12.30.06
okay. so once again i have fallen short of the 50 book mark.
hee. book mark.
but i did manage to wrangle 38 books under my belt. which isn't bad at all, but it is less than my tally from last year. so that's a little disappointing. i'm totally blaming the knitting bug that bit me back in october. because i haven't read a single book since learning how to knit.

anyblah, by my "calculations" (read: art math) i read 3.8 books a month, which means if i'd kept reading i'd have ended up reading exactly as many books as i read last year...which was not 50. you lose some; you lose some.

i'm hoping that 2007 is the year i FINALLY read 50 books.

12.29.06
i went to the hospital to visit june but she's in CCU and i did not know that. so i didn't get to see her. today they put two stents in her chest. i'm not sure why. if i had to guess it would be cos she's on so much blood thinner that they can't do surgery. maybe?

that's my deductive reasoning skillz. i'm like damn jupiter jones over here. please tell me at least one of you nerds read the alfred hitchcock presents: the three investigators book series? oh, like it was just me? riiiight.

dude, in third grade i read like, all those books, yo. i read them many times over. they had the SWEETEST hideout.

12.29.06
wtf friday

i had a dream last night where i was at the vineyard church. only i didn't want to be there. i was getting more and more nervous about being there (even though there wasn't anything going on. no church was really happening.) that i kept eating these cookies that were on the table. and every time someone would come up to me to say something i'd shove another cookie in my mouth and start talking with the cookie bits all gross and falling out of my mouth.

there was another part of the dream where my friends and i were bussed to these softball fields (with cabins!). laura was in one of the cabins and there were a ton of children's books and stuff and she kept telling me to take home the closet next to hers. i kept asking how i was supposed to take home a closet. she said, "well that one's external. you can take that one." and i was all, "it's only going to be two walls then! how will i take it without all the stuff falling out?!" we continued to fight about it. then the lesbian softball coach finally showed up and none of us wanted to play ANY kind of sports. the busses never came back to get us but luckily liz was kinda....cinderella (seendereeya!) and she had a pumpkin stage coach and that's how we got home.

when i woke up my mouth tasted like cookies.

***

work went fine yesterday. but the old lady had blabbed her non-real side of the story to EVERYONE and some of the oldsters gave me dirty looks, but no one said anything to me about it. the old lady did yell at dad in the lobby in front of everyone that he and i never told her to call 911 and that he and i lied about it and that we had been planning it for 2 weeks. she says she's going to take it before the board and that we'll get it and that it's not over.

hell hath no fury...

12.27.06
trauma wednesday

i've mentioned the old lady kelly and i take to dialysis three times a week? yes. well, when i got back from lunch yesterday the lady working the front desk said that june had fallen and the medics took her to the hospital. this was a strange thing to tell me seeing as how 30 minutes later the same lady said, as i was walking by, "some man called and said that june's door is locked and she's in there screaming."

"june? but i thought she went to the hospital?"

"no. she wouldn't go when the medics came."

the communication breakdown (i.e. the old lady at the desk is losing her mind, which is sad, but in situations such as these it becomes annoying and actually, dangerous. you'll see why in a moment.) continued to breakdown further as i ran to get dad or the boss lady to go up with me to check on june. i'm no fool and i know my limitations and there is power in numbers. so dad and i tell the lady to call 911 (because we're not allowed to pick up anyone who has fallen. it's the rule, and it's a good rule seeing as how we have no medical learning. we're just the maintenance man and the painter, right?

so we get up there and yes, poor june is screaming. i unlock the door and open it six inches and....she's fallen in front of the door. and? there is a puddle of blood that goes squlsh when i open the door. and when i say puddle, what i mean is, the MOST AMOUNT OF BLOOD I'VE EVER SEEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. i turn to look at dad and he's backing away from the door and turning white. not green, not ashen, white. as white as my refrigerator.

dad goes to get the boss lady to tell her that it's an actual horrible emergency, and i stay to calmly talk to june before the medics get there. the good thing is the medics are stationed only 4 blocks away from HCH. so usually when we call 911 we hear the reassuring sound of sirens right away. in the back of my mind while i'm talking to june and saying things like, "yes honey, i can see that your bleeding, but baby i can't open the door. we've got to wait for the medics to get here to figure out how to get to you." i'm thinking where's the siren? shouldn't i be hearing a siren by now? wow that's dark blood. she's probably been in the floor for a while. christ, where is the siren!?

