Fretting the Small Stuff

Thank You

First I wanted to thank everyone for the kind words during this rather glum time.  The Prof returned today and we are going to try to relax as much as humanly possible.  This summer we plan to fly his mother to visit us, which I think will  help in the healing process for everyone.  Next week I will be off to a conference (don't steal my used crappy furniture, please) so I won't be posting too much.  And I am sure you understand why I have not been visiting your blogs too much although I really do miss reading up on what everyone is doing!  Do you know how much that gets me through my day?  Sheesh!  Hopefully as we get towards "normal", I'll have more amusing and witty stories to share about my conference with a bunch of commie legal aid attorneys (that's me!) and my random observations about my life, oh and the wedding we are attending on Friday.  So please stay tuned and thank you for all of your kindness out there. 

Married Life

The Prof and I are sitting on the couch as usual watching television.  I have the laptop with me and I'm reading a website about how to increase your chances of successfully fertilizing an egg. 

The Prof leans over and reads on the website: "Have sex three times a week." 

His response:  "Well duh.  And I am totally fine with that."

Almost Back Again

Thankfully The Prof is returning tomorrow from his brother's funeral.  You do not how much I wish I could have been there for him and his family.  I feel absolutely helpless but at the same time, I realize staying at home and keeping things in order here is also important to him.  He flies out super early so I'll be able to see him at 9:30 a.m.  However, two days later we are both going to conferences in the middle of the state so again I will be without him.  Poor timing, I know. 

Tuesday I ended up going home because I could not function at all.  After a bit of rest, I went to the Humane Society and made a donation in Donald's memory.  My friend and I headed to the local nursery so I could find a nice stone marker for Donny's grave out back.  And oh my dog let me tell you, there are some cheap and ugly markers and crap like that out there.  But do you know what is better than cheap?  Free.  I found a granite or marble slab and because I had a $5.00 gift card, the slab was free.  Donald would have like that.  Next fall I plan on planting orange and yellow tulips around his grave so they match his colors.  Damn, I'm getting a little choked up writing about it.  And I realize I'm writing more about my cat than my brother-in-law but The Prof is a very private person so I don't feel that it's appropriate to discuss it here. 

Emotional and physically I am exhausted.  It's really just one step, one thought, and one emotion at a time.  I know it will get better but damn it's pretty hard right now.

The Passing Time

Although you cannot compare the death of person with that of an animal, it is nonetheless a difficult experience.  At three o'clock in the morning, I woke up and felt the need to go to our cat, Donald.  As I mentioned before, Donald's health has been poor.  He turned seventeen years old this year, which for a cat who used to wander outdoors, was hit by car as a youngster, and had a thyroid condition, seventeen is pretty damn old.  We knew the time was close and last night, Donald passed away with The Prof and me by his side.  Honestly, I do not know what woke me at that particular time and why I went to his side but I had a feeling that he would be at peace.

Initially, I thought I would bury him with the help of my friend, Emma, but The Prof decided that this was something we should do together.  So at 3:30 a.m with our headlamps on our head, we dug a hole under his favorite bush out back.  Fortunately, none of our neighbors saw us because I'm sure digging a hole in the middle of the night might be considered slightly suspicious. I wrote a letter to Donald from the Prof and me telling him how much we loved and will miss him that I buried with him 

I can only describe Donald as a wild cat (if you want to learn more about him, please read My Cat Has a Raspy Meow).  He had a dynamic personality and I think that he left a lasting impression on everyone.  Sweet Donald, we miss you very much.

A Tale of Two Weekends

This weekend could only be described as schizophrenic with beautiful highs and devastating lows.  Friday started out pleasant with a movie and a good night's sleep.  We spent our Saturday afternoon enjoying errands and making plans for our home.  After much thought, we decided to do some desperately needed improvements on the house from constructing a completely new deck to redoing the bathroom to possibly adding a third bedroom on the lower level.  All of these plans made us giddy with excitement that we would be making our house even more ours.  As the evening drew closer, we dressed in our cocktail party outfits, The Prof in a suit and I wore my fun black and white dress with a fun yellow sash around the waist.  Of course I topped of this outfit with my fabulous green shoes.  We met up with our friends at a Grecian Island themed benefit for a local child advocacy center.  The delicious appetizers enticed us as we decided what item we would bid on during the silent auction.  As usual, The Prof became drawn in by the auctioneer at the end of the night and we came home with not only our silent auction prize but also a platter of delectable baklava.  I drool just thinking about it.  After arriving at the event, we saw one of The Prof's colleagues with his girlfriend.  It turned out to be an especially pleasant surprise and the evening concluded with drinks with our new friends.

