Got a call from the zoning department, a first for me. Nosy busy body PITA neighbor who keeps using us as an excuse to complain about a mutual new neighbor (who is nothing but supportive and down to earth) and telling lies. So, yeah, zoning lady calls me, I explain how happy we are with what the new neighbor is doing, and how cooperative they are being, and yes, we are working with their landscape architect on how they are going to transform their property. It was a really pleasant conversation, which I was not expecting from the heart-stoppingly terse and severe voicemail I'd received.

Then old old boss lady showed up, and I remembered all over again why I'd strongly discouraged any idea that we should offer her the job again now that evil ED is gone (the reason she'd quit after five months in the first place). I feel gross after talking to her. Everything she says and asks is a not so subtle search for gossip, and she's well-networked, which makes that dangerous. And then she went on to deny that she'd been the one who'd started a project at work that is still, three boss ladies later, still in the process of being realized and is also a giant PITA. Honey, don't blame it on evil old ED. This was the first thing you worked on instead of addressing immediate issues and the evil ED was pissed that you started this project without consulting her (mainly for control freak/only she can have "good" ideas reasons).

I got home almost two hours later than usual because she "popped in" and wouldn't shut the f*** up.

I can't believe that I got through 500+ posts on Natter!

I got a ton of bill collector calls on my home phone for the first year or so after I got the number. They were looking for someone else-- I just had to repeat many times that I did not know that person and this was not her number and to stop calling.

The first phone number I had in Arizona kept getting very loud, very insistent collection agency calls, not because someone had used my number but because someone with the same last name as me had once lived on the same street (not at the same address) and ran up whatever bills. They. Would. Not. Stop. Calling. Me. No matter how many times I told them my name is not Bernard, and that I have no relatives named Bernard, and that I did not know anyone named Bernard. I would ask them to remove my contact information from their list, and I don't know, maybe they did, maybe they didn't. Finally one of their representatives explained that he could take my information off their list that day, but whatever automated process they did to run searches for information would end up putting it back on at a later time.

I ended up calling the phone company and getting a new, unlisted number.

JUST PUT BERNARD ON THE PHONE, JEEZ.

;)

We know the TRUTH, Windsparrow! This whole thing is A LIE, and you are really BERNARD! How could you hide from us for so long??

I wonder if it was Bernard from Lost?

omg, by not paying attention to my shipping settings on an ebay listing, I am paying $1.50 to have sold this item. stupid.

I'm constantly getting collections calls for someone who has my last name and a similar first name. It's highly annoying.

Sorry darlings, you are right, yes I am Bernard. Actually, they call me Barney. Barney Miller.

Oops, msbelle. Bummer.

Y'all. I woke up this morning before my alarm, actually awake enough to go ahead and get up and start my day and look forward to a more leisurely getting ready for work routine. And then, shortly after I finished breakfast, I hear unusually loud birdsong, so I get up to see if something is maybe going down on the porch. No, Wednesday had caught a sparrow and carried it, cheeping wildly, into the living room. So I chased her down the hallway and caught her before she got back out and she dropped the bird and it flew out the (propped open) cat door. Whew.

I go about my business.

But not for long before here comes Wednesday back into the living room with what may very well be the same bird. I catch Wednesday and hold her until she drops the bird and then shut her in the bathroom. Cue the piteous meows. The bird hides between the end table and the overstuffed chair. I eventually kind of poked at it enough that it came out of there and flew over by the TV, tried to perch on a picture frame, and hid in the corner behind the whaddayacallit, buffet? Piece of furniture full of glassware as well as having the TV on top of it. So all that is not moving. I open the picture window, giving it an easy path to freedom just inches from where it is hiding. Was hiding. Because the noise of the window opening apparently made it want to be in the opposite corner of teh room behind the free standing fireplace.

And, hey, look, here comes another cat. So I catch Jadzia and shut her in the bedroom and poke at the bird a little until it flies straight out the window. Hooray!

Free the cats and scritch them behind the ears a little so they will forgive me for taking away the bird and (temporarily) their freedom and barely have time to throw on some clothes before it is time to go to work.

I've been off-kilter and feeling like I was playing catch up ever since. Not to mention ickily aware of my unshoweredness.

At least there were no suspicious piles of feathers when I got home.