Upon arriving at the blog today I couldn’t help but notice that all the Google ads were for anger management. ”AdSense delivers relevant text and image ads that are precisely targeted to your site and your site content,” this was taken directly from the AdSense FAQ.
Nowhere on the page do I mention anger, rage or any related words specifically and yet AdSense is such a brilliant tool that it can psychologically analyze what’s written and find the subtext. That is amazing. I hadn’t even realized that I was writing so much content rife with anger.
Yes, it happens to be true, I tend to lean toward the angry side at times (those who know me may laugh now), but the fact that AdSense knows it and is basically recommending an anger management class is bizarre.
I just went back to check the ads again, they’re like a Magic 8-Ball for me now. The top ad says “Are Anxiety and Stress Aging You?” Wow, this is incredible, how does it know that? Premature aging is a big concern for me, I’m speechless.
Now I realize that AdSense is not in fact a stupid waste of real estate, it is a great oracle that shouldn’t be ignored and from now on I will give it the respect it deserves.
They put the tile in today. For the most part I am pleased and won’t go on about the few things I found wrong with it. I also won’t go on about how the cabinets on the non-appliance side of the room aren’t in the right place even though we discussed this on numerous occasions with the contractor and then we didn’t speak up about it before he tiled the floor. I could also mention that I think the pendant lights will be too close to the cabinets and that the knobs were installed where handles were meant to go, but I won’t. For the most part, I’m pleased.
Here are a couple photos to illustrate how we chose the cabinets, tile and paint so that they wouldn’t clash with our pets:
So let me tell you I’m online dating again and last night some guy emails me and says we should IM. So I gave him my contact info. and we start talking.
He said I was pretty, that’s always nice, predictable but nice. Then he asked what I do for a living, again questions that you expect when first talking with someone. Then, out of left field, he asked me if I have a nice chest and “is it big?” WTF!!! Why do I bother!
Who raised these pigs? Honestly, would these guy’s parents be shocked by their behavior or would Dad just say “ah, that’s my boy!”
I’m really thinking that I may never find someone and it makes me sad. It’s like I have this big, fat, stink-ass, black cloud of nothingness following me everywhere.
I spent the weekend scrubbing filth from every nook and cranny of the dining room. I “laugh” because it is still dirty and that’s only one room, many more to go.
When I wasn’t playing scullery maid we were out shopping for sinks, faucets and looking at every chip of laminate countertop that we could get our hands on—which, by the way, is just about impossible if you don’t want to go to Home Dumpo or Lowes.
I want more choices, why should I have to be limited to these store’s pitiful selection of laminates when I know there are so many others out there? Where are you laminate stores? Olly olly in-come-free! Mind you, I’d never actually be looking at laminates if we had any money left in the budget but we passed that point long ago and so I must find an acceptable choice. A task akin perhaps to finding a Miss America candidate in the Ozarks—not a necessarily impossible feat, but it will require a lot of time and effort.
The kitchen is becoming a tedious, dull burden. As I’ve mentioned before, I am a scanner and this means that there is an undefined but potentially limited period of time that I will usually retain interest in any project or subject. I’m pretty much done with this and the final details are now draining the life out of me.
Sadly, I’m starting to get used to eating half-assed sandwiches off paper plates and the beer is so much handier with the refrigerator in the living room. No it’s not my real preference but I guess I’m just adapting to my circumstances. I mostly know where all the piles of junk are and what was once an obstacle course is now just a regular trip through the house, I don’t really even think much of it—or perhaps I’ve just given up.
I cried through an entire dinner at a Japanese restaurant the other day. Either a sign that I’m losing my mind again or that I really need a vacation. This has been a very exhausting month in general. Between the adoption, the kitchen and my ongoing insomnia I think I’m just spent emotionally and physically. Stick a fork in me, I’m done.
Today was fairly uneventful, that’s a nice change. The contractor showed up in the middle of the day, which is better than nothing and now we have the first sign that the room is really a kitchen—the cabinets are being hung, yee haw!
I’ve really gotten used to the empty space however and now that we have a couple giant cabinets in there it seems a bit claustrophobic. I guess it will take some time to adjust.
Around midnight I was finishing touching up the walls in the kitchen when I heard a ruckus at the back door. Next thing I knew the door was pulled open and in flew my cat Baby as if her ass was on fire. I was at the top of a ladder and nearly broke my neck because of the sudden shock she gave me. She raced around the kitchen screaming with her mouth closed, which I knew meant she had something in there (she does this in the middle of the night with her toys).
Before I could get down from the ladder she tossed her prize into the air. I was expecting a mouse or some other rodent type animal but she had a different toy tonight, a big, fat, honkin’ water bug or other similarly heinous monster. I don’t do well with bugs. I scurried down from the ladder and tried to find anything to trap or kill the thing as quickly as possible. Baby must have sensed that I was going to put an end to her good time and started to protect the creature by hissing, spitting and swinging at me like a mental patient.
As I stood there basically arguing with her like a complete moron, roachie took the opportunity to make a mad dash for the nearest bit of shelter that was conveniently located in a gap under one of the new walls.
Now I started to get really pissed off. There’s nothing like having a brand new clean kitchen and then intentionally sealing a bug prone to infestations into the wall. I thought, hey while we’re at it why not go out and get some termites, roaches, silverfish and a cricket and shove them in there too.
I could still see it’s grotesque antenna flicking back and forth from under the wall so I went to find something to spray it with. Of course all our deadly products used to be in the kitchen so that meant they are buried under 15 feet of cabinets in the dining room now. As luck would have it I found a can of wasp killer in the back yard and figured it was my only hope. So I shot the bastard until I saw it stop moving.
With that trauma over I decided to go get a drink, I was gone for only a couple minutes when I heard Baby running around the kitchen again. Somehow that stupid bug made its way out of the chemical foam and was back in the kitchen. Not wasting any effort arguing with the cat this time (I learn from my mistakes) I shoved her out of the way and trapped it under an empty paint can where I waited for the poison to take effect. It never died. I guess when the can says wasp killer that’s really all it is good for. Since it wasn’t fully mobile I scraped it up into the can before it could regain complete consciousness and chucked it out in the street.
How’s that for a ridiculously long story about practically nothing.
Well the kitchen is painted and ready to go. The contractor was supposed to come today and begin installing the cabinets but is he here? NO, he called to say he wasn’t coming because he’s working on another job today. This does not please me and I do hope this isn’t the beginning of something ugly.
On a more positive note, the tile we ordered was delivered on time today. Kudos to FastFloors.com who not only beat the price we were given from a local store on the exact same tile by over $2.00/sq.ft. but actually got the tile to us a week earlier than originally estimated.
As it happens the acoustics in the empty kitchen are positively fabulous, so I called my West Side Story reenactor friends over today for a little rehearsal.
FYI - We haven’t cast the roll of Anita yet if you’d like to audition, give it some thought, the boys are coming back tomorrow at noon and we’d love to see you there:)
While taking a break from painting the ceiling my little Piglet came to sit on me. I decided to shoot what I thought would be some cute photos of us but what I got instead were some Pig-faced oddities. This one is my favorite: