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shalannaAll is lost. (As usual) *kicking can down the street*
Phone has been oddly silent all day. It's working--I called it from my cell and vice-versa, just to check.
Of course, my mother says I jinxed this agent contact by talking about it AT ALL. Worse: My aunt made her g'nite call last night around ten, and Mama put me on the line to tell her this dumb joke* that my cousin sent me in e-mail in lieu of an actual response to the e-mail I sent her, and Auntie said I should hunker down at home tomorrow in the 106 degrees because we have nothing to do, and I said that I was waiting for a phone call from an agent, etc. And when I hung up, Mama shook her head sadly. "I wish you hadn't mentioned that agent call to your aunt. It's bad luck. Whenever you talk about your books to Aunt1 or Aunt2, it's bad luck and ruins your chances and jinxes things."
History confirms that's always been the case before. "Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it."** Oops. I suppose I should have kept quiet. Why can't I keep my blamed mouth shut? I can only hope that God will choose to overrule any bad luck . . .that if it's His will, it happens, and if it isn't, it won't anyhow.
At least now I know where all that jinxing/hexing thinking of Daphne's in _Little Rituals_ comes from (my mother has ALWAYS been like this. "If you DO that," she'd warn whenever I was about to do something anyway that she had forbidden, such as walk down the block to Dairy Queen to meet some friends, "something BAD will happen." She used to scare me as a child with that kind of stuff.)
I'm probably jinxed now. But, you ask, how could I tell if it's true, because the baseline sucks so much in the first place? Point taken.
Nobody would call a stranger/new client the first day back from overseas, so that's not the major pain today. The MAJOR pain is that the two shipments of Medifast shakes/bars/oatmeal (you remember--what I live on these days) have not arrived. Although I placed the first order Sunday night--meaning Sunday a WEEK AGO, mind, August 13--oh, I see the problem now--and used the Web page controls to mark "three-day shipping," it took Medifast until Tuesday to get the order "downloaded," said the customer service person I called on Tuesday night. Therefore, it wasn't going to get here this week.
I then placed an order with her for three boxes of the shakes and put that on EXPEDITED shipping, which is $17 extra and was supposed to be FedEx two-day. Nope . . . I checked the order website the following morning and found that both packages had JUST been listed as going to the factory to be put into boxes and then go to UPS . . . and then they didn't send them to UPS until Wednesday night. They BOTH went in as "3-day select." This meant that they got to Mesquite, Texas, on Friday night, and got to sit in the warehouse melting all weekend. However, UPS assured me that they were on target for Monday delivery, and that it was 3-day select indeed on time, because it's only business days that count.
Here we are at almost 6 PM on Monday, their "third" day, and no sign of the food. If it got on the truck, it has been melting further all day. That's gotta take away nutrients, but at this stage I just want something to eat other than this crappy soup and the vanilla shakes (which are OK mixed with diet root beer, but that has so much carbonation that it makes me hiccup and burp for several minutes after eating it with a spoon.) It's probably sitting on somebody else's front porch, melting and getting whizzed on by wandering black Labs.
I'm sick of the vanilla flavor. And when you mix all that extract with the stuff, it gets an awful whang to it. Doesn't have alcohol in it--it's that "syrup"-style sugar free coffee flavoring--but it's got something.
I would be willing to take one of the damn chocolate meal bars and just drink it out of the wrapper right now. I need the serotonin or whatever it is that chocolate stuff can provide to the female brain!
(* The dumb joke: Man tells his wife he just killed three female housefiles and two males. She asks how the hell he can sex houseflies--he's not even an entomologist.
"Easy. Two were on my beer can, and three were on the phone."
*rimshot*)
(** George Santayana. Don't believe people who tell you that was said by Benjamin Disraeli. And he might've written "cannot" instead of "do not," and perhaps "condemned to repeat it." There's a controversy.)
To add insult to injury, I find that I can't even do **ONE** sit-up.
[[EDIT:: The doorbell rang as I was about to hit "send" here. It was both shipments, banded together! And about 114 degrees F. I don't care--I'm freezing one of the meal bars NOW. Hell, I'll just lap it up out of the wrapper.]]
