Sheesh

The weirdness continues.

For two or three years our neighbor, the WWII veteran, has popped over in the summer to discuss the retaining wall between our houses. He is uphill, so I guess the wall "retains" his yard, and yet it is part of our view. We are the ones that have to look at it. The timbers were pretty old and pretty much termite eaten, but it was not at the top of our "to-do" list. So every summer I would tell the neighbor, "We need to get estimates in winter. Landscape work is cheaper in winter because they are not so busy." He didn't seem to believe me, but would go away. Until the next summer. Well this summer, he actually sends his landscape dude over here with an estimate for $7500 and says the neighbor will pay $3000. Did you laugh too?
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Monday morning my doorbell kept ringing and waking me up and irritating the hell out of me. I do not get out of bed to answer the door. If it's someone that knows me they can call and if it's someone that really knows me they can knock on my bedroom window. If my house is on fire whoever is out there can dial 911. In fact, I'm thinking about putting a sign on the wood door that says, "If this door is closed, do not ring the doorbell or I may come out and kill you." When I get up every day I open the wooden door. We have a glass outer door. The wood door stays open until my husband goes to bed. When the wood door is closed, go away.
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I finally got out of bed around 11:00 because I was too irritated to sleep any longer. When I came in here, I opened the side window blinds like I always do and lo and behold the timbers were gone and there were workmen out there. I walked out front and said, "Hey what's going on?" The one who spoke english said, "We're replacing this retaining wall." I said "And he hired you?" while pointing at the neighbor's house. He said yes and I said, "Well, did you know that wall is on my property?" He didn't say anything and I said, "Well if he's paying for it, whatever." And I came back inside. I called my husband who didn't quite know what to make of it and I called my lawyer to see what he had to say. We finally decided it was a good thing.
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This morning I came in here in my nightgown and the computer is in a corner with windows on each wall about 10 inches out of the corner. We keep this side one closed at night but never close the one overlooking the backyard. So I'm checking my e-mail and all of a sudden a guy walks by like 3 feet from me, into my backyard. I jumped up and stood to the side of the window and lowered the blinds. So I had to sit in here in the (relative) dark. I kept peeking out watching them crawl through my bamboo bed to get at the timbers back there and was getting all irritated again, but I checked tonight when I got home and the bamboo is fine.
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Also there was this long phone message from the neighbor about how he decided to go ahead and do it and pay for it himself. That part was good. Also I was worried about the material and if it would clash with the stone on my bamboo bed, but it looks nice and is very similar. It looks like it will be finished by the weekend. We just think it's weird that he did this and we wonder if he knows that wall was on our property. I guess we shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, but I hope he is not expecting any money from us. Oh, and I have to remember when I come in here in the morning not to open any windows.

Blech!

I am really not having fun right now. Lately, I have been really appreciating how very easy my life has been until recently. While this year will never rank anywhere close to 1980 in it's bad yearness, it has not been one of my favorites, for sure. I wish I could post about the one very bad thing, but I can not. It's not anything to do with My Sweetie and me, we are great, but it involves someone else in my family and it is very sad. I hope in a few months that I am in my happy place again, because that's who I am and what I am about. Until then, I will muddle through and try to keep my spirits up. I'm glad I have your blogs to read because they usually cheer me up or at least get my mind off of my own troubles. I wish I were back in the beach cottage. Oh well, next year....

