Technology can bite my big toe.

I had to call into a meeting today. I get stuck in work mode when I'm at home and working, so I've gotten into the habit of dialing "9" to get an outside line. And yes, I full well know I don't need to do that at home, but sometimes I do and yes, sometimes it's really confusing, and even more so yes, sometimes I end up talking to nice people.

Today I called the conference line number and someone answered "bueno." At least that's what I think this person said. And while I normally say I have the wrong number or act totally confused (usually the later), this time I just hung up. Because darn it, "bueno" means nothing to me and I needed to get into my meeting.

As soon as I hung up, the phone rang. Jesus Cruz was calling me. So I pushed the "talk" button, waited a few seconds, and hung up again. Because I needed the phone free so I could call into my everloving meeting. I pushed "talk" again, and it was just breathy silence on the other end. I hung up. Waited. Pushed "talk" again. Breathy silence AGAIN. I hung up. Waiiiiit. Tried again. Finally this Jesus Cruz had hung up and freed up my line.

As I was just ready to dial in the pass code to get into the meeting, Jesus Cruz called me back. For whatever reason, instead letting the voicemail kick in, my phone decided Jesus Cruz was more important and answered him.

Gah!

I hung up AGAIN. I tried the line, he was still on it, breathing. I hung up again. Waaaait. Now I'm officially late for my meeting, which, if anyone really knows me, means I'm steps away from the crazy house because I cannot be late to anything even if it's something I don't want to do.

Finally Jesus Cruz gave up and I dialed back into my meeting.

The kicker? My meeting wasn't worth dialing into and I probably should have just chatted with Jesus for a bit.

Taking my garbage makes me mad.

I decided to really do something I said I was going to do, and I cleaned out Mateo's closet this morning. We have a ton of stuff in there that just needs to be thrown out, sold or donated. That poor little boy's closet somehow turned into a cardboard box dumping ground, so I was using the boxes to take garbage out to the dumpsters.

I decided to just let go of the second baby hopes and threw out a lot of things: crib bumper; a relatively nice bag I got from Kaiser when I left the hospital that I almost kept but then decided I wouldn't really use it, especially since I haven't used it once since I came home from the hospital; all the contents inside that bag, including super duper maxi pads, pull-on meshy underwear and all kinds of baby feeding parts; random toys; beat up baby bathtub; inflatable baby bathtub; and a big bag of baby socks that are hopelessly loose and unmatched or with missing partners.

On my first trip out, I took a box full of stuff including the crib bumper and kaiser bag full o' "just had a baby" goodies. I dumped the garbage into the bin, then broke down the boxes for recycling.

When I was heading back to the dumpsters with more stuff to throw away, I saw a lady walking away from the dumpster with my, let me stress, MY crib bumper and Kaiser bag full o' goodies.

For some bizarre reason, I want to yell at her to put the stuff back. Because it's MY stuff and I wanted to throw it away. If I wanted someone to have that stuff, I would have donated it. Or tried to sell it. Or left it outside with a note that said: Please take this lovely light blue crib bumper and do something fantastic with it, and while you're at it, try to do something crafty with all the ginormous maxi-pads you'll find in this dashing, never used Kaiser bag. It was my dang garbage, and that's what I wanted it to be. Period.

She walked to the other side where the other dumpsters are and grabbed something. I kept waiting for her to look around in shame. Shame for taking MY garbage. Shame for taking anyone's garbage. She never did.

Then I was kinda embarrassed that she was going to open the Kaiser bag and find all the super horse-sized maxi pads and the weird pull on stretchy underwear. And then I thought: What do I care! She goes through the garbage!

And then I thought: Man, I don't know why she's going through the garbage, I don't know what she plans on doing with Mateo's crib bumper that I bought on eBay for a mere $5.00 (yes, the best deal ever - well, unless you get things free from the garbage) or the stuff in the Kaiser bag (I'm sure she never even looked because that bag is a nice bag, and now I'm starting to think I should have kept it because you never know when you need a bag), but I guess it's okay that someone's going to take the stuff and use it. Even if they did get it out of the garbage. I guess.

Now isn't it odd that I would even be mad about the whole thing? Like because I decided to throw the stuff away, that is the fate of the stuff and no one shall wander by and screw with my stuff's fate?

