I’m absolutely thrilled that tomorrow is Friday. It’s been a long week. The customers have been insane. Poor Supertech had a loony on the phone today with her panties in a wad because she heard on the news that the FDA was talking about no longer importing from a certain drug company’s Indian plant, and being well aware that she had not given Supertech her name, demanded that we tell her if any of her drugs had come from that plant. We discovered that one of our customers had been getting 2 different strengths of Vicodin from 2 different doctors and filling them at 2 different pharmacies, so we got to rat him out to both doctors. Needless to say he’s fucked, since chances are very good that neither of these doctors will deal with him anymore. Right before I left I took a call from one of our regular losers who was wanting a refill on her Vicodin, telling me that the last time we filled it for her we gave her a lower strength than what she was supposed to get. Chances are exceptionally good that she’s full of shit, considering that her last fill was 2 weeks ago, and if it was a lower strength I’d bet my paycheck she’d be right there an hour later with those wrong pills.
I finally got Socialthing working properly, and so far I’m liking it. Since I rarely actually log into Facebook, I’ve now got an easy way of checking out people’s status on there. Without it I wouldn’t know that my stepsister wants her baby out NOW, and that my cousin has started grad school. Maybe next week sometime I’ll get the Facebook app for my phone and do more on there, since I do like it more than Myspace. I do wish that Socialthing would pull all my Plurk friends’ posts instead of just my own; I’ve got no reason to see my own Plurks, I see them when I’m on the Plurk site reading all my friends’ posts over there.
This weekend Eddie and I go on the hunt for a game store that will do preorders for the WoW expansion pack’s collector’s edition. We’re just that nerdy. I’m also trying to come up with a way to earn some extra spending cash, since I know that the deposit that we’re waiting for is not going to be enough to buy myself the new digital camera that I want and get the work done on my tattoo.
Have I mentioned the tattoo work? Probably not. Last Saturday Eddie and I went up to the shop near the house. After looking at the artists’ portfolios in there and seeing that they do have some experience with cover-ups and reworking existing tattoos, I asked the guy at the counter if he had any ideas one what he could do with my chest piece. I believe my exact words were “Is there any way you can FIX THIS?” as I pointed to my tits. Not that I actually needed to point to my chest at all, since it tends to garner enough attention without me gesturing at it in a LOOKATME manner. We talked over what I didn’t like about it and what he thought can be done to it to make it look better and to cover up the banners, which look like complete and utter shit just a year after getting them done. The nice dude with the dreads whipped out his digital camera, took a couple of pics of my chest and told me he’d come up with something.
Nanny’s service and viewing went fine. I cried a bit at both, which was good, but both crying jags were more because I can’t handle seeing others cry. I quickly folded up a couple of origami cranes and put them in the casket with her. It was difficult to see her there, all dressed in the same outfit she wore to my wedding. She looked healthier than she had in a while, which is strange considering the circumstances.
We went to my mother’s for dinner on Sunday afternoon, like we do every weekend. It was very strange to be there at the dinner table without Nanny; it was like the tea party scene in Alice in Wonderland where they all just move one seat over. Eddie took Nanny’s seat, I took Eddie’s, and we don’t need to pull the table out anymore. Mom told us to go downstairs and pick out a couple of things that we might have wanted. I took a couple of little things that I liked, and Eddie grabbed a few things as well. Walking through her downstairs apartment and seeing little holes in the cellections of things, little dustless circles where a duck or a lighthouse once sat, makes it more real that Nanny’s not coming back. I’m sure that’s similar to the way Mom feels, if they don’t close her bedroom door and don’t throw out the little vials of meds then maybe she’s not really gone.
I feel bad for Mom because there’s a lot of things that she’d really like to have, but she feels the need to let everyone else take things first even though she’s devoted the last couple of years of her life to shuffling her schedule around and taking time out of work to take care of Nanny. In my eyes she should get first pick of things, but that’s just me. Tomorrow we’re going over there in the morning because we’re going to scatter her ashes off of Sand Point on Prudence. We’re taking the ferry and doing it out in the water. I’m not sure what we’ll be doing for the rest of the day.
On the same afternoon that Nan died, I got the roses tattooed on my chest. I’ve yet to post pictures of them because I’m not quite sure how I feel about them; the linework isn’t great at all and I feel that their shading could have been a lot better and softer rather than as harsh as it looks in my eyes.
On happier topics, Chaucer is getting bigger every day, and with his size comes the cojones to chase after Pickle, at least until she spins around and chases him around. Eddie’s parents are coming down this week, and we’ll be going to Mystic with them on Saturday. I’m not sure how long they’ll be here for, but it will be exactly what my mother needs right now.
Today I go for phase 2 of my tattoo, getting a trio of roses between the swallows and banners to bring everything together as one piece. This is going to be very painful. Eddie will be getting some pictures, since he’s not getting anything done this time around. I’ll even let him hold my hand.
After the tattooing’s done, Eddie and I are going to a geeky WoW baby shower, which should be less painful considering that there’s not going to be any sort of silly shower games, except maybe loading up WoW and showing off our toons. I need to wrap up some of the assorted gifts I picked up for the mom-to-be.
Nanny isn’t doing so hot. While I won’t get into details, allow me to just say that whoever said that there’s dignity in dying was full of shit and probably never had to watch a loved one toddle around the house wearing a hospital gown and diaper and carrying their catheter bag in a pink gift bag strapped to their walker.
Alrighty, years of Eddie telling me “why get a tattoo if you can’t show it off?” prompted me to get one in a spot that is pretty much as in-your-face as I could ever do it. It’s a pair of swallows (or bluebirds of happiness as my uncle called them this afternoon), each on holding a banner with a Latin phrase. The one on the right says “Illi qui in inferno sunt aquam gelidam desiderant” which boils down to “people in hell want ice water” and the one on the left says “Numquam feles mortua in arbore videtur,” which means “you never see a dead cat in a tree”. Both phrases are things my grandparents have said to me during my formative years, and I don’t expect either to make sense to anyone except me, but fuck, they don’t have to make sense to anyone else. My grandmother, who I would have bet my life was going to comdemn me to hell for getting them so big and so noticeable, thinks they’re adorable said “I didn’t think you’d have the nerve to get those phrases!”
Did you know that the nerves in your chest do some really fucked up things while you’re tattooed on them? For instance, there were some spots during this tattoo where I could have sworn that the guy was inking my neck.
It definitely needs a touch up in a couple of weeks. Some of the linework is shakey, which I’ll chalk up to the fact that I was in quite a bit of pain and probably not sitting as still as I could have been. However, the swallows need some more shading and highlighting because aside from a couple of tiny highlights they look very, very flat to me, and I’d like to add some filler around them and towards my shoulders so that it spreads across the entire chest rather than just sitting in the center of my chest. I’m unsure if I’ll get the touchups from the same artist who did them or if I’ll use another one in the shop.
Well, today’s the big inking day for us. I found several images that I was going to use to incorporate into Eddie’s design, and wouldn’t you know he prefers the one I doodled on a peice of scrap paper at work the other night. Mom and Brian are coming over this afternoon and we’re all driving up to Electric Ink together. I’m not sure if Brian is getting anything done.
Chaucer and Pickle fought over who held supreme rule over the bathtub last night. Only one animal could be in the tub at once. It was pretty funny to watch them hop into the tub and then switch places. They also have a game like the Whack-A-Mole games at Chuck E. Cheese, except it involves a ferret poking her head out from under the couch and a cat using his paw as a mallet.
We just got done watching Transformers. If you thought too hard about the plot, you missed the cool special effects. I’m happy it wasn’t something we paid money to go see in the theater.
