I try to do no sugar. And I purchase my regular food items knowing what does and doesn’t work for me. So on my last trip to the grocery store, I didn’t find my regular yogurt brand. I saw Yoplait Light Fat Free. On the left of the front panel, the label said “With Aspartame …” Great. I buy a six-pack.

The first suck of yogurt, (one doesn’t take a bite of yogurt, really), and I knew something was wrong. I looked at the front of the yogurt container again. “With Aspartame &” then on the next line, “Other Sweetener.” Notice the singular tense. I flipped the container over to read the nutritional info (which I do on all new products I buy, but hell, this one was sweetened with Aspartame so I didn’t think I needed to).

First ingredient: nonfat milk. Second ingredient: HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP. Those ass sucking sons of Yoplait bitches. Aspartame was the tenth ingredient listed, right above the food colorings.

They promote this product as sweetened with Aspartame when it is really sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. Misleading, dishonest, immoral, and possibly deadly product labeling.

I called the Yoplait 800 number to complain and the customer service rep said she would pass along my sentiments. Then she said she would give me a refund. I didn’t care about a refund. I was pissed at their misleading labeling.

“What did you spend on the product and we’ll send you a check.”

“I don’t know.”

“Well take a guess.”

So I told her $500.

I am to expect a $3 check in the mail within the week. In the meantime, it looks like I have a little letter writing to do to the Utah department of agriculture, among other agencies. Fuckin French.

I counted this morning. I have four tubes on top of my nightstand, two tubes in my nightstand drawer. One in my pocket (at all times), two in my purse, two in my desk at work. And I live if dread that I will run out. It didn’t used to be this way.

There was a time decades ago that I used tubes of Blistex. But as I always had to have a tube in my pocket, I found that when I retrieved a tube and took off the cap during the summer months, the product consistency was mushy. Too much body heat. So in those early years of obsession, I switched to Chap Stick for the summer months, and Blistex for the winter months. At some point, I realized I liked the Chap Stick better and took the plunge.

Yes, there are Chap Stick rules. It must be in a blue tube. The standard is Chap Stick Moisturizer with SPF15. If that isn’t available, I will settle for Chap Stick Medicated. If those aren’t available, as a last resort, the old fashioned plain Chap Stick in the black tube. Sorry Katy Perry, but if “I Kissed A Girl,” she wouldn’t taste cherry Chap Stick. No flavors. Yuck.

My lips need this obsession in this low humidity state of Utah, but it comes in handy for so many other things. While sitting on the freeway, rub some into my cuticles. Nice. Can’t get marks off of trade show booth graphics? Chap Stick works. Your five year old daughter’s feet go to sleep and she needs immediate relief? Rub on Chap Stick (this was just a total psych out, but it worked and sometimes my now 12 year old still asks for Chap Stick to rub on her feet when they go to sleep).

I have become comfortable knowing that I am, and always will be, a Chap Stick lesbian.

My commute home from work was event free. I ordered pizza from the freeway and it arrived at my home as I pulled into my garage.

My daughter was thrilled to see me (or maybe it was really the pizza). We turned off all the lights, closed the blinds, ate pizza on the couch huddled under a blanket (we have to freeze out the downstairs before bedtime or it is too hot upstairs to sleep), and watched 10,000 BC on DVD.

We then retired to the bat cave (my bedroom) to watch the Daily Show and Colbert Report. While doing so, I implemented some computer ideas Photogirl66 gave me to get my daughter reconnected to her school email account. She hasn’t been able to communicate with her friends for three weeks. The ideas worked, and when I showed my daughter she could be online with her friends again, she burst into tears of joy.

A glass of red wine, a valium, and into bed I went. My daughter shut off everything later when she turned in, as it should be during the summer.

A perfect evening. They are too rare.

So maybe now that the assholes leave, people will want to be on the board and do what the board is supposed to be doing. Or maybe nobody will step up and then who know what happens. Where do our HOA fee checks go?

I’ll have to see who volunteers to be on the board. If I could afford to move, I would. I guess I could, but not too keen about renting after the tax write offs of owning for 20 years. We’ll see what happens. Being away from home from 7am to 6pm every day, and spouseless with a child, doesn’t realistically give me the time to be on the board. I might be ambitious, but not crazy.

So, let’s see what chaos ensues.

I work for a national company, so we don’t get the day off. My freeway commute was a breeze. But by the time I hit the city, it was packed. Because of construction downtown, the powers that be had the parade route go down the street to the west of my office building and the marathon route to the street east of my building. Thus, I had to weave my way through an array of roadblocks and cops to get to work.

Luckily, I work for an alcoholic company, and what better way to celebrate Pioneer Day than with a healthy breakfast of bagels and fruit. Oh yes, and no breakfast would be complete without some vodka. And I met FiddleyGomme for a beer lunch. Perfect nutrition for the day.

Having never seen the Pioneer Day parade in person before, me and two of my slacker co-workers walked to the corner to catch a bit of the festivities. I got to see everything I wanted…floats, horse poop, and Mormons.

Some lovely missionaries gave me some materials to share with my non-member friends. Yea. Now you understand my need for tattoos or nipple rings. I gave them to one of the friends who went with me, who is Mormon and from Brazil and she was thrilled for the free Mormon swag.

Overall it was a good day. I often debate about those pioneers, my ancestors. Were they lemmings following a cult leader to who knows where, just short of drinking the Kool Aid or waiting for God behind the comet? Or were they courageous souls who were living their convictions and doing what they thought was right, and to hell with everybody else. I hope the latter. I just wish they would have settled someplace where there were not so many Mormons.