Phone has been oddly silent all day. It's working--I called it from my cell and vice-versa, just to check.
Of course, my mother says I jinxed this agent contact by talking about it AT ALL. Worse: My aunt made her g'nite call last night around ten, and Mama put me on the line to tell her this dumb joke* that my cousin sent me in e-mail in lieu of an actual response to the e-mail I sent her, and Auntie said I should hunker down at home tomorrow in the 106 degrees because we have nothing to do, and I said that I was waiting for a phone call from an agent, etc. And when I hung up, Mama shook her head sadly. "I wish you hadn't mentioned that agent call to your aunt. It's bad luck. Whenever you talk about your books to Aunt1 or Aunt2, it's bad luck and ruins your chances and jinxes things."
History confirms that's always been the case before. "Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it."** Oops. I suppose I should have kept quiet. Why can't I keep my blamed mouth shut? I can only hope that God will choose to overrule any bad luck . . .that if it's His will, it happens, and if it isn't, it won't anyhow.
At least now I know where all that jinxing/hexing thinking of Daphne's in _Little Rituals_ comes from (my mother has ALWAYS been like this. "If you DO that," she'd warn whenever I was about to do something anyway that she had forbidden, such as walk down the block to Dairy Queen to meet some friends, "something BAD will happen." She used to scare me as a child with that kind of stuff.)
I'm probably jinxed now. But, you ask, how could I tell if it's true, because the baseline sucks so much in the first place? Point taken.
Nobody would call a stranger/new client the first day back from overseas, so that's not the major pain today. The MAJOR pain is that the two shipments of Medifast shakes/bars/oatmeal (you remember--what I live on these days) have not arrived. Although I placed the first order Sunday night--meaning Sunday a WEEK AGO, mind, August 13--oh, I see the problem now--and used the Web page controls to mark "three-day shipping," it took Medifast until Tuesday to get the order "downloaded," said the customer service person I called on Tuesday night. Therefore, it wasn't going to get here this week.
I then placed an order with her for three boxes of the shakes and put that on EXPEDITED shipping, which is $17 extra and was supposed to be FedEx two-day. Nope . . . I checked the order website the following morning and found that both packages had JUST been listed as going to the factory to be put into boxes and then go to UPS . . . and then they didn't send them to UPS until Wednesday night. They BOTH went in as "3-day select." This meant that they got to Mesquite, Texas, on Friday night, and got to sit in the warehouse melting all weekend. However, UPS assured me that they were on target for Monday delivery, and that it was 3-day select indeed on time, because it's only business days that count.
Here we are at almost 6 PM on Monday, their "third" day, and no sign of the food. If it got on the truck, it has been melting further all day. That's gotta take away nutrients, but at this stage I just want something to eat other than this crappy soup and the vanilla shakes (which are OK mixed with diet root beer, but that has so much carbonation that it makes me hiccup and burp for several minutes after eating it with a spoon.) It's probably sitting on somebody else's front porch, melting and getting whizzed on by wandering black Labs.
I'm sick of the vanilla flavor. And when you mix all that extract with the stuff, it gets an awful whang to it. Doesn't have alcohol in it--it's that "syrup"-style sugar free coffee flavoring--but it's got something.
I would be willing to take one of the damn chocolate meal bars and just drink it out of the wrapper right now. I need the serotonin or whatever it is that chocolate stuff can provide to the female brain!
(* The dumb joke: Man tells his wife he just killed three female housefiles and two males. She asks how the hell he can sex houseflies--he's not even an entomologist.
"Easy. Two were on my beer can, and three were on the phone."
*rimshot*)
(** George Santayana. Don't believe people who tell you that was said by Benjamin Disraeli. And he might've written "cannot" instead of "do not," and perhaps "condemned to repeat it." There's a controversy.)
To add insult to injury, I find that I can't even do **ONE** sit-up.
[[EDIT:: The doorbell rang as I was about to hit "send" here. It was both shipments, banded together! And about 114 degrees F. I don't care--I'm freezing one of the meal bars NOW. Hell, I'll just lap it up out of the wrapper.]]
