tongue in chic journalings

Paper Houses

I got all crafty this weekend and made a little lampshade for my desk. I mean, for the lamp on my desk. I'm not totally dense. I thought I'd show it off and I realized that I haven't posted much work in a while. And since I'm stuck in bed today, I made a little video. It was either make the video or watch a marathon of Rock of Love 2, and since I spent the morning watching a marathon of Hilary Duff movies I figured I'd already exhausted my patheticness quotient for the day.

I also added a little chat feature to the site. I have no idea how to use it, or why one might need a chat feature on a blog. But it was so cute and yellow and inviting. Which should have probably steered me away from it, since that is exactly the combination that brought Exhibit B into our lives.

"And that ended my professional career as a bobsledder"

When I was younger, I used to live with my grandparents. Every year on June 1 my parents would drive me to their house in Tennessee and every year I stayed until the day before school started in September. This began the year I was five. My sister was desperately ill. She was in the hospital for weeks on end, my mother sleeping in a cot next to her and my father working full time to pay for that extended hospital visit. This was painfully horrid for me, as I was painfully shy at 5 years old and despised the day care center I was forced to frequent. So when my grandparents offered to take me for a few weeks, I put on my sweetest face and stayed the entire summer. And every summer there after.

Most of my favorite memories are from my childhood summers at my grandparents house. One of my fondest memories is of the apple tree that stood in the backyard. My grandparents had a lot of fruit trees, pears, apples, plums. But the apple tree had the perfect nook among its branches to sit and read while munching on a perfectly ripe Granny Smith apple. I spent hours upon hours in the apple tree, especially when I was obsessed with The Little Mermaid and decidedly thought the apple tree made the perfect underwater castle for me to sing in.

One Fourth of July weekend my mother, father and sister came to stay, along with my aunt, uncle and all of my cousins. There were 4 of us kids total, and that weekend we went to the theater and watched Cool Runnings. From that moment on, we were obsessed. With bobsledding. We determined that we would all be bobsledders, no small feat in the southern summer heat. But if some guys in Jamaica could do it, surely we could too. All we lacked was, well, a bobsled.

We fashioned our own version of a bobsled out of a sheet. We tied it to the branches of the apple tree so that it made a sort of hammock, hanging about 8 feet above the ground. Then all 4 of us would climb inside, quickly, like they did in the movie, and rock back and forth in a synchronized motion that would get the “bobsled” rocking at a fantastic speed. All the while we would sing songs from the movie, “ Jamaica ’s got a bobsled team, YAH!” and then when we were finished, we’d climb out of the “bobsled” and bop each other on the head.

 We did this every single day that week, except for the day that it rained. We played our own version of Ninja Turtles in the garage that day. The next day we anxiously waited about all morning for the sheet to dry out, so that we could resume the bobsled game. It was, after all, the best game that we’d invented so far. Finally the sheet was almost dry, dry enough for a bunch of impatient professional bobsledders anyhow, and so we jumped in and started rocking. One, two, three rocks and then RIP! The sheet ripped straight down the middle, sending the four of us tumbling out of the bottom of the makeshift bobsled and eight feet to the ground below.

 We landed on top of one another, shrieking and a bit dazed. Then we brushed ourselves off and without a word, we untied the shreds of the sheet still tied to the old apple tree and soberly threw it away.

 We never tried to revive the game. It was too perfect while it lasted, and we recognized that, even as young as we were. There was a finality to it that we all agreed upon, although unspoken. We invented many more games, but none remain in my memory as vividly as that one. I think we must all remember it fondly, as sometimes now in our twenties, someone will randomly blurt out “ Jamaica has a bobsled team, YAH!” and we all dissolve into giggles.

 I live in the same town now that my grandparents used to live in. I decided to drive by their old house, the place where most of my best childhood memories take place. Everything looks different when you’re older, I know. But one thing was different. The apple tree. It was gone.

 I wonder if they knew. I wonder if they knew when they cut it down how much it used to mean to a shy little girl. I wonder if they heard the echoes of laughter of a generation of kids who climbed its branches and invented the most perfect game. I wonder if they knew anyone would mourn it’s loss.

Probably not.

But it broke my heart anyhow.

She keeps it in the door

Yesterday was an all day, intensive planning meeting at work. At Starbucks, but still rather exhausting. I worked from 9-6 straight getting the calendar ready for the big things SIStv has in store for the next few months.

So needless to say, I was not in the mood to cook dinner. Jeff swung by and offered to make dinner for us. Only when Jeff makes chicken, he tends to use a lot of spicy things and I can't even handle too much pepper so I typically run out of the room, dousing my mouth with baking soda after eating his chicken. I must have looked hesitant because he offered to cook my chicken separately, the way I make it. Which was very sweet and almost makes up for his refusal to let me have a snake. Or a puppy.

I told him before he left what to do. My way is in the crockpot so it's pretty simple. A chicken breast, wrapped in bacon, covered in cheese, add a cup of chicken broth.

He left. "Just wait, I said to Lauren, he'll call here and ask me about the chicken broth in about 15 minutes"

This is the resulting gmail chat:

5:08 PM Jeff: u here?

5 minutes

5:13 PM Jeff: wanted to let you know there is no chicken broth, so i am just thawing out all the chicken.

5:17 PM me: there is chicken broth

 it is in the fridge door

 Jeff: nope

 oh

 me: yes

 i just bought it

 Jeff: ok

 let me go look

5:18 PM me: :)

 Jeff: you want me to pour the whole carton in

 ???

8 minutes

5:26 PM me: no!

 

Lookie, lookie, lookie, here come's Cookie

I hate spiders. I hate them.

I am not one of those girls that is afraid of insects. We had a pet iguana growing up and I used to feed it crickets. And we had pet snakes. I love snakes. I've been asking Jeff for one since we've been married, but snakes and lizards skeeve him out. I always have to be the one who takes the lizards off the ping pong table outside. And one time he called me at work to ask me to identify a snake that had crawled into his office. While he stood on a desk.

Which is why I don't understand his thought processes regarding my irrational fear of spiders. I know it's irrational. I realize that. However, Jeff feels the need to cure me of this fear. He is always encouraging to kill spiders myself, instead of shrieking at him to do it. He will actually refuse to do it for me, insisting that if I don't kill the spider he is just going to leave it there. If I had known about this prior to our marriage, I would have had it written into our vows. "Do you, Jeff, take KA to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, agreeing to kill all spiders within a 20 foot vicinity of her for as long as you both shall live?"

The problem with my fear of spiders is that I'm not afraid of the actual spider. I am afraid of the spider jumping on me. I'm afraid I'll move in to squash it and it will jump in my hair. My solution to this problem is to simply stand on the other side of the room from said spider and throw heavy things at it. The problem with my solution is that I typically have really bad aim. So it's just a lot simpler to have Jeff walk over and smash the dang thing in two seconds then it is for me to stand on the opposite side of the room hurling large biblical texts at it.

I think the internet can totally see my side in this.

However, sometimes I'm home alone. In the shower. And miss the spider with the shampoo bottle, conditioner, bubble bath, body wash, bar of soap, and my husband's razor. Let's not mention that one to him. I was left alone with nothing but a can of shaving cream and a large spider blocking my exit. And now I know that an entire can of Edge shave gel sprayed onto a spider will sufficiently capture it for a period of time long enough for you to dart out of the shower and into the other bathroom to finish rinsing your hair.

And also, that you should warn your husband about said pile of shave gel before he walks into the bathroom in bare feet. In the dark.

To do: Call pest control to have the apartment sprayed.

Multiple Choice

Q: Why is it an especially Happy Easter in our house?

A) Because we love the Lord
B) Because we have lots of Cadbury Creme Eggs
C) Because my husband decided to sell his XBox 360
D) All of the above

Happy Easter Everyone!
And if any of you are in the market for a new XBox 360 and some games, shoot me an email and I'll send you his Craigslist post.  Not recommended for newlyweds.

I always liked freeze tag best

I was "tagged" a few times last week. Apparently, I am supposed to share 7 random facts about myself. I'm not sure how I can limit this to seven. Has anyone ever met me?

Rules are:* Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.* Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names.* Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

I don't follow rules dude. I'm a rebel without a cause. I don't really know what that means, but the truth is I'm like a week late posting this and I think everyone has been tagged already. Yes, everyone on the internet. I know them all.

Random Fact Number One:
* I lied about my weight on my new driver's license. I lied to make the number larger than it actually is, because I currently only weigh 92 pounds and all my nightly peanut butter sandwiches and milk are not helping my gain back what I lost when I had the flu. I actually always weigh 92 pounds but I like to blame things like the flu, so I feel like less of a freak. I debated over whether or not I looked as though I could write in 100, but decided that would be a pretty big lie since I've never weighed 100 pounds, so I went with 95. They ended up not even printing my weight on my license, giving me that huge dilemna for nothing. And also, Tennesse licenses are weird. I feel like I'm carrying around a fake ID.

