Joining Sagittarius ranks: Kip

My babies live in the barn. I’m fairly mortified.

I acquired a dishwasher full of Depression glass on/around/throughout my birthday. Thank you Mom, and First Monday. For future reference, I’m sticking with Amethyst and Pink glass. I’ll probably insert some white and tealish dishes in there so it’s not so girly. I think that’ll be nice with the overwhelming amount of gray I’m going to have when I get my own place.

I’m 25 now. I feel like I need to be doing something else with my life. But what? I probably just need a dog.

And just so everybody knows, Savannah is awesome, and my noise is crooked.

Also, if you want to be annoyed with me and think I’m an idiot, read the post below. Some day I’ll clarify my view on the working woman (right now I’m trying to bypass personal vendetta). Then stay tuned for my unorthodox view on the marriage ceremony. However, who knows when that’ll be since the Internet at my shell-of-a-house is going off tomorrow!

I better move, and quick.

Funnyman by KT Tunstall

I suffer from paranoia, claustrophobia, and sociophobia (and it looks like half of agoraphobia). However, I would call the first two “acute” because they only exist due to the last: my aversion to people. I suppose they’re all “acute” because I can get by. I always feel like people are looking at me, and it occasionally prevents me from going places. With the claustrophobia, it’s not so much that I’m afraid to be in small places as I’m afraid of places made small by people. Is there a fear of crowds? (My sociophobia is different from my distaste for morons, just so you know.)

There are several who don’t believe me, and a general observer probably wouldn’t either, but outside sources don’t have access to my mind. (That is, incidentally, why I dislike psychiatrists so much.) (Originally, I began that insert with the word “which” but I changed it to “that” because while writing in Word [because there’s little Internet at the franch], it was underlined in green. And we all know what that means.) (Is anyone else amused that my inserts have taken up more space in this paragraph than actual content?) I can’t count how many times I’ve been told I’m a people person. After the rest of this entry, you may be more inclined to believe that I don’t know myself very well.

I started a new job Monday. I take public transportation to get there. Monday and Tuesday were horrible. I got home and went straight to bed both nights. Wednesday got a little better, and I opted to go to church because I thought I could make it. Thursday and Friday were infinitely better. However, that change may have been chemical as I decided to start taking B12 again on Wednesday morning.

I’m like a mental patient. I feel better, so I stop taking it. I know better than that – I know that if I stop taking it, I stop being better. So, this is an encouragement for everyone to take care of their bodies. You are what you eat - you aren’t what you don’t. It’s not always mind over matter (as with my phobias), if you don’t take care of your body, it won’t work for you.

I don’t know how to behave in a professional setting. I mean, there’s intuition, but I don’t know about rules of conduct for superiors, etc. I’ve been working at a corporately owned coffee shop for a year and a half (superiors??)! And before that, I worked from home! I tend to speak in a normal tone, walk into anyone’s office, and ask a lot of questions. It works for me. However, there are two other fairly new women in the office who may find my behavior a little scandalous – they’re soft spoken, they whisper to me a lot when I’ve done something unorthodox, and I see they’re trying to make me more appropriate. (This is the part where you scoff and tell me I’m a people person.) One incident that particularly amused me: I just finished delivering mail and one of the ladies whisper-asks me, “Did you find out where he likes his mail put?” and I thought maybe she was going to tell me. When I said no and she looked at me with disappointment, I continued, “I’ve just been handing it to him,” and she looked at me like I’d offended royalty. It made me giggle in my head, like… like I was in The Devil Wears Prada and I had to go through some ritual just to avoid touching someone who keeps kosher. (Wait, what’s the religion where priests can’t touch infidels?)

Also, these women don’t know that I’m the daughter of someone who is actually in the office a lot. I look forward to when that clicks.

