Judgy McJudgerson

Hi there. How's things been in your neck of the woods? Enjoying summer? Yeah, me too.

Yeah...I know. Its been a minute. No, no. Nothing like that. I've had PLENTY to say, almost daily a post writes itself in my head...but as you can see hasnt made it onto this here blog as of yet. Honestly? Most of it probably wont for a few reasons. A lot of what I want to talk about (or I guess lets be real - bitch about) are things that are not necessarily appropriate fodder for all that visit me here to read. I've spent a lot of time lately stuck in my own head. Luckily, and thanks in part to the Mister, I figured that part out and am sorting through how to get the fuck out of my own head and am making some progress. And when my news is less "Oh Miss Mindy's in a funk lets all talk about it" and more "Wooooo! Miss Mindy's back to herself lets celebrate!" I will be sure to share. When in a funk Im not a talker. Its hard to talk when you've got your head down and you are barrelling through some bullshit.

So to my title.  Judgy McJudgerson.

Seems to be a lot of that going around lately and its pissing me off.  I've been seeing it on Twitter, FaceBook (the 3 times I visit there a week), amongst my employees & coworkers, out and about and just in general.

Knock it the fuck off people.

I say that with love but really, stop.

Ah dear sweet kettle, tis I, the pot, and I am here to call your judgy ass out!!!!

Really there is no need though. I thought at first that there was just more of it maybe, that I was dealing with, talking to, spending time with or hired a few people that greatly increased the amount of judgy going on in my world. Then I wasnt able to STOP seeing/hearing it. It was everywhere. I was a part of it at times. This needed to stop. I am not claiming perfect, that would be a lie, but I am trying and I cant ask for more than that.

A guy on Twitter making fun of some woman's beat ass car she put a Club on - yeah because you know her story. For all you know she could be a single mother of 4 who lives in a shit neighborhood and that piece of shit car that you so graciously looked down your nose at is her ONLY way to get food on the table for her kids. On the flip side she could also be a crackhead. My point is you DONT know, so STFU. I know at one point in my life I drove the only car I could afford and it was a total piece of shit. I hope no one judged me based on that. Or my glorious duct tape bumper :-)

Read a blog, multiple posts actually, written by a perpetually single guy who in my opinion has the personality of a 70 year old cranky man. {I dont know why I continue to read it other than its still in my reader and I dont know how to delete it} He spent multiple posts talking about relationships, of which he isnt in one, and marriage, which he has never been in, and telling people in those situations what to do and how to do it better. Right. And your single ass is an authority on EITHER topic how? Oh yes. Youre not. But still feel free to judge & offer opinions stated as fact to those of us that are because you are such an authority, right? No. How about you stick to what you know, or even better get off your high horse and realize just because you think it doesnt make you right. Reading Cosmo doesnt make you an authority on relationships, being a "therapist" to your neurotic friends doesnt make you the next Freud and having a keyboard doesnt give you the right to judge people and situations you dont know. Aside: Who asked you for your opinion & advice anyway?

Guy gets into a fight with his GF, puts his arm though a window and fucked himself up good. Thankfully he is doing well and thats awesome, but overheard the comment "well if hes got that kind of temper he just wont work in this situation". Really? Because you've never had a moment of bad judgment when in a rage? Because you always make the best decision regardless the circumstances? Sure you do....and I'm Santa-motherfuckin-Claus.

I could list hundreds more - these are just the 3 that have been gnawing away at me.  All I am saying is think before you speak. Yes, sometimes snark is good for  quick laugh - but would you want someone to say that about you? Would you want to have the entirety of your existence evaluated based upon the stupid things you've done?

I doubt it. I know I sure as shit wouldnt.

If we all just made a little bit of effort to stop judging people. To stop eying them up & down trying to figure them out. Stopped trying to make other feel worse so that we can feel better.  Stopped thinking that we are better than anyone else. Just stopped.

News Flash - we are all human. Get over it. 

The world would be a kinder place for one. And a more peaceful place for another. I know it will never stop completely - it is human nature for myself as well - but you will be amazed if you stop for just 2 seconds how m any things you WONT say or type.

I am going to keep trying. And even when I fail I'll try again. Im not delusional. I know the judging will never stop. All I ask is that we all think about the shitty things we send out into the universe before we send them and maybe instead of judging a person try to empathize a little bit or at the very least just shut up.

I know damn well Im not perfect, I do and say stupid things every effing day. Im pretty sure all of us are flawed in one way or another, so get over it. Not everyone thinks driving a sweet car is important. Not everyone thinks that success is measured by checking account balance. Money and the willingness or ability to spend it doesnt make you better or your opinions more valid than anyone elses. Who are you to judge anyone?

