Our internet wasn’t working last night and when you live in a house full of internet geeks, that’s not really a good thing. We did the standard things we knew the Comcast person would already ask us to do – power cycle the modem, power cycle the router, remove the router from the situation, plug the computer right into the modem, blah, blah, blah. Then I called to find out what the h was going on.

(Note: I wish I could remember the person’s name that I talked to, mainly so I could just use it instead of saying Comcast Lady, because you know how much I like personalizing things.)

First off, they didn’t have our new address in the system, which is weird considering we’ve been there for 2+ months and haven’t had any trouble getting our service or our bills from them. Once we got that taken care of, we started troubleshooting our internet. No, I didn’t get an error message when I tried to connect, it just doesn’t connect. Finally, Comcast Lady decides to reboot the signal to our modem and of course that takes a while, which results in awkward conversation.

Comcast Lady: How are the rest of your Comcast services doing tonight?

Me: Just fine, thank you.

Comcast Lady: You know, if your husband is a sports fan, he can use your username and password to see over BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. (I couldn’t hear the rest of what she was saying because my brain was in the process of exploding and leaking slowly out of my ears.)

Me: Well, I actually don’t have a husband because I am a gay and I have a partner, so yeah.

Comcast Lady: Oh, I’m sorry, well, if your partner likes sports BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.

Anger Point #1) It’s 2012. There are so many things wrong with assuming a woman calling has a husband. Period.

Anger Point #2) It’s 2012. WOMEN LIKE SPORTS.

Comcast, you sons of bitches. I want to quit you so bad, but I can’t because I rent and I need my high speed internet. You have sucked me in like the corporate conglomerate you are, so you could at the very least have your customer service representatives go through a little bit of sensitivity training, you know?

Sincerely,
A lady that love some sports, has no husband, and is a gay.

While I do have some interest in running for office, I’d need to find someone to do all the hard work for me, since working 60 hours a week at my current job doesn’t lend much time to doing anything other than crashing on the couch when I get home at night to watch whatever’s on TV and I better hope the remote is in reaching distance, because otherwise, I’m not going to change the channel.

Anyway. Running for office. That’s where I was. The reputationdefender. So dang HILARIOUS. I feel pretty good that I have never said anything on the internet, specifically this site right here, that I think might cause my reputation, as stellar as it is, to go down the drain, but if I did, it’s nice to know that something is in place to dig me out from a big ol’ giant pile of… well, you know.

I guess there was that one time I made fun of a former co-worker’s plastic surgery and she ended up seeing it, but C’MON, IT’S NOT LIKE IT WASN’T TRUE. I felt bad about that for maybe 10 seconds and then I thought it was hilarious because she was so mad about it. Hey, don’t get those things augmented if you don’t want the whole world to notice it, you know? You can’t go in for a nose job and come out with enlarged parts of your body and not think people aren’t going to talk behind your back, you silly woman.

The soon to be 15 year old that lives in our basement is kicking the holy hell out of school this quarter. He has an A average between all of his classes, which includes an A+ in a writing class, where his teacher says he’s got crazy mad writing skills.

He has THREE math classes this quarter. Average grade: A. Lowest grade on a test so far in any math class this quarter? B.

He has 100% in his science class. His science teacher has been telling us the entire year that he knows all of the material that she’s covering this year.

He’s turned in every single assignment so far this quarter, which is super awesome because it hasn’t involved constant battles at the dining room table like it did last year.

I don’t know what it is about this year or this school or this kid that may have accidentally been sent home to us over spring break that really isn’t ours, but he’s blowing the minds of the adults that he lives with.

I’m also going to owe him an XBOX360. I couldn’t be happier about dropping that kind of money on a video game console. I’m also not ashamed of bribery.

On Thursday, we met the director of Pet Project Rescue at our local animal control. There were three 3.5 week old kittens that had been found, without a mama  cat anywhere in sight, and needed to be taken in by someone who could bottle feed them every three to four hours. I talked my ladyfriendfiance into it, but it wasn’t too hard since she’s always a sucker for any abandoned animal that needs special help.

When we got there, it turns out there was another kitten from another abandoned litter that was a week or so younger than the three we were going to pick up that desperately needed to go with someone. What’s one more tiny little hungry mouth to feed, right? We took them home and gave them kitten gruel and formula to get some meat on their little bones.

