Diary of a SubUrban Housewife

I followed a link from the always fabulous Manolo to this. Snarkywood may very well be my offical new most favorite place on the entire www.

Apparently I’m having some technical issues due to my limited web knowledge.

It seems I mis-followed directions Chuck gave me two years ago and I have been consistently (for the most part) mis-following those directions for the duration of this blog. As a result, when Chuck moved our domain some of my stuff…ummm….well…..seems to be floating out there in cyberspace.

Mercifully the man is on it and things should be back up to speed very soon. And then we’re going to sit down and I’m actually going to listen, and maybe even jot down a note or two when he tells me how to do something.

Then instead of the illusion of self-sufficiency, I actually may be.

I got an e-mail today from Saks with one of their (seemingly) near-daily special offers. Today’s offer was Gucci handbags.

Now I am all about a great purse, and have been known to spend what I used to spend for a month’s rent on a single pair of shoes, but this:

Gucci
Medium Flap Bag
Medium flap bag in green velvet with green croco trim and brown/leaf green/brown signature web detail. 13½”X8″X5″. Made in Italy.
DUE TO HIGH DEMAND, A CUSTOMER MAY ORDER NO MORE THAN THREE UNITS OF THIS ITEM EVERY THIRTY DAYS.
$5,380.00 0442184557589

just made me laugh.

But hey, there’s free shipping with every handbag ordered.

We are ever so competitive here at the Rancho del Atkins. So when Chuck announced he won the Best L.A. Blogger Offering Liberal Pie-Blogging to the Populace Award 2004, bestowed upon him by the super fantastic Jo, all I could do was hope she would recognize my super fantastic-ness and bestow even a minor honor upon me as well.

And so it is with great pride that I announce that I am the winner of the

Spanglemonkey Best Smoothly Waxed Suburban Phone Sex Blog of the New Millenium! With Ten Essential Vitamins and Minerals.

I tell you, life just does not get any better than this!

I received this e-mail from the lovely GraceDavis:

“BTW, your chit-chatty email is a post to the Diary. Cut, paste, done. Have no shame. Save yourself time. Do ths ASAP because all of us on the World Wide Web have to be assured that the Bethra will rise above the ASSHATS.”

And because she told me to, I will cut and paste the e-mail I sent to her, which is my way of updating you all on what’s going on with me:

“So, just wanted to share with you that I am making progress in the
search for new employment.

Last night I stepped out of my little comfort zone and attended the
AIA Christmas party. It was a little cocktail soiree for all the
mover and shaker architects in L.A. It took place a few minutes walk
from my office in a totally cool space.

My career guru Mitchell called and invited me to go and I didn’t
really want to because I’m not all that comfortable networking and
pitching myself….yeah, I know….totally stupid, because if I’m not
going to pimp me, no one else can.

Anyway, I dutifully schmoozed and passed out cards and put the word
out that I’m looking for project management/construction management
work and several people asked me for my resume. Yeah!!!!!!

One of my dear friends who is an architect at the hottest firm in town
was there. She knows all the players in my ongoing drama and that I
was interviewing for the position. When I told her what happened she
was horrified.

At her request I’m going to send her my resume tonight and she’s going
to pass it along. She told me that tons of people are looking for
project managers right now and she’s happy to recommend me.

Also ran into a woman I met several years ago. We met with her and
her boss (who I also ran into last night) to possibly do some work for
us. She said she totally remembered me and that she remembered being
impressed with me at the time: I made a real impression on her and
that she wanted to hold mirrors under the noses of everyone else in
the room (my co-workers, mwahahahaha).

When I left the cocktail party a couple of hours later with extremely
sore feet I was on cloud nine and felt completely validated and
recharged in my quest for new work! Yeah!!!!!

Goal: new job by the end of January. OK, it’s a little lofty, but
probably doable.

So, was going to tell you all that on the phone because typing it
makes it a little convoluted, but you get the idea.

xxb”

There you have it.

I’ve been doing this online journal/blogging thing for a long time. I started my first journal in 1999, when there weren’t all that many people doing this.

Over the years I’ve had many opportunities to meet fellow journalers/bloggers. I’m happy to report that each time has been a delight. (I won’t bother to post links to those meetings but if you’re so inclined to scour the archives of my old journal you’ll find them. Many of those people have either stopped journalizing or have moved, or changed names, or something else.)

I’ve recounted each of my exploits, except one case of really bad manners where I fail to talk about meeting the lovely Carol, but Chuck does that here. It was all that and more and I actually got to sit next to Carol and chat with her and I think I’m the only one at the table that got to do that. (She does have lovely manners.)