In front of us was a license plate with some numbers and then the letters NUN. She looked perplexed, and then asked me, “what is a NUN?”

“Well, a nun is a woman who does everything for her church.”

“Oh,” my daughter said. “Your sister is a nun.”

“Well, no, your aunt isn’t a nun. Nuns are usually Catholic and live at the church and don’t get married.”

“How come they don’t get married.”

I explained to my daughter that the nuns don’t get married because they think they get married to Jesus.

“But mom, Jesus is already married.” And I asked her who Jesus is married to. “Well, I don’t know, but he is married. And I had a dream and I think it was heaven because it was all white and bright. And Jesus’ dad got killed.”

Ah. I have done well in my lack of theology lessons with my beloved child.

I am a female blogger and they are not meeting my needs. Let’s get some competition going.

I called *3 to connect to Sprint and pay my bill. It seemed easier than logging in and doing it online like I usually do. I spent five minutes putting in all the info they needed. And then all of a sudden, I was transferred to human. I’m sick. I feel like crap. I don’t want to deal with a person. At least she didn’t have an Indian accent, so I thought it might be okay.

She asked for all the info I had just given her. Then she asked for my PIN. I don’t know my PIN. It is in my computer as a cookie and I have no clue. So she asked me what my first grade school was. I told her and she informed me that was incorrect. Wow. This woman somehow knew I went to a different school I don’t remember before kindergarten?

I just want to pay my bill.

I had to give her the amount of my last payment. I had to tell her how I paid it. I had to tell her how much was currently due. At this point, and remember I feel like crap, most of my answers were, “I don’t know…something like xxx I JUST WANT TO PAY MY BILL.” The non-Indian customer service rep told me she needed all this information to protect my identity.

I’m sorry, but if someone wants to take the trouble to steal my phone, call *3 and pay my bill, I really am okay with that. The ONLY bit of information SHE gave me was the amount owed. And I really don’t care who knows how much I owe Sprint for my phone bill.

“So do you want to pay with a debit card or check?” Remember my stressed and messy mind from paragraph one? Yea. An ATM ate my debit card earlier this week. I left it in the machine after I withdrew some cash. So I gave her all of my checking account information.

After waiting for what seemed like an eternity, she told me the transaction was complete except for one step.

In order to pay by check, I needed to have a PIN.

Greg,

After our conversation tonight at about 9pm, I am aware of situations that you feel are in violation of our HOA restrictions. Here is my plan of action.

I will move our basketball standard to the driveway as others have done at their town homes. If this is not acceptable, please let me know.

I have been meaning to replace the broken doorknob for the outdoor storage closet. It seems that someone has been removing and returning my garbage can on pick up days without my permission (his father-in-law). I also had problems around the holidays with people using my trash can for their excess Christmas trash (him), which left me basically without a garbage can for a week. I believe these incidents, especially the ongoing moving of my trash can without my permission, added to the early demise of my door knob. One day I could not open it and had to whack it off. I have been looking for a replacement that matches the others in the complex. Is it within guidelines to install one with a lock so others cannot continually access my exterior storage without my permission? Please let me know.

I moved the tether ball pole to the back after trying to load it into a truck to take to DI and was unable to. I have asked my brother-in-law to help me with his truck and hope to do this soon. As I moved it to the back of my unit out of site of anyone, I thought I was within guidelines (we can’t have anything on grass…and where I moved it isn’t). I will not have access to my brother-in-law and his truck until next weekend and hope that will be alright with the board. If not, please let me know and I will roll it over to DI myself Monday after I get home from work.

Thank you for clarifying the parking allowances in the circle in front of my unit. It is extremely frustrating to not be able to easily access my driveway and garage when people are parked halfway in front of my driveway. I also worry when people park in front of the fire hydrant and am glad we have a good scout in the area who is going to paint the “no parking” areas. If funds are need for this, please let me know and I can contribute some money.

I really have paid my dues through July. If it is no longer acceptable to put checks into the collection box at the clubhouse, please let me know and I will send checks directly from my bank via mail.

As for the alleged noise my daughter makes in the neighborhood. I really don’t think this is accurate. On weekends she is allowed to stay out later, but we are really pretty boring and get to bed pretty early. I spoke with her tonight and reminded her to respect other people’s property and not play loudly too close to other homes. She does have a moderate to severe hearing loss in both ears that might eventually lead to total deafness, and if she isn’t wearing her hearing aids, her friends do talk louder for her to hear them if she cannot read their lips.

I think I have covered everything. We might have our disagreements, but I feel it was inappropriate for you and your wife to say the things you said about my daughter tonight. Say all you want about me. Call me the worst of the worst. But children are sacred. You have beautiful children and I will never say otherwise. Please respect my daughter.

Sincerely,

This morning I made coffee, grabbed my camera, and went for a walk around our neighborhood and took pictures of every violation I saw, including one by the HOA president and one by his father-in-law, to cover my butt. As I headed home, Greg came out of his house with child in hand, I looked at him and kept walking. He asked me to wait that he wanted to talk to me. HE apologized. He said a lot of things and I could tell he felt he was in the wrong and exagurated some of the things he said the night before. I said okay. I then looked at his 2 year old son in his arms and told him in person, “Your son is beautiful and I would never say anything bad about him. Please don’t speak ill of my daughter.” He apologized again.