Weirdnesday

I had a very long very awful day except for something odd and wonderful that happened. I woke up wrong and left the house 11 minutes late then caught every light between here and the church. I had some new guy on my list that was so not on my beaten path. I also gave him a breakfast and he doesn't get one so I ended up one breakfast short (although that part worked out okay because I had decided to short those two guys that live together, not in that way, and they always bum cigarettes from me and so I gave them a pack of smokes and didn't feel bad about shorting them one breakfast). Then I really had to P so I stopped at a drugstore and my phone rang and MOW said they had gotten some calls and I told them I was running behind so just get over it, except I didn't say any of those words after the word "behind." The whole day was just dragging and early on when I was going 55 in a 40 mph zone, I saw a cop I had just passed turning around. I just happened to be right at my turn so I turned right and barreled down the two blocks to turn left and pulled into my first stop. My heart was racing and I was just waiting for this cop to pull up, but apparently I lost him. I know for a fact that if I had continued straight I would have gotten a speeding ticket. I also kept catching red lights, even ones that I didn't even know existed and whenever I was in a lane that I had to be in to turn somewhere, the person in front of me was ALWAYS going 7 miles below the speed limit. I could do a whole alliteration type sentence about freaks and forty-nine and fifty on the freeway, but it would involve the overuse of another f word.
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When my route was finally completed I couldn't wait to get to my grody bar for a beer, but as I walked up I heard very loud music. I hate very loud music. There's this old man that shows up on some Wednesdays and plays the jukebox and they turn it up really loud for him and he's like almost 60 and plays all this really loud metal rock. It's embarassing really. Anyway, I stood at the door for a minute thinking how loud it sounded right there and I was OUTSIDE, then I stepped in and sure enough that old guy was there and some bartender dude I had never seen before and they both looked at me and smiled and I did a hand gesture (no, not that hand gesture) of pointing to my ear and mouthing TOO LOUD and walked the fuck out of there. That may not sound like much to you but I really really wanted a beer so I was pretty proud of myself. I went to Friday's because I was craving their shrimp and because they have USA Today so I didn't have to stop and buy one and I was already way behind beer time.
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Three different people walked up and asked about my day and I felt bad because I was honest and said, "It really sucks so far, but I hope it gets better." My lunch was great and something interesting happened. Not the interesting thing I mentioned in my very first sentence but something else. After I ate I wanted to just sit and unwind before I went over to the house to get some stuff done. Two old men were playing the NTN trivia game and I thought about moving to the bar to give them some competition. Then I thought, "Nah, I feel too stupid right now." So I decided to do the crossword puzzle in my USA Today. Well I finished the puzzle in about 20 minutes in ink with no errors. When I realized I had set some sort of personal crossword record, I thought, "Hey! Maybe I'm not stupid today!" But I looked up and the two old men were gone.
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I headed over to the house with a belly full of despair because I really thought the house had been broken into. That would take a paragraph longer than the last one to explain, so I'll skip that part. I got there and everything looked normal. I unlocked the deadbolt and then tried to unlock the doorknob and it went all wanky on me and the whole section around the keyhole came out on my key. My heart sank and I was already imagining having to call 911 as I walked around the house to try the back door. I was having trouble with that lock, as well, when I finally got the door opened. So? So nothing. Nothing had been disturbed. Apparently the front doorknob thing was a fluke. There's really only one valuable thing in the house right now and there it was.
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I felt a lot better at this point and decided to focus on some important stuff. I reprogrammed the sprinkler system (with help from stepdad on the phone) because we found it had been unplugged, and called the alarm company and FINALLY got the alarm working, but when I went to wrap up the glassware to pack for charity, I pulled out my bubble wrap and found that was it. I was at the end. Of the bubble wrap I mean. I did pack up some clothes for the homeless shelter and some books but somehow a lot of time had passed. Delbert came over to get the safe instructions (we had given him the safe on Sunday) and he bought the copy machine for his wife and he also got my key out of the lock thing and got the lock back in the doorknob. So except for running out of bubble wrap everything was going okay now and I had made another $11. Woo hoo! (I get 20% of all sales).
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I set the alarm and went to the post office to get my parents' mail. I was whistling some tune in the post office as I sorted and threw out the innocent trash. (By innocent I mean stuff that I don't need to shred). I got back in my truck and felt an overwhelming desire to hear the Otis Redding song "Dock of the Bay." I turned the radio to the oldies station but some annoying car dealership ad was braying from the speakers, so I turned it all the way down. I thought about calling the station to request it but I was pulling out onto the service road and I don't like to "phone and drive" so I decided to just sing it. So I pretty much sang the whole song including trhe whistling part and I felt really good and thought "Okay, now, I'll just listen to the radio." I turned the radio back up and this was just starting



How very weird and wonderful is that?

(Happy Birthday to my brother!)

Stoopid Moosings

There's this place in my garage where the paint or wallboard paper has peeled or flaked off and I always thought it looked like Thomas Jefferson's profile so I got some markers and added some stuff.

Maybe I should glue some cotton balls up there to look like a white wig. No? Too much?

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Why is it when we sit on a very cold spot we think our pants are wet? How are wet and cold confused by our butt molecules?
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My Sweetie is out of town until late Wednesday night and after I showered tonight, I put some velcro curlers in my hair. Why? No one is going to see me.
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Why is it we have so many body parts that we don't even know the names of? I've been fondling my tragus for years but didn't know it had a name.
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I've been watching that summer reality show "Greatest American Dog" and when the judges berated that girl for putting clothes on her dog I think I stood up and clapped.
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Speaking of that show, when they flashed their motto/tagline thing: "In Dog We Trust," My Sweetie said, "All others pay cats." I thought that was hilarious.

A Social Question

When I'm in an emergency situation or in a hurry to get things done, I am quite decisive. Sometimes, however, I find myself in a situation where I question myself and wonder whether or not to say anything. I want to give you an example of something and get your opinion. I was in someone's house and they grabbed dishes from the dishwasher and placed them in the appropriate cabinets and there were water droplets flying around. In other words, the dishes were still wet. I was always told: NEVER put anything wet or damp in a cabinet as it will attract bugs. I wanted to say something, but it was not a relative or close friend and part of me felt like they would have felt insulted. Would you have said anything? It's not a life altering dilemma or anything, I just wonder what others may have done.

I Saw the Sphinx!

Barney had pretty much torn right through his scratch post. I just checked my old posts and I had bought that thing in September 2006 for Rufus. Rufus was not so good with the scratch post but Barney has been wonderful. It's the only thing he uses. We've only had Barney about a year but he had torn the carpet out to the core of the post so it was time for a new one. Every Wednesday, after my Meals on Wheels day out, I pass this little privately owned store called Cats Unlimited. I decided to check it out for a new scratch post. Well, I drove up and this fellow was looking at me through the glass. It kinda freaked me out. His name is Petey. Here I am 47 years old and I had never seen one of these Sphinx cats in person. I mean it wasn't on my "Things to do before I die" list or anything, but it was odd to realize I had never seen one. Petey looks naked but he is not. He has a very fine, very short coat and feels sort of like velour. He was very friendly and playful, but man is he weird looking or what?

Whut?

I cleaned something today and I thought, "Wow, that's clean as a whistle!" Then I thought of what a stupid expression that is. A whistle, unless you just took it out of the package, is something people blow in. And put their mouth on. How can a whistle be clean? I mean yuck. I don't even eat childrens' birthday cakes because they blew on them. So I was wondering where the expression originated and I couldn't find a lot but I found this site. That site thinks it came from the sound of a whistle. But that doesn't make much more sense to me. If we're going to use sounds to describe cleanliness we'd say things like, "My teenager's room is a as clean as an 80's metal cover band guitar riff." And that would just be silly.

The Chronicles of Ordinaria

Today I called my hand doctor, because I had a question about my new thumb problem. I was wondering when I had seen him and realized I could check my blog. That's when I realized that all this stuff that's been going on has gone unchronicled. I thought, "Well, what if I want to look this stuff up a year from now?" I can't imagine I would want to, but you never know. So basically this post is just putting down information for my future curious self (ha ha I typed "elf" like I'm going to have a future curious elf!) so you probably won't want to read it and it's going to be VERY long. I found it all tiresome at the time except for the kitty.

Let's see, okay, we got back from the beach very late on Saturday night, June 21st. I rested for a day and a half. Monday night, My Sweetie went to pick up his Mom so she could spend the night with us (a first!) and go with me to the house to help out on Tuesday. She was very helpful and organized all the jewelry (there was a lot!) in the nice big jewelry box by value per shelf. She also had lots of advice about stuff. Oh and we stopped on the way over there to do the newspaper ad for the estate sale. On Wednesday after MOW I went back to the house and worked for 5 hours organizing and displaying things. Thursday night, My Sweetie and I went back to the house and worked together for several hours. Friday I went to the house early. I stopped to get bubble wrap and a few other things and worked for a while, then My Sweetie came over after work and we worked late into the night putting the price tags on everything. I don't even remember what we did for dinner, but my guess is he ran out for Taco Bueno.

We rode home together (I left my truck at the house) and pretty much went straight to bed. The alarm went off 5 minutes later and I pretty much had just enough time to shower and get ready. The newspaper ad and Craig's List ad said "10 to 6." What part of "10 to 6" do people not understand??!!? Oh yeah, the "10" part. We pulled into the driveway at 9:40 and some man ran up and I said, "The sale starts at TEN." By 9:50, there were about 15 people piled onto the front porch doing that hand over the brow thing looking through the glass door like crazy people. I had a sign-in sheet on a little table in the entryway. The entryway was my post. I could check people coming and going, had a clear view of the jewelry, and we both had our Home Depot aprons on for money. (I had come up with that idea when my brother and I did my Dad's estate sale.) Well we opened that door at 10:00 sharp and an insane man ran in like he was being chased by a bear and refused to sign in. I was pretty pissed off and yelled " 'Sweetie' that man didn't sign in!" Actually, he ran a scribble across the page, but that's the same thing. The other people could see I was mad and they all signed in. Some of them told me they recognized him from other sales and they hated him too. I still hate that guy.

