Sick Today

Well, I said I was going to get a migraine today because I thought this funeral today was going to be an unorganized mess (it's going to be just fine actually) and I guess God didn't want to make a liar out of me.

I feel just awful. My ears hurt, I'm coughing, my whole body aches and I spike a fever every time I get up and walk around.

This is nothing new to me. I hate it. This Epstein-Barr, Chronic Fatigue, Fibromyalgia, whatever is actually behind this decades long illness (I'm hearing that Herpes might be the culprit, for people who have had bad cases of chicken pox as children seem vulnerable---and I had a memorable case of chicken pox) kicks my butt over and over again. My younger sister was just diagnosed with MS & Lupus, which are factored into the illness as well.

I bitch and moan and complain and whine and am not suffering with great dignity, I must say.

It would be easier if I had an illness that Dean Edell says doesn't exist except in my imagination, if there were something more conclusive than vague "I just don't feel good" symptoms. If I were in a wheelchair.

I've been telling myself lately to pretend I have some terrible illness and try to be like somebody in the movies, gallant and smiling.

Yeah.

I wish I were normal.

On Napping

I'm not sure, but I think I fell asleep during a call the other day. It was rather embarrassing, but it was 11:30 at night and who cared if that guy couldn't get his voicemail. It was about a half second doze, but all kinds of things went wrong. He was very nice about it :).

Working until nearly midnight and having other obligations during the day are seriously cramping my style. I do take quick naps in my car during lunch (I'm waiting for the day I fall asleep and come back after a couple of hours....at least I'll be refreshed).

Jared is here and he and Bill are putting in a walkway, they'll bring the grandkids over in a little while. I'm giving them strict instructions that Grandma is napping and they have to play outside or play stealthily in the house. Hmmm.....we'll see how that goes.

Yesterday I met Cathy Can & Bridgitte of Life in Red Shoes fame for lunch. I was hungry, and they were late, so I ordered appetizers---potstickers, brie in phyllo, and stuffed mushrooms. Then, while they had salads, I had soup and a french dip sandwich. Then I had dessert. Well, they were paying, so I had a good old time.

Awesome women, both of them. I felt so comfortable, you know how you feel when you feel you've known someone forever? Old friends.

Then I went home and had to lay flat for two hours before work because I was so full and sleepy.

Bill waited up for me last night, usually, he's sound asleep when I get home (I often wonder how soon it would occur to him to look for me if I was abducted after work...I think maybe two days) and it was nice to touch base. I usually just see him for a brief moment in the morning when I'm still half asleep and then we talk during the day, but we never see each other, really, until my days off. He objects, but it may be one of the reasons we don't fight anymore.

I have had sleep at the forefront of my mind since July 14, 1971, when my first child was born. I've been sleepy ever since. I count the hours till I can go back to bed again. It's not the greatest way to live and it occurred to me the other day that maybe everybody doesn't go around sleepy all day. I drink coke, I drink lots of water, I eat, I take drugs and I cannot wake up.

Amazing what you can accomplish in your sleep.

Angry People

I have been an angry person---one of those people who got mad at sales people and spoke rudely and yelled and cussed (once, before I turned 20) over the phone to a customer service rep for Columbia House records. I'm embarrassed to think about my lack of class now, but it's true, I did it.

I have learned from my job that it gets people nowhere to act that way. I have learned that anger accomplishes nothing. I'm chagrined to learn it this way, this late in life, but I'm grateful for the lesson.

For instance, a man called me last week and asked to speak to a rep in another center, California. Now the man called at 10:59 pm, one minute before we closed down for the night. Plus, I have no way of calling a rep in another center and we didn't have anybody in our center that late who had that kind of authority plus that rep's center was also closed.

He yelled at me and lectured me and tried to bully me for quite awhile about that. Then he got even madder when I told him the credit that rep had made a mistake and he wasn't owed a $550 credit for text messaging. Now, his bill was two months late and he hadn't paid that much for text messaging in six months!

He started using the "f" word and taking God's name in vain. "You don't care if I can take care of my children! You're taking food out of my children's mouths!"

