A Very Long Post About My First Adventure

I grew up in a little place called Belfast. Not the big one in Ireland. This was a small community just outside of Goldsboro, North Carolina. We had an elementary school, a volunteer fire department, two store/gas stations and maybe three churches. The two different houses I lived in were on dirt roads that did not have names. Our addresses were Route 7, Box (some three digit number). We never locked our doors and my parents kept their car keys in the ignitions. Dad worked for a tobacco company in town and there were tobacco farms everywhere. Sometime around 5th grade, some larger tobacco company in Virginia paid Dad's tobacco company for his services and those services were for him to go to the Dominican Republic and train people to do something. (I would like to be more specific, but Dad is dead so I can't ask him.) So he would go for several months in the spring and summer. This was different because in his regular job he used to be gone in the winter months (in Kentucky). In April of 1973, he had been gone for a while and the company offered to send us all over there for a visit. Mom had been once and I believe it was the first time she had flown. I had never flown. We all got passports and then there was big deal about me. My birthday was going to happen over there and the flight rates changed for those particular ages, so Mom was freaked about that. Whatever airlines or travel agents or whatever gave me the kid rate as that was my age as of the booking and beginning of travel. (Man that was a stupid sentence!)

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Mom had to do some wheeling and dealing with our schools because we would be gone for almost two weeks and not during a school holiday. Fortunately my brother and I were very good students so it was worked out. I remember my teacher (Oh, Mrs. Howell, how I LOVED you!) said, "The cultural experience will far outweigh those days of basic subjects." Or something like that.

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Mom had just flown the one time I think, and hated it. She was very tense. My brother and I were very excited. I don't remember how we got to the Raliegh/Durham airport, but I remember loving being on the plane to Atlanta. Unfortunately, the "changing of the planes in Atlanta" became a longtime family story. Oh, we didn't miss our plane but one of our suitcases exploded in the terminal. I guess back then you had to cart your luggage from plane to plane. Anyway we were running through a terminal and not with a bang, but a whimper, the suitcase came apart. I remember there was about a 12 foot path of my brother's clothes because we were moving so fast. Mom was mortified! If Mom wasn't already frazzled enough, this was bad. She realized she would have to use a charge card and buy a suitcase in the airport. That was a big deal for her. Oh, if you are young and reading this, they were called "charge cards" back then. We ended up making it to our plane with our new suitcase and boarded a plane to Miami. In Miami we got on a very small plane to go to the Dominican Republic and I'm not even sure if anyone else was on it. My brother and I were running around whooping it up and napping across whole rows of seats while Mom sat in her one seat gripping the armrests. If I had to guess, I believe that was April 19th, because it seems like the very next day was my birthday.

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Dad was very disappointed on my birthday. We were at El Embajador Hotel in Santo Domingo and Dad had planned a big deal with musicians and a bunch of foreign friendly folks to celebrate my birthday by the pool, but it was pouring rain. Of course, I had no idea about any of this, so when my parents called our room to tell us to come to their room, I was surprised to walk into a crowd mashed into their room singing "Happy Birthday" with all sorts of accents. I was ecstatic and as Dad kept apologizing for it not being what he had planned, I kept telling him how great it was.

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The weather cleared on Saturday (the next day) and we did our tour of Santo Domingo. That's me at Alcazar:

Alcazar was the home of Diego, the son of Christopher Columbus and his wife Filipa who was the niece of the king of Spain (Ferdinand). (Was I supposed to capitalize "king"?) This "home" was built in the 1500's and was a museum type place when I visited and it was AWESOME! (Sorry, Jazz, but it really was.) We also visited the oldest cathedral in the western hemisphere (Catedral de Santa Maria la Menor) which is described by Frommer's like this:

The oldest cathedral in the Americas was begun in 1514 and completed in 1540. Fronted with a golden-tinted coral limestone facade, the church combines elements of both Gothic and baroque with some lavish plateresque styles as exemplified by the high altar chiseled out of silver. The treasury has an excellent art collection of ancient woodcarvings, furnishings, funerary monuments, silver, and jewelry.

That's a picture I found on the internet, but it doesn't show the museum quality side rooms or alcoves. I had never been to a Catholic church so I thought they were all like that. You can't begin to imagine my disappointment the first time I went to a Catholic church after that. They also had a fancy golden thing that was supposed to encase part of the remains of Christopher Columbus (although that has been contested). I thought it was all wonderful. I guess we left the next day, Sunday to head to Santiago which is where Dad "lived."

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I fell in love with the Hotel Matum. My brother and I had our own room and were told we could order anything we wanted anywhere as it was being paid for by the company. Dad did warn us not to order eggs for breakfast because they were cooked in peanut oil and we would hate them so of course we did and we learned the hard way that "Father knows best." One of my favorite things was the smell of the place. It smelled so clean. Mom was more of a bleach person so I had never smelled this smell before. Several years later I discovered it was Pine Sol and to this day, it's one of my favorite smells. I Googled "Hotel Matum" and it's still there and this picture was there and no kidding, it looks just like our room!

