Chores 'n Stuff

Ron made it home safe and sound on Friday afternoon. I guess I should have posted this sooner as there have been a lot of people asking about him! Yes, he is home, and he is doing surprisingly well with the jet lag. Aside from being very tired Friday night, to me he seemed back to normal by Saturday. Well...as normal as he gets anyway!

I learned one thing on Friday night. I knew Ron was existing mostly on sandwiches while in Amsterdam. You pick your bread, you pick your meat and cheese and you slap it all together and call it a meal. While I have no problem with this lifestyle, I know this is not his cup of tea. I imagined that the poor guy would want a substantial meal when he got in, and I don't think he would want to wait for me to cook something after getting home. Friday nights are always challenging when it comes to finding someplace to eat where you don't have to wait an hour for a table. So, I tried something I never have before - call ahead seating.

I called Texas Roadhouse as we were pulling out of the airport and said I'd like a table for two. She gave me a confirmation number, and we just drove leisurely out of the airport and over to the restaurant, maybe a half hour away. We went in, checked in, and had to wait maybe two minutes before we were taken back to our seats. Considering the lobby was packed with people waiting to be seated, this was such a bonus! Hardly any waiting and we were soon sitting with a bucket of fresh peanuts and a basket of warm rolls. Hard to beat that.

Saturday, Ron did have to take a service call in the early evening. Luckily, he was only gone a few hours, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Other than that, the weekend was a good one.

With the time of year, everything at home is growing like crazy. Our grass had to be a good six inches high in spots! Well, I'm afraid of the riding lawn mower and there is no way I'm doing all of that with just a push mower, so the grass was one thing that had to wait for the honey do list for when he got back. (Luckily, I did take care of that spider all by myself that was previously residing in our bathroom, may he rest in peace.)

Sunday it was an absolutely gorgeous day so we headed out for some yard work. In our neighborhood, before you do anything, you have to go out and pick up the crap. With a park a block up the street and a convenience store a block over, plus just idiots driving up and down the street, you never know what you'll find in our yard. You can guarantee though that most of it won't be good for a lawnmower.

I picked up a broken whiskey bottle (and I wasn't able to find all of the pieces of that - what's that about?), an intact beer bottle, a condom wrapper (magnums, thank you very much) candy wrappers, paper cups, juice boxes, homework papers, mysterious plastic pieces, plastic grocery bags, potato chip bags etc. It took me two trips to the garbage with all of this crap. And, it's not like this stuff just piles up out there. We police our yard almost daily, so this is not an uncommon load. As a matter of fact, once Ron even found a dead dog in a garbage bag on our front lawn. I can't even imagine someone's thought process on that one. Thank heavens so far, the only thing I haven't found in our yard have been new or used needles.

Anyway, after the garbage pick up, we start the mowing. Ron does give me the choice of riding the riding mower or pushing the hand mower. The hand mower has to just go around the edges of the grass, by the flower beds, and around all of the trees and sign posts. Trust me, you can get pretty dizzy going around everything twice to give him room with the riding mower to not smack his head on branches in the yard, or not worry about getting in close to a sign post on the tree lawn.

Ron thinks he gets the sweeter deal because he can sit on the mower while I'm out there pushing and getting dizzy. He can't understand why I choose the "harder" job. HA! Because I can be done with my part lickety split and be back to doing other things while he's still riding around! I'm no dummy!! He was only 1/2 done when I was back in the house, kool aid in hand, with the Cubs game on the TV! I still think I got the better end of the work detail.

Ok, the Cubs lost, but they are still in first place (knock wood) in the NL Central Division. Yeah, it's starting out to be a great summer. Welcome home, Ron and GO CUBS!

He's Got My Back

I've lived alone for a long time. So, Ron being gone this week didn't worry me much. There were a few things that I went over with him before he left, just to make sure - like how to shut the water off to the house. But other than emergency procedures like that, I'm jiggy on my own. I'm not afraid to be in the house alone.

That is - except for the basement.

This has nothing to do with the ghosts in our house. I'm even ok with them. But basements have BUGS! Can you say eww? You know I hate bugs. Any bugs. No matter what, there is always something down there be it spiders, roly polys, crickets and remember when we had the bat? It may not be a bug but it's just as bad. For this reason, I try to limit my alone time in the basement. Ron is almost always willing to go to the basement with me if I need to go after dark. I seem to do better if it's light outside but if it's dark, forget about it. I know that more creepy things come out after dark, like that damn bat. At least if I have back up I feel safer.

This blog is a shout out to my brother Jim! Once again, he saved me. He has my back.

Monday night I had gone out to dinner and came home as it was getting dark. A lot of our extra supplies are kept in the basement and I really needed to go grab some of them. Ok, if you must know, I was almost out of toilet paper in the upstairs bathroom so this is now a necessity that I suck it up and go to the basement alone at night.

Just as I get to the bottom of the stairs, my phone rings and it's brother Jim! He was calling to check on me to see how I was handling my alone time. I told him he had perfect timing as I had just walked down to the basement! He knows how I hate bugs having lived with me for how many years. He's killed his share of spiders in my vicinity at the family homestead. Being the good brother that he is, he offered to stay on the line with me, sort of like holding my hand through it via long distance. I was definitely jiggy with that!

