~ Kommentary by Kritter ~

No Bueno

So the guitar doesn't seem to be aggravating my wrist too much, but I started on Jesse's baby blanket last night and the crocheting was killing it. I tried putting my wrist brace on while working. It's difficult, but maybe I will get used to it. But now that it's sore, playing piano and typing is hurting it today. Argh.

Did I mention I work tonight and tomorrow night and am terrified, as I will likely be downstairs in the melee? God pray I can do it!

Oh and after all the agonizing over whether I should watch Alias last night, I decided I would. Only to sit down at the TV at 8 and find out it had started at 7. SHIT!

Respite

Last night on my way out the door to work, I noticed my phone was flashing. My boss had left a message and on my return call, she said I wasn't needed and to take the night off. I told her to "twist my arm." I went and got a drink with two of my friends. Not a big evening, but it gives me tonight to chill before the freak-out stress of working Friday and Saturday. I'm sure one of the nights I will be downstairs in Features, which is 400x busier. I'll make oodles more money though. I just hope I'm up for it.

Wende has just taken the three kids over to her friend Michelle's across the culdesac. I LOVE these afternoons. I'm blogging, then playing guitar and then continuing to rewatch a movie I rented the other night. I'm waiting to blog on it until I see it again. Although, I don't guarantee I'll be any more perseptive in my writing. It's just a very thought-provoking and well-done movie.

I'm still trying to decide whether I should tape or watch tonight's Alias premiere. Even when Season 4 comes out, I won't be able to watch it in the psycho-addictive way I would in my own place. And I no longer have the Blockbuster Movie Pass, just the rewards card. So I am paying for each rental. I know I will rent and watch them either way, but I am not sure I want to deny myself another regular season. It sucks that I will find things out about last season, regardless of whether or not it was good, but what can I do?

Grumble

Did I mention that some German guy gave me an 84-cent tip the other night? I hope it's the smallest tip I ever get. I understand that there are cultural differences etc. I'm not MAD at him. I just want to grumble about it.

Season 5

I'm highly aggravated that Alias Season Five is starting on Thursday, PRIOR to the release of Season Four on DVD. So poor souls like me have to try to remember to tape every episode until they are caught up. And because I am surrounded by sixty televisions at work, I can't avoid seeing season premiere commercials, which have already told me things I DON'T WANT TO KNOW about how last season ended. ARRRGHHHH!

Huge Good News (Much Needed)!!!

Tonight I received the title to my car in the mail! My Corolla is paid off and I now own my first car! Too bad the front is crunched. But that's a HUGE weight off the shoulders. Now that my college loans have been consolidated, the car payment was my largest monthly bill. Sweet. This all helps in the grand scheme of paying off debt and saving money for Mexico. I just can't believe it. Toyota Motor Credit has been pulling automatically from my bank account, and they never sent me updates. When I lost my job, I called to see how much was left, so I knew I was getting close, but it was still a wonderful surprise! YAYAYAYAYAYAY!!!

General Update

I actually have things I want to blog about, I just don't have time. I see that Julia is making a push to blog more regularly, and I am envious. I just end up feeling guilty every time I sit down at the 'puter.

Work is all right. This weekend I worked up at Frankie's, the classier music bar. Because there's a cover up there, they expect the service to be top notch. Like, you always have to carry a tray with an extra ash tray and a cocktail glass with matches, straws and bev naps in it. That's good practice with the tray for me, but my wrist has been killing me. Not only do I not have the strength built up there, but also I've long had carpal tunnel symptoms in my left wrist from the guitar and crochet, plus typing and piano. I'm anxious about this. I don't want to permanently hurt myself. But my bro-in-law brought a wrist guard for me to sleep in. He says more damage is done on your wrists at night by getting them into funky positions for hours on end. He also brought home equipment and did an ultrasound treatment on it and my back. He's cool like that. He's a chiropractor and works in a clinic with physical therapists etc.

The good thing about working at Frankie's is that it is slower, since I am still learning, and they have live music. Friday night starred a hispanic group called the Jet Set and an original rock band called the Bandages. The Jet Set were no bueno. The Bandages were pretty good. They gave me a CD I still have to listen to. Saturday featured The Blue Mirror Band. Now they were some cool old, blues-playing dudes and they were AWESOME!

I talked to the woman who books the bands and she said I might be able to open there sometime. The stage and room are SO cool that the offer is SWEET. I am giving her my CD this weekend.

My parents brought my guitar up Sunday. Pretty sad huh? I didn't even have my guitar up here. That's because there are already three in this house, but I found I never picked up their guitars and I wanted my own. Badly. Yesterday when Wende and the kids went to play at the neighbor's, I jammed out for a while and had so much fun. I missed it.

I think my sister, bro-in-law and I are going to sit and talk tonight. Finally. I've done everything I can from my side of the court I think, inlcuding composing a long letter to my sister about some of my feelings. That was last Thursday and I have been waiting for her to respond ever since. I pray it goes all right. Unfortunately, I know I won't take criticism well because I feel I have been busting my ass here. Completely. Fingers crossed that it is a constructive meeting.

I will say that things have gotten a little better since I expressed myself. I feel a little more appreciated. And Steve even brought my flowers last Friday, which was awesome since I was in the middle of a complete breakdown.

I've made another friend at work. So now I have three friends! Kinda sorta anyway. I mean, they are new friends, you know? But it's really nice to have people to talk to and hang out with when I actually have time. Last week I worked nearly 40 hours- Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. This week she cut me back to four days - Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. I had asked off Saturday and didn't get it. I asked too late I guess. But I'd been invited to a little party and was hoping to meet more people. I'm pretty bummed about that.

But it continues to be a day-by-day story. Just make it one more day. And one more day. And one more day.

A friend e-mailed me and said that I shouldn't have to go through all this pain if I can get to my goal another way. And it's true. I can move back to my parents' at any time and soon I can move back to the Lou at any time. But I DO want to try to stick it out here a little longer for my sister. It's nice not to care too much about my job though. The turnover is so high they won't even blink an eye if I leave.

Well, I'm off to run some errands while Wende and the kids are gone on a play date. And then I'm making dinner tonight! Shepherd's Pie, of course.

Wish I'd Been There

There being here. If this shit goes on much longer, I will make it somewhere.

Thieves

Does anyone know how or to whom I can complain about having money stolen from an online service?

I used Yahoo Personals for a while earlier this year. When I lost my job in April, they had just charged me, so I canceled before they charged again the next month. I followed all their instructions. Then a couple days ago, I saw a charge for them on my bank statement. I was shocked and went back through my statements to discover they have been charging me $19.95 a month all along. I don't know why I didn't notice before now. I check my banking statements online and they only show 15 entries or so at a time. I must have just missed it in previous months. It's not like I was looking for it.

So I called them absolutely irate, which is just not like me. I insisted on talking to a manager and everything. They asked if I had received a cancellation e-mail. I don't fucking know! It was FIVE MONTHS AGO! How many fucking e-mails do I get a day? They refused to credit me any of the $100 they stole. I haven't logged in once since I cancelled. Anyone using the service can see when someone last logged in. Why can't they? $100 for their computer issues or whatever reason the cancellation didn't go through. Unemployed and all. I was so mad that I hung up on them and I don't even know if they cancelled me or not. And now I am trying to follow the online instructions again and they cancel button they are saying should be there is not. What the fuck?

I'm really pissed and even though I know I can't get my money back, I really want to complain- somehow. Does anyone have any ideas?

My life just keeps getting worse. I don't know if I am cut out for waitressing. Last night was so hard. I'm sore and tired. My sister isn't communicating with me no matter how hard I try and I don't know what else to do. I'm so miserable. I'm so fucking miserable.

Late late nights

Remember what I said about my sleeping troubles? It turns out that closing the bar on a week night means getting home at 2:30 a.m. The weekend means about 4. What a disaster.

I waited my own tables for the first time on Monday and worked again last night. Both were slow, so a good chance to get started I guess. I work Thursday, Friday and Saturday as well. I guess this is where I bite the bullet and admit that I will have NO LIFE up here.

In general, I am pretty unhappy. Nothing horrible is happening, but I miss my life and I'm not too thrilled with this one. I'll just hang on as long as I can.

Despite the stupidity of it (when it comes to the lack of sleep), I think I am going into the city tonight. Last Wednesday, I made it to Griffin's Public House to see Cornmeal. It was a really great time. Medicine. Made me feel like a human again. So despite the fact that I should go to bed early tonight, I'm not. I'm going to blow off some more steam and try to remember who I am.

Beer Tub

I worked my first weekend night last night. I went in at 6 p.m. to run food. This literally means that I stood in the kitchen and ran the waitresses' food out to the tables. Not very exciting, but I'm determined to do my best at everything, and I just make sure I am busy and moving all the time. That's more than I can say for some of the waitresses.

I got two perks to my shift. The first was being asked to go upstairs to Frankie's and take the band's food order. My first. And ya gotta take good care of the band, even if they are a Kiss tribute band. Hehe. I made no mistakes on my order and the band tipped me well.

The second perk was being asked to run the beer tub. Of course, this meant that instead of getting off at 10, I was at the bar until 3 am. However, food runners don't make tips (well I might get some tip-out from the waitresses, but not much). At the beer tub, I did very well. It was pretty hectic at times, and the worst part was standing in one single spot for over 4 hours. My back and legs are killing me. I don't know that I have ever been on my feet for 9 hours straight. Ugh. Ice today. But still, it's a helluva lot more fun than a lot of jobs I have worked. And it's good money.