A lot of fascinating things happened in our week or so at the Hotel Matum. My brother came out to my parents as a cigarette smoker. He was 15, almost 16. We were North Carolinians, Dad was in the tobacco business and it was 1973. What were they going to say? Dad just told him he was glad that he was honest about it. Also he was drinking there. Hell, they tried to serve me drinks! We were taller than everybody. My brother kept ordering Cuba Libres. After I realized they didn't have Pepsi there I tried a Coke and it did not taste right so I drank a local red fruit drink that I remember as being called a "refresca" or something like that. I loved those things.
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One night as I was sleeping, I woke up to what I thought was my brother kicking my bed. I said, "Stop kicking my bed!" He replied, in a shaken voice, "I'm not kicking your bed." He sounded scared, and that totally woke me up. He said, "I think the Cubans are attacking." I thought a volcano was erupting. Yeah, I know now that there are no volcanos there. I was 12! It stopped and we went back to sleep. In the morning we asked our parents about it and it was an earthquake. Mom was the only one that got it right. Dad thought a cab driver had run into the building.
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There were two waiters there that we really liked: Leonardo and Luis. We wanted them to hang out with us and they kept saying they were "on duty" and nervously glancing around. My parents told us later that they were like indentured servants that lived on the premises and worked for food and board and that any extra money was sent to their families. Anyway at the time, we whined and complained that they couldn't hang with us, and suddenly the manager made it their new job to entertain us. Wow, they became so happy and relaxed. Luis was actually a crazy wild contortionist and would go off the high dive all tangled up and almost give me heart attacks. They really loved the freedom to swim in the pool and just hang out. Leonardo gave us little gifts when we left.
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One evening we went to the home of someone Dad was working with or playing poker with, I don't remember. here's what I do remember: To me it was like a MANSION. And they had servants. We went in and sat down in a living room like I had never seen. Now I would say it was like a really fancy hotel lobby. They brought me something in a tiny porcelain little cup (sake?) and I hated it (politely) and then they brought me something else. I don't remember much else about that place except that I wanted to go back to the hotel.
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One day Dad wanted to show us "the real people." Mom was not so much into the real people. We drove around on small roads and saw all sorts of native villager type people. Mom was freaking out but not as much as when we came across a band of musicians. Dad pulled over on the side of the road and Mom was so tense and mad, like "Don't get out of the car!" I remember the music and how fantastic and special it was. But I didn't know what it was. It wasn't until I was in college and was walking across the campus that I heard it again. My ears perked up and I ran over there and it was a steel drum band! I still love the steel drum.
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Dominican Republic has (or had) one day a year that they hate the United States. That is April 28th. I don't know how or why it was arranged for us, but some Dutch people were going into town to see a movie and took my brother and me with them. We were told that it was "Hate America" day and that we should not speak. I remember walking behind them down a sidewalk as they spoke their Dutch garble and my brother and I looking at each other and looking around wondering if we were going to be shot. Worse, the move was Dutch or German with Spanish subtitles and showed an actual live childbirth. I was TWELVE.
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One of the best things about the Dominican Republic? We met the most amazing man, Henrik Ravn. He was Dad's best friend there. I guess he was like a cross between Indiana Jones and Brad Pitt. I'm not a Brad Pitt fan, but I would have found him awesome cute when I was 12. Henrik was Danish and spoke 5 or 6 languages and like 12 African dialects. He danced the merengue with both Mom and me. Years later I asked Mom, "How did you not fall in love with this man?" I've always wondered what happened to him. But at least I have his crazy painting.
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Part of me wants to go back to the Dominican Republic, and the other part says, "Why mess with a great memory?"
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And I guess the really best part of the trip is that it took a little country girl out into the world. My brain was expanded.

Maybe it was the creepy Santa Claus?

If you've been a reader here for a while, you may remember back in April when I was having so much trouble trying to make this ribbon photo board. Well, not that I had trouble making it, but I didn't have enough ribbon on my first attempt and then kept trying to get more ribbon and then had to end up using this sorry pink rick rack:

The reason I am bringing this up, is that some time back I noticed that Lone Grey Squirrel had a neat little gizmo on his blog called "feedjit" and it showed where people were coming from. And by coming from, I thought that meant like cities, states, countries and whatnot and I thought that was pretty interesting (although feedjit actually just shows what city your server is in, not what city you are in). I'd always heard that way more people visit your blog than leave comments, but I thought it was just a rumor. Which is silly because there are 4 or 5 blogs that I read, but never leave comments. I didn't know that the feedjit thing (down on the bottom right) also showed search results, like when someone searches for something and comes to your blog. Well it does show that and no one could be more surprised than I was to discover that the number one search subject that brings folks here is that original ribbon photo board post. I couldn't understand why so many people ended up here from that, so today I googled either "photo ribbon board" or "ribbon photo board" and my post was on the first page! Apparently there is not a lot of info out there about these things, which surprised me because for a while there every HGTV show had someone making one.
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I know that is the number one searchie thing, but I'm not sure exactly which is number two, but there are three other posts that bring a lot of traffic through search engines. Number two may be my Gardenia post, and people end up here from searching "google images" and that makes me feel terrible because I lifted that photo from the internet. I wish I had given credit to the source. I suppose I should go put a caption on that pic: "I found this lovely photo on the internet."
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Another one, which really makes me scratch my head, is Christmassy Night Out and the part that is weird is that most of the people, like 98% of the people that are looking at that old post are coming from Germany. What does that mean? I also get a lot of hits on my random skin problems, like the skin tag on my eyelid and my contact dermatitis. And my sketchfu picture from last July. I don't know what any of this means, I just find it interesting. And just in case you came here looking for the ribbon photo board: DON'T FORGET TO DO THE OVER/UNDER WHEN CRISS-CROSSING THE RIBBON. Because I did.

