

VG: "Did you unplug your cable?"

Me: "............yes."

VG: "Ok, we're going to go to the start menu, and find the search bar and type in C....M....D."

Me:"yeah, I already did that too."

VG: "Excuse me?"

Me: " I already tried to ping a website from the command prompt box. The response timed out."

VG: "Ok, you need to go to the start menu, find the  - '

Me: "Didn't you hear me? I just did that. I t doesn't work. My Internet is not working."

VG:  "Ok, let me put you on hold and I will run a line test to see if anything is wrong."

Me: "fine."


It doesn't get any better from there. At this point I have been on the phone for another 2 hours, trying to figure out what the heck is wrong with my service. I'm mad. I'm seething. I believe there may have been smoke coming out of my ears. I do not want to have to hang up and call back.

The guy finally gets back on the line and proceeds to tell me that his line test shows nothing wrong with my Internet connection. So, very slowly, in small words, I tell him that I can't connect to the Internet. Therefore, I do not have an Internet connection so his line test is obviously wrong. I proceed to tell him all about the incident a few weeks before, where I spent hours on the phone having everyone tell me my service was good - only to find out 8 hours later that their line tests were - in a nutshell - wrong. I may have been a little condescending, but at this point I just want someone to get their butts over to a computer and find out what the problem is. After a few minutes of this, he tells me he's going to send me to their "Expert Care Department."

You can imagine my surprise. I have never heard of such a thing, but I figure - what the hey? - I might as well try and see if any Experts really Care.


To Be Continued.......

Tweet

Sunshine and Happiness

I think I'm really a plant. I seem to use photosynthesis to survive.


After a terribly long, cold and frozen winter - The sun has finally come out. Literally. Well - the rain has come with it, but it's still warm so that's ok.

I find that the sunnier it is, the more I do. I know that's probably true for most people - but for me it's means the difference between 150 lbs. and 300 lbs. Some days I wish I lived in a land of perpetual summer.

Anyway - to get to the point - I stepped on the scale a few days ago and discovered (against all logic) that I had lost almost 10 pounds.

Craziness. How in the heck? Not that I'm complaining, mind you. But 10 pounds - just from sitting on my tushy, eating Creme Eggs? I didn't realize that was possible. But then I got to thinking and figured out I have been slowly eating less and less. Either I'm watching my 10 month old niece, Rosie - or I'm playing World of Warcraft. Each of those activities require both hands, therefore, less time to eat.

So when I saw that number I decided to bite the bullet and start exercising again too. I mean, heck - if I can lose 10 pounds lounging on the couch - I can lose more if I get up and move. So I've been taking my niece for walks around our little cul-de-sac every day. Four times around the little circle - which I think is a bout a half a mile.

I've also been watching what I eat. Not so much what - but how much. And it seems to be working.

Guess I just wait and watch the scale go down now.

Tweet

Where Did I Go?

Is it possible to loathe yourself in such a horrific way - that all you want to do is rip your heart from your chest and step on it, so you no longer have to breathe through the pain?

I believe it is.

That's all I feel lately. I have no wit, no charm, no life. I sit here, day after day, a lump on the couch - dreaming of better things, longing for a better life and yet here I sit.

Still.

Every day.

I feel like I'm in glue, I can't move, and I'm sick of wanting to. I'd like to be numb now, please God, so I can sit here without hating myself so much.

I know I'm so much more. So much more. There's more in here than a couch, and the chocolate, and the vicious cycle of eating to fill the void and hating the need to fill it.

I used to see and want and be so much. But I seem to have lost my muchness.

Where did it go?

And when can I stop hating myself? And how do I get off of the FUCKING COUCH?????

Tweet

Longest Week

I meant to post this last Tuesday, but it's been a long, sad week.

My cousin, Nicole passed away Thursday, Feb. 24th. She was only 29 years old, and leaves behind a husband and four young children, ages 5 to 12. She had had breast cancer, and had a double masectomy to get rid of it. She was in remission for a while, but the cancer came back - agressively and eventually spread to her whole body. She fell a few weeks ago and collapsed her lung. Because the cancer had spread so far, she was unable to recover. Although her death wasn't unexpected, the whole process happened rather fast and has left me and my family rather upset. She was her mothers only child, and I can't even begin to understand what my Aunt is going through right now. It's a hard situation to deal with all around. Her funeral was Tuesday morning, hence the no posting.

On top of all that, my whole family has been sick for a week. We had strep and me and my son also got impetigo. How thrilling for us all. We spent a week in the house, doing the best we could for my cousin and her family.

So, that's what's been going on. Needless to say, I have not been paying attention to what I eat. if anything, I've been indulging in comfort food. I'll see you all again soon, hopefully in a better mood.

Tweet