Random Fact Number Two:
* I often keep a jar of cream cheese icing in the refrigerator and eat it with a spoon while I scrapbook. Only I have to keep the spoon in the freezer first, because it bothers me when the icing sticks to the spoon. Because I expect sticky foods to magically become non-sticky to adapt to my neurosis.

Random Fact Number Three:
* I find it impossible to reuse a glass. I get a new glass for every drink. I can't manage to just refill the glass I have. And then later, when there are 37 glasses on my desk and none in the cabinet, I think to myself "Self, why the heckfire do we never have any clean glasses?" And then I blame it on my husband.

Random Fact Number Four:
* I completely enhance my southern accent when I want something from somebody. And I'm not talking about married people things. Like, if I need someone to do something for me, like check the stock at a store or get down something from the top shelf in the grocery store. I find that the southern accent makes people totally willing to do whatever I ask of them. Although I find that this theory does not work in relation to 1-800-Comcast. It's like, the kryptonite to my southern accent.

Random Fact Number Five:
* I have very specific thoughts on certain things that I made up as a child and refuse to let anyone question them. Like how I choose to believe that God assigns angels to make clouds into shapes, just to make people happy. I like to think they're up there like "ooh, let's make this cloud look like the statue of liberty!" And also, that I hope that can be my job when I get to heaven. I was very upset with my husband when he first gently told me that I was cute for thinking that but that he didn't think heaven worked like that. I was upset because A) how does he KNOW I'm wrong and B) I really believe it. I don't know where I ever got that idea, but it seems natural to me.

Random Fact Number Six:
* I am incredibly jealous of people with tans. I am also jealous of Nicole Kidman, who is the only person on the planet that I think manages to be incredibly gorgeous while being white as a sheep. And also, she gets to have an accent on top of it. I'm really jealous of people with accents. And also, I tend to use all encompassing phrases a lot, such as "only person on the planet" as though I know everyone on the planet and consider them all my mates. Oh, and sometimes I use british words like mates just for kicks.

Random Fact Number Seven:
* I feel as though this took a really long time to do. Because I'm wordy. Why couldn't I have just written a one-liner for each of these? This is why I could not be a stand up comic. Because I'm wordy. And also because I look twelve, and probably couldn't get past a bouncer.

I'm not tagging anyone because I don't like being late to the party, but I was tagged by the Beautiful New Mom Kathleen, My Favorite Twin/Mother Of Adie, The Fabulous NikiG, and some other people who I can't remember at the moment, but apologize profusely to and offer up a Cadbury Creme Egg as my peace offering.

The 1-800-Comcast Drama, Part 4

I know some of y'all have emailed wanting an update on the Comcast situation. I hope you have a glass of merlot on hand for this one.

If you haven't been following along, you can catch up on Part One Part Two and Part Three I won't even comment on how sad it is that I am currently writing part four and predict a sequel.

So about 2 weeks ago, I got an email from Comcast's corporate customer service people. Apparently, you can call customer service 7,496 times to no avail but if you post about their crappy service on your blog, that gets someone's attention. I took this to mean that I should just always bring my issues to the internet, because the internet? It gets things done. And also, it doesn't address me as "Mrs. Carroll."

But since I really am a sweet person, who once worked retail and therefore typically tends to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, I decided not to post anymore about Comcast on my blog because I really believed that THIS TIME! This time my problems would be fixed! This time someone was going to do something about it! This, people, is what they call naive.

After a brief email exchange, I received a phone call from the customer care advocate. Don't let the word advocate throw you. Even though she was very friendly, she was certainly not on my side. There was little concern over my problems.

This all happened during my busiest work week of the year, the week where we opened registration for SISiversary 2008 and I was working around the clock to get everything ready. I tell you this to let you know that A) I was already frazzled and B) I was incredibly upset that they expected me to deal with this during my work hours when all of my calls to them had gone unhelped.

When the customer care advocate told me she would adjust my next bill accordingly, I balked. That's what they said LAST time. Last time they overcharged me by exactly $19.85. And told me that I needed to just pay the charge, and that my next bill would be for the correct amount less $19.85. I argued and argued about this, noting that if they couldn't change a simple problem, like changing my name after half a dozen phone calls, how was I supposed to trust them to credit me back? And what kind of company has the sort of policy where they overbill their customers and then demand payment for their mistake? However, since they refused to send me an adjusted bill or accept a payment for my correct amount, I sent in what they asked. Stupid, stupid, stupid. And when the next bill came, not only did they not credit me back the amount they owed me, they charged me another $19.85 that I didn't owe. So you can see how this solution didn't really work for me.

