Lost Posts, Raucous, and Working Hard

I wrote a long post on Friday, wherein I waxed rhapsodic on the word "raucous," talked about my love of punk rock when I'm in a foul mood, waxed rhapsodic on the word "foul," and blathered on about I now forget what else. I hit "publish post." It took me to the screen where it showed the progress as it was republishing my blog. It made zero progress for 15 or 20 minutes until I finally, in supreme disgust, hit the refresh button and promptly lost my post. It really pissed me off, and in revolt I refused to blog again until now.

But I really have a lot to say, so I'm going to try again. But this time I'm going to copy and save the text of my post before I hit the publish button, so that when Blogger loses my post, I will still have a copy of it.

Okay--the words first. I love words. I mean, I seriously love words. Raucous is one of my favorites. You've probably seen it more than once in this blog. It sounds so lovely--raw and cuss come together in a brusque joining of emotion. Raucous! raucous raucous raucous raucous. And foul--when I say I'm in a foul mood, that's saying something. It's light years beyond being in a bad mood. Foul. It just a wonderful word. If the day outside matched one of my foul moods, the sky would be black and it would be pouring rain, but the rain would somehow be unable to pour away the muck and mire that one simply could not avoid stepping in, muck composed of horse droppings and the contents of chamber pots that had been hurled out of second story windows, and ankle-deep thick slimy mud, and icy water. And one's umbrella would blow inside out despite all attempts to keep it from doing so. That's what I mean when I say I'm in a foul mood. See why the phrase "bad mood" just doesn't work there?

Punk rock. When I'm in a foul mood, I like to listen to punk rock. It just all goes together. Gimme my punk rock, and stay out of my way. I wasn't in a foul mood on Friday, but I still wanted to listen to punk rock. It happens sometimes. I had one of my pissed-off mix CDs at work, but my boss had borrowed it so he could listen to "Run Shithead Run." So I didn't get to listen to the Clash on the way home. I made up for it by listening to "One Angry Dwarf and Two Hundred Solemn Faces" by Ben Folds Five. It's not punk rock, but it's angry and funny and I love it.

I'll finish up, very briefly, employee appreciation day. It went well. Mostly. I'm not going to talk anymore about it. Let's just say that I'm glad it doesn't come again until next year, and next year I am going to very strongly push for it to be held inside.

Weight loss. I lost another 1.2 pounds, for a total of 16.2 pounds. I am not losing quickly. You might have figured that out by the fact that I've been doing Weight Watchers since July 1st and I've only lost 16.2 pounds. But hey! I've lost 16.2 pounds! See? It's all in the punctuation.

What's the slowest delayed reaction, double-take you've ever seen? There's a reason I ask. On Saturday afternoon I persuaded Joe to take me out to lunch. That's after weighing in and going to my WW meeting. It's also after I spent two hours stripping wallpaper border. I was hungry and tired. So we went to Logan's Roadhouse and split grilled salmon, salad, and a huge baked sweet potato. Very yummy. When we got back into the car after lunch, Joe asked if we needed to go anywhere else, and I said that I needed a pair of shoes. He said okay, and was going to take me to DSW, but I told him Payless would be fine, because I only needed a cheap pair of shoes. I directed him to the nearest Payless, and he parked, unlocked the car, and was halfway out the door. He stopped, got back in, stared at me, and said, "You need more shoes?" I can think of no other way to punctuate his question to emphasize his complete and utter shock. I lost it. I sat there and laughed as I explained to him that I did indeed need a pair of either black ballet flats or else low-heeled dressy black pumps, since the soles of my ballet flats had come off long ago. And hey, since the shoes are Buy One/Get One Half Off, it only makes sense to buy two pairs instead of just one, right? So after unsuccessfully trying to talk him into 4 pairs (I was lusting after a pair of bright red shoes with obscenely high heels), I ended up with a pair of really cute dressy black pumps with low heels and a pair of black ankle boots.

In Joe's defense, I do have lots of shoes. Nowhere near enough, because there is NO SUCH THING as enough shoes. Or purses. But I do have a lot. Oh, and he's going to let me get a pair of red pumps with obscenely high heels, but he wants me to get them from Newport News instead of Payless.

Liz and I took a long walk on Saturday night, and then walked a little more before going to dinner at Mimi's. We shared, naturally, and had salad, blackened chicken, fruit, and a really tasty pumpkin muffin. We each ate a third of the muffin, and I frantically poured salt all over the remaining third of the muffin to keep myself from picking at it. I was full and didn't need to eat anymore, but it was so good I knew I'd keep eating it. I also had a cup of French onion soup. They make such fantastic French onion soup. The meal was so good that Liz suggested we take one home to Joe, so we did.

Yesterday I spent vast amounts of time decluttering. I filled two big black trashbags full of stuff for Goodwill; a regular kitchen-sized trashbag full of clothes for Sarah, and started another one that will be full by the time I finish the laundry; got some more trash out; and in general worked until I couldn't work anymore. Joe was pretty cooperative with my giving so much stuff to Goodwill or dumping it, and didn't make me haul anything back out of the Goodwill pile, as he has previously been known to do.

So I think that's all I feel the need to blather about today. Thank you for reading this far, if you did so. You may now return to your regularly scheduled lives.