The black baby kitten wasn’t doing to well when we first got him home, so the three gray ones took to their adoptive brother (or sister, we don’t know yet)  like I didn’t even realize would be possible. Here he was barely opening his eyes and just scooting around on his stomach, and the three larger kittens piled around him during naptime to keep him warm. And because of those guys, that little black kitten, who we named Chicken because of its alarming resemblance to a baby chicken, has been thriving since then.

Saturday afternoon, the biggest of the gray kittens, Kitten #2 Electric Boogaloo (Lou for short), was a little tired and not his usual bossy self. I didn’t think too much about it because they’re growing and crabby and sleepy a lot. Then later in the evening, I gave him his 7pm snack and he didn’t even want to move. I got all mama cat on him and washed him up with a wash cloth, got him all clean, and didn’t fight me much.

At this point, it’s a 3.5 week old kitten who was improperly weaned, probably wasn’t exactly born in ideal conditions, and knowing it was from a feral mama cat, who knows what kind of nutrition she was able to pass along. I fed the rest of the kittens and got them set for their next round of naps, but couldn’t stop checking on them every 15 minutes.

My ladyfriendfiance came home around 2am from what was supposed to be her very own night out doing absolutely nothing, because she couldn’t stop thinking about him either. I pulled him out of the giant kennel they’re staying in and handed him up to her. He wasn’t breathing, so she held him in her hand and swung him back and forth a few times. Then she seriously gave this kitten CPR. She blew into his tiny mouth and nose and all of a sudden Lou was back in the game.

We wrapped him up in towels, wiped down his face and and rubbed his chest to get his organs firing on all cylinders again. He ate some more formula and started to lift his head on his own. We alternated holding him wrapped up in a towel on a heating pad for another three hours before we couldn’t really stay awake anymore. He was getting back to his feisty self, even trying to swipe at me a couple of times.

We put him in the kennel on the heating pad. Chicken and the other two gray cats (Ace and Trey) just wrapped themselves around Lou. I had my hopes up way more than I should have.

My ladyfriendfiance and I finally went to bed around 5am and woke up again by 8:30am. We both avoided going into the spare bedroom; I think we both kind of knew what we were going to find. She checked the kennel first an all I heard was, “He’s gone, honey”. Lou didn’t quite have enough fight left in him.

This isn’t the first foster we’ve lost. Out of 35+ animals, he’s our second one. Considering most of these cats and dogs wouldn’t have made it one more day on the street, they’ve all proven to be little fighters. I think Lou just hit a little bit hard for me, because Marshall, our cat we adopted through Pet Project Rescue, was in his same shoes. Abandoned. Sickly. Didn’t stand a chance out in street.

RIP Little Lou. At least you got the coolest name we’ve ever given a foster animal and we gave you as much love as we possibly could in your little tiny life.

We’ve all heard it. Once gays are allowed to marry, the next thing that someone will want to do is marry their toaster or their Swiffer or the Dee-Lite crust from Papa Murphy’s. (That last thing could be just me…) Those of us with logical brains, we know that isn’t true. Those are still on that bandwagon to Crazyville, I’d like for you to see how immoral and intimidating and full of debauchery our gay family and the last few gay days have been.

Saturday: We ran gay errands to places where straight people were shopping. Looked for gay couches at a few different furniture stores. Went to Five Guys where we had really gay veggie and cheese sammiches while The Kid got every kind of meat possible on his burger. We got home and had a gay ol’ time playing Phase 10 and Canasta until it was time for bed.

Sunday: Slept in. Lounged about. Shopped for gay groceries. Had some deliciously gay chili that my gay ladyfriendfiance made with no meat in it.

Monday: I went to work. My ladyfriend fiance went to happy hour/dinner with a friend, so I played gay single parent and made baked potatoes for The Kid and I for dinner. We also purchased a couch* – probably gay, but we won’ t know until it’s delivered. I watched some gay TV, which included getting caught up on Parks & Recreation.

Tuesday: I went to work again. I had leftover pad thai, probably gay. We watched TV. We went to bed.

Wednesday: Again, work. After work, we took my gay dog (this is questionable) to Lake Harriet and enjoyed a perfect night for a walk around the lake. We stopped at Papa Murphy’s on the way home for mushroom and tomato pizza with garlic sauce. That’s REALLY gay.

Today: I’m at work. My ladyfriendfiance is waiting for our new couch to be delivered at home.

I hope you enjoyed this recap of my gay and immoral week. What you’ve read above may happen to all of society if we allow gays to marry. Hide you kids, hide your wives. No, seriously. Hide your wives; chances are I’m funnier, have better hair than you, and won’t give them that annoying razor burn you give them when you try to kiss them.