The biggest issue continues to be sleep. I cried again this morning. (Understand that this comes from sheer exhaustion.) It was only 2.5 hours from when I went to bed to when the kids woke up. This morning though, Wende got all she would need out of the kids room so I could go in there. That meant laying on the floor, which is less than ideal, but the sleep was blissful. There's still a lot to get used to here. All around.

The Battle Of Evermore

Every morning is a battle. A battle for sleep.

With all of the powerful sleep prowess within me, I must fight to focus on that dreamy drug. The battle cries of early morning children are mine enemy. Quiet voices are elusive to the a.m. child. They've gone to sleep between 7 and 8 p.m. They've even had an afternoon nap. Why wouldn't they be full of energy? They're high on the rapturous repose that's just beyond my reach.

Many mornings, I will put in my ear plugs around 6:30 when they awake, and I will manage to eek out some winks before 7:30 or 8 when I need to get up. On mornings that I can sleep late, and I've stayed out late knowing that, the battle is more fully charged. It takes so much energy to focus on sleeping that the payout is cheap.

This morning, I lost the battle - pitifully. I literally laid in bed and cried. This is because I was so DAMNED tired and I see no end to this battle in sight. Worse, this is only because I CHOSE to hang out with my friends and watch movies late last night. When I need this sleep because I have worked until 3 a.m. the night before, what then? I think I'm going to have to invest in some sort of monstrous head gear, a money-back guaranteed weapon. Maybe one that plays a white noise to help block out the little-sharp-pointed-painful-cute-joyful voices. I'll be visiting my friend Google sometime soon to search for this instrument of war.

For now, I am heading back to bed. The family has left for a blissful 45 minutes or so and I've wasted part of the time complaining on here. Sweet, short dreams to me!

LATER: Just when I was getting some blissful moments, the neighbors fucking yappy dog started up and has not stopped! Today SUCKS!

FYI- my "bedroom" is the upstairs landing. I have no door. On those mornings I can sleep in because my brother-in-law is home, there is no room I can sneak into and close the door because basically there are only two (other than bathrooms) and they are being used to get kids ready etc. So basically, I am sleeping out in the middle of a small house with five other people in it - three under 3.

Welcome to the Service Industry

I got a job at a bar and grill called Features in Naperville. Actually, there are three separate bars. Club Mamalu plays 70s and 80s music and only picks up on the weekends. Frankie's has swing dancing on Wednesdays, Salsa on Thursdays and live music on the weekends. Features is the sports bar. It has enough TVs to guarantee sport-fanatic customers all the time. For instance, I was very pleased with how busy it was last night for so early in the Monday Night Football season.

I had applied 4 places last week and expected to hear from two. Features was the one I had the best feeling about- from the variety, clientele and management. They called on Sunday morning. I went in Sunday night to go over alcohol, Monday afternoon to go over food and the computer and Monday night to shadow someone. No time to lose. They are hiring tons of people and I hope to be on top of that class as fast as possible.

There is SO much to memorize. For example, there are 29 vodkas! Really you only have to know a few to offer to people, but you need to know which are your call vodkas and your premuims so that if someone asks for something, you know whether or not it is available and can quote them the right price. There's unbelievable minutia on all the drinks and how to ring things in etc. And then of course you have the food menu. But shoot, I have been a professional for 6 years. I'm older than every other server I have met. I can do this.

Only real problem? The peanuts that I serve to every table! For those that don't know, I am deathly allergic. These are in shells, which helps. And I scoop them from one big bag with a bowl and set them on the tables with buckets for the shells. I have to refill the bowls and empty the buckets. So, I plan to hold my breath when I am scooping and just duck into the kitchen whenever I can to wash my hands. It didn't bother me last night. Fingers crossed. Because otherwise I'll have to quit. It'll only take one trip to the hospital.

Eh

I'm not terribly impressed with the suburb scene. LOL.

I went out in Naperville last night. At least it has several late bars and attempts at decent music. And I'm sure it serves its purpose for some moods and times, but all together, not my thing. Too bad I will likely be working there. But that's different. In fact, it might be better that it's not my party scene. But man I need to get into the city.

MyPod

So, I got an iPod.

Clearly, I didn't have enough money to, especially the 60 gig, but I did. Music is SO important to me. I'm going through so much transition and insisted that I have my music with me at least. CDs galore is hard when you are mobile. And I am diggin having the pics on there too, although I need some help with that.

I've already used 12 gigs. Not bad for how short a time I have had it. I haven't even put all my stuff on it. I have, however, already been to the Plainfield library, checked out CDs and put them on there. I don't know why my music sharing ethics have bottomed out with the iPod.