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The entryway got pretty crowded and crazy with people stacking stuff and coming and going. People were saying, "Can I put my stuff here?" and I don't have good people recognition skills, so my brain was going all "Crazy polka-dot shirt, there. Guy with ugly beard there." And I was also adding stuff up on the calculator and trying to get people in and out. Once a lady leaned over one of the piles and I said, "That's someone's stuff." and she looked at me weird and said, "That's me." or something like that. My brain is wired funny. After what I thought was 3 hours, things slowed down and my in-laws showed up so I asked my MIL to watch the jewelry so I could step out for a smoke. I looked at my watch and only an hour had passed. AN HOUR! I seriously thought 3 hours had passed. After that it went in stages of busy and not so much. We met Delbert and Shirl who have been back many times and keep buying stuff. I just met with them last night again. Delbert reminds me of Danny Glover's character in Grand Canyon. He's even a mechanic. They are awesome people. I also had this really annoying Irish guy with really bad teeth keep coming back. He kept buying weird stuff that was missing stuff. He was tiresome. I was SO GLAD when it was 6:00. We didn't have too much to do to get out of there, but I was exhausted and not only didn't want to drive, but thought it would be a good idea to leave my truck there in case any of the random people thought the house would be empty that night.

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Sunday we went back to gather some things and get my truck and meet with Delbert & Shirl again. And Crazy Irish Guy came back to get something. Oh and speaking of crazy guys, there was this giant dude that was bouncing all over the place on Saturday and he yells out (from my daughter's old room) "I found a girl's diary in this closet!" I said, "Put that back and close that closet door." Then I told My Sweetie to put a sign on that closet saying "nothing in here for sale" because she had left some other stuff too. So on Sunday I went in there to get her journal. And there was no journal. How gross is that? We stayed for quite a while and packed up all the little valuable things to bring home. I was so tired that Monday morning I slep right through a phone call from MOW asking me to train someone on Wednesday. I called them back and said yes.

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I got to the church Wednesday a little later than I had said but there was no one there. Well there was another regular MOW guy but he said he had seen no one. I called MOW and they said they had talked to her that morning. I was getting irritated because I was going to have her pack everything to learn the "hands on" way but decided to start without her. I did some basic stuff and then went back outside to see if maybe they went to the wrong entrance or something. This little car pulls up with TWO blondes in it and one yells out "Are you 'Geewits'? " They're all, "We got lost!" Ha ha ha to that when they told me where they lived. They live like 3 miles from there. WTF? I figured out how we would all fit in the car and had them pack the rest of the stuff up. They were very ditzy and obviously had not paid any attention to their initial training at the MOW office. One of my personality quirks is I respond to the company I am with. These ditzy blondes turned me into a dry Bob Newhart sort of person. They thought I was hilarious. We were going throught this one area and I said, "Was that Staghorn or Shagbark?" referring to the street names. Then I said "I guess they were reading Tolkien when they named these streets." To them that was the funniest thing ever. I don't think it's that funny. I was trying not to roll my eyes (since I was in the backseat - there's a mirror up there). The one that really killed them was when I said, "I met my third husband at work. It's probably good I don't work anymore." I don't get it. They went nuts for that and kept bringing it up. Maybe it was my delivery.

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I was supposed to go back to the house after MOW and I was so burnt out I just decided not to go. Friday night, (4th of July, ya'll!) we decided to do something different and take a walk to see what we might see. We headed out of our neighborhood and were walking down 157 when I noticed that church up there was up on a hill. We walked up there and saw three different sets of fireworks. It was pretty cool. Perspective-wise, the closest one was about like holding a softball at arm's length and the furthest more like a golfball. Saturday was a rare day where I wanted to jump in the shower and go out to lunch. On Sunday my daughter showed up for what I thought was get some mail, but as she's talking 90 miles an hour about a big fight with her boyfriend, her girlfriend comes around the corner with a cat wrapped in a towel. I don't want to go into details but, she didn't think her cat would be safe at the apartment. So I said, "Sure, he's an innocent creature. I will watch him. What's his name?" She didn't even have a name for him. After 3 weeks. Well, I named him Thomas. He was so cute and crazy. He so brought out Barney's inner kitten (Barney's only a year old) and it was fun to watch them play but the size difference was crazy:

She picked him up the next evening and everything had been resolved. (Yay!) I told her Ihad named him Thomas and that he was responding to it, but being the rebel that she is, I imagine she will never call him that. But he will always be Thomas to me.

I'm pretty much caught up now except I didn't mention the Craig's List stuff and that I sold a bunch of stuff last night and more things are moving on Saturday, but this has been long and it was tiring enough when it all happened and reliving it has just made me tired again. I'm not even going to proofread this. At least I get to sleep in tomorrow. And now I have it all down for my future elf.

Happy Fourth!!

I'm taking a holiday break from The House. I did something fun tonight. Jeanette (Jammie J, my blogging mentor) and Tony flew in from L.A. to drive to Oklahoma so I ran over to meet them at the airport just before midnight. We stood around and talked for a bit and took some pictures. I made them a little goody bag of fruit and a hot dog for Tony. It was nice to see them again. Anyway, I'm hoping to have a relaxing long weekend. Here are some fun fireworks for you:

FUN FIREWORKS!