Jenni reassured me that moving from a mindless-er, um, coffee shop to a desk job is quite an adjustment. It is. However, I find myself doing some of the same things, and I find that some things are true and do not change. Namely, men can’t load the dishwasher. Whether they are your family or ones you work with, they just need help. (If you’re a man who can load the dishwasher, congratulations to you. Whatever.) I seem to be stocking the “condiment bar” a lot. I understand it’s my job, and I don’t have a problem with it, but I’m fairly certain that if I didn’t, men would stand in the kitchen and not know what to do without a stir stick. (Joking, but only a little.) I was at a wedding shower on Saturday where various wives were talking about their husbands cooking. A seasoned woman piped up with, “Dinner is a mystery to my husband. As far as he’s concerned, it just appears.”

That’s fine. I can’t carry heavy things. I must be sexist. In fact, I’m pretty sure I am.

I’m pretty sure I’m racist, a bigot, and politically incorrect, too. Let’s add radical to the list.

Friday, I became aware that it was my duty to order lunch for people. Mostly this came about when people started walking by my desk and asking, “What’s for lunch?” Well I don’t know, probably whatever you brought. But it turned out well, and I suppose it’ll help me get to know the area better.

Did you know that you can actually hire a service that will come to your office, pick up a large stack of paper, and go copy it for you? Yeah, that’s ridiculous. And after my two years going to the PO every day, why didn’t I know how easy and useful postage machines are? I wouldn’t have had to talk to the creepy PO guys every day!

When I get on public transportation in the morning, it’s never very full, but by the time we get closer to the city, there are people standing. I’ve wondered if I should get up and let someone else have my seat. Friday, I came home pretty late due to an event I’ll talk about later, but it was the one time I was so wired that I wanted to stand up on the ride. But, nobody would let me. Of course, that may have had something to do with the homeless man who followed me onto the train. Don’t tell my mother. She asked me to call her that night to let her know I’d gotten home safely, and I forgot. When she called me close to midnight, I didn’t mention the fan. I dunno, I feel camaraderie with people on the train – like 9/11. Like, if anyone tried funny business on the train, he’d be dogpiled. Maybe I’m wrong.

I went to the farm for one measly day this weekend. I had to go, though. Not only was my laundry piled up, but I had such a long week and I needed to get some rest. The farm has become like a weekend house for me. (I think I’m phasing out “franch.”) Well… boy am I glad I went because as I pulled up the long drive, I looked for Henry (as I always do), and I had a little heart attack as I saw something foreign in the pen.

Kip.

As I was in the drive, I called mom and probably yelled, “You didn’t tell me Hilde had the baby!” She didn’t know. I discovered baby Kip! What’s funny is that we had just resigned to the fact that Hilde certainly wasn’t pregnant. She was sold as “pregnant,” but never got as big as Buffy and Henry’s been around since Labor Day, so… But now Hilde is smug with her own baby. We don’t even know the sex because she’s basically said, “Forget you guys, I have my own baby now.”

Grandma comes to places with snacks. Recently, her snacks have been a trail mix by Sprouts that includes Toasted Corn. I love the corn. Last week, Grandma bought me some corn. It pertains to the next story; that’s the only reason I told you this one.

This weekend, in the life of Meagan, I walked down to the donkey pen to see if I could tempt Henry with some toasted corn…

…but I was distracted by the sound of a golf cart (okay, it makes no sound because it’s electric) headed toward a small herd of angus that had wandered onto our property.

(Uh, did I do the flash wrong on that one?) I thought Dad and Cowboy Cory were going to round them up and herd them on down the street, so I climbed Buddy’s fence and walked purposefully across his pasture toward the cows. Dad and Cory didn’t come, but I didn’t realize they weren’t until I was already there, however my presence caused the cows to scatter (even though there was a fence between us).

As I got to the fence and started taking pictures of the oddly small cattle, Buddy suddenly became interested in me. He ambled over and stole the corn I’d been saving for Henry.

(Yes, it’s corn in that yellow Hello Kitty container.) Then he nudged me, pushed me, and wiggled his oddly dexterous lips at me trying to find more. I climbed up onto the gate to watch the cows graze back toward me, and Buddy stayed with me. Over me, under me, pushing me, laying his large cumbersome head in my lap.

After I sat for a while and got sufficiently dirty, I hopped down and wandered off to the barn. As I approached, Nala, the neighbor’s Weimaraner, started barking at me like she didn’t know who I was.

