I know a certain Southern belle who sold her unwanted wedding gifts on eBay.

And now I have ideas about the multitude of glass platters in the shape of giant vagina flowers that hide in my china cabinet.

I’m trying to figure out if there’s a way for Hubby and I to go to Quebec City or Montreal for a weekend, without paying an arm and a leg in travel costs.

Hmmm, I think to myself. Perhaps there is a train service that goes somewhat express-ly to Montreal? So I Google “express train to Montreal.”

There is one! Via the Harlem Railroad. Huh. Harlem Railroad? Never heard of it. Lemme look.

New York Times! It’s from the NY Times! How cool!

Oh.

Article date: May 22. 1870.

Never mind. 

I am not going to tell anyone how I know this, but I’d like to offer the following statements. Granted they are largely my opinion, but they are based on a great deal of personal and empirical evidence.

If you use Lowe’s Home Improvement to do something to your home, and by “use” I mean “buy” the materials at the store and then “hire” their contractors to do the job, you are not, in fact, doing it yourself.  You are not “building something together” with Lowe’s or Home Depot or any of those types of stores. You are also not saving much money over hiring a contractor and getting an estimate, explaining to the contractor your absolute limit in money you can spend, and having the contractor procure the materials and the labor him- or herself.

In fact, just because you went shopping for the materials in a very dirty and dusty store does not mean you have any ownership over the actual work being done. You’re shopping and hiring a contractor.

And you’re hiring a contractor, and this is the important part, that you are not interviewing yourself. You’re relying on a giant conglomerate to hire and vet a contractor who will then come to your home and do work with little notice and zero inspection of the premises where the work will be done.

So you’re shopping for an item, then handing over the installation - of a counter, a floor, blinds, windows, a door, whatever - to a total stranger who you didn’t select to do work that that stranger is ill prepared to do.

Nine times out of ten, that contractor whom you don’t know and didn’t vet personally will not do the job you wanted. And it’s not like you have any follow up because tomorrow they’ll have another job to go to, far far away.

So when you go to a big box store and hand over so much of the responsibility for installation and follow-through to a total complete freaking stranger who you don’t even hire or of whom you can approve or reject, it’s not about you. It’s about them getting the job done quickly, easily, and allegedly cheaply. Except when it has to be done over again because the first time wasn’t nearly good.

Freebird has:

1 (one) burst eardrum

1 (one) case of the reappearing multi-variational strep throat

1 (one) crusty, irritated and bloody nose from all the drainage due to the first two

and

1 (one) big ass bottle of pink bubblegum flavored antibiotics.

Let there be less snot, more sleep, and no more infections. Amen. 

1. Easter: “Freebird! It’s Easter! Some people celebrate today, and dress up and go to a special church service, and there are flowers and songs and celebrations of spring. And there’s chocolate.”

Freebird: “CHOCOLATE?!”

And there was chocolate (courtesy of daycare, who do beautiful baskets for the children) and all was happy in our world.

2. Except for the crusty, pus-evident ear that I suspect may be caused by a ruptured eardrum (if you’re keeping score at home, that’s 2 for Freebird) and a trip to the emergency clinic in Connecticut, plus a 102.9 fever Saturday night, and the general orneryness and sleepyness and long ass nap that made him stay up until 10pm last night so today he is something of a cranky mess.

3. But there was chocolate so all is well. Baba, for the record, is SO interactive and SO interested in talking to everyone, he gets PISSED if there isn’t enough attention directed his way. I don’t know if he wanted chocolate, but damn he wanted folks to tell him about it. So I assume that once he can eat, he will be all about the chocolate. Which is good and right.

4. Last night, one of us had gas. I’m not going to say which one. But at one point, Hubby said, “Was that a Blackberry or a really long fart?”

5. If you don’t get the joke: we keep our Bbys on vibrate.

6. The kitchen reno progresses. We still have no kitchen. BUT! We are hosting a crapload of dudes this weekend. How fun will that be? Commence ordering in. A LOT of it.

7. We are working on a redesign for The Other Site, and it’s going to go live soon. I am so excited. Seriously, so excited to see it.

8. Also, I had a great talk with Hubby about how to strengthen the business end of The Other Site so that I can figure out ways to increase revenue and offset my expenses while keeping the site attractive to advertisers.

9. Note to self: talk to Hubby more this week. We are like two ships passing in the harbor all the time, and we need to sit down and face each other. Not easy to do when you eat hunched over a coffee table.

I am looking in a catalog for a binder. Not just any binder. A Big ass mofo’in huge mega whopping badass binder.

So I was totally in the “b” section of the catalog looking for the word “big.” Not “binder.” “Big,” for “big ass mofo’in huge mega whopping badass binder.”

Ooops. 

I took the train to work today, which is rare, but I’m not going home this evening and I can’t leave my car in the Park’n’Ride parking lot overnight. Well, I can, but not if I want to see it again. The train takes an hour to get to Penn Station in New York from the station behind my house. To truly compare how bizarre that is, and yes, I know, an hour-plus commute is weird but standard for this area, take a look at my normal commute:

Drive to Park n’Ride : 4-5 minutes tops.
Bus to Port Authority Bus Terminal: 30-35 minutes, sometimes more.
Walk to N/R subway train: 6-7 minutes
Subway to Central Park South: 6-7 minutes
Walk to my office: 2 minutes.

So roughly my normal commute in is about an hour and 10 minutes, give or take.

The train?

Walk to train station: 4 minutes
Train: 47 minutes (note: PABT is at 42nd and 8th. Penn Station New York is 34th and 9th Ave, ~ 10 blocks south)
Walk to N/R subway station from NJ Transit terminal in Penn Station: 10-15 minutes, maybe.
Ride to Central Park South: 13-15 minutes.
Walk to office: 2 minutes

So, that’s already ~20 minutes more than my normal commute. It’s a lot more convenient and riding the train is great, but man, the train is SLOW like damn and whoa.

I’m sure this is scintillating info, by the way.

I enjoyed the train (though not the band of luggage-laden teenagers who were WAY TOO FUCKING LOUD for 645 am. What on earth possesses you to be that loud that early?) and read and was rocked into mellow complacency by the train rhythm, but the best part was the cab ride to my office. The driver was Israeli, and he decided to propose marriage to me, despite having five grown sons my age and a wife of 45+ years. It was nice to be told I am pleasant first thing in the morning, and to receive a marriage proposal from a somewhat zany elderly man driving a cab.

I’ll have to remember that: if I want to put Hubby in a good mood, maybe I’ll ask him to marry me.