But what is she going to do with a crib bumper?

I almost feel like planting items so I can follow her and then grill her on what she does with the stuff she's taking. And, you know, visit with my stuff, just to see how the stuff is all doing. Making sure she's taking care of all my stuff. See how she's liking the huge maxi-pads. Maybe she's using them as potholders? Or turned the crib bumper into a few pillows. Or some seat cushions! She could even take in some baby squirrels and feed them using the baby feeding stuff.

And I don't even want to think about what she's doing with the weird meshy pull-on underwear.

Don't you want to be woken up this way?

My husband and I spent a few minutes this morning deciding (well, he had already decided) who would get up and get Mateo. Typically, without any sort of conversation, it's me. It just has been. And believe you me, when I realized this after going back to work, that weekend after weekend I would be the one getting up at 4 something, I was not too pleased. And then, I realized, if he slept in ("he" being the husband), then I got to take naps. And so I just let it go.

However, every now and then I get annoyed that it's expected that I'm the one who gets up at whatever time our little boy decides he wants to wake up and be forced to watch Bob the Builder or Caillou or Lazy Town (just about the worst show on the face of the earth) until the reinforcement decides to get up and entertain the boy.

This morning was one of them. And instead of telling my husband I wanted to lie in bed and be a vegetable I decided to do quite the opposite: I practiced passive aggressiveness.

I got Mateo changed and brought him into our room and plopped him on top of my husband and said, "Just like old times!" (when Mateo was still young, I would bring him into our bed with us on the weekends in hopes I would get a few more minutes of precious sleep). My husband, who loves his little boy more than he even realizes, didn't get mad, and perhaps he was slightly annoyed with me, but I didn't care. Mateo, on the other hand, wasn't having it, and got all freaked out that I plopped him on his sleeping father, and he wanted me to just hold him.

"He wants his momma," my husband said.

"No, he wants to lie in the big bed," I said. At this point I had grabbed Mateo because he really was freaking out for whatever reason.

"Don't you want to lie in the BIG BED?" I asked Mateo.

Mateo hasn't wanted to lie in the big bed for about a year now. While most parents would be happy with that, I'm quite annoyed because I'd much rather lie in the big bed while watching my Bob the Builder than on the couch.

"Fine," I said and left.

After feeding Mateo and watching some Jack's Big Music Show (a show I do like), I decided to start working on all the those fruit breads I need to make. I was walking over to the couch to get the TV remote when I saw it.

It being a very fast moving, mid-sized black spider. Perhaps the very same one that was tormenting me for a week.

I scooted Mateo away from the spider because I'm a true Momma Bear and I must protect my cub from the mean, evil, pest-eating spider. I really tried to hold back the screams and arm flayings I so desperately wanted to do, but even while practicing this willpower I knew I would have to learn when I became pregnant with Mateo, I did let out a little scream.

He didn't seemed fazed by it.

Okay, I thought. I have three options.

1. Go wake up the husband. Which wasn't feasible because the spider was heading to the kitchen and he was dang fast, and even if I was brave enough to skirt around him to get to our bedroom, the spider would be long gone when I convinced my husband to get up and kill him.
2. Let the spider go where ever it was meant to go and pretend I wasn't bothered that he was heading towards the kitchen, which is where I needed to be to make apple bread.
3. Kill him.

I decided I had to woman up and kill the spider. After I got Mateo away from the spider, I grabbed a couple (okay, like 10) sheets of paper towels, sucked in my breath, reached down and grabbed for the spider. I looked down. He ran from underneath my paper towel mound. I sucked in my breath and grabbed for him again, this time screaming in short bursts. After I got him and squished him, I ran into the bathroom to flush him, but then remembered paper towels shouldn't be flushed down the toilet. So I shoved the mound of paper towels into the garbage bin.

At this point, my husband opened the bedroom door and asked what was wrong.

Now, I must provide more information about my husband, my fear of spiders and our relationship. When we first moved in together, my husband was more than happy to kill insects and spiders for me, including the 3-inch cockroaches in our first apartment. It was that whole caveman mentality. Then my constant screeching must have gotten on his nerves, and now, no matter how I approach it (asking; screaming and asking; screaming, asking and throwing guilt trips; screaming, asking, throwing guilt trips and cursing at him), he gets really annoyed with me and my fear of spiders.