Sadly, our weekend turned from one of celebration and joy to that of sadness and devastation.  Upon arriving home, we found our answering machine blinking at us.  We listened to The Prof's mom telling him to call right away as something horrible had happened.  My heart raced and I told The Prof that he should give her a call as it sounded more urgent than normal.  I sat on the couch and listened to his response as his mom broke him the news: his twenty-one year old brother died unexpectedly and alone in his apartment.  This is not that place to disclose the circumstances of his death but now our household is in shock and filled with grief. 

[Insert curse word here]

Initially I had a humorous post in my head about my first experience at Chuck E. Cheese and what a scary place it is to me.  But instead I am not in the mood for such drivel.  Every so often (daily) I question why the feck I decided to go to law school.  When I am so stressed that I feel like vomiting, when I feel like I have no freakin' idea what I am doing, when I look at my student loan balance, I want to cry and kick a brick wall.  Unfortunately, I am one of those overly sensitive folks who become overwhelmed entirely too easily and reacts by shutting down.  My mind stops thinking logically and all I can think up is how badly I am doing.  I want to run from my office never looking back.  I dread the messages and worry constantly that I am so not qualified.  My concern consumes me until it burns in the back of my throat.  And I wait for the anvil to come crashing down on my head.

But what I have to remember is that this is only a momentary bump in the road.  Not all days are consumed with worry, fear, and misery.  Only yesterday did I have a client hug me when I save her housing.  And that felt awesome.  Then today happens and honestly, nothing bad has happened.  I am not in trouble, I did not give bad advice, and no deadlines are looming over my head.  Instead, it is the possibility of screwing up that is playing with my head.  So what happens next?  What do I do to stop these foolish thoughts?  Remember that post just a few days ago?  I vent and release here.  Whatever vagrant is rummaging through my thoughts can be moved along to another dark place.  As I'm typing this, I can feel my shoulders relaxing and the burning sensation subsiding.  And like any other time where my anxiety gets the best of me, I have to remember to roll with it because in a matter of minutes or at the worst, hours, it will be alright.

Update:  I am taking the afternoon off to "collect myself."  In other words, I will be reading, taking a nap and relaxing with my critters.

Fighting "The Man"

In February, my husband and I consistently had bad service in our house and we were sick of not being able to use our cell phones in our own home.  I decided because my nephew could get me a discount for an iPhone, I would find out when my cell phone contract ended so we could switch over to AT&T.   Because the contract end date is less than accessible, I searched through my online account and lo and behold I learned the two phones expired March X and March Y, 2008.  Whoohoo!  So being the diligent person I am, I called the cell phone company and confirmed those dates.  I wrote them down and asked five times can I port over my numbers on March 1 and March 3 respectively.  The very kind customer service representative said yes.  I called back again and did the same thing, confirmed, wrote down this information, and told them I wanted to end my contract. 

So March comes along and as I though I was told to do, I switched my phones over and March Xand March Y.  Apparently, I had been mistaken or the customer services representatives had been less than clear.  I am putting the blame on myself a little but like I said, I asked if I could port XXX-XXXX over on March X and XXX-XXXX on March Y and I promise that I was told "yes."  And I'm sure you can guess what happened next.  I received a bill that had some remaining charges and a big fat early termination charge.  My face turned red and after breathing into a paper bag, I calmly called the cell phone customer services.  I spoke with yet another delightful customer service representative who told me should couldn't waive the entire fee but would send it off to an office that could.  She acknowledged that because it was only two days, it could probably be waived.