There is nothing so spectacular about me or what I do that makes me feel I should be judging anyone. I have done nothing in or with my life that makes me superior to anyone. I think these statements are true for everyone. Money doesnt buy class, importance or will it validate your existence. The ability to open your mouth and speak doesnt automatically make your opinion more valid than mine.

Bottom line - the only person made to look stupid by pointless judging - the person doing the judging. And I, for one, am going to be better at NOT judging. Care to join me? I wont judge you if you decide not to :-)


Totally Unrelated - I AM STILL A NONSMOKER!!!!!!

Progress!!! (a.k.a the post I really wanted to put up today :-)

So this was my original post for today before the world erupted late last night...

Yesterday at 9:30am marked a full 3 weeks of me being a nonsmoker. Three weeks, 21 days, 504 hours. To some this may not seem like all that much of an accomplishment. I feel safe in assuming they also have never had a pack a day plus habit to battle out against no one but themselves. I can definitely say this is by far the longest I have ever made it in a stop smoking campaign and I am still finding it hard to believe that I'm almost to the 30-day mark.  That whole 30 days to relearn a habit is a benchmark I have set for myself hoping that it works and I will have broken the habits of when I smoke and the random "I want a cigarette" moments will be fewer and further in between.

The Zyban has helped. A lot from what I can tell. It is somewhat hard to judge though; this is the honest to goodness first time that I have felt at peace with my decision to quit so that may also be playing a role. I havent had any adverse side effects that I can tell from taking the medication. Part of me wants to test it and stop taking them - I am not a huge fan of taking medication - but the other part feels that they wouldnt prescribe it for 12 weeks if it wasnt necessary to take it for 12 weeks so I should probably shut the fuck up and do as I was told...which is probably what I will do. Not worth risking falling off this wagon when Ive been on it for so long.

I am still having the random urges to smoke. Its strange because there is no pattern to why I have the craving, but it happens at least once a day that I have the overwhelming urge to find and inhale a cigarette. Doesnt help that I also have a really bad lil devil that likes to help me rationalize all kinds of bad decisions. The lil angel seems to be stronger than lil devil so I am still winning the battles and havent cheated. I wont consider the war as won until Im off the meds.  Talking to a bunch of ex-smokers they tell it kind of similar to an alcoholic, I will just be a smoker who doesnt smoke. I sincerely hope this isnt true. But I can totally see that it may be. Kinda sucks...but if I never wanted to crave nicotine I should have never started smoking...so I cant be all that bitter, really. My choice, now I get to reap the rewards of being an amazingly dumb 17 year old. Lucky me :-)

My other big deal was the completion of the painting of the steps.  The Mister & I are in week 3 of a major home improvement project - we are completely redoing the foyer & upstairs hallway. I decided, and whether this was smart or not will remain to be seen, to paint all of the wood work in those areas. This has been a major undertaking in that there is a metric fuck ton of wood in both of theses spots - an entire stair case, banisters & steps; the whole foyer which is one of those wicked leaded glass, side windows plus door; 3 bedroom doors, 2 closet doors, 1 bathroom door & a window frame to round it all out. Im doing it all in two colors so its not just as easy as tossing some paint on them and walking away.

I started with the hardest part first and yesterday afternoon I put the final touches on the staircase and all of its bullshit. I LOVE how it turned out, I did NOT love the sheer amount of tedious detail work involved with it. The doors upstairs are going to be a pain, but NOTHING compared to these steps with all the shit on them. They have been so bad that I have only been working on them a couple hours a time because I get so bored by the tediousness I get stabby, hence its taken this long. So when I got it done finally I did the happy girl dance. I see the light at the end of this project. Finally. Woooo!

Not a bad weekend, really. And finishing up that hard part means more motivation to complete the rest of it so the Mister can lay the new floor.  Ahhhhh....the joys of home ownership. Tell me again why I dont just fucking rent?!? Oh yeah...because I decided to buy a house at 23 and didnt realize until I was 28 that 1) that was a horrible idea, 2) I got completely FUCKED on the deal and 3) buying a house isnt all its cracked up to be when you dont have kids & a school district to worry about. Moral of the story kids: when your much older parents try to tell you something, like not to buy an old house at 23, think twice before not listening. Some shit just isnt so easy to get out of...a mortgage on a house is a dying neighborhood is one of those things.

I already know I perpetrated a Stupid.

And yes...it was a Stupid with a capital "S".

So Monday night/Tuesday morning. I am sleeping, as I should be at 3am. Cell phone rings (we dont keep a house phone & it has to be on because I am the first call for the security company for all of our buildings - you SO want my job now, dontcha?!?) and its our security company telling me that a motion detector has been tripped on the second floor of the restaurant closest to my house. Fine. Am I happy about this ~ fuck no. Did I lay there and pout for 10 minutes or so ~ hell yes. But I eventually got up, found clothes, pulled the hair into a ponytail and head to the store to see what stupid fucking Oktoberfest decoration set of the stupid fucking alarm that I am getting up at 3am to go check out. Because every damn call I have to go on is something dumb like that, but I still have to go. I did ask them to send the cops out, but I ask them that most times and have yet to actually see one.