The customer advocate told me to pay online and that she would adjust that amount. If you've been keeping up with the story, you know what I told her. That I'd love to pay online if anyone had ever sent me the pin number they all claim that I need to log on. I got a pin number in the mail the next day.

I logged on to pay my bill and the adjusted amount? It was less $10. $10 is not how much Comcast owes me. So I held my breath and called 1-800-Comcast. Guess what I was told. To pay that amount and that my next bill would be adjusted accordingly.

At that point, I simply hung up. I can't even find anything witty to say about this situation. About how I feel as though I've been incredibly patient while about a dozen different customer service have been rude to me. About how Comcast's corporate office contacted ME, not the other way around, and yet I still have seen no resolution. About how at no point during any of this has anyone from Comcast said to me "What can we do to make this better? What can we do to ensure that you are getting what you pay for? What we we do to rectify the fact that you, our customer, have spent countless hours dealing with a situation that we never should have allowed to occur?"

I paid what I think I owe online. It's not about the payment. I am receiving a service and I expect to pay for a service. What I do not expect to pay more than I actually owe, or to be treated as though my business does not matter.

And then I thought...what now? I've compiled a list of all the comments you all have left me regarding this situation so that I can print them out and send them over to corporate. But that just didn't seem like enough.

So, I decided that I'm going to give them 24 hours before I write up this little story and send it over to the newspaper. So if you feel like leaving a comment, today is the first time that I am going to ask for comments, to add the the list that I'll be sending to the good people at Comcast and possibly onto The Tennessean.

The One About Work

I'd just like to say, to the people that email me and ask me to blog more: I love you. I really do. If I was getting married again, I'd make you all my maid of honors. And let you have extra helpings of my red velvet wedding cake. And maybe some sweet potato casserole.

See, I work a lot now. And part of that work is that I have like, 3 blogs to write and edit every few days. Blogs that are not this one. I used to scoff at people who claimed they needed to "find balance" between work and life. But see now, I totally understand those people and I want to call them up and apologize to them for the scoffing and offer them a Cadbury Creme egg as a means of atonement. Luckily, I didn't ever scoff at these people personally, to their faces, which works out in my favor because I don't really like to share my Cadbury Creme eggs. Which, by the way Dad, just because I'm married and live in Tennessee does not mean that you are now exempt from sending me a basket of Cadbury Creme eggs for Easter.

The thing about work is, my hobby became my job. And I really love my job. So I work all the time. And sometimes, I forget that I started doing something that wasn't work and then I end up working after all.

And that is the story of how I woke up at 5am yesterday to make sure the newsletter was edited and out to about 10,000 people on time. And about how I then went to work all groggy and tired. And then my boss, Jeanette, she has Narcolepsy...have I ever mentioned that my boss has Narcolepsy? Because that's a fun story for another day. Anyhow, she takes all these stimulants and drinks a lot of Red Bull. I'm not even making this up. So she gives me a fourth of a glass of Red Bull to wake me up, because she was afraid that a whole Red Bull would be too strong for my tiny self. Which really was a good thing because, Hey! Guess what! Turns out I'm allergic to Red Bull!

So yesterday, before we discovered I was allergic to Red Bull, I called my husband and asked him to bring me lunch. Because we were really busy. And I was hungry. And then I remembered that I was practicing finding balance and wondered if I should go meet him for lunch. So I decided that if he brought me lunch while I was working, I could like, spend time with him AND eat AND work. And that people, is balance at it's finest. I specifically asked him to bring me a sandwich, some chips, and a nutty bar. I remember this because I was really looking forward to the nutty bar.

And he showed up with a cooler. I thought to myself "Self, maybe he did something really romantic! Maybe he packed a picnic lunch for you! OR ! Or maybe he cooked something! Maybe he made you brownies!"

And then I opened said cooler.

And inside I found:
A loaf of bread
A package of ham
and a jar of mayonaise

It seems that while I need to work on "finding balance" my husband needs to work on "BEING NORMAL." Which is probably fine because Jeff is already really good at balancing things. He can juggle and everything.

Hey There Delilah, What's It Like In Music City?

For as long as I lived in Atlanta, Delilah was a staple on my radio dial. Totally over the top cheesy, but I loved Delilah. My friends and I used to call in and try to dedicate songs to one another, just to see how cheesy Delilah could make it. But I especially loved Delilah because in December she played Christmas music 24/7.

And I have OCD. I need to be able to count on things never, ever changing. And so this past December, when I flipped my radio to 94.9 and heard COUNTRY music in place of my beloved Christmas music I had to pull over on the side of the road to collect myself. And as billboards went up all around town declaring 94.9 "The Bull..Atlanta's Newest Country Station" I was seething inside. "Yes it IS bull, I would mutter driving down the highway, where the HECK is my Delilah?"