So, instead of inciting an attack, I stood outside the barn and let Cowboy Cory berate her for her treatment of me. Then, I wandered around the barn and found my first deadly spider. (They are deadly, yeah?)

Dad squashed it. (Black Widow, in case you can’t tell. Click on it and it’ll get bigger. If you’re not chicken.)

It was slightly disconcerting to see that it was in the same stall Mom has been putting the kittens in during the day.

Speaking of the kittens, I returned to the breezeway from the barn and sat down with Alice and Jasper where I related the story of the black widow (and all things before) in a text message. (Apparently it was actually 3.)

Of course, the text was cut short by Alice who plucked a sticker from my jeans and got it stuck in her mouth. I grabbed her and ran in a panic to my mother who did an emergency sticker-ectomy with some tweezers.

That was frightening.

By the way, if someone saw my bare legs today, they’d probably think I was a cutter. The cats are getting heavier and sharper. That’s Pearlie’s biggest complaint: “Those kittens are too sharp.”

Today, I followed Mom back to Dallas to do some fabric shopping. Please note here that I was following my Mom. She passed a car, so I was passing with her. This jerk (it’s coming up) in a silver Pontiac cut in between us. I made sure to give him as much room as he was giving my mother, but he decided to flip me off anyway. Then, he slammed on his breaks so hard that his tires smoked and I could smell them. I honked.

A lot.

Then he did it again. When he got over to the right and I passed him with my mom, I put on my cruise so he could tailgate me all he wanted to appease his roadrage and I wouldn’t hit him.

Sometimes people are just jerks.

But anyway, some of you will be pleased to know that I managed to get her to (She thinks I railroaded because I was able to accomplish this in only one store when she had a list of several to go to. However, because I won, we got to eat at Kabab.) buy fabric for curtains in both back bedrooms. Thus far, there have been no window coverings. And while I’m okay with that while there’s an empty house, I doubted a house and yard full of Thanksgiving (or are we calling it my birthday this year?) guests would appreciate the lack of privacy due to no curtains. For some reason, she doesn’t trust me to finish the curtains. Maybe it’s because of that time I made a 12-square quilt in 9. Who knows. But anyway, I’ll assemble them, she’ll finish, and they’ll be up in time. They’re awesome. I’m just letting you know.

Oh, and then tonight I had a guy lump me with all women everywhere. He made assumptions about me, then told me how I felt, then wouldn’t let me correct him. To top it off, he said he’d pray for me. What’s that about?

Five more days of serving coffee to the most high maintenance people in the world. :) Sometimes I wonder why some of them don’t buy espresso machines and make it themselves. It would be cheaper. But then they’d have no one to gripe at when it came out wrong. Ah, I say it with humor. It’s amusing, but only in a sad, depressing way. Anything someone can control…

Rumor has it, Obama’s going to try to ban handguns. This is lunacy. “And… is the Constitution going to play into that decision at all? I mean, there’s no reasonable reason he should succeed, right?” I don’t know.

In A Little While, the Hanson version

I see this in Alice’s future.

This weekend, I got on Buddy again. This time, I can say I actually rode him instead of just walking around the round pen. I brought out the English saddle to tack him up, but realized the western girth I’d borrowed wasn’t going to cut it. So Mom and I hauled out to the neighbor’s and got him all fancied up as he’s used to. Mom watched as I struggled with Buddy for a while. She assisted in shoving him away from the railing as he leaned in to squish me again. After that, she went to get Joanne and Cowboy Cory.

I was given some simple instructions, had minimal success, and while Joanne went to get whip so I could lunge orneryness out of him, Cowboy Cory jumped in to show Buddy who was boss. As Cory flew around the ring, Buddy was putting up some serious attitude. And Cory’s just had 4 major joints replaced… So, at watching this hideous display of bad behavior via Buddy, Mom and I scoffed at Joanne as she weeks ago said to me, “Ride Buddy, he’s a kid’s horse. No problem!” And I didn’t feel so bad that I had such trouble last time.

I also don’t feel so bad now that my whole body is sore, considering Cory said Buddy’s a pretty rough ride. Man alive. Two days later and I’m still walking bow-legged.