I get there around 3:30. I drive the lot & walk the perimeter, I dont notice anything alarming. I go inside and in my best Paul Rudd Wet Hot American Summer impression I start to check the building. I hit all the lights, look for anything out of place, stomp around a bit and dont find anything out of whack that would have set off the alarm. I am confused by this. I believe I said so out loud while standing in the second floor dining room tired & out of sorts. Yes, I talk to myself, dont judge. I do a very perfunctory look in the upstairs bathrooms, hit the lights, go back to main floor, walk the basement (fucking CREEPY when its NOT the middle of the night for the record) check all the doors, still see nothing odd, hit all the lights, reset the alarm and go home. Cranky. I was home a smidgen before 4am.

At 4:10am my phone rings AGAIN. Its the security company AGAIN. Telling me the upstairs motion detector went off AGAIN. This time I tell this way-too-fucking-happy-to-be-calling-me-at-4am-woman to silence the alarm, send the cops and ignore that sensor...something must be wrong with it and I will deal with it in the morning. She says fine, whats your passcode, enjoy the rest of your evening blahblahblah. I go back to sleep.

At 5:07am the phone rings. Guess who it is this time? If you took the security company you WIN!!! I got bitchy. Something to the effect of "which part of ignore that goddamn sensor did you NOT get when I told you an hour ago?!?!?" to which the pleasant lady replied "well we are, for the upstairs, but this time its the bar & side door. In that order." Hmmmmm. This is odd. Unless the whole system shit the bed. Which would also be odd. So I have to go back in and check it out. I tried the boss first because he is usually up at 5am...but he didnt answer my text & I didnt want to call.

So I go back. And this time I go over that place for about an hour trying to figure out WTF is setting off the alarm. I find a bottle of tripel sec & a screw driver on the floor behind the bar that wasnt there at 3am. I dont like that, its just not right & no reasonable way for them to get there outside of our building's ghost - which is not out of the question.  I finished up around 6am. Didnt rearm the building because the opening manager was due in in about half an hour, came home and emailed the boss to 1) tell him what had been happening all night and 2) tell him my ass wouldnt be in until later because I needed some fucking sleep and then go back to bed. Where I promptly passed out.

Woke up at 10am and the boss texted me that yeah, someone had in fact attempted to break in but was unsuccessful.  They had smashed in a window under the deck and tried to gain access by removing the hinges from a door. They failed because the doors wont open that way...

Him telling me this weirded me out. They could have been under the deck while I was there. Wasnt freaked out, just a tad unsettled.

Well after I go back in daylight and start piecing together all of the stuff the Boss found and what I found and doing some Sherlock Holmes work me & my General Manager are convinced that there was definitely SOMEONE in the building last night. Had to be. Boss is unconvinced. We ask him to come down so we can show him what we found that has us so sure. We show him, he is skeptical. We push harder, he believes.

So this is what happened after it was all figured out.  At some point after the closers left at 1:30am someone broke in under the deck. They busted 2 screwdrivers and destroyed the door hinges in their FAIL to get in. When this didnt work they tried to pry open a door on our deck & on the side of the building - both new doors and also a fail. They then used our hood duct work and the deck railing to get onto a roof that gives access to the 2nd floor windows and came in through said window, setting off the alarm at 3am. I can only assume they were on the 2nd floor while I was at 3:30am hiding somewhere I didnt find them. *shudder*

They attempted to leave a little after 4am, setting off the alarm again because I had reset it while I was there. But this time I didnt go out, I just had them silence it so as not to bug our neighbors and went back to bed. But Im guessing they hid again waiting for me to come back or the cops to arrive. Either way they stopped moving.

At 5am they moved again, only this time down the service steps, into the kitchen and behind the bar...where they attempted to clean sweep a liquor shelf quickly, dropping the screw driver they brought up from under the deck, knocking over the tripel sec and a bottle of tequila we found behind a piece of equipment. They grabbed partial bottles of Jim Beam, Jack Daniels, Well Bourbon, Grenadine (LOLZ), Seagrams VO & SoCo. Less than $40 worth of liquor, really, it was just the closest to the door and the alarm was blaring at this point. They dropped the grenadine outside by the side door, where boss found it in the morning.

I arrived about 10 minutes after the alarm went off. I probably missed their exit by a couple minutes.