Then I waited for an answer.   And I got an answer alright, a letter stating that I owed this big fat early termination fee.  Oh hell no!  Again I called customer services expecting similar assistance but was I mistaken.  The service representative looked up my information and informed me that I was told that my contract ended March 3 on two occasions and that I was wrong they were right.  I explained to them I asked several times if I could port the number on March 1 and was told yes, yes, yes, yes, and of course, yes.  But oh no. I was told this.  Although my blood pressure continued to rise, I asked very calmly, if I knew the end date had been March 3, why would I terminate early and incur a late fee?  She snidely answered: well I don't know that answer.  She told me the best she could do was split the difference. 

Of course I was less than satisfied over her response so I asked to speak to her supervisor.  This woman parroted the same information and seemed equally snotty.  Because I spent big bucks on law school, I decided to throw in some legal terms like detrimental reliance and unjust enrichment.  That went over their heads so finally I asked if there was someone else with who I could speak.  She gave me an address and I went right to work drafting my letter, explaining my situation, and using legal arguments.  The next day I mailed in my letter and patiently waited and worried. 

But happy endings do happen!  I received a call back from the fancy office that can make the big decisions.  A lovely representative who gets extra points for pronouncing my last name correctly told me that although they don't think they did anything wrong, they would waive the big bad early termination fee because the termination had been less than two days from their claimed termination date.  Phew!  I thanked her profusely and hung up. 

And yes, it is possibly I might have been in the wrong a little.  I might have misheard, although I swear, I did not.  They specifically said I could terminate those numbers on two different dates.  But honestly, those early termination fees are ridiculous if you terminate within 36 hours of the alleged date.  I won't go into the legal reasons why I think those fees can be wrong but in my case, I thought it was.  Go ahead, criticize me for my foolishness.  I probably am but heck does it feel good to win sometimes. 

On the Lighter Side

I wish I was one of those folks who could talk about all the cool concerts they went to and where the latest and greatest band is playing.  My brother could probably do that as he was in a band, a very cool band, and currently is in this band and I guess also this band, and he is definitely more hip than I.  But of course living in a town with a limited music scene, I don't go out too much and if I wanted to go, I wouldn't have much of a choice.  So where does that leave me?  Listening to oldies on my cassette player?  Rockin' out to the best of the '80's?  Okay yeah maybe I do that.  Actually, it brings me to Pandora.  And oh how I love Pandora because you know what!?  It makes me a little more hip!  Rather than staring blankly at someone when they mention a cool new band, I can say, "oh yeah, I heard them on Pandora."  Well, I can do that at least two percent of the time rather than zero percent of the time.  For those of you who do not know about Pandora, and I only found out about around six or nine or twenty months ago (sorry bad memory), it is an online radio station where you select a song or artist who you really like, put it in the search, and Pandora creates a radio station based on this music selection.  Most of the time it works really well and for about 200 days straight - no seriously, 200 days in a row - I listened to my Feist radio station and loved it.  This station worked particularly well in my office because it was calming, which is what I need while I'm chained to my desk calculating what century I'll pay off my student loans.  Sigh.  That's a whole different subject.  As of late, I've ventured into new music selections including The Smiths, Morrissey, Jack Johnson, Amy Winehouse, and The Decemberists amongst others.  Hell yeah, I can be all dark and moody listening to Echo and the Bunnymen and Depeche Mode.  Seriously, it's a trip.  And I realize above I talked about "finding new bands" but what I really meant is "rediscovering old favorites."  So let me rock out for a while to The Pixies before I see my first client. 

The Truth about Blogging

For the past two to three years, I have been blogging in some form or another.  Originally, I started here where I wrote under the pseudonym, Mr. Stinny.  Yes, I am a female and human.  Mr. Stinny is my blind cat and to ease myself into the blogging world.  Feel free to go through the archives.  It's a bit wacky but so am I!  I decided to write not as myself per se but under a different identity.  It felt safe.  I didn't think anyone could criticize me because it didn't seem like it was really me.  This blog lasted until I got a bit bored with it and when Finnegan, my Irish Wolfhound, was diagnosed with bone cancer.  I started that blog to provide a personal account of treating a giant breed dog with cancer.  In the back of my mind, I knew I wanted to start my own "Andrea" blog to deal with my demons and to work on my writing a little more.  So that led to here.