june kept begging me to open the door and get her. it was horrible. i kept trying to explain that if i forced the door open it would hurt her even more. i can't actually see june, but every time i push a bit on the door she hollers a bit more and the coagulating blood squlshs even more. i didn't get too queasy until i saw some white bits of something floating in the blood. i'm sure it was just something normal like crumbs or something, but i couldn't help thinking of bones and teeth. i also couldn't help thinking about the fact that i couldn't hear any sirens.

soon after that the boss lady showed up and gasped at the giant amount of blood. she took over the talking calmly to june part as i had run out of sane things to say. (at one point june was demanding that i come in and get her glasses. "june, baby i can't get your glasses. i can't open the door anymore. just leave your glasses."
"no jaimie, i'm going to hand you my glasses."
"june, just forget the glasses right now okay? they'll be fine."
"by god you're going to come in and get my glasses right now .")

so yeah the boss comes up and she immediately goes into Amazingly Calm Mode. she got a roll of paper towels from a neighbor and begins to try to clean up the giant blood bath that is oozing out of the door. it's only then that i notice the sound of sirens and i back away knowing they're going to come off the elevator soon and save the day.

so the medics get there and they have to open the door a little more before the one guy can squeeze through the door. she screamed some more. it was bad. i couldn't look in the door (and didn't want to) but i watched the medics' faces when the door opened fully. the horrified looks on their faces seemed to say, "holy shit balls." they worked on her for awhile and then the ambulance showed up. the two ambulance workers came off the elevator with a gurney. the lady in the back of the gurney asked the one in the front, "is she hurt?" and the lady at the front looked in the door and quickly back out and said, "oh yeah, she's hurt."

about 8 minutes later she was on the way to the hospital.

after the big blood clean-up dad said that when he went down to get the boss he asked the lady at the front desk if she'd called 911. she said, "no, was i supposed to?" so dad grabbed the phone and called 911. if dad hadn't gotten queasy and left to get the boss, if he'd stayed up there with me waiting on the medics? june would've damned died right there. so the boss had an extra bad day cos not only did she clean up most of the blood (one of the medics also cleaned up a lot of blood) she then had to fire the lady at the desk because well, obviously. this wasn't the first incident where her old lady scatterbrainness screwed up something important (last week the fire marshall came in because of an alarm and she was on the phone (talking to her daughter about how her phone was cut off) and the marshall was all, "excuse me?" and she was all, "i'm on the phone long distance!" so the boss lady got reprimanded by the fire marshall for the lady's idiota mistake.)

so this time she had to be fired because we can't risk anything like that happening again.

i went home and had a whiskey drink i had a cider drink i had a vodka drink i had a lager drink.

june is in the hospital with a broken hip. sadly, we're kind of wondering if she'll make it. sadder still, if she makes it, she'll have to live in a nursing home because the HCH provides no assistance at all. to live here you HAVE to be independent. we're a regular apartment building...just low income housing for the elderly. so what's worse? if she makes it? or not? i know she's not having any fun, and she hasn't been since she got out of rehab last week. she told me last week on the way home from dialysis if she goes back to the hospital she'll die. my awesome response to that? "well, okay."
her response? "i won't live to see Easter this year."
my response? "you're in a good mood this morning."
"it's true," she said.
"then it's a good thing you're having ham for Christmas."

at least that got her talking about ham and not her immanent death.

working with the elderly really sucks eggs sometimes.

12.22.06 wtf friday
well, the stroganoff was a bust. apparently the main cook lady got sick this morning and left early and didn't cook the stroganoff.
look lady, i had a hangover this morning too, mkay? and did i feel like getting up and painting a kid's room today? no. of course not. i wanted to lay in bed all day drinking soda pop and eating...stroganoff. but hey, i'm a responsible adult! i take my commitments seriously. so what did i do today? i painted that room. two coats on the wall and two coats on the trim (on my knees, bitch.) and then at lunch, i got my mouth all ready fo' some stroganoff....and there ain't no stroganoff!?

how very dare you!

i had the catfish. fish on friday, you know. it was okay. i'm not a very huge catfish fan. and they only gave us a teaspoon of tartar sauce. what's the damn point of eating catfish if you can't slather it with tartar sauce, i ask you.