Sunday, I went to church where Brandon Bell’s dad preaches. I think he has Celiac Disease. No, I’m serious.

Mom and I went on Saturday to the Edom Art Festival! We were looking for a saddle stand and a longhorn rug. Instead, Mom came away with… a soap dispenser. I tried to convince her to buy a Ryan Ayer’s piece, but I wasn’t successful. Someday, I’d like to myself.

Oh yeah, she got a metal goat, too. You know those lame people who have fake animals in their front yard? Surprisingly, there’s a lot of that in the country. As if there wasn’t real wildlife to look at. I could understand if fake deer fooled real deer into thinking that your front yard is safe and then they hang out. But, plastic ducks? Plastic pigs? What kind of pink pigs are wandering the countryside?

To me, fake animals are pretty much on the same level as fake plants. Just say no.

But, she got this metal goat as a mock to the fake animal trend. It also holds a potted plant, so it’s cool.

In the quilting world…

grandma: “I’m bidding on your quilt and the monkey. Well, I’m bidding on them until I get them.”
me: “It would be nice if my quilt ended up outside the family, Grandma. If you get it, my circle of influence remains as it was.”
grandma: “Hmm, I see how that might be true.”

And yet, I saw the wheels continue to turn behind her dark brown eyes, plotting a way she could keep my quilt and still give me business.

Patsy: “I tried to use that machine quilting thing, but I showed it to Foy and he said, ‘Well, were you shakin’ all over?’ It was like I had The Palsy!”

That’s the woman I learned to quilt from. Her husband bought her a new machine. :)

In the real world…

Two things I’ve been considering selling my car for (don’t tell my car):

On a sidenote, I got two emails today. One notified me of a bilingual position I’d applied for (someone else applied me, not me). The second notified me that I’d been rejected in favor of more qualified candidates. I’m a amusedly (?) miffed at this correspondence!

ps. I updated iTunes the other day, and I’m having so much trouble with it… anyone else? Lousy, skippy, and slow.

I’m not a cat person.

I don’t like them. I had one good cat, and he was so beyond cat that we couldn’t even name him - so he stayed KC (Kitty Cat) for about a decade before he died. I don’t currently have a picture of him, but one day I’ll post it. I never had a kitten because KC came to use an adult who drank bottled water and didn’t have any claws, and the one kitten I did have gave me ringworm, so we gave her back.

I digress.

This weekend, I planned to get some more futile practice on the back of Buddy, my chestnut Western nemesis, who would rather crush my legs into a metal pole than pretend to remember that I’m on his back. I didn’t get that far, though. I was stalled by something I didn’t think I’d care that much about.

What makes it more unbearable is that, not only do I not like cats - I loathe black and white cats. I just do. Cats can come in better colors.

Meet Alice, who has no sense of personal space, who hopped in my lap not two seconds after I entered the room, and who shot straight up my fishnet stockings on Sunday morning. I love her, she is the death of me.

And then there’s Jasper, and if his eager little purr doesn’t melt your heart, you’re a cold shrew.

Presumably, if they ever make it out of the house, they’ll be bloodthirsty barn cats, all too happy to rid the farm of ratty vermin.

If I don’t steal them from my mother.

On a less selfish note, I did do good things this weekend.

I finished the Sacred Selections quilt, and due to a country postal system, I sent it on with Larry. I hope it’ll make it to the fundraiser.

Speaking of which: go to it. It’ll be October 18th in Crosby, TX. There will be games, food, an auction, and a softball game thing. I wish I could go, but I’ll be in Edom (quickly becoming a favorite name).

The thing about quilts…

…is that I pretty much hate them, until they’re finished. Same with paintings. I’m too critical. But, I remind myself that I’m less critical than my mother, who took apart one of my skirts because a seam in the inside wasn’t lying flat. I’ve learned to let go of it because if I don’t, I’ll never finish. So, I set forth with a goal, meet the necessary requirements, and then when the quilt is lying on the floor and I’m seeing it from the viewpoint of, “I’m done, it’s over,” I love it and I don’t want to let it go.

So, go to the fundraiser and bid on my quilt. It’ll put a baby in a good home.

