Ball Gown Friday

6-25-10

I was home, dinking around on Facebook when I saw that Sean had posted a link from TMZ. Michael Jackson was dead. No fucking way! I clicked the link and saw the TMZ story about how they had rushed the King of Pop to the hospital and that he was dead. I was still in mourning since Farrah had passed away that morning, but this was shocking. I actually wanted to doubt it, but let’s face it, TMZ doesn’t post false information.

Ken and I searched numerous web sites, all of whom would only post that yes he had been rushed to the hospital. They all mentioned that TMZ said he was dead, but that there was no official word. For 45 minutes, TMZ was ahead of the game. Finally, all other media outlets had to give a shout out, Harvey was right. Michael was dead.

The rest of the news came in pieces. Some saying he had a heart attack, some saying he was frail. Eventually of course, after a memorial service where the man was rolled out in a chaffing dish, numerous tabloid articles saying he was still alive and even video showing him stepping out of some van, it has come to light that this 50 year old performer was in fact rather healthy, but had died from an overdose of some drug I had never heard of before; Propofol.

Was it his doctor’s fault? Was Michael a drug addict who just needed meds to sleep? Was there negligence? Was it his family’s fault? Was it his promoters? Of course it would be good to have an answer, but today, we do need to remember a sad man who had a tough 50 years, despite a lifetime of privilege.

So rest in peace, Mr. Jackson. Hopefully your legacy of music, even if your best was 20 years ago, will be the thing we all remember today.

Ok, enough of my eulogy, let’s get back to our regular scheduled programming.

I had an incredibly pleasant evening. I got home to find Bobby feeling much better, but of course, Ken was the one suffering. He was weak and feverish, which I could sympathize with having dealt with it a few hours before.

Ken and Bobby had been playing Lego Star Wars, which was cool since it was mellow. I went and played with the dogs a bit and then went and got Dax. Ken eventually went to bed and the boys and I hung out. None of us had much of an appetite, so dinner was informal. They were both shockingly cheerful, so we had some fun just hanging out.

I got them both to bed on time and they had very little complaint. I had been trying to keep them quiet so Ken could sleep. This backfired since Ken actually got up because the house was too quiet. Figures. LOL!

Ken and I hung out and watched reruns of How I Met Your Mother while Ken managed to eat some ramen. I showed off Luna’s new skills which include her sitting, staying and coming to me only with hand commands. I also finally taught her “down” last night. She even did down, then stay while I prepped Ken’s ramen. She was doing really well! She is still a wild puppy, but some of her intelligence is now shining through. Woo hoo! Even Ken had to admit she was doing much better with listening.

We went to bed, and Ken only watched one M*A*S*H and then even turned off the tv, which is way unlike him. The house slept, with no incident, through the night! YAY!!!!!!

I feel better today. I now seem to have the cold that comes after the flu. Dax had this, and Bobby was sneezy, so this was expected. I am much more rested than I had been, but I am sure I could use a couple more hours. Maybe tomorrow morning I can do that.

Tonight is a busy one. I am taking the boys to my parents’ house, after which I will head over to get my hair cut. Depending on if Ken goes with us, I may just leave the boys with my parents while I run get my hair cut, then come back and pick them up after. If Ken comes, we will all go.

After hair cutting adventures, I may try to go by the mall since I have a 50% off coupon for clearance stuff at Hot Topic. I also have $20 in mall cards, so it seems like a good time to see if there is anything of interest.

I don’t think there are any more specific plans aside from Ken and I watching “This is It” tonight. I had not seen it, and we got it on Netflix. It seems reasonable to watch it on his deathaversary.

Today has been declared Ball Gown Friday. Because of this, I am rocking my pinstripe ball gown. This all came about because Esther was describing this dress she was thinking of getting. I was able to find it online and Maryann and I gave her the thumbs up to at the very least go try it on and then when it looked awesome, get it and wear it to work Monday. She was afraid that the dress was too fancy for work. I didn’t understand this for a couple of reasons. One, the dress wasn’t anymore fancy than what she wears normally. And more importantly, two, this is the kind of work you can wear whatever makes you happy. We sit at a desk all day, and mostly only see a handful of folks. We don’t have to do anything difficult like lifting boxes or anything physical, so wearing a pretty dress is fine. We wear things to make us feel good about us, and to indirectly fish for compliments from our peers. I then pointed out that I have worn fancy attire here and it was fine. I told her I would wear my ball gown here just because. This of course became a challenge, so I promised Esther and Maryann that I would rock the ball gown today, just because. I love their naiveté argument that it was casual Friday, as if this means anything to me. So today, I am working it and looking awesome. I even did my hair since it will be the last time I will have this much for a while. The dress is shockingly comfy, and really, a cool dress. I will have pictures, since Maryann has indicated she would take some, so I will break out my camera.