Personally, I think, it would be much easier for him to just kill the dang thing, or even herd it out the door for all I care, just so he wouldn't have to deal with me anymore. But no, he has to get mad at me and annoyed and turn it into a huge thing and not even slightly related to the fact that there is a spider ready to jump on me and bite my eye.

So when he opened the door and asked what was wrong, I answered "nothing," and walked out of the bathroom and into the kitchen, having a full blown case of the willies.

"What happened?" he asked again as he trailed me.

"Nothing, it's okay," I said.

"You're freaking out Mateo," he told me. Mateo wandered into the kitchen with a goofy grin and holding a toy.

"No I'm not. Look at him," I said.

"What was it?" my husband asked again.

"I'm not telling you because you'll get mad at me," I said.

"A spider?"

"Yes," I told him. "I KILLED IT."

He shook his head.

So that's how my husband was woken up this morning, and personally, I think it's all his fault. Because if he was a nice fellow and got up when Mateo first woke up and was talking away in his crib, none of this would have happened. And even so, if he wasn't such a jerk about my spider fear, I would have felt comfortable waking him up to ask him to save me. And even then, he should at least been pleased that I'm willing to sacrificed my fear of spiders to protect my child, who has no concept of how flipping horrible spiders are.

Social networking and how it simply does not work for me.

I belong to Facebook (to play Scrabble!) and MySpace (where I'm currently collecting shows and bands and authors and random people I adore but not real people - to me, at least) and have dabbled with Twitter (I can't bring myself to go to another site just to tell people what I'm doing when I do that on Facebook), and some other random sites about music and books and whatnot (I use them to track things, not to make friends).

But I don't network socially to chat up old friends or try to show off how fabulous I am cause I know a bazillion people and oh looky, everyone likes me. If I never really talked to you in school, or even better, I did but I can't quite figure out why or what we had in common then and especially now, then why would I want to add you to my very small list of "friends"?

It's a rare occasion when I find someone I really and truly liked way back in the day when there were no iPods. Even then, I'm hesitant to extend the hand of friendship and say howdy do and what's going on with you.

Recently I did just that. I asked someone to be my friend. And the person e-mailed me asking me how I was and isn't it odd that we've found each other after so many years (not really, I've signed up to too many networking sites at this point, you just have to figure out who I am based on my first name if my maiden name isn't listed, and believe me, there aren't too many of me around), and how this person couldn't wait to catch up.

Now, I'm perfectly happy adding some people who fall under that "used to be a real, honest and true good friend, even if for a small period of time" category and then never really communicating with them again. Because things happen, and friends drift for whatever reason, but if you made an impression on me for any reason and I really liked you? Then yeah, I'll add you as a friend.

But if you're going to e-mail and ask me questions, and I think I'm just darn tooting interesting, and so I e-mail you back and give you a brief synopsis of my life since the last time we saw each other, which includes a husband and a kid and a job and a bunch of other stuff I won't go into because I'm still not quite sure you'll in fact write me back, then you better write me back, don't you think?

Isn't that just plain common courtesy?

What if I never answered this person's e-mail to begin with? What if I just ignored it and went on my merry way? And I've been known to do this, especially with this one gal I was friends with way back in elementary school who pops up every so often on different social networking sites, figures out the me listed is really me, and e-mails me telling me who she is, if I don't remember, and how she wants to talk to me and so on and so forth. Now she's one I ignore. Because I just find it odd.

But certainly no one would do that to me, right?

Well, maybe.

I just think these social networking sites are evil ploys to make the socially inept feel even more like a loser.

I'm so glad I don't live in Liverpool.

This is why.

Not only do I abhor, simply ABHOR spiders, but a big one that will be moving around and freaking people out would probably make me pass out on the spot.

And since I am the type of person who needs to be awake for the plane crash or car crash or any other event that will cause my death, if I did live in Liverpool, I would so be right under that big spider, scared and all.

So it's a good thing I'm way over here, across the ocean and miles of land, with no mechanical 30-foot spiders in sight.