The Evaporation‘s are a far too infrequent constant in our lives, but separately and together, Steve, Viv, and Amy are people well worth knowing.

Last night presented yet another opportunity when my real life collided with my online life, when Chuck, Zoe, and I met El Steve, and the lovely GraceDavis and her entourage, for dinner.

We bloggers/journalers sat at one end of the table and at the other end were Grace’s totally cute and sweet hubby George, stepkid Jenn, biokid Molly (who prefers Mollie) and Zoe (who informed me last night at dinner that she now spells her name with two dots over the e). I was able to participate in conversations at both ends because I sat in the middle.

It was a wonderful evening. I adore GraceDavis and wish she lived closer to me. I would like to spend more time with her. She is as sassy and funny in flesh and blood as she is over at her site. And her actual voice sounded just like what I expected it would. Her girls are beautiful and poised. And as I said before, her hub is totally cute and charming.

Grace took pictures, so did El Steve. I promise I’m much cuter in person than I will be if either of them posts those photos. Grace can attest to that.

As a blogger you only know as much of me as I let you. And I know that is true of everyone else out there who keeps an online journal or blog. Reality is often improved (or overdramatized) by about 30% (to quote El Steve, a little out of context, but it applies here) because it makes for a better story.

So you don’t really know what you’re gonna get when you meet someone and they’re no longer just words on a screen, but an actual, three dimensional, flesh and bones person; and there’s interaction, live and in person, instead of well thought-out and oft rewritten in posts and comments.

It still boggles my mind that through these pages and the thousands of others like this, that bonds are created, friendships are forged, and lives are intertwined. People from around the world and around the corner can meet in a way we never could have imagined 10 years ago.

Something to be very thankful for.

As Chuck reported some time ago, we went for a very long time with free internet service. Then Chuck’s morals got the better of him and he signed us up for “new” service.

The thing is, when our service was free it worked like a charm. We’d have occasional outages (typically when it rained) but we’d go down for a minute for so every few months; otherwise it was smooth as silk. OK, maybe not the fastest connection on the block, but certainly adequate.

So now we pay for our service. And when we pay for it we want ripping fast, dependable, service. But Chuck is on the phone to them, at least once a day, because our service is down. Or so slow it may as well be down.

Finally, they sent a technician out last week. The tech did some kind of voodoo dance and whatnot. We were assured things would be better.

Alas not.

Then yesterday, after we went down again, and Chuck called again, tech support told him to go and exchange the modem for another one–a different brand. The tech support guy said we had the Volkswagon of modems and to exchange it for the Ferrari. We went to the cable company (fodder for an entry in and of itself) and they told us they only supply this one type of modem (the VW-type, not the Ferrari) and that the tech support was probably talking about another service provider (??????????…..ummm…..excuse me??????????).

We get home and Chuck plugs in the new modem, talks to tech support, they wave their magic wands, and poof and we’re up again.

Until this morning. When we went down again.

So Chuck called again. Apparently there were configuration issues or something. So we’re back up. For now.

But we always get back up after the call. It’s the fact that he has to call every stinkin day.

At least when it was free it worked.

A HUGE SubUrban shoutout to our man in Israel, for the two newest additions to my list of regular haunts over there on the right, Manolo’s Shoe Blog, and Go Fug Yourself.

Only click on those links if you, like me, are super fantastic!

Thank you David. (I’m only a little scared at how on the money you are at knowing how much I’d love these sites.)

Your SubUrban housewife has gone public. No, there was no huge fanfare or controversy like the Google IPO. Frankly, it happened late last night, on a whim, but I’m wacky that way.

What on earth is she talking about you wonder??? Well, you can now trade in fantasy shares of my blog at Blogshares.com.

OK, I’m not really sure on all the ins and outs of it since I just opened my account last night but it’s a virtual stock market where you trade in blogs. They give you something like $1000 to start with and you buy and sell “shares” in blogs to make your fortune.

My stock price is really undervalued right now since it’s new. So buy buy buy!!!

Your stock value is calculated based on incoming and outgoing links, so fellow bloggers, feel free to link to me, and invest in me. If you do so, your value will appreciate, and I would appreciate it. (I crack me up anyway.)

I would be doing more homework and writing a more explanatory entry but I’m at the office and I need to get out of here and as Chuck reported, we have no internet at home until next Tuesday. I’ll be checking back from the office on Monday so if you have any questions know I’m not ignoring you. And hey, if you open a Blogshare account and buy some Housewife shares let me know.

Seems I have a few more g-mail invites to put out there into the universe.

As before, please write a 500 word essay on why I’m so fabulous. . .or you can just ask me nicely.