DLand - Whoa Here She Comes ...

I am going to kick the next Chinese person I see, I swear to God! If I see another Chinese hacker virus on another server this week, so help us all! I don't normally rant, but do you ever have one of those days when the whole world just seems insane? This morning I'm listening to the radio and the first Deejay starts talking about his cousin whose son has a summer job as a florist's assistant and how he's so embarrassed. And then all these idiots start calling in about their kids who don't have jobs they like. Am I the only one who sees the problem with this?

Insolent Dad: "Yeah, my kid has just really got me worried at his new job."

Insipid Deejay: "Florist? Yeah, I could see how that would be bad. Next your daughter will want to be a mechanic."

Me screaming in car: "Oh, for Christ's sake, what year is it?! 1492?!"

Incompetant Parent: "Yeah, he makes more than I do an hour to sit in air conditioning and arrange roses. It's just disgraceful."

Me screaming in car: "Yeah, your kid isn't pregnant. Your kid isn't high on crack. Your kid gets up every day and leaves your house to go to work and make $15 an hour. That just really sucks. Call Dr. Laura! Maybe she would have some pity for you, you ignorant prick!"

So I change the station and the country station is playing some jingle with the lyrics "I'm proud to be a Rebel, 'cause the South is gonna do it again." What the hell does that mean? Again, I ask, what year is it?! So I just turn off the radio and fume the last 4 miles to my office.

So then I talk to more stupid people than any one person can handle. I think I talked to 8 different sites today who had been hacked by the Chinese. They're all in a panic because the president of the University is getting rude emails. Bah, I just was losing my patience with them. These people wouldn't know an operating system patch is their life depended on biting them in the mixed metaphor. They couldn't find their own ass if they were sitting on their hands! Bah, is all I say.

So my one ray of light is that Joonyah is sending me and my sweet $600 next week (yeah the husband with a SSN ending in 00). I think we're going to give half of it to some charity for stem cell research and spend the rest on sex toys. Muahahahaha.

P.S. I'm left-handed too. Muahahahaha.

DLand - I Guess You Can Go Home Again

Sunday we went to the beach. It was an impromptu trip in that I wanted to just go out and be in gorgeous weather for a bit. Norfolk has a beach too, you know. It's in the Chesapeake Bay so the waves aren't that awe inspiring, but the view is still great and the beach is completely non-commercial. This is the beach that I grew up on as a kid. My mother would take me and we would spend a few hours out there (only living three blocks from the beach we could walk). It was on this beach that I learned how to swim in moving water and gained a healthy fear of jelly fish. Once I swam into one that had to have been the size of my head. Thankfully, I saw none so large yesterday. Jeremy spent most of the time looking for "neat stuff" in the sand and I took some photos and frolicked in the water. The water was really warm but I had just shaved my legs, so I my body couldn't decide if it wanted to be there or not. One of Jeremy's treasures was a maiden's purse, which he claims is the egg sac from a ray. I'm not sure what it looks like, but it was irridescent and rather nice there on the beach.

Jeremy managed to be attacked by a jelly fish in the foot. I told him that he should pack sand on it and it's supposed to make it feel better. But he didn't want to get out of the water so he buried his foot in the waves and nearly fell on his butt a couple of times. After all that we decided that this whole sand packing theory is just something to get whiny kids on the beach and out of the water for a while til they forget about their jelly fish sting.

Jeremy: Sorry, I keep pushing you up shore. The water is stinging my jelly fish foot.

Me: Well, why don't you let me walk on that side and you can walk in the sand?

Jeremy: Because my other foot likes it too much.

The finale for the trip was the dolphins playing and fishing about 30 yards from us. They're really hard to take pictures of though, being grey and fast and sneaky. All last summer we lived here and never went to the beach. This was like something out of a novel and all we had to do was walk up and enjoy it. So I'm re-falling in love with my home. We've been courting each other for many years, but this time it's true love.

DLand - Why Do They Call It a Kickplate?

Baby gates are evil torture devices. We have one in the doorway to our downstairs bathroom - also known as the kitty room. The litterbox is in there and my sweet pooch Sarah has a magnetic attraction - no - chemical dependency on kitty poo. So we keep the gate up so that we don't have to walk on litter bits in the hall. Too much information, I know. Anyways, last night I'm talking to Sweetpea and leaving the potty about to head to the computer room for some late night quality time with him. I swung my left leg up to go over the gate and rammed my kneecap into the kickplate for the doorframe (the little brass thing that the doorknob latch goes into). My kneecap. Faster than the speed of sound. Headed at the little brass dagger of a kickplate. There was a loud thudding noise, possibly come crunching noises too. And then much wailing and weeping. Normally, I'm pretty brave and calm about bodily injuries (Daddy locked my finger in his suitcase once by accident and I didn't say a peep). But this hurt so bad and was so creepy feeling that my whole world fell apart for about 15 minutes. I let out a yell like I had been shot and immediately burst into uncontrollable tears. And not those sappy movie tears. These were the "Why? Why did you take my baby?" wails you see in dramatic television shows. So poor Sweetpea comes tearing around the corner to find me leaning on the door, grabbing the fabric of my jeans like I'm trying to rip them off of me, biting my lip and whimpering like a wounded animal. Bit of a shock for him too. Oh, and the goddamn dog is sitting there in the hall looking at me and wagging her tail. Stupid mutt.

What really pisses me off is after all that pain and shock, there is absolutely no evidence of my brush with permanent disability. There's not even a visible bruise.

Oh, and the baby gate has been removed until further notice.