***

Crazy Margaret came by yesterday evening telling me she had cut some limbs off of my trees that were hanging too low and going over my fence. then she asked me for some money. i said, "margaret, i didn't ask you to cut those limbs down."

"i know but it was looking bad and needed to be done."

"those trees are on the street. they're not even mine."

"yeah but if you could gimme some money just five dollars i got a bag of food from a guy giving away bags of food it had some beans and rice and soup and some meat and he said, "GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE YOU OLD BITCH!" to me and it was a big bag of food. i told him that the meat was turnin' green and that he needs to be careful giving it to other people like that i was going to be nice and take and then throw the meat away because it was green i wouldn't give it to my dog and i don't want people gettin' sick and he gave me the sack of food and then cussed my out just like that."

i gave her a can of soup. i don't give her money anymore. because she was giving the money to her kids and her sister. she said, "well i had to help out my family!" i said, "well they never help you out so forget it. here's some soup."

'cos i can be mean, but not too mean.

***

12.20.06
i actually managed to get my library books back to the 'brary ON TIME. i think that's the first time this year.

***

wednesday is Pork Chop Day at D's Diner (it's a meat and three on Noccalula Mountain). so every wednesday at lunch we go to D's to have their amazing pork chops. they are huge and tender and just all around great. well, they're fried though, and i usually don't like fried pork chops. but these are really good. we eat at D's once or twice (and sometimes thrice) a week because the food is great and it's nice to have a regular eating place where they know who we are and what we like to drink. honestly, i think the waitress could order our food for us we eat there so often.

well, several weeks ago they had beef stroganoff on a friday. it was SO AWESOME DELICIOUS. and then they never had it again. bwah? (i mean, how easy is that to make, right? and it feeds like, 10,000 people.) so we keep dropping hints when we eat there all, "hey that beef stroganoff was fantastic! you guys should have that again sometime." and "when are we going to get the beef stroganoff again." blah blah blah. so today we asked again only this time we were relentless. the waitress said, "you guys want beef stroganoff? i'll go see when she (the cook) is going to make the stroganoff again." so she comes back and says, "she says pick a day and she'll make the stroganoff."

woot!

we told her we'd be back on friday. how cool is that?
HOW COOL IS THAT?!

i thought it was pretty cool.

***

hey you know that pet hair brush thing As Seen On TV where it brushes out the shedding hair that lives underneath the regular hair? well, i bought one of those at wal-mart for $10. i thought, "meh, if it works awesome, if not, blah."
well, it works. awesome. i brushed a whole 'nother cat out of toonces last night. so i'd say get one IF (and only if) your pet has shortish hair and AND AND, likes to be brushed. if the pet doesn't like to be brushed then you can forget it.

luckily toonces LOVES LOVES LOVES getting brushed. roxy doesn't. i did use it on her for a minute or two but
A. she hates being brushed and
B. she had longish hair and i could tell that it TOTALLY pulls the hair.
C. it didn't get as much hair off rox as it did the kitty.

so there you go.

12.20.06
hi guys!

look, i feel like a heel for not sharing the good news sooner, right? but i wasn't sure if i was allowed to discuss it before it actually actually happened. otherwise, honestly i would've shared the awesome news with YOU first. really. even at the risk of jinxing the whole thing. but by now i'm sure you've already heard the awesome, amazing news:

i'm Time's Person of the Year .

i know, i know. i feel like an ass about the whole thing, and i really didn't believe they'd go ahead with it, you know? but they did! and when i got my issue in the mail today i couldn't help but laugh at how awesome i am. roxy was all, "jaimie, you dolt. that's a picture of me. I'M the person of the year!"
and i was all, "you CAN'T be person of the year, you fool. you're a DOG."
and she was all, "what's that got to do with it? george w. bush won it one year...and he's an ass."
"good point. but as you can see...this is OBVIOUSLY a really bad picture of me, drunk at the bowling alley...and apparently i had one long eye at the time. duh."
and she was all, "oh, you're right."

anyway, sorry for not telling you sooner. but like i said i didn't want to jinx it! love!

go me! right? i mean, YES! this is SO going to look awesome on my resumé.