*Not a gay coach, like my original typo, albeit an awesome one, said.

Rainbow Run. I’m for real doing it this time. No messing around. I was sad last year when I saw everyone walking around with their run numbers pinned to their shirt, so this year I’m getting one.

Mama needs to get back to the gym, but it’s too nice right now to waste time inside a giant room smelled like sweat and dirty shoes, so I’m taking up the Couch to 5K again… for the second time. And I’m just going non-existent balls to the wall and doing it outside.

Attention neighbors: sorry.

Everybody else: if you have a free evening and want to chase me, that might help.

For the past few months, anytime I’ve had to touch raw meat when I’m cooking dinner, I always say, “I’m so close to becoming a vegetarian”. My ladyfriendfiance, who’s been a vegetarian in the past for solid amounts of time, always says, “Okay, let’s do it”, which basically calls my bluff. If someone else handles my meat, I don’t feel bad about it. (Yeah, I wrote that on purpose.)

Yesterday, we decided to just go with it for a week and see what happens. She wants to do it for more humane reasons; I want to do it because I hate touching raw meat. Plus, it’s not like people die from not eating meat. I can get my protein from yogurt, cheese, beans, whatever. I ain’t scared.

What I found out last night:

• We bought enough groceries to last us until next Tuesday. We spent less money last night than we normally do when our cart is full of chicken breast and ground turkey.
• In a quest to find lunches for me to take to work (because I’m not quite ready for a cheese sammich yet), we were browsing Smart Ones. One of my favorite – the cheesy potatoes and broccoli – is made with chicken and beef stock.
• We had to switch up our normal stir fry sauce and refried beans because the ones we normally use had meat of some nature in them.

Last night, we had spaghetti with gigantic chunks of mushrooms in it that my ladyfriendfiance had sauteed with garlic. Tonight, we’re making things easy and going the veggie burger route. We have these likes empanadas, stir fry, burritos, etc. on our menu for the week. I think as long as we stay at home and don’t veer out into a restaurant or two (because the temptation IS TOO HARD), I’ll be a-okay.

In fact, I’m kind of excited to give it a try!

I’m officially boycotting Barnes & Noble and will never step foot in one again. And, yes, here’s why.

Friday night, my fiancé and I went to the Mall of America and stopped inside that Barnes & Noble to look for a book that she and I both wanted to read. We discussed buying it online, but then decided we needed it even quicker than her Amazon Prime shipping would get it to us, so we went out on a hunt. They didn’t have the book there, no big deal. We browsed around for a bit and let The Boy do his rifling through the Manga section. Did you know the Mall of American’s GLBT section is approximately two shelves? They have it sandwiched right between the True Crime and New History sections, underneath a bunch of copies of Barack Obama’s book about his dad.

Saturday afternoon, the three of us were out running typical weekend shopping errands and decided since we were in the vicinity of another Barnes & Noble, this time in Maple Grove, we’d stop in. We actually checked online before coming in to the store and the book we were looking for was in stock according to the website. We headed over the section where we thought the book would be and it wasn’t there. Because we really wanted the book, my fiancé (who normally doesn’t go out of her way to ask for anything in a store like this) walked up to the customer service desk where there were six people standing around doing nothing and asked if they had it. The person that helped her verified that they did have one in stock and came over to look in the shelves we were just looking in. It wasn’t there.

She went back to the desk, looked something up and headed back over. Only this time, another employee was following her a few feet behind her. She came over, looked on the shelf again, while her co-worker creeped on the other side of the shelf we were looking at trying to catch a peak at us, clearly amused by the book that we were requesting. The book hadn’t magically appeared, so she said someone had picked up and laid it somewhere else and they had no way to find it. Then as they reconvened with their other retail corporate drones, they whispered and all got a good chuckle on our behalf.

Roughly 20 minutes later, we were standing probably 50 feet from the customer service desk where the snooty lady that had helped us before and two other people were gathered around an iPad or a Nook or something along those lines where they were watching the Honey Badger video. How do I know it was the Honey Badger video? Because the volume was loud enough for me to hear, “Honey Badger don’t give a shit” while standing next to the children’s section. And they kept watching it like there was nothing wrong with that.

I’ll eventually put together a strongly worded email and send it off to them, but for now, all I have is this strongly worded blog post and the fury of a thousand suns to go on.

TL;DL: Suck it, Barnes & Noble. The only time I’ll stop in your stores again is I have to go to the bathroom. And then I might not flush.