Music-wise, recently I have discovered and enjoyed Deep Forest/Deep Forest, Jack Johnson/In Between Dreams, India Arie/Acoustic Soul and some more Velvet Underground Greatest Hits. Man I like them. I also got a couple Beck Cds - Midnight Vultures and Sea Change. Haven't listened closely to them yet. Listened to and didn't much care for Radiohead: Amnesiac. Pedro Luis Ferrar is some very decent Cuban music, but nothing extraordinary. And I got a new CD from my DJ friend, Forensic. GREAT dance music. But I plan to blog about him separately sometime soon.

I'm having a tough time with the pictures though. I was able to upload my Ireland/Wales trip photos. But now when I want to put on more, it wants to delete all of those. So, at someone's advice, I downloaded Picassa. I organized all my photos etc., but still can't figure out how to get them all onto MyPod. If anyone has experience with this, please let me know.

So much

I've really missed blogging. There's a lot going on in my life though. Getting acclimated to my new digs, traveling back to the Lou for Labor Day Weekend, looking for a job in Naperville and trying to make some friends. It's all good though.

When I came back to Chicago on Tuesday morning, I felt really positive about going after a new life here. I mean, it can only be all new, exciting things that lay ahead. But it is still hard from time to time.

The kids are pretty delightful. Don't get me wrong, they are SO much work and adapting to this schedule has been hard. But Elena is SO bright and Simon is warming up to me and Jesse is just, well, cute as hell being a newborn and all.

There are so many bragging Elena stories I could tell. This child amazes me. She's really soaking up the Spanish I am teaching her. At first I had to ask for my "special magic word" to get her to say por favor. Now she is saying por favor and gracias and more without prompting. It's awesome. Hopefully, she WILL challenge me to brush up on my Spanish just in trying to keep up.

But that's enough of my life for now. I have so many random things I think about all the time that I'd like to blog. Probably dumb things, but I miss the writing. Even though I have a computer in my "bedroom", it's hard to find time to e-mail and blog. I'll do what I can though. Just cuz I enjoy it so damn much.

Thank God!

I finally heard from my ex, Jeff, in Biloxi. Here's the mass e-mail he sent:

First off I'm alive and well as is everyone else here at Keesler AFB. Hurricane Katrina hit us incrediblly hard and much of the gulf coast no longer exists. I was required to shelter on base for the storm because I was mission essential for resuming training after the storm. Obviously training will not be resuming now. There were about 700 people in my shelter and we did extremely well considering the circumstances. I'm the night shift shelter supervisor so I stay pretty busy developing the plans that will execute the following day. When the storm hit the building faired really well, we suffered no damage other than losing one of the two generators. Unfortunately the generator that we lost ran the power outlets, most of the lights, and the air conditioning. So for the last 4 days we have been sweating it out and making the best of it.
Photos of Keesler: http://www.hurricanetrack.com/keesler

I got off-base for the first time on Wednesday. It was difficult finding a route to my house, which is only .5 miles from the base. The neighborhood is completely demolished. My house was flooded up to 6 inches from the ceiling inside. Everything in the house and the garage is destroyed. The only exception was Gimlet (his cat) who had to stay in the house since I had planned on taking her to Atlanta with me when I still planned on evacuating. She must have been on the bed which floated and kept her above the water. Had it flooded more there would have been nowhere for her to go. She is now in the on-base pet shelter and I can visit and "walk" her during the day. In the garage the DeLorean floated into the workbench, the jetski floated into the DeLorean, the washer/drier floated into the jetski. Pics of the house are attached:

Commercial phone lines are down so I've not been able to call much of anyone. I've been able to use the military phones to call other bases and get an offbase line. Most cell towers are non-existant right now and Cingular has not gotten any back up, even though other companies have. We are moving tomorrow to a new building so I hope that I'll be getting off of night shift and have more access to the internet. Its extremely bad out here, many towns no loger exist anymore. The coastal roads and neighborhoods are gone. There have been looters around but nothing like what is going on in New Orleans. The base security forces are deployed en-mass and are patrolling not only the base but the base housing areas, in which I live. I'm very worried about the many friends that I have out in the New Orleans area, if you get this please drop me a line when you can and tell others that I am ok. Its late and I've got to get the plan for our move figured out so I'm going to sign off. Please don't worry about me, although I've lost everything I am in high spirits and am fully insured. For the time being I will be focusing on getting the base, the community, and the state back on its feet. Things can be bought and replaced, the important thing now is that we help everyone that we can get through this difficult time.

With Love
Jeff

I knew he would be alive. And I was pretty sure he would have lost everything. I'm so relieved about Gimlet, crafty little bitch that she is, floating on a bed... And the Delorean... ugh. If the stainless steel isn't too banged up, he will at least have the shell to start over with. Otherwise, those parts are nearly impossible to replace.

I'll continue to pray like mad for him and all the other victims trying to pull their lives back together.