I finally called a manager, who backed me up in the decision not to give him the credit and very calmly refused to indulge the man's nonsense. Although, the guy, obviously a mysogynist, stopped yelling and cussing as soon as a man came on the line. He never got his way. His distrust of the world and hostility got him nowhere. I felt sad for his family.

Yesterday, a guy called in yelling from the start. He was concerned about the radiation and frequency in phones. I just couldn't take him seriously and I was totally calm with him. We couldn't help him, either. He's going to sue.

Both these men are angry at the world; they had no reason to be uncivil with me and they didn't help themselves with their anger. I know I'll be mad again and probably make a fool of myself again, but I'm pretty sure this is a lesson for a lifetime. Acting like an idiot is counter-productive.

In Defense of Kate Gosselin

Continuing my obsession with reality TV: I've recently started watching the Gosselins---first just to see what the hype was all about then getting caught up watching the train wreck their marriage has become.

At first I totally related to John---to his obvious desire to escape his marriage. When he gave those dirty looks behind her back, I knew exactly what he was thinking. I didn't condemn, in my heart, his infidelity. When you feel trapped and unappreciated and doomed in a marriage, it's easy to look elsewhere.

She treats him very badly. I mean, honestly, he should have smacked her back a few times. When she smacked Emeril in a recent show, boy, you could tell it was hard for Emeril not to smack her back. She has to quit that stuff.

And again obviously, she's gotten full of herself. She's cuter than she was and she's famous and she's taken with all the fame of her self. She's easy to dislike.

But...lately, I've begun to feel very sorry for her. One of the hardest things in life is to face yourself. Maybe the cameramen and producers and writers are editing things to make her look the villain, but she sure comes off the villainess in all this. She seems conceited and self-absorbed and mean and insensitive to her husband and her kids.

I imagine her watching the show, though, and coming to the realization that even the camera people don't care much for her....as she realizes what's been done to her reputation; admittedly she did a lot of it to herself. But that's going to be a hard realization.

And at the bottom of her heart, she has to come to realize that her efforts to support her family have boomeranged on her and she's lost herself. Maybe her marriage.

Tonight, we'll find out, I guess, if this couple has decided to divorce or work things out. Maybe they've banked enough to live comfortably for the rest of their lives, but still, Kate has embarked on this rather desperate endeavor to give her kids everything she never had which has erupted into something she couldn't have wanted and she has to be scared to death.

Because what if they don't have the money? She can still be a nurse, but Jon has no career, he won't be contributing to the family if they bust up and the show ends. She still has 8 kids and no apparent ability to live with less. Many families have that many kids and don't have to put them on TV to feed and clothe them, but they don't have all tne "things" either.

So, she screwed up. She pushed Jon, who doesn't seem to have much of a backbone or ambition, into this to support them and provide for the kids. I feel a bit of admiration for the way she's soldiered on in all this, despite the public censure, she keeps trying. More than I can say for Jon.

I love Kathy Griffin...and other guilty pleasures

I love Kathy Griffin; I'd be her best friend, if she'd let me. She cracks me up. I think she's honest and smart. She cusses a lot, but they bleep that out and I fast forward the descriptions of gay sex that pop up. I don't like her TV show as much as her stand up monologues. I tape them.

But I love reality TV, in general, and I read at the plot level, so I suppose it's the low life in me that I'm glued to a lot of reality shows.

I love--LOVE--Punk'd! I think Ashton Kutcher is an absolute hoot. I can do practical jokes on people like that because I'm so serious. I can't keep a straight face, but I can pull stuff on people and it's fun for a minute. Although my friend Dawn has never forgiven me for telling her our friend, Laurie, age 38, had Alzheimer's. She cried for days and refused to believe me when I told her I was just kidding. And then she hated me for lying. "Well," I said, "It's not a lie, it's a joke."

Someday my friends are going to get me for all those "jokes." I told Bill a lady in our ward was polygamous and he believed it for the longest time.

I love Cribs; of course, American Idol (Danny gokey started out my favorite, but something drew me to Adam, he's sort of so wonderful, he's Satanic); I like the first shows on Dancing With the Stars before they eliminate the morons.

