betterment.

i have made peace with the cable gods and am resigned to having cable whether i want it or not, especially since my cable and internet connection apparently are not mutually exclusive. the time warner gods have not only spoken, they have also won. all i have to say is this: karma hurts. (i'm talking about them, not me.) (being perfect, of course, i have done nothing wrong.)

so far this week is going much better than last, for several reasons. here, i will list them:

item 1: mainly, the killer pms has stopped and i no longer want to kill everyone in sight. it was getting so bad last week that every time i left the house i wanted to either a. smack people with my purse or b. rear-end them with my car, and i was vocal about it to the point of scaring alvin (maybe he thought he was going to be smacked and run over? i don't know). i love my car and don't want to hurt it, but the car love was almost superceded by my desire to hurt stupid people. i suppressed it.

item 2: we got a christmas tree over the weekend, at the happy christmas tree farm with the overfed, spoiled goats and the hot cocoa and the happy people cutting down their christmas trees. it's probably my favorite christmas activity ever, if only because i don't get presents anymore. this is so out of character that i have to put it in tiny font: while cutting down our tree, i told alvin that the only thing that would make the christmas tree farm more fun was if we had kids. i know, i don't know where this is coming from either. the wanting a baby thing makes me want to shoot myself or breed, i'm not sure which. i don't know where it came from! it won't go away! wtf?

item 3: if an expensive but necessary purchase made during the holidays qualifies as a present, then i lied and i really do still get gifts: we finally! bought matching! bedroom furniture! now we can toss the goodwill furniture we bought in north carolina and have pretty matching furniture! it will be here saturday. did i mention the prettiness? and the matchiness? wheee!

item 4: one of alvin's coworkers is married to one of our vet people (for we have many vet people), and at alvin's office christmas party on friday night i cornered her--because she's super cool about these things--and complained about the beagle dog smell. she said he probably has a skin infection (this is where i started to feel stupid. i was like, you mean he's not just trying to get back at me by smelling bad? and she was like, no.) and then she called in a prescription medicated antibacterial doggie shampoo, and we picked it up at the vet the next day. how cool is that? i got free food & doggie advice! i was very grateful.

now i have to bathe beagle dog twice a week with shampoo that smells like the inside of a rotting pumpkin. really, it smells like a pumpkin that is past its shelf life but hasn't yet turned black and gooey. this stuff had better work, because i have to put it on the hydrophobic dog and then let it do its thing for 10 minutes. that's 10 very looooong minutes to sit there with a dog that smells like a rotting pumpkin and wants to claw me to death because he thinks i'm doing it on purpose. and he'd better love me.