I admit that I tend to be insecure and worry about what others think of me.  It's a personal flaw and I've been working on it.  Initially, I thought the insecurity would not get to me in the beginning of blogging.  Who cares if no one comments?  Who cares if I only have ten hits?  After all, I am doing this for me, not for anyone else.  But as with everything else, it's easier said than done.  I wrote anonymously about my insecurity here.  Insecurity is that little thread that keeps unraveling the more you tug on it.  It unwraps until you stand there naked, wondering what the world thinks of you.  Raw with emotion.  Hoping for validity.  Desperately I wish that was not me.  And as I said, I'm working on it.

Lately I've found my posts on the boring and on the unimaginative side.  When I met up with the four awesome women on Saturday, of course we discussed blogging and the whys and the hows.  One thing that I've known about myself is that my "best" blogging comes when the inside of me is not right.  It flourishes when I am not.  And that bothers me and it does not.  Blogging can be cathartic, rewarding, frustrating, and just downright silly.  It bothers me that my creative side only ventures out when the demons are starting the bonfire in my head.  But at the same time, it does not.  Because really, what could possibly be a better way to deal with the cobwebs than to write?  The majority of the time I do not write about what is going on because hell, I don't know what is wrong with me.  Is it chemical?  Is it work?  Is it home?  All three?  None of the above?  Who cares, I say.  I've found a way to work through it that doesn't involve a bottle or huddling into a mass of messy emotions.  Yeah me!

Now here is where I want to talk about where I am heading with the brave new blogging world.  One thing that was emphasized in our conversation at dinner is being open and supportive of other bloggers.  I love that idea of community and support.  In my real life, my husband and I are members of a food coop.  We have groups of close friends.  I continue friendships for as long as humanly possible.  I love to connect with people in real life.  In my job, I am more a counselor and advocate than the adverse fighting lawyer.  It's just the way I am so why not extend this to blogging? 

And that leads me to conclude with my resolution: to comment back to those who comment, be supportive and positive to other bloggers, and to continue living and flourishing in this strange crazy community we call the world of women bloggers. 

Just Bossy

Last night, I had the real pleasure of meeting Bossy and two other really fabulous women.  I already knew the third blogger and she is a fabulous person too.  All week, I had been nervous about this meet up.  I tend to be on the shy side and feel awkward and uncomfortable around new people.  Thankfully, Emma was there so I didn't feel completely out of sorts.  And honestly, I am truly thankful that I became a small part of Bossy's Excellent Road Trip.

Bossy really is all that and a bag of cheezy poofs.  The one thing I noticed is  how serene and one with herself she is.  Honestly it is hard to describe in words.  I think lovely is the perfect word to describe her.  But not in a perfect intimidating fragile sort of way.  She is honest and funny and incredibly insightful.  The conversation with everyone at the table was so easy.  I can't believe that the five of us hadn't met before this evening.  We talked about politics, music, family, and of course, blogging. 

One of the things that I admire how supportive she is of other bloggers.  When she has commented on my blog from time to time, I really felt honored.  That might sound foolish but for someone who is mildly insecure, having someone who is a great blogger acknowledge your blog is pretty cool.  Talking about blogging brought some insight into why I blog and what I want to get out of it.  Because I am a totally communal hippy girl, I think that I am going to work more on reaching out, responding to comments on my blog, and be as positive as possible.  Honestly, it was a great experience and I hope to meet  all  to the women again.

Besides meeting Bossy, I met Blue Girl, who was a terrific hostess to not only Bossy but to all of us.  I enjoyed talking with her and she is one of those people who can make you feel comfortable.  From Here to There probably had the most difficult trip to Cleveland.   Thankfully, she made it there safely and returned home with another crazy story.  Listening to her describe her klutziness made me feel a definite kinship to her.  Hopefully, the other Pittsburgh blogger who couldn't make it, Emma, From Here to There, and I can meet up and have our own mini-blogger meet up.  There is so much more I could say about all these women.  Words really can't describe this experience.  Blogging is a weird animal.  It is voyeuristic, emotional, and perhaps it seems egotistical.  But after spending time with four great women who blog, I felt a bit better about my dirty little secret and really a part of pretty amazing community of women.

P.S. You can find more pictures here and here.   And more accounts of Bossy's visit here and here.