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Medifast, etc.
Date: 2006-08-22 02:34 am (UTC)Give the agent a break, Shal. First day back in her (no doubt very busy) office. Try, please try, to win a victory over the self-fulfilling prophecy.
There's only one way to make it in any of the creative arts, and that is through persistence. Consider this: Mike S. called me four times today to discuss ideas for the sequel. The SEQUEL! He has the right idea. Should, God forbid, the present film not get made, its so-called sequel will move up a space and be the current project.
Looking back on it, I didn't get steady musical work immediately after playing my first B-flat scale, either. It's always an ongoing learning process. Even at my embarrassingly advanced age.
Re: Medifast, etc.
Date: 2006-08-22 05:18 am (UTC)The sequel to the Sherwood biopic . . . hmm. I should imagine that the FIRST film needs to get made before you can make the sequel fly, but I'm glad he's excited! The music is going to be great.
Trying to think of things other than books and phone calls . . . the chocolate shake and bar helped quite a bit. It's hot even in the house, but I've been trying on dresses. The ones I wore to work seven years ago when I worked at DSC Communications/later Alcatel (a telecom company that makes telephone switches) just hang on me and look ridiculous. Some of the others that I bought but never wore (they were on sale . . . they LOOKED as if they should fit . . . they would "fit when I lost ten pounds" . . . y'know the drill) look ridiculous. They're intended for someone six feet tall. If a dress hits me below the curve of the calf, it makes me look dowdy (tea-length); I do best with knee-length and slightly longer or shorter, because I am long-waisted and have short legs. Floor-length stuff can be touch-and-go, too, because it usually drags on the floor. So I really need to sell them or donate them or something. Am thinking of taking some pix, posting them, and trying to get someone in the area to come meet me at a Borders somewhere and pick them up, perhaps paying $10 each or $7 each if they take 'em all, or if they have a sob story, maybe just takin' 'em. (But I need to get new jeans, so it'd be nice to sell 'em.) Garage sales are dismal around here, especially in the heat, so that's not really feasible, and eBay is a huge, huge hassle. Consignment stores? You end up with around $3 per item and would do better just to go to the church that has a charity closet--if we still have one around here; the one that used to do it has sold the building and moved across town.
Just watched "The Bishop's Wife" and "Bachelor Mother," both of which are David Niven movies and both of which are masterpieces. Mama said, "Why don't YOU write one like THAT?" *grin*
. . . .why doesn't SHE?
Re: Medifast, etc.
Date: 2006-08-22 01:02 pm (UTC)Back in the Sixties, I hoped Steve Allen would leave me his wardrobe when he passed away; but in the '60s he wasn't yet ready to check out.
Re: the Sherwood biopic, this "sequel" is actually a prequel, set in the 1933-1944 period. Must do it second, because not that people remember Bobby Sherwood, so the idea is to make him a more familiar figure to the public. Then, we can tell the story of his years as an MGM staff musician (he was in the orchestra of everything from "Rosalie" to "The Student Prince"), his time working for Artie Shaw, and eventually, sponsored by Johnny Mercer and Capitol Records, starting his first big band. And in THIS one, of course, he'll be the male love interest and we'll learn at least about his first and second marriages, the latter of which produced the girl who eventually became my first (and would-have-been only, had she not died at 47) wife.
Heck, there's enough material for a THIRD movie.
As to David Niven: I always wanted to be as suave and sophisticated as he was. Never quite made it. I was born to be Steve Allen. SCHMOCK! SCHMOCK!
no subject
Date: 2006-08-22 10:47 am (UTC)My maternal grandmother (the cool yet terrifying grandmother--my paternal grandmother always just seemed old, so I never knew her in her cool yet terrifying years--I swear, I am in no danger of Alzheimer's but I am fated to be a sharp-tonged and cranky old lady!)--
Ahem. Her comment was always "Sunday plans never stand." I dunno why you couldn't plan anything on Sunday, but she was very superstitious about it.
Phooey to your mum and to hubby as well. I'll just keep checking in here every couple of hours for the good news.