No Drinking Age

Recently it has been in the news that some groups are pushing to lower the drinking age in the U.S. from 21 to 18. There are two sets of arguments, for it: One by some college association about students going wild in their senior year or something and one by the people that say military people should be able to drink.
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I have a better idea. I say there should not be a drinking age at all. Now don't get your britches in a bunch, let me finish. I say regardless of age, you can drink once you get a high school diploma. No diploma, no drinking, even when you reach 50 or 75. I would grandfather the law, though. I would have it apply to anyone born after 30 years prior to the year the law is passed. That would give all those 20-somethings some incentive to go get that GED. I imagine the high school drop-out rate would become miniscule. That also covers all military personnel, because you have to have a high school diploma to join the military.
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Your driver's license or photo I.D. (if you don't drive) would simply be stamped "GRAD." Non-grad drinkers and servers/suppliers to non-grad drinkers would be subject to the same laws that are currently in place for underage drinkers/servers. And what about the geniuses that graduate at 12 or 16? Well, they can legally drink, but since they are still minors, I imagine their parents would have to sign a permission waiver or something. Besides, if they are so smart, I doubt they would be abusing alcohol anyway. And if being able to drink gives kids the incentive to work hard in high school, that's good right? I think so.

Congratulations! Now go have a beer!

No Pill, No Limo, No Sense

Saturday we were taking a giant load of Mom's old clothes and shoes to the Women's Haven resale store. The women staying in the shelter get first pick of the clothes and then the rest are sold with the profits going to the Women's Haven. As we were driving down one street, My Sweetie suddenly pulled over and stopped. It took a second for me to realize we were being met by a funeral procession. I hadn't seen a funeral procession in years, so I had even forgotten that you are supposed to stop. I was proud of his manners. This morning on my way to the church to pick up my Meals on Wheels food, I saw a motorcycle with a line of cars behind it coming towards me and got flustered because I was on the inside lane of a 7 lane road. My brain is going, "What should I do? I can't pull over, should I just slow down?" Then the motorcylce gets closer and it's just a guy in shorts on a blue and white motorcycle and those just happen to be modern cars that always have lights on and they just happened to all be tailgating each other (I guess they had all just come off of a light). Man did I feel stupid. Next time, I will look for a limousine.
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I had even more new people on my MOW list. I'm surprised they fit on one page. Not only that, but we were giving out the "shelf stable" holiday meals for Monday (Labor Day in the U.S.) and as always when we have the extras we don't have the breakfasts. So at every stop I had to go through my schpiel: Hi! There's no breakfast today, but this is a shelf stable meal for Monday because we will be closed on Monday for the Labor Day holiday. Fortunately, I didn't have the deaf lady today. But I do have a sort of new lady that I've never seen. Her meal is always taken by a man that is obviously disabled on some level. He's really hard to describe in print, but he's kinda scary and weird looking and sort of hops and makes odd sounds. Well, I realize there are people with physical disabilites that make them seem like they have mental disabilities, so I decided to do my normal line about the special meal with him just as if he were mentally all there. Yeah, now I'm thinking "not so much." He responded with a vacant look and a weird Uuuuuh type of sound and a little hop and went inside. Hopefully the lady inside is okay and can read because there were instructions printed on the box. I had to go to the Gyna Colleges* at 4:00, so I thought I'd have lunch at Friday's because that's a cozy place to camp out and do the USA Today crossword puzzle. I pulled up and it was gone. GONE! Not the building, but Friday's was gone. I couldn't believe it. I remember when they were building it. I was sitting across the way at Bennigan's and the bartender said, "They're going to put us out of business." Well that was like 12 years ago and Bennigan's just went out of business about 3 months ago. But it was their entire corporation, not that store. So now with no competition, Friday's closes? Huh? The bartender at Chili's said they were renting the spot and didn't want to renew their lease. Sheeeesh!
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*And now a short break for this joke courtesy of Carole:

Husband's note on refrigerator for wife:

Someone from the Gyna Colleges called.

They said the Pabst beer is normal.

I didn't know you liked beer.

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So as I'm pulling into the medical complex, I notice this whole long row of empty parking spaces between the complex and the hospital:

( Pardon the poor quality: these were drive-by shootings)

How funny is that? I laughed and laughed. What on earth can you do at a medical plaza or hospital in less than an hour? Deliver a pizza? Run a toothbrush up to someone? No wonder the spaces were all vacant. Talk about poor planning.