***

r3c3nt txt msgs:

i'm layin on the beach, bitches!
-kelly

i jsut heard my voice on the radio!
-leetle brather

i'd call you but you've wounded my phone's feelings so deeply that it refuses to dial your number. you're right, it's fucking useless. see you at 6.
-lizz
(she left that after i left her a voicemail ranting about how she never has her phone with her and it's a total waste of money for her to even HAVE a cell phone. it surprizes me that she's still my friend sometimes. cos let's face it, i'm an ass.)

ultrasound showed a very tiny penis!
-laura

yehhh....Jackie
-cookie

Angie had her baby- csection - Lyla Paige 8lbs 5oz and she's so beautiful! and I'm pretty sure she's a genius too...
-cookie

Crazy margaret!
-Chris

mele kelekee muckah, mutha fuckah
-leetle brather

you gotta mouth like a truckah mutha fuckah
-leetle brather

Rrrrr she blows
-suzie

Party like it's 1999
-suzie

***

this just in:
kelly called (and then tinely right after) the Sports Page (local dive) is on fire. big flames.

12.17.06
i tried to add a cool little counter thing over there and it has totally pissed off the HTML editor i use. i hate the internet and all of it's stupidness.

does anyone know of a non stupid free HTML editor?

12.16.06 fecal matters

i was raking the yard today and guess who comes pedaling up to tell me how i'm raking it all wrong?
Crazy Margaret.

but you knew that, didn't you?

anyway she wanted some money to go wash her clothes because she apparently shit all over herself yesterday.

twice.

i know, right? i have the best stories.

so she says that she shit herself once at home and then again at Johnson's.
i know. it's not funny. but i'm sharing it with you because she shared with me. and trust me, you're getting the abridged version. she told me all about the consistency and smell and the whole nine yards.

"jaimie, it was like water was just pouring out of me! and i couldn't stop it i just shit all over myself and i couldn't do nothin' about it!"

"it happens."

"well i was raking my yard and i had to go and all a sudden i just shit all over myself and there was a trail of shit all through the house to the bathroom and lucky it didn't get in my shoes none."

"yeah. pretty luck-"

"and then at Johnson's i shit all over too and there was nothing i could do for it. i had to throw my panties away. they was a damn mess. lord. i got my britches soakin' in soapwater all night but i don't think they'll get right."

"you should probably drink some-"

"they said they was a virus goin' 'round. you know anything about that?"

"not real-"

"has he been sick lately?"

"who? jimmy?"

"yeah. reckon he coulda gave it to me?"

"no. he hasn't been sick. and he didn't-"

"well anyway my pants is ruined and if i was you i'd rake the yard with a hey lemme let you borrow what i used to rake yards with."

"no thanks, margaret."

anyway she pedalled off still talking about raking yards and shitting herself. so then i was thinking to myself, damn that came out of nowhere. i took a break and went inside to check the internets and this awesome thing happened.

i received an awesome e-mail from murph, a guy who used to read the Weekly back when it was an actual weekly, and it was kinda funny cos he said he remembered finding my website long ago (back at pickle.fleegan.com) because he was researching poo.

i had to laugh because obviously, in the last 5 years not that much has changed about the site, no? it's still poop stories. yep. nothing technical or difficult to understand here, nay. the content of my site is like that perfect regular bowel movement you can always count on.

***

yesterday i mentioned i did not like the manheim steamroller...i may have meant the trans-siberian orchestra. unless i meant both. i'm pretty sure that yeah, i don't like either one. for the same reasons.