Lately I'm into the Gosselins. I feel sorry for both of them, but more for the kids. Sarah has the same condition that Kate has and drs. have told her she'll have to use fertility drugs to get pregnant, so we might end up on TLC. It would be "parenting from the nuthouse" because Sarah pregnant with 6 kids would be that kind of situation and the rest of us would have to commit ourselves to get a rest.

I suppose that I'm going to have to repent of all this voyeurism, like I need to repent of drinking Coke, or the occasional R rated movie. Someday.....

This week on the call floor.....

My last call last night, at 11 pm (10 pm, California time) was from a woman who wanted the texting block on her two sons, age 9 & 12, phones. So she could download some songs onto their phones and then she wanted the block back up. Now. I was supposed to get off at 11:15 and at 11 pm, for some stupid reason, some of our programs shut down or start working so slow that it takes 5 minutes just to remove a feature.

I was on the phone with that woman for 30 minutes. I got the texting set up the way she wanted and clicked out of her account and then she added, "oh, I need the internet block removed, as well." I hated her by the time I got off, 15 minutes late...people have no consideration.

I had call from a Russian lady about her bill and when she realized that I was nice and accomodating, she had a bunch of questions. Throw in that I could speak a little Russian AND was a Mormon in Utah and her husband insisted on speaking to me with his own questions. He told me how he wanted to be a Mormon so he could have multiple wives. His wife was yelling in the background "She's a grandmother, Grisha! She has grown grandchildren."

Another call came in from a guy who used to be the voice of one of the characters on the old Yogi Bear cartoon, Boo-boo, I think. He was delightful, in his 80's, getting a cell phone for the first ime and needing all kinds of help (grammar junkies, ignore this) and talking in the cartoon characters' voice. He had a really cool voice and personna. Jimmy Weldon. I enjoyed him. Until he accidentally hung up on me and another call came in.

I get yelled at every day. Most of the time, it doesn't bother me. Getting whined at makes me want to go to peoples' houses and slap them. But yesterday, I got chewed out royal by a lady who sounded just like Roseanne Barr. She had an extra $40 on her bill and she wanted it off! "And hurry up about it, I don't have a lot of time." Turns out she had plenty of time to tell me off about all her life problems. Her stepfather has a bad heart and he and her mother live in the mountains and need an expensive phone and ATT wouldn't give it to them. Give being the operative word.

She was skeptical when I told her I'd adjusted the amount off her bill. She kept saying, "Are you sure? If I call in tomorrow, will that be on my account?" Finally, I said, "If you call in tomorrow and that $40 is back on your bill, I will send you my oldest child and his dog."

Silence....then she said, "I hate kids. And I hate dogs, too."

Finally, I told her my name and said, "that's my real name, you can call me at home and yell at me."

She softened just a touch and said, "Well, I know all this isn't your fault..."

And I said, "Oh, it's okay. I've enjoyed talking to you. You sound just like Roseanne Barr."

After a moment of silence, she said, "I hate Roseanne Barr." And slammed the phone down.

All in a day's work.

Chinese Guy Pushes Other Chinese Guy Off Bridge...

In a gesture of ultimate practicality, Lai Jinshang pushed Chen Fuchao to his death off a bridge in southern China. He'd had it with people climbing up on the bridge and threatening to jump.

Fuchao was up to his ears in debt and like many before him, climbed on the bridge and threatened to jump, as people and police gathered around him trying to talk him down.

As I said, this had happened before on this bridge. Many Chinese are deeply in debt and suicide seems an option.

But Lai had had enough with the drama. He bypassed police, walked up to Fuchao, and stuck his hand out as if to shake Fuchao's hand. When Fuchao put his hand out, Lai pushed him off the bridge, and turned to salute the crowd. Problem solved.

http://cbs5.com/national/china.suicide.jumper.2.1017569.html

I have a sick sense of humor. I thought this was funny.

I also thought "well, Lai made that bridge safe again. Nobody's going to climb up there for a long time unless they really really mean to jump."

Good on you, Lai.