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I got pretty mad at the doctor's office when they handed me a clipboard with 4 or 5 forms to fill out. I said, "Why? Nothing's changed!" The girl insisted my insurance company made them do it. So I called my insurance company. The guy said they didn't need anything and then I made him talk to them. Writing really hurts my thumb and I had just filled out a bunch of forms at the ultrasound place on Monday. So they argued for a bit and then the claim was it was THE LAW. By then I was really mad (I figured out later I had forgotten to take my 11:00 am crazy pill and was in the fight aspect of "fight or flight." I rarely forget a pill and I surely will not be forgetting again anytime soon). I grabbed the forms and wrote "on file" over and over again on almost every line. I still think it's ridiculous. My regular doctor's office just hands you a form to sign to say that nothing has changed.

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Anyway, I get into the room and strip down and put on my snazzy paper vest and "skirt" and without even pulling out the extender thing to make the "bed" longer, I just went flat on my back and went to sleep. I've mentioned many times that I have waiting narcolepsy, so I knew I was going to go to sleep. I don't know how much time had passed but apparently I started snoring and made a loud "SNORK!!!" sound and it woke me up and I realized my lower leg pieces, which were just hanging down off the end of the examining table, were going to sleep. I readjusted all my paper parts and curled up on my side and was just dozing off when they finally came in. The doctor did two odd things. He kept tugging at my papers while he was talking to me, like "AW hell no, I don't want to see that!" or something. I thought it was weird. I'm never modest around medical people. If it were up to me I wouldn't even put the paper stuff on. The other odd thing was at the end, he said, "Do you need any prescriptions?" I still don't get that. He's not even my regular doctor. Why would he say that? I went in for a PAP smear and he asks me if I need any prescriptions? What? I should have said, "Like what?" Maybe his doctor sense knew I was short one crazy pill.

Something We Can All Agree On

When I was over at The House the other day, I found something called moleskin, it's a Dr. Scholl's product. It apparently is not actually made from the skin of a mole because it says it is cotton flannel. I'm not going to google the word moleskin, because my blog is not meant to be informational. It's not meant to be anything really. Anyway, on the back of the box, it says, "...protects feet from painful shoe friction." I've never had the words "painful shoe friction" together in my brain before, but I really like them. All my life I've always wondered if there was anything, ANYTHING, in the world that everyone could agree on, because let's face it, there's not a lot. I mean, I know people who don't like the beach! How could people not like the beach!!!!? And there are trillions of subjects that cause people to take sides. And often in a very strident manner. But after reading "painful shoe friction" I am thinking that surely, surely, no one likes that. At least I hope not. If they do, I hope they have it every day. That seems right. Surely we can all agree on that?

Not Like Other People

I've noticed that most people like a song because of the lyrics. The words say something to them or remind them of something. I do have a lot of songs that I like that remind me of something but not because of the words. It's because of what was going on when the song was out or the song was playing in a certain place. I actually feel pretty stupid sometimes when I realize I don't know any of the words to some of my favorite songs. I'm not like that with all of my favorite songs. I know every word to "Daniel" and know what it's all about and many others, but I'd say half of my favorite songs, I just like the way they sound. One of my favorite songs is "C'mon Eileen" by Dexy's Midnight Runners. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the song but don't have a clue what the words are or what it's about. I guess I go more for the sound of a song or something. Anyway, the other day, I thought maybe I should print out the lyrics and play it over and over and try to learn what it's all about. Well I have played it, but I haven't printed out the lyrics yet. Or maybe I'll just keep enjoying it as it is. It just makes me happy. Do you like it?

