BUZZURRO

Buzzurro and I are renting a casita, a guesthouse in New Mexico. The owners of the house use the house mailbox to receive their mail and requested that Buzzurro and I get a PO Box somewhere.
“No problem’ we both naively answered.

Today Buzzurro went to the Post Office to rent one…or so he thought.
“We can’t rent you a box unless you show 2 proofs of New Mexico residency.’ replied the clerk.

Is it just New Mexico, or is it the rule in ANY state that you have to show 2 proofs of residency in order to get a PO box? How do you even show residency if you can’t get your mail anyway? Luckily for us we can still get mail at my cousin’s house, but since our new place will be about 40 minutes away it will hardly be convenient.

New Mexico may be a beautiful state, but the level of non-functioning bureacracy is absurd.
I don’t remember any problems at all in New Jersey, It may have many unasthetic zones, but at least bureacratically speaking, things run smoothly.

In order to become verifiable citizens of New Mexico and prove residency you need to have at least 2 documents to prove that you really are staying in New Mexico. These documents seem to vary from government office to government office.

For example, one office was perfectly happy with our handwritten lease agreement. Another office was not since it wasn’t typed or notarized.
One office would not accept our printed bank statement from the local bank here in NM with a NM address written on it. They insisted that only a MAILED bank statement, complete with envelope and postmark would be acceptable.
Another office said that the printed statement from a local bank would be just as acceptable to them as a mailed bank statement.
One office told us that the copy of our car insurance cards with the NM address would be fine. Another saw that in the fine print somewhere were written the words ‘State of New Jersey’ so anything else on the card is invalid.
One asked for a copy of Buzzurro’s and my marriage certificate, which we both couldn’t even figure out why.

So to sum up this post, we are residents of nowhere.

Buzzurro and I are currently staying in a house with 2 cats and 2 dogs. I have never lived with a dog or cat before, even though I have always liked them. I just never owned one.
Yesterday morning one of the cats, the prettier, fluffier, more timid one, walked up to me as if she wanted to be petted.
‘That’s weird’ I thought to myself. ‘She usually runs from strangers-me included.’

Then I started to pet her and she started to purr and stick her butt up in the air.
‘That is strange behavior’ I thought. ‘What is going on?’

Then the cat spied my house shoes (slippers) They have a little leopard print on them. As soon as she walked over to them and started sniffing sand rubbing her body against them I knew what was going on-she was in heat.

That whole day she was meowing and rubbing her body against the carpeted floor, the sofa, chairs, shoes, everything.
Buzzurro and the owners of the cats said ‘She wasn’t fixed. She’s in heat. It only lasts 2 days or so. It happens every month-like a woman and her menstrual cycle.’
‘It looks painful’ I said.
‘No. She is just in estrus.’ was the reply.

In this house there is a ‘doggie door’ or a little door for the dogs to enter the back yard. One of the cats uses this door to do her business. This particular cat does not.
“She is afraid of the dogs.’ The owner said.

Well, I guess her horniness got the better of her because by the afternoon she was nowhere to be found and by the late afternoon a neighbor brought her to where we were, saying that the cat was wandering in her yard. (’and trying to hump all her plants’ I thought to myself.)

I thought that night would be a little peaceful, assuming the cat satisfied her carnal desires while outside, but NO, she continued to meow constantly in a loud voice, and rub her body on everything.
The next day she went out again.
‘Must have found a little kitty boyfriend’ I thought to myself.

That night she was back in the house.
The next day there were no meows, no trying to hump everything in sight and no desire to use the doggie door to get outside either. She was over her estrus. Yeahhy. Not that it was impossible to sleep over her meows, but it looked like she was hurting and I felt bad-not that I could help.
Back to normalcy. At least until next month.
I still would like to get a cat. I think though I will have her (or him) fixed though.

Buzzurro and I haven’t been updating this blog recently because we’ve been on the road. Buzzurro was offered a job in New Mexico. We were then living in New Jersey, so we did what many people do: we packed up our car and headed towards New Mexico.
Our route took us through several states, most of which I (the US citizen) and Buzzurro (the Italian citizen) had never been to. We drove through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and of course New Mexico. It was a wonderful trip. We were truly amazed at the beauty of this country.We were almost sad to reach our destination. (sort of reach our destination. We are now looking at apartment rentals.)
But we are back on-line-sort of.

Maybe I just don’t have the finesse to appreciate finer, original advertisements, but today I saw one on TV that pretty much revulsed me.

In the cafeteria I was eating lunch at lunchtime. All of a sudden I turned to the TV set to hear a pretty lady on the TV say she had a stuffed nose and chest congestion and didn’t feel like doing anything. She was too congested. Out of nowhere popped up a little green warty blob character with eyes, legs arms and a mouth. He suggested to her that she try a product of his aimed at reducing mucous in the upper respiratory area.

Now, I’ve heard of Batman, and Superman, and yes, Spiderman too, but Snotman? How disgusting. What brilliant marketing agent sneezed into a tissue and decided that he had a great character spokesman for his product anyway? Che schiffo!
I was getting more nauseous by the millisecond when that same lady shows up dancing in her backyard saying that since taking that medicine she feels great. Her problems are ending and mine are just starting.
What a wonderful advertisement. NOT
I don’t think I’ll be buying that product.

I work in the office of a large warehouse. There are many different types of workers in the warehouse, from order pickers, to labelers, to receivers, to packers, to…. well, I could go on. I take the orders off the printer and separate them for other workers to pick.

Today at work an employee who works as an order picker said to me,
“You give all the orders to the packers to pick, and if the packers pick all the orders then there is nothing left for the pickers to pick. ”

Huh?

“Can you say that again please?” I nicely replied
“We are pickers, not packers. We pick. If you give orders to the packers to pick then we have nothing to do, so let the pickers pick and the packers pack, and don’t let the packers pick at all!”

OK, I understand. The pickers are peeved at the packers because the packers are picking.

Clear? As mud!
So what did I do? What everybody in every office in the world does. I blamed someone else. HEE HEE HEE (In this case it was the truth)
I informed the picker that it was a management decision to let the packers pick and any problems with this decision should be discussed with them. I have to do what the supervisors says, and to be honest they have a point. They want to orders picked, no matter who does it, a picker, a packer… it doesn’t matter. As long as the job gets done. although the pickers also have a point… picking is their job.
The moral of this story is, however, that the pickers are pissed because the packers are picking.

Trying saying that ten times fast!