A Lady Named Ada...

I'm working on the catering man's site.

I'm very very close to being done. And I can put this sucker to bed, get paid, and finish the dart people. Whew. It's been a long month or so. I thought this morning that I may have screwed up my unemployment. I was supposed to mail in my time sheet chit thingie into their office on Friday of last week, the day of the funeral, and didn't realize I'd forgotten to do so until Monday afternoon.

So I called my representative, a kick-ass, awesome Latina named Ada, who laughs at the drop of a hat and thinks my kids are a riot (they're usually up my butt when I call her, so she laughs and laughs at how cute they sound).

I informed her that I thought I screwed myself up by mailing in the time card late, she looked me up and said they got it and the check is being processed. I told her normally by now I have already received my time card for this week and next week, she said I should get it today.

I told her I love her.

She laughed and said "you know sweetie, I need more people like you in my day!" I told her I need more people like her, who don't treat me like I'm an idiot when I am an idiot, so perhaps we need to start our own company called "More People Like You Enterprises," and make the world a happy place.

Man, she thought that was just the funniest.

I love Ada.

Anyway. I got on the PC at 8:15am right after Jessie left for the bus, and I'm just doing this journal entry and I'm done over here. It is 11am. I am waiting on a couple small things from Cateringman and the site is done. Bonnie's husband helped me with a wicked nice web mail form action thingie, so the site auto returns a cool thank you email, and all sorts of shit. So I'm stoked.

All this for five hundred clams.

I'm working for the cheap.

I wanted to do him a favor because they did me a favor by hiring me to do catering stuff with little experience, so I feel it is worth it.

It's not a bad day, so my lament from yesterday about the rain has been answered by sunshine. It's chilly though. Geoff got to play outside, which he so needed to. The 50 degree temperature reading on my deck thermometer is a lie. It feels like 30. Jessica insisted her sweatshirt was warm enough. Ha.

My feet are freezing, so I have on my favorite Bubbles Slippers. (cue PPG theme song as the day and my toes are saved). I also have these cool Homer Simpson Slippers, but one of them is hiding from me, so I have to wear these. They are perfect, just warm enough, and not at all big. Just like nice socks.

We spent about an hour at the Saturn dealership yesterday. Discovered we have two bent rims. The tune is $280 bucks. Stupid road in northern Maine, bending my rims with its retarded potholes! I told Doug I had them replaced and he was pissed, because at about 13,000 miles we had the front two rims replaced because they were bent. He's never in his life had a car with shoddier rims, so he thinks I should write a bitch-gram to General Motors to whine about their sub-standard rimmage.

Sure, why not. If it gets me some sort of discount on something in the future, I'll whine.

We did hit that hole wicked hard though. Michelle will agree. I was surprised it didn't disable the car... so I don't feel like bitching too much. I'd rather bitch at the town in Maine and see if their town hall will reimburse me for part or all of the cost. Some towns do.

We have a surprise birthday party to go to tonight for a friend who may or may not be reading this at some point, so I'll not mention it. Suffice to say, the digital camera is coming. It's at a seafood restaurant, and I'm simply jonesing for some scallops! So, woo hoo! Tomorrow afternoon the company I used to work or in Marblehead is having a reunion as they do their final shut down. I'm looking forward to that, seeing some old friends I have totally lost track of, people I adored but once I left seem to have forgotten and they've forgotten me. Again, digicam is coming. I've kept in very close contact

Gotta go back to the Saturn dealership to get the car aligned, which they didn't have time for yesterday due to my need to split by 3:30 to get home to meet Jessica's bus. I don't mind her being home for a few minutes, but I didn't want her home alone for over an hour. I'm such the good mom.

I got email today from my friend's long-ago college girlfriend who is still processing a lot of her thoughts and feelings about his death.

She was so sweet and all I wanted to do was just hug her. She told me she actually works with teenagers who are having drug problems, working through their addictions. She yelled at them, told them that they are going to end up in the same boat as he did. Felt that somehow he was speaking through her to them..

I'm totally amazed at how life paths wander, change... how she ended up on that end of the spectrum, and he on the other. I think I could write a book about the two of them, and life. But I'd break my own heart. And hers. And other people's.

I also thought it was so funny to look at my inbox this morning and have an email from her, and an email from the girl he loved who sort of introduced him to the heroin life, not by having him use but by having him fall in love with her... side by side on the list. I am the bridge between both worlds.

Sometimes people get to have visits from those they have recently lost. Shelleyness talks about how her grandmother visited her M., and how she dreamed of her mom's Dickie... both entries are really moving from a spiritual standpoint, and part of me longs for that kind of a communication with my friend. Which is why watching the Sixth Sense was so bad for me. I want to be able to have that one more I Love You, that one more "did you know that I wanted to help you more than anything but you didn't want me to?" kind of thing. I want to know he's fine. I trust he is, I believe he is, but KNOWING would be so nice. I would never go to a psychic, or to that TV scheister who allegedly communicates with people on The Other Side. It would have to be just because. And I'd welcome that. I doubt it would ever happen though.

I actually think, don't laugh, that he's communicated with me through the radio stations as I scan them. When I can hit buttons and hear all of his songs, at any one given point, perhaps that's insane of me to even think... but music was his medium of communication in life. Why wouldn't it be in death.

Anyway. I have to shower so I can go back to the dealership. This entry has been brought to you by the rambling freestyle thoughts of an overtly caffeinated mom, first thing in the morning, and Spongebob. And slippers.