Freestyle 101

I like the fact that blogging is not Engish Composition. We don't have to have the opening paragraph with our three points, then our three paragraphs wrapped up with our concluding paragraph. I don't have any problem with that type of writing. It just doesn't seem to be what blogging is all about. And this post would definitely get an F in Eng. Comp.
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I was such a doofus on Wednesday. I had one of those crazy long Meals On Wheels days. Not only did I have a full sheet of people, I had a new person that was way off the route. And then there were little things along the way making everything take longer. I have this newish guy, about 4 weeks now, that the route sheet says to: "Knock on door, yell, MOW and then go in." Well that has never happened. The door was always locked. Then the man always shows up and says, "The door wasn't locked." It's been really getting on my nerves and Wednesday when he said it again, I said, "The door was locked." So he steps outside and pulls it closed and he can't open it. So now we're both on his front porch and he says. "Well the back door is open." And just as I'm saying, "I'll go around" he shoulders it open. He probably can't move his arm now. So after he got it open, I inspect it and the problem is the fancy push button handle outside door knob leaves about 1/8" of that springy thing that goes in and out but when I turned the inside knob it goes all the way in. Anyway I was glad he saw the problem because it was getting very tiresome. He said he'd have his son fix it.
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The new lady that was way out of the way had a really cute dog. I haven't had a dog in a while, and by "had" I mean, one of my MOW people. His name was Jake and he was a crazy speed dog going 90 MPH. I think it was a toy poodle, but I don't know anything about dogs, but I know it wasn't a great dane. Oh, so anyway everything was taking forever and when I finally finished my route I was on my way to my bar to get my post-MOW beers and hoping that annoying old man wasn't there. Seriously this guy is like 56 years old and plays Ozzie Osbourne. It's gross. And loud. And annoying. I was looking at the clock and thinking, "Man, I finished late. I'm glad this isn't one of the last two Wednesdays of the month when I have those two doctor appointments." Mmm Hmmm. yep.
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I bet you were thinking, "This IS one of the last two Wednesdays of the month." Well turn around and pat yourself on the back, because you would be right! Well, what happened was, I made these appointments so long ago that they were stored in my brain as "the last two Wednesdays of August." Just that and nothing else. Not which doctor was which Wednesday or what time or anything. I always write my regular doctor's number on the back of my insurance card with a Sharpie, so I had that number and called it first. I felt so "special" when I called and said, "Do I have an appointment today?" I was really hoping I did because it was a discussion appointment whereas my other appointment was the "other" doctor with the dreaded woman stirrupy thing and an hour and a half is not enough time to mentally prepare for that.
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I got lucky and it was the easy appointment but it was for 2:30 and it was almost 1:00. I had one quick beer and was lucky that it wasn't too hot because I had to drink it on the patio since that annoying man was there blasting his Ozzie Osbourne. Then I grabbed chips and salsa and queso at a Mexican restaurant near my doctor's office. I made it there in time and gave him my long story about my possibly having gall bladder problems. I was going to do a link to my post about that but after doing a blog search, I realize I never mentioned it before.
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Anyway since that would add way too many alphabet pieces to this post, I'll do that later. So he made an appointment for me to go to another place for a gall bladder sonogram on Monday. I either have gallstones or a bad gall bladder. My doctor was talking about fatty foods and "alkee-hall" being a factor and he pronounced it like that every time. Alkee-hall. I should have said, "Dude! Just say BEER!"
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I left there and went to THE HOUSE and the garage had been cleaned out by my parents' gardener and he did a great job. I didn't even realize there was a wall back there. That was a great relief seeing that done. I was still overwhelmed by all the work left to be done but I have made it a point to set tasks and focus on those. My tasks for Wednesday were to get all of the women's clothes and shoes into my truck to take to the women's shelter store for donation, to bring home my my mother-in-law's two rolling clothes racks I had borrowed for the estate sale, and to fill the garbage bin and set it out.
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The weird weather we've been having has given me sinus problems. Monday I told my husband it felt like I had a gummy worm lodged behind my left eyeball. So Wednesday I was getting that again AND being overwhelmed about the house and then my daughter called. So I'm out at the house working my butt off and she calls and her birthday is Saturday and the call is about her dad and the birthday and my head already hurt before she called, but then it was compounded. I very rarely get headaches (I just searched my blog for "headache" and got only two posts that just had the word "ache" in them) so I always get flummoxed by headaches. I think I had a double whammy on Wednesday and had a sinus headache and then topped it off with a stress headache. Anyway, I went to bed at 11:00 pm and if you knew me well, you would freak out because my normal bedtime is between 2:00 and 4:00 am. I woke up 12 hours later and I was fine.
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In conclusion, I really like that bunny in the picture

But It's Still Good

That's a picture of Regina Brett. Here's her mini-biography:

For over 7 years, Regina Brett was a columnist at The Beacon Journal in Akron , Ohio . During that time, she was diagnosed and successfully treated for breast cancer. Regina is now a columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland , Ohio . Her column runs on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday.

~To celebrate growing older, she wrote "The 45 lessons life taught me." I really like nearly all of them a lot. Today I will focus on #40: If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back. This really appealed to me. It's one of those things that's so obvious, but maybe we've never heard it put quite that way. I mean, sure, we all grew up with our parents forcing us to clean our plates by telling us about the starving children in (insert country here). And I'm sure we've all known someone with problems we considered way worse than our own, but I really love the way this is worded. And really if we traded your problems with someone else, wouldn't we be giving away our lives? I don't want someone else's life. Sure, I'd like this person's looks, or that person's talents, but I don't want to BE that person. I'm thinking of printing this on a card and tossing it in my purse. I'm forever looking for something in my purse and I'd be sure to see it from time to time. And it would make me relax and calm about whatever I was frantically looking for. It might even make me laugh.

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Oddly enough, her #42 is Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful. I wonder if that was my inspiration for all of my cleaning, as had I read this list on August 5th. I think that's a great life lesson. I'll be talking about more of her life lessons in later posts and I'll leave you with her #1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.

Condensation

Lately I have been doing a lot of decluttering all over the place and one of the main things I was working on was making space in the garage for Mom's Christmas stuff. See, I decided that June was not a great time to sell Christmas stuff and so I didn't put that out at the estate sale. Also my mother-in-law has a lot of extra Christmas stuff she'd like to sell, so we decided we would have a yard sale of Christmas stuff at her place in November. As good as I have been about not being a pack rat since 1998, I still had 3 boxes of stuff that I have been carting around for + or - 25 years. Friday night between midnight and 4:00 a.m. I went through the 3 boxes on the right of this picture. The box on the left was just for trash.

The funny part was I had been wanting to do this for quite some time and had asked My Sweetie to buy me one of those clear container bins to condense this stuff into. He bought a giant bin the size of a large rolling suitcase. Well actually he bought 3 of them. I laughed when he came home with 3 of them and thought for sure I could fit everything that I wanted to keep into just one of them. Well that was just silly. I had the thing out and there wasn't really much to put into it as you will see at the end of this post. All the stuff in the picture above is trash. I did find some really cool stuff in my stuff, though. Like these dorm message slips:

My freshman year in college, was very 1950's like in that anyone wanting to visit you in the dorm had to go to the front desk. You were then paged and if you didn't come down, your guest could leave a message. The same with phone calls. There were a couple of phones at the end of each hall and you would be paged for a phone call and if you didn't go pick up, they could leave a message. Being a pack rat, I saved all my message slips. I get a kick out of reading them now even though I don't remember some of the guys, although I DO remember John Shell. I also found an envelope with a bunch of concert ticket stubs. The one that surprised me the most was the one from the Who concert when I was in 9th grade. And I don't even remember seeing Foreigner. I wonder what happened to my Styx, Moody Blues and Tommy Tutone stubs? Not to mention my Aerosmith concert, although I did see them again at Champagne Jam:

Also the stubs above verify my story about seeing The Stones twice in a row which I've either posted about or left on comments. I'm too lazy to look it up. My favorite find in the ticket envelope was my Madison Square Garden ticket to the Holiday Doubleheader college basketball game in 1978. In 1977, Dad and I had gone together, but in '78 it was Dad, my brother, his friend Jay, my high school boyfriend and me. That was also the year we stayed for the Times Square New Year's Eve thing. That was one memorable trip. I had always wondered which hotel we had stayed at, but in one of the boxes I found a little hotel soap for Hotel Edison, which I was VERY surprised to find still exists. I remember that if we pressed the left side of our face against the window we could see the giant Coca-Cola sign on Times Square. I also remember a lot of other stuff that I'm not going to mention here although I think Dad wouldn't mind me telling that story now that he is no longer "here." And besides today is his birthday (Happy Birthday Dad!). I'll save it for a few days.

So going back to my condensing of my momentos from those three boxes, I first started putting stuff in the giant bin. I put two notebooks and my Snoopy lunchbox in and then I realized the rest of the stuff could fit into a tiny box. That's when I realized I could just fit it all into my bedside table which had never been organized anyway. Well, here it all is and as a matter of fact, the stuff I kept is only in the bottom storage box, the notebooks on the left and the Snoopy lunchbox on top of the other storage box:

So how stupid was I to cart around those big cardboard boxes all of these years? A quarter of a century! Maybe it took me that long to be able to throw the rest away. I also discovered that I used to be a Herman addict. I must have found 30 or 40 Herman clippings. And I was meticulous, too. They were all cut out the same way. I don't even remember doing that. I do feel better about getting this done. It was nice to condense it down to the fun and important stuff. And now it's right there by my bed instead of mixed in with a bunch of trash in three different large boxes taking up space in my garage. What took me so long?

Random Friday Goof Gab

Tuesday I was over at the house doing some packing and whatnot and I couldn't find the scissors so I imagined I could find some other scissors that most likely didn't exist and was going through the few drawers left that still have stuff in them and I found THAT.
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I found it inordinately amusing. First I just laughed without really knowing why, and then I thought, well if this isn't the perfect illustration of poor planning, I don't know what is. I tossed it in my purse because it amuses the hell out of me. I think I'll get one of those deep frames for medals or whatever and frame it. I really like it.
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Every night between 11:00 and midnight I go out to water the poor struggling dry crisps flowers on the deck. I can't believe they haven't all burst into flames by now. It's generally not too hot at that time of night, but I have to deal with spider webs and mosquitoes. I usually spray my legs with this lemon body splash I have, and that helps with the mosquitoes, but tonight I got a bite on each arm. Then about an hour ago a giant storm blew up and now it is pouring rain. So I got those bites for nothing! It’s like when I kept having contractions after they told me I had to have a C-section. What was the point?
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So just as I was typing that last paragraph, the cable went out. Now no TV or internet, but I did have the presence of mind to copy and paste this into Word on my computer. I better quit while I’m ahead in case the power goes out.
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Okay, the storm is gone, I'm back on the worldwide.
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XUP did a post about hands so of course I've been looking at my hands a lot. And I mean A LOT. I think my right hand is bigger than my left hand. I mean I knew my ring sizes were different, but I attributed that to use. Like finger muscles I guess. But now I think my right hand is just bigger, like my right foot is bigger than my left. Also something else was bigger on the right, but I had that taken care of when I did that thing I did. I'm just lopsided. Pretty much like this post. TGIF!

It Floats

I just realized something today. My mess and clutter are like a floating seaweed clump in the ocean. With the ocean being my house. My friend/neighbor Carole came over on Tuesday to bring me some delicious homemade Italian Orange Ice and I was happy to show her my clean library. My library has been so cluttered and messy for so long that Carole thought that green chair was new. That chair has always been there, but she could never see it because of the mess. I should be embarrassed, but it was just funny to me. I told my husband when he got home and he thought it was funny too. Now every time I look in there I picture Carole saying, "Is that chair new?" and it cracks me up.
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So I'm all proud of my clean library and then I bring Carole through (to this room) to show her the window view of the new wall that my neighbor put up between our yards, and then I realize that the seaweed clump has drifted in here. This room is horribly cluttered and messy and I never really noticed until I brought Carole in here. How is that? Is all my junk invisible unless someone else is in the room? Am I just moving it around the house without realizing it? My goal this weekend is to declutter every room in the house (except the guest room, hey! I know, don't even say it!). I have to somehow rid my ocean of this clump of seaweed. And since my mess seems to become somewhat invisible to me over time, I should have Carole come over more often so I can see it.

Let the Games Begin

BEIJING - AUGUST 11: (L-R) Cullen Jones, Jason Lezak, Michael Phelps, Garrett Weber-Gale of the United States pose with the gold medal during the medal ceremony for the Men's 4 x 100m Freestyle Relay held at the National Aquatics Center on Day 3 of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 11, 2008 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images) From Yahoo

I probably will not have much to say in the next two weeks because I will be glued to the TV watching the Olympics. It was a family tradition when I was a kid and fortunately I married a man that loves the games like I do. He is even taking three days off this week just to be able to see MORE Olympics! Woot woot! And for all of my Canadian friends, I have been pulling for some of your athletes this weekend. The Olympics is all about sportsmanship over nationality and we have found ourselves rooting for various underdogs over our own athletes. I have really enjoyed this weekend and can't wait to enjoy the rest. If you have never been a fan, please check it out. It's really wonderful.

I Have Questions

I see this sign every time I go to the convenience store near my house. What the heck does it mean? Does it mean you can drop off unwanted babies there? Does it mean no one will come up behind you and grab your chest? I guess I could ask the employees in the store, but I bet they don't know either.

Why do I get so much joy from the grocery store self check-out? I really hate going to the grocery store but I love the self check-out. I always feel like a happy little kid playing with toys. You might think it's just the fact that I'm happy that I am finished shopping, but that's not it. I never feel that way with a cashier. I love how the little beep happens when I pass something over the glass scanner thing. I always wish I had more things to scan. I have no idea why it makes me so joyful.
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Where did this rogue celosia come from and why is it and the plant it is robbing doing so well? This pot is new from last year and has only previously housed cherry tomatoes. This year I planted that shrubby viney thing with the white flowers (I don't know what it is) and this giant rogue celosia showed up one day. I've grown celosia before and it has NEVER looked like that.

You'd think that since this random plant showed up and is growing like gangbusters, the original plant would be doing poorly, but this pot is the best of all of them for lushness. What the heck?
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Why is it that after a week of 105° to 108° that 98° feels pleasant? That doesn't make any sense to me. 98° is still 98°! Shouldn't it still feel hot?
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I'm sure I will have more questions in the future, but those are all of my questions for today. I hope.

Saturday and Friday (in that order)

Saturday I felt like getting up, taking a shower and going out to lunch and running errands. I know that doesn't sound like much to you normal people, but that's a big deal for me. I've been working on that a lot this year. Intellectually, I KNOW my medicine works, but anxiety has a way of playing with you, so my new motto is "just do it." And it has been working for me so far. We went to Ruby Tuesday's because I love their salad bar. After lunch we stopped by Cat's Unlimited so My Sweetie could meet Petey the naked Sphinx Cat. I bought a halter and leash because I've always wanted to try my cats on them to take a little walk outside. Barney just could not deal and kept flopping over, like the leash was some sort of quaalude. Lily, the really weird cat was just fine and walked all over the yard. Cats are weird. Barney is obviously smarter than Lily, yet leashwise, Lily was triumphant. I didn't try Maxie, the inherited cat, because I know he is leash trained already from when my parents were RVing him all over the country.
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There's a new shopping center just north of our house, and I wanted a new liner for My Sweetie's tub and a shower curtain for my shower. Last time, I accidentally bought a frosted one and I was really mad at myself. I like to look out the windows and see the clock when I shower. I also wanted some new hand towels for my bathroom. While I was perusing the shower section I saw a sweet beach shower curtain for a regular bathtub. (I have a shower stall with separate garden tub.) Well, My Sweetie's bathroom has a regular tub and a beach theme. I know. I did a post on decorating mistakes that I saw on HGTV, and inappropriate themes was one of them. Okay so I live in North Texas and have a beach bathroom and a forest bathroom. If you don't like it, you can P somewhere else. Anyway, I bought the old beach-themed shower curtain from the internet and the beach picture did not look as well as it did in a small pic on the net as you can see here:

I know! You can't even tell it's a beach from that picture. Well this is the one I bought on Saturday. This is obviously the beach and I love it. I just love how $19.99 can change a whole room. You can't really do that in any other room. Maybe a kitchen.

As we were walking between PetSmart (for cat grass) and Bed, Bath and Beyond, it was so hot we stopped in a shoe store that was already going out of business. Which was sad considering how new the shopping center was, but once we got inside, I could see why. It was like they had taken a Chinese store and transplanted it in North Texas. it was all these size 4 and 5 funky disco techno shoes. It took forever to find any real shoes. I did find a pair of navy sandals that claimed to be Italian, but who knows? I really needed a pair of navy shoes. They are not flattering at all but I have Fred Flintstone feet and it's just like chocolate icing is not going to be flattering on cabbage. But they will match my clothes.