12.15.06
have i ever mentioned that i like christmas songs? i suppose i have. well. anyway, one of my favorites is the one with porky pig singing "Blue Christmas". I've always liked this song. in fact, i remember one christmas i got the 45 from santa and i listened to it only a blajillion times. (not to be left out, my little brother also received a 45 that year...the one where the dogs bark out jingle bells. old records are fun!) so there's a softer than usual spot in my heart for "blue christmas". i still like the song today, but i think i like it more for the dude in the background who's laughing his ass off.

i love that.

i mean, that guy is gone! and the best part is during the lead kazoo break (hee) when porky stutters out, "b-b-b-baby, i'll m-m-m-miss you." the dude falls apart! and i can't help but smile and sometimes, even laugh myself because the guy is totally shriek laughing. and sometimes i laugh like that too.

***

i just showed jimmy a magic trick i learned. his immediate response?
"you're a witch."

***

anyway, christmas songs. i love them. they're stupid and i don't care. i mostly like the old ones. i'll tell you what i don't like, okay? i don't like manheim steamroller. it insists upon itself. (hee, liz)
i also don't like it because it's an orchestra with electric guitar. which is like andrew lloyd webber.
and honestly? hate.
and also? fmeh.
and? poop.

***

jimmy and i went to get some chinese food this evening and you'll never guess who we ran into. mr. and mrs. firestone.
i know!
i usually run into King about once a year, but i haven't seen Mary in probably 10 years. and holy cow, she hasn't aged at all. AT ALL. i wonder what her secret is. pul cweam?
anyway it was cool as hell to see them.

12.11.06
i locked myself out of my house this morning. no problem, i thought, i'll just walk down to the Holy House and get the house key from Popsicle. only...the thing is...the gate is locked. so there i was, trapped in my own yard like some kind of damn idiot on a monday morning.

nice.

12.09.06

dear amazon dot com,

i love you and how easy it is to buy christmas presents for all of my family by merely clicking pretty pictures on your site.

thanks!

love,

jaimie

***

dear mom and dad,

i had amazon ship everything to your house because i live in the 'hood and they don't deliver packages to my house. so anyway, if you get any strange amazon packages they're mine. don't open them because if you do you'll ruin christmas, and the baby jesus will not like that one bit.

love,

jamoo

***

dear fireplace,

jimmy and i just wanted to send you a note saying that we really love you. you're so much fun it should be illegal. but if we outlaw fireplaces only outlaws will have fireplaces. and why should they get all the hot fun? anyway, thanks for being so warm and full of fire.

hogs and kisses,

j&j

***

dear dad,

seriously, don't open the amazon boxes.

love,

jaimie

12.06.06
i've just discoverd the Catherine Tate Show on BBC America. how had i not heard of her before? it's basically like the Tracy Ullman Show. Anyway it's a hilarious show and when she's the teenager that repeats questions over and over? i lose it and laugh like a loon.

christmas tree update:
still no ornaments on the tree yet. also, that tree drinks a liter of water a day.

in knitting knews:
i started the baby blanket.
barely started. it's already daunting. i'm scared and full of dread.

in other news:
i ain't bovered.

12.02.06
mr. fleegan and i picked out a christmas tree today. i'd like to say we went out to the tree farm and picked out the most glorious tree we could find to cut down ourselves, just like when we were all kids, right?
but no, we're lazy. we went to marvin's and bought a smallish spruce.

it's in the livingroom now. i've managed to get the lights on it so far.

***

we had another fire in the fireplace. so much fun. toonces whorecat loves to sit and stare at the fire. she also likes to lay dangerously close to the fire. roxy rockstar on the other hand is very wary of the fire and if it pops or one of the logs moves she jumps a foot off the floor...even in her sleep. it's kinda funny.

***

i found a hypodermic needle in the yard today and apparently roxy found it before i did cos it was chewed up a bit. that's a really disturbing thing to find in your yard, and it's even more disturbing knowing your dog chewed it. her tongue wasn't cut up or anything so i'm trying not to freak out too much about it. it takes a special kind of ass hole to throw something like that into someone's yard.

we really need out of this neighborhood.

***

i'm on antibiotics at the moment and for some reason when i take those the roof of my mouth becomes raw and horrible and feels like it's all cut up. it's really not fun to eat or drink anything. but hey, at least i can poke the logs in the fireplace. which, turns out, is one of my favorite things to do.
so easily entertained.