Ok, Maryann has seen it and approves. She was expecting more Cinderelly and less black and gothy, but then she didn’t know why she would think that since clearly, I would be more on the second end. LOL! But she approves and told me she is always impressed with my clothing choices. Yay!

I am getting tired of the fever feeling. Of course, I could just be hot since I am wearing a big ass dress. Luckily, the fan can be turned on and I will be happy again shortly.

I have now funked out my hair and I feel like I am late for prom. LOL!

I had forgotten about the cuts I have on my hands. On Tuesday, the boys and I helped my mom destroy evidence. Let me explain. She had a lot of old tapes that were part of closed files and they needed to be destroyed. Turns out, trashing 50 cassette tapes isn’t only fun for the kids, it is a little dangerous. We had been just pulling the tape part out, but that was taking too long, so I started breaking the cassettes in half, and removing the guts. This was way easier, until at one point I noticed blood. Oops. I also had sliced part of my hand but there was no blood. Well, since I got sick that night, I forgot all about it. I just noticed the flaps of skin. Neat!

Ken has his appt today to set up the appt for his colonoscopy. I will be curious as to how long it will take to get that procedure done. Will it be next week? In a month? I will have to take part of the day off since I need to drive him there and home. Plus, I will be with Bobby. He and I may not be allowed to leave the facility while Ken is under. I don’t know. Should be interesting, the whole process. I am sure Ken doesn’t think it is as interesting.

I lie to my boss too much. It is something I tend to take pride in. He is one of those folks that doesn’t really follow up on requests, and so often it is just easier to tell him, “Sure, boss!” and take care of the task your own way then to explain why his way is wrong. Ultimately, I think his only concern is that the end result is good. An example from this morning would be my correspondence with one of my top customers. There is a check that is in route and should hit our bank today. My contact said she would get me a tracking number for the check. I am waiting on her since she is awesome. My boss doesn’t understand this. His method on something like this is to harass the good customer to the point of them hating us. I don’t let this happen. He just asked me to give her a jingle. I said, sure! I of course did not pick up the phone. Instead, I did send her a reminder email, which is how she and I communicate. See, my boss doesn’t understand that the phone isn’t always the best way to talk with people. When I only communicate with this customer via email, why in the world would I call her?

My boss just gets antsy. He is like a kid on Christmas Eve. He doesn’t like to Wait And See. He wants to have it now! His calling won’t get the check here any sooner. Especially if it was in fact sent out. His checking the bank every 30 minutes won’t get it entered any quicker. He just gets so nervous that someone will see that we didn’t meet a goal (the first time in like 8 months) so he thinks he will get fired. Look, this so won’t happen.

What irks me most about this is that he won’t spend the same kind of dedication on the crap customers. See, the one he wants the check from today is one of our best, and is projected to, no joke, quadruple their business with us in the next year. They pay pretty timely and have been a customer since we opened 30 years ago. Yet there are customers that owe money from 2 years ago, pay slowly, still insist on us selling to them and my boss does! He doesn’t get the back pay. He will get the amount of the order and use it towards old invoices, yet he won’t call them every day on the past due. Where is the logic?

His logic lies in the goal of collecting money, not past due money. He gets a bonus for getting big dollars in house, not reducing the debt. This is dumb. Especially since we are told to call on customers that don’t owe yet!

So this takes me back to my lies. It is true. I will tell him all the time that I contacted someone. He had yet to call me on it. I am sure it will happen at some point, and I will have to BS my way out of it. I think I can mange. I have been doing this with him for 9 years.

On the plus side, I just got word the check arrived. So I am in the clear again. LOL!

Ken has not called me yet. It is almost 11. He had his butt doc appt, but how long would it take since it isn’t the real deal? My guess is he forgot his phone.

I hate it when Ken leaves his phone. I am so guessing this is the case now since it is 11:35 and nothing from him. Doesn’t he know I freak out that he is dead or something. It is true, I am a spaz. I just need him to not forget something like his phone. I know that we didn’t always have phones. How did I cope before? Trust me, I am less freaky now since I know that I can get a hold of people in no time at all.

Ok, I am bored here in the land of work. I have had a few projects, but not enough to sustain me. Thankfully the day is almost over. Woo hoo!