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We stopped into the Chili's there and I fortified myself with several beers because I think all the doctors tell you that when it is 107 and you are sweating a lot you should drink as many beers as possible. Wait, did I say doctors? I meant the voices in my head. But that's okay because voice #6 surely has a doctorate degree. Anyway I went into the grocery store after that to get all the fixings for peel and eat shrimp and homemade cocktail sauce and seriously, if you like boiled shrimp, make your own cocktail sauce. It's only 4 ingredients and better than anything you can get in a bottle: Chili sauce, fresh squeezed lemon juice, horseradish and a splash of worcestershire sauce. Also while I was at the grocery store, I saw and bought the WORLD'S SMALLEST WATERMELON:

I don't know how they grow such tiny watermelons, but it's great for only two people. I guess since I mentioned my minor emergency from Friday in the comments section of my last post I should explain that. What happened was, I was moving a picture frame across the kitchen counter and caught a half-full bottle of tonic water. It slid off the counter and onto the floor and exploded sending several shards of glass into me. My first main concern was how to get out of there, because I was barefoot and sort of in a corner. Fortunately I was next to the kitchen table which had some magazines on it. I planned to set the magazines down as stepping stones. When I picked up my right foot there was blood all over the tile. Also I had stinging feelings in my left ankle. After I got out of the kitchen I made it to the bathroom and was able to rinse all the glass out of my feet and hands (i had small bits in my knuckles, somehow) in the tub, but the bleeding part of my right foot still had glass in it and it was a spot I could not get to. I have all the phone numbers to my neighbors on a small bulletin board, but it was right over the glass, so I just went outside. I knew Carole was out of town, but I was surprised to find that no one else was home either. Finally I noticed some people doing yard work and hobbled up the hill. I was carrying two types of tweezers and a magnifying glass. Hey, I was a Girl Scout Brownie when I was 7:Be Prepared! Anyway they were very nice and her husband got the glass out and it wasn't as big or long as we all thought it was and I hobbled back home. They were very nice people and I'm sure they thought I was weird as hell. How astute they are! Anyway, that's what that was. And this has gotten ridiculously long. So...

I was going to do a whole post about our long day out today (Saturday, I mean) and how it was so hot, 107 degrees, (no kidding) and I had pictures of my before and after shower curtains in my beach themed bathroom, but I just spent 2 hours working on photos and posting some of the collectibles from Mom's house on Craig's List, so I decided to delay that post and was also wondering how long I could make this sentence. It was pretty long. But I do really love the new shower curtain. I don't know why I don't like doing the Craig's List ads. I feel like I sound like a cheesy 4 am infomercial. But hey! They wouldn't be buying that air time if they weren't making money, right? Right? Who knows? Maybe it's a tax write off. Anyway here are my Craig's List ads if you are curious and any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
http://dallas.craigslist.org/mdf/clt/781012956.html
http://dallas.craigslist.org/mdf/clt/781010630.html
http://dallas.craigslist.org/mdf/clt/781007362.html
http://dallas.craigslist.org/mdf/clt/781003333.html
http://dallas.craigslist.org/mdf/clt/780993448.html

I introduced My Sweetie to Petey the naked Sphinx Cat today. That was fun. I'll tell all the rest later. I am very tired. Happy August everyone and now we are all burning to a crisp. I think it's supposed to be 109 today. Seriously, that's just not appropriate.

Spit Free

I remember in the 70's there was a lot of talk about acid rain. You don't hear much about it anymore, but after Wednesday morning, I'm starting to wonder. See, I park under a crape-myrtle tree and crape-myrtle's spit. I just glanced at the wikipedia entry and it did not mention the spitting, but they do. My doctor's office actually has a crape-myrtle lined sidewalk leading to the door and I hate it because they are spitting all over you. Well they are spitting some serious stuff because it gets all over my windshield.

And you can't get it off. Well unless you have tried everything and figured out what works. Last year, it got really bad and was starting to bother me in the middle of my Meals-on-wheels route. My windshield washer fluid had no effect whatsoever, so I asked one of my clients if she had any rubbing alcohol. I knew that would take it off, and being an old person she had the alcohol, but it did nothing. I was starting to get desperate and when I got home I tried different things and even was afraid that crape-myrtles were spitting out some sort of glass-etching acid or something. But no! Guess what took it right off? Scrub Free.

How weird is that? This stuff is made to clean soap scum in your shower. So I guess crape-myrtle spit is similar chemichaly (is that a word?) to soap scum. That doesn't even make sense. But what do I know? Maybe shampoo is made from crape-myrtle spit. Anyway, getting back to the acid rain thing that I started with (because that's what I was taught in school): Wednesday morning there was a thunderstorm with pouring rain before MOW, and I had it strongly in my head to spray the windshield with Scrub Free because I had gone out on Tuesday and forgot, and it was very annoying. Oh, and I forgot to say that if you drive in the dark with the crape-myrtle spittles all over your windshield, they act as prisms, so when a car is coming towards you, you see trillions of little rainbow circles in front of you. Instead of the important things. Like the ROAD. Oh yeah, back to acid rain. So I go out on Wednesday morning to start putting stuff in my truck (the rain had stopped) and am thinking "DON"T forget the Scrub Free!" and look at my windshield - which had been terrible the day before. AND IT IS PERFECTLY CLEAN.

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The rain had cleaned the crape-myrtle spit off. I thought rain was just water. Apparently not. Now I want to buy a bunch of rain barrels and bottle and sell it as windshield cleaner. I will call it Texas Rain: particularly effective on crape-myrtle spit.

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!