I thought I was getting sick this weekend, but it turns out that sore throat may just have been due to screeching this song for two hours as I drove to the franch on Friday. Then I screeched some more as I drove around the town on Saturday looking for a place from which to ship the SS quilt. I decided to lay off on the way home, and now I’m doing alright.

I listen to an exorbitant amount of classical music.
I wear a lot of blue jeans.
And I live in a big house that only grows more enormous at the passing of each day.
My weekends at the franch only make it harder to come back to the wretched big city.

ps. David Gray sounds like a sheep.

Ben Folds says, “Won’t you let me walk away sometimes?”

I don’t live in a constant state of reality, so when I have a moment of clarity, I often think, “This is my life? How did I get here?”

I went to the franch (see: farm) the (long for me) weekend of my Uncle Keith’s meeting at church. A “neighbor” had been wanting to get her horses exercised, so I decided to ride. Now… I haven’t ridden in four years or more. And, Buddy hadn’t been ridden in eight months or more. And, I’m not exactly a Western rider. But hey, anything to get on a horse.

In fact, Cowboy Cory said, “I could tell you rode English from the second you got on. You were sittin pretty straight.”

See, the first saddle is what I was using. The second is what I’m used to. Granted, while you’re riding English, your stirrups aren’t up that high (that’s for storage), but I just don’t know what to do with my dangling useless feet in those big, clunky western stirrups! And all I’ll say about reigning is: horses seem to respond much better to English reins than Western.

I’m not saying one way is better than the other, I’m just saying I’m better at one way and both Buddy and I were very confused. After about an hour, he leaned against the round pin and I opted to get off and take him in, rather than have him crush my leg.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to this weekend, when I can do it again.

Speaking of Uncle Keith, his meeting was wonderful. Words cannot express. Well, here’s some: Even though I had to get up every morning at 4:30 and I did not get a nap, I was still there every night. I even went to another meeting this weekend and was mostly disgruntled, and I think it’s Keith’s fault. That’s probably not appropriate to say. No, I know it’s not his fault. The rest is probably not appropriate either.

I know, only I can decide how I feel.

Dad has determined that I need to keep gas in my car and keep a gas can full with me. I’ve determined I need my own girl-friendly gas can because the ones in the garage have too many rules, and they’re gross. Can you buy a gas can at Lowe’s?

I roasted some pumpkin seeds, and burned them, so I won’t show pictures. I remember these being delicious, though. My hermit crabs seemed to enjoy them.

Speaking of Uncle Keith, Grandma got her neighbor to host an impromptu photo shoot over the weekend. Here’s some lovely highlights: (link to Family 2008 set)

I chose these not because they’re “portrait”, but because they’re real and interesting. I’d be okay if I never saw another portrait as long as I lived. Thanks, Alex Garza for being awesome (no, he was not the photographer here).

Started reading Twilight on Friday. I’m half way done. I’ve decided that Stephanie Meyer is not a great writer. In fact, she’s a fairly mundane writer. However, that never stopped J.K. Rowling, either. Meyer’s story, though, is pretty enthralling and I’m able to forgo the writing style and enjoy it. Sadly, these books give me the same depression that seeing an excellent movie gives me.

Alas.

I will admit, the more I waste time reading from stepheniemeyer.com, the more I like her. (Better than JK, who I was never fond of.) I like even more that she offers a playlist for each book (anybody who uses that much Muse must be okay). That’s something I would do. If I were to ever finish anything. My mom was right.

Last but not least, this week is not my last week at my stupid “wear a hat” store, as originally intended. I’m pretty annoyed about that. I’m also pretty annoyed that the creepy guy I interviewed with called me today and said, “Um, I’ve been getting calls from other stores telling me you’re working there,” as if I told him I was going to work at his store… Which I did not, for the very reason that he is creepy. “Thanks for telling me! Ugh!” I did. I did!

Oh well. In the whole thing, obviously the Lord’s will is being done in that I’m not leaving my store yet. Ugh is right, Creepy Guy. What do I have to do to get Evan graduated so I can be he paralegal, huh?

Oh yeah, and this is currently my song that makes all other songs obsolete - aka why have other songs?