QOTD: "There is no fate that cannote be surmounted by scorn." - Albert Camus
Reading: Tim Cockey, The Hearse Case Scenario
Listening to: nothing
Decluttering accomplishments: threw out a couple of old magazines
I'm in a state of intense anger and exhaustion at the moment. I don't think it will show up too badly in this entry, but if I sound particularly bitchy, that's why.
The grumpiness is partly left over from the work week, which I spent mostly trying to keep somebody else from over-reacting to a report. I know full well he didn't read the bloody thing, so I'm particularly pissed off. He was firing off emails that completely misrepresented the whole thing to all and sundry and gave a copy to people it was not releasable to. He'll be gone soon enough and all he's done is created a bigger mess for us to clean up, when it was easy to handle this by writing a rational response.
A weekend at my mother's didn't do a lot to help. All she does is criticize and complain. Even her compliments are loaded with criticism. For example, she'll say a dress I'm wearing looks nice, but then go on telling me I was stupid to buy it because it isn't washable. I can afford dry cleaning and I like the way rayon feels and, frankly, it's none of her business. It gets wearing to listen to, though. Particularly as I always end up sleep deprived between the bed in the guest room being too soft and the volume at which she listens to the television until all hours. And she wonders why I don't visit more often.
I was nice, though, and took her to see Hairspray on Broadway on Friday night, though. (Hence, the mention of Baltimore in the title of this entry.) Mom liked it a lot more than I did. The score is nothing special and, in my opinion, the show is entertaining only because the stars are very talented. I am once again appalled that my own mother does not know how to behave in the theatre. Once and for all, if the house lights are dimmed, your mouth should be shut. Period. No excuses.
I should also point out that Mom complained that we didn't have enough time to shop at Macy's beforehand, but that she had wanted to take an even later train into the city than the one I insisted on. On the plus side, she did get a couple of pairs of slippers, which appeased her for a while. And we had a good New York deli dinner, meaning largely that I got my semi-annual quota of sour pickles.
On Saturday, I ventured to the Bronx and went to the very Heart of Darkness. Yes, I went to Yankee Stadium. The game was the best part of the weekend, especially because I always take particular delight in watching the Red Sox whup Roger Clemens. Traitor Roger is, of course, the evilest of all evils. I'll also note that I saw more beer consumed at this game than at any other I can remember since my undergraduate days. I realize that it isn't a fair sampling, but the Yankee fans near me all seemed to put away at least four beers each during the game, and two of them had seven or eight each. Given that the Bosox are hot hot hot, I can't say I blame them. I will also note that, as further proof that the Yankees are the source of all evil in the universe, that after buying this ticket on line, I've gotten an average of four spam emails a day from them, despite having unchecked every single bloody permission box. I had to go to their websites six separate times to unsubscribe from all their trash and I'm still getting at least a few a week.
I spent the day today dealing with household things, though I don't know why Mom wants me to help her go through things if she has no intention of listening to what I tell her. She asked me to look through old bankbooks to see if she should keep them and, even when I told her that she should get rid of at least half of them (accounts that have been closed over seven years), she insisted on keeping them. I did sort of succeed in getting her to put together a single list of phone numbers and information on her various financial accounts and the like, but even that took a lot of doing. My uncle had given her a form a while back and the concept that she could just leave some things blank or write "N/A" next to them seemed to disturb her. Sigh.
So I was already in a bad mood today and it didn't help that the train back to Washington was late. As far as I can tell, the only advantage of the Acela is that it's less crowded than the normal trains. It's only marginally faster and that hardly makes a difference when it leaves forty minutes late. Particularly, since it's quite a bit pricier.
And then I got home to the thing that has me really pissed off. I got my new passport in the mail. Without my old cancelled one. That is so completely wrong. First of all, there is a real security problem as the reason that I was getting the new one was that the old one had delaminated. There was still plenty of time left on it, so some unscrupulous person at the passport agency could change the picture and sell it on the black market. And (which is the point that is the real source of my rage) this is the passport with my most interesting passport stamps - British Antarctic Territory, Saint Helena, Ascenscion, etc.. I'm going to call and find out what the story is, but this is completely wrong.
Copyright 2003 Miriam H. Nadel