Fucked up, huh? Things I figured out: 1) Not going to go into a building on an alarm call without a cop no matter the circumstances ever again. I was naive to just assume it was something dumb setting off the alarm. 2) I am amazingly lucky. I could have been very seriously hurt if I had come across this person on my first trip in had I accidentally confronted them while I was there. *shudder* and 3) I really really really miss my big lab, Diamond, that passed last February. I usually took him with me on calls because he was the Protector & would have let me know that I wasnt alone in that building at 3:30am.

We finished Tuesday night at The ScareHouse for the Crazy Scary event that was a fantabulous fundraiser & one hell of a good time that raised almost $6300 for Christmas Crazy & Make Room for Kids which is awesome.

And I have decided the only kind of scary I want to experience for awhile is of the Haunted House/Scary Movie variety. No more creeping on thieves by myself in the middle of the night. Promise.

Meh. You win some...you win some.

Been awhile since I've last posted. Been a long couple weeks.  Lots of shift coverage, I got The Plague for a few days, went to the doc with some odd & persistent back pain, experienced my first (and really I do hope my last) MRI & are still waiting to see why it feels like someone is stabbing me. That kinda sucks. BUT the sun has been shining, Pittsburgh wasn't washed away in a flood & I have seen more green popping out of the earth.  Spring. Sincerely my most favoritest time of the year.  Almost time to take the roof off the Jeep...and for that day I'm already excited!

So decided to walk away from the partnership agreement today. I am feeling really good about it.  Its been a few weeks and after quite a few frustrating meetings & exchanges I was having more doubts than anything else.  She wanted the agreement changed to a larger percentage and more power as a managing partner and while initially I was willing to negotiate she pissed me off last night with an email.  So I did something very uncharacteristic of me...I waited. I got said email in the middle of a beer dinner I was cooking for.  Read it and got really irritated.  When I got done a flew home & after taking the Queen & Princess Puppy Butt out for a walk and some dinner sat down and wrote out a long & honestly pretty severe email laying out in no uncertain terms exactly how I felt about our progress and things of that ilk.  I hadn't decided if I was going to send it or not, but in talking to RK I listened to myself and realized that I did not want to do this.  The only reason I had been willing to compromise was because I wanted that damn almighty check. And ya know what...money isn't enough. Money I can get, money is out there, money is easy compared to a good idea and the work & time involved with developing and making that idea into a real live thing. This was the 5th or 6th situation that had occurred with her that made me cringe because of how she dealt with it.  I am leaving my current job to get AWAY from this bullshit, I sure as fuck have no intention of deliberately and legally binding myself to a new level of bullshit. The amount of training that she was going to require was unreal and her cash contribution not enough to make it worth it.  I also got a very strong vibe off of her that she really had no fucking idea how HARD it is to work in a restaurant for a living. It is an honest living, it is exciting and fun...but it is hard. I just the vibe that 3 months into it when her manicure was fucked beyond repair, she was working too much to be able to go get a mani/pedi to fix the damage, her back & feet aching from a lot of running a restaurant and 3 months of not having her Saturdays to go shop that she'd fold on me.  Granted that could be a blessing or a curse, but it kinda feels like agreeing to marry someone only because you know you can always get a divorce when it all turns to shit. Whats the fucking point?

So I deleted the email i angrily typed. I started a new one.  I basically spelled it all out, I wasnt confident shed be able to do this, I was not willing to give her a higher percentage that the one her cash contribution gave her in that she brings nothing else to the table, there was no way I could comfortably allow her to be a managing partner with her lack of experience and our not having enough knowledge of each other as individuals for me to understand how she makes decisions. She had made a few through the last couple weeks that just made me shake my head they were so stupid in my opinion so not a whole lot of confidence building there.  I was honest, but not aggressive or bitchy, just straightforward and to the point. I really dont know any other way to be. I even sent it out to Mister, RK & and my voice of reason, I will call her Nudge cuz thats why I love her, just to read before I sent it and make sure that i wasnt being too much...me I guess? And was assured that i made my points without attacking and spoke honestly.  That was all I was after. So late afternoon I sent it. This is me...walking away from a nice chunk of change but feeling ok about it.

She emailed me back within the hour, rescinding her investment offer, telling me that I obviously am not interested in building a future with a partner that I need to be a sole proprietor. She may be right, she may be wrong, but I can say for certain that this partnership was not meant to be. She made the comment it was an unbalanced agreement. Well yes, my dear, it is. Its also an amazingly unbalanced partnership...the agreement should match. I sincerely think this is what is best for all parties involved. I think she would have ended up hating me...Im not terribly tolerant of people not pulling their weight.

So lessons learned and all that bullshit, and back to the proverbial drawing board as far as finding some money but I really do think that I won here. There is something to be said for knowing that you really cant be bought all that easily and that you are capable of making a grown up decision...and it didnt even hurt!