Two months ago I moved to Nashville. And last week I decided to reset all the stations in my car. So I'm flipping through the dial and all of the sudden... I hear Delilah! And I dance with joy because hello! I freakin LOVE Delilah!

So I called the girls and told them. I mean WHAT are the odds that Delilah moved to the exact same city I moved to? How much does that freakin rock?

And as I was exclaiming my joy about this to Jeanette the other night, she said "You do know that Delilah is syndicated across the entire country right?"

I hesitated for a moment before answering.

"Well....I do now."

And this totally answers so many questions for me. Like why Delilah was always dedicating songs to people from Tom from Chicago. I could never figure out how Tom was managing to get through to Delilah all the way from Chicago when I lived right there in Atlanta where Delilah was and yet Delilah never dedicated any of my songs.

*Is the title of this post not just the most clever thing I've come up with in a while?

I'm so responsible

I didn't do any dishes today
or laundry
or cook dinner
or clean the bathroom

But I totally blogged like I said I would

Now someone please send me a carton of Cadbury Creme Eggs. And by somebody, I mean my husband. And by please, I mean right this very second.

I'm really busty* right now planning SIStv's first big event at the Franklin Marriott. It's kind of like planning a wedding, except it doesn't involve trying on lots of fancy dresses. I did that anyways because it's fun and I like feeling pretty, but you know, that's not really part of my job.

*That was totally supposed to say busy but I accidentally typed busty but I left it because I figure I need all the help I can get.

But I wanted to share this digital scrapbook page I made with some of the pictures from the wedding. This one of my hand in my dad's was one of my favorites from the wedding.

Comcast: Why I want to gouge my eyes out, Part Two

Okay, I promise I will be a better blogger. Seriously. No, seriously.

So, a few days after my last Comcast post, I get a little letter in the mail.

"Dear Mrs. Carroll,
Someone has attemped to change your account password. If this was not you, please call us immediately."
Love, Your Totally Unhelpful Friends at Comcast Who Did Not Even Provide a Phone Number In This Letter Either.

Of course I did not attempt to change my account password, because that would have been easy, and obviously Comcast's mission is to make my life as complicated as possible.

I stared at the letter for a few minutes, contemplating whether or not it was going to be worth the 57 minutes of my life that I'd never get back to make the phone call. After all, I reasoned, if someone was trying to steal my identity they'd only be making off with the identity of someone named Kayla Carroll. An identity, which by the way, has taken on a totally non-sweet personality when dealing with the folks at Comcast.

So I call. And I go through the whole "Yes it IS my account. Yes I KNOW the name is wrong. No I DIDN'T change the password."

And then I'm told that no one ever changed the password, they just send that letter out to ALL THE NEW ACCOUNTS THEY SET UP.

Because that's good business y'all, sending your customers letters telling them someone might have broken into their account, the one with all their personal information, in 2008 when identity theft runs rampant, and then saying "PSYCH! It was just us! We're just messin! It's like our way of giving you a wet willy, but on paper!"

A few days later it's time to pay the Comcast bill, the one I was overcharged on by $27, the one that I'm only slightly enraged about. And I want to pay the bill online, because it's 2008. And also because that's how we used to do it, back when we lived in Georgia, you know TWO MONTHS AGO!

Only it keeps telling me I need a pin number to do that.

Only I don't have a pin number.

So I dejectedly look at the phone. I contemplate simply punching myself repeatedly in the face to save time, but instead I dial the number that I now know by heart.

Apparently, the pin number comes in the mail. But to get said pin number you have to LOG IN and apply for it to be sent to you. Only you can't log in WITHOUT THE PIN NUMBER.

WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE TRYING TO DO TO ME?

And so I'm given some sort of web address that ends in like sdfjoaerp.ndfa/aera and of course, it doesn't work. He tells me I must be typing it in wrong. I try several times and finally just ask the guy to email it to me. And then I click on the link and get "Page Error: Page does not exist"

Of course it doesn't.

So I threw my laptop out the window and backed over it a few times.

Hence the lack of blogging. And also the fact that my husband might enroll me in anger management classes. That's okay, I'll just send the bill to Comcast.

I don't think they'll mind the unsolicted mail.

After all, they sent me a great welcome present. They sold my address to every other business known to man. How do I know this? How do I know that the oodles of companies whose junk mail is filling my mailbox got my address from Comcast?

It's just a hunch.