With Jim on the phone, I was able to do more than I thought. I grabbed the toilet paper for the upstairs bathroom, I needed more storage bags for the kitchen, I emptied the full dehumidifier in the basement and even went pee all the while on the phone with Jim. I only dropped the phone once!

I told Jim he was my hero for getting me through that stressful situation (yeah, hard to believe I'm over 40, isn't it) and he said anytime I needed to get to the basement for the rest of the week to do laundry or whatever, he'd be on call for babysitting me. Now that's a good brother!

I have another Jim story, less his head now gets too big to fit through a door.

Tuesday evening, I'm up in the computer room, of course playing Pogo. I don't remember what time it was, but it was late. I was already dressed for bed and just playing games and watching tv. I decided to head down to the kitchen for another glass of kool aid (yes, I really am over 40!) and I looked at my phone sitting there on my desk and I was wondering if I should carry it downstairs with me to get my kool aid. Then again, I didn't have pockets so I didn't want to lug it with me. Besides, I'm only going to be two minutes to run downstairs and back up again.

So there I was, in the kitchen in mid pour and I heard a "thud" coming from upstairs. Now what the heck was I supposed to do? Those ghosts that I just got done telling you didn't bother me were suddenly in the front of my mind. I had four cell phones at the house - my two and Ron's two, and all four are upstairs. I got nothing downstairs. Well, I have my axe handle I use to make it to the car when there are dogs around. I don't know how effective it is going to be against a ghost but I thought maybe if it was an intruder I'd have a chance. I grabbed my axe handle and my glass of kool aid and up I went.

I started up the stairs, turning on every light I could. Upstairs, I give a quick look around and nothing seemed grossly out of place. What the heck did I hear? There I was, standing in the hallway when I hear BZZZZZ. Brother Jim had called in that minute it took me to run downstairs. The phone was still on vibrate and while it was ringing, it vibrated itself right off of my desk. With the hard wood floors, the thud was easily heard downstairs in the kitchen! The buzzing I heard from the hallway was my signal that I had a voicemail! Sweet, mystery solved.

Again, my big brother was making sure I was ok. If only he'd have called 30 seconds sooner or waited another 30 seconds until I was back upstairs, I wouldn't have had to name my newest gray hair after him!

Thanks, Jim. For being my big brother with ALL that it entails. And, I know with me as a baby sister, it entails a lot! I'm glad you're always there from me, even from the next state over.

That's Just Wrong, Page 14

I had to stop for gas on my way home last night. It cost me over $50 to fill my tank.

C'mon, people. That's Just Wrong.

That's Just Wrong, Page 13

Another page for my book titled "That's Just Wrong".

Last night I went to dinner with Michael and Mary Jane. Since I was at their house already, we opted for a restaurant just down the street from them, Ruby Tuesday's. Their food has never done that much for me, but I do think they have one of the best salad bars around, especially their honey mustard dressing. Yummy! They also have some of the freshest cottage cheese and while they no longer have raisins on the salad bar, they have substituted craisins (dried cranberries) which are almost as good.

But, I digress. I'm not here talking about the food.

Another bright spot of Ruby Tuesday's is the lamps that were all over the restaurants. Over each table was a beautiful stained glass lamp, each one was different and a more beautiful than the one before it. I've hit my head on many of them getting in or out of a booth, but that's not what I'm complaining about today either. I am complaining because we went to the restaurant expecting to get to enjoy the beauty of all of these lamps while we had dinner.

But that didn't happen. This Ruby Tuesday's has been remodeled. No more stained glass lamps. They have been replaced with, I'm trying to quote Michael here, "replaced with something that my own mother threw out over 20 years ago". Yeah, that's bad. But, it gets worse.

Michael, a connoisseur of stained glass, asked our server Katie, what had happened to all of the lamps and if they were for sale. Here is the "That's Just Wrong" part.

According to Katie, the employees were offered a lamp at a low, low, LOW cost of $100 each. I imagine that's a lot of money for a server at Ruby Tuesday's, but it would be a great investment for anyone that could have scraped up that money. When the employees returned to work the following day, they found out that ALL of the lamps had been taken to the dumpster and thrown out! What?

First, if you're going just going to throw out the lamps, why tell the employees that they can have them for $100 a pop? Just freakin' give them the lamps! Or, auction or ebay or garage sale them off. If the company doesn't want the profits from the sales of the lamps, donate the proceeds to the nearest food bank or other charity of your choice. But to throw them out??

According to our source inside (that would be Katie!) she said that two older ladies were seen back at the dumpster hauling out the booty and loading up their cars. At least they know a great value when they see them.

So, to Ruby Tuesday's on Abbe Road in Elyria - shame on you. To throw out these beautiful pieces of art, That's Just Wrong.

Quiet Weekend

Ron left for Amsterdam Saturday afternoon. The good news is that he did get in safe and sound and according to Ron, the Nicorette Gum worked great on this trip! It definitely helped him get through the long plane ride rather than suffer with no smoking like he did on our trip to California.

So, I get to be a bachelorette for awhile. It's good to have some alone time now and again.

The weekend was quiet, and I didn't get into any trouble. However, while Ron and I were messaging on the computer yesterday afternoon, I told him that the "honey do" list is starting already for when he gets back. The first and only item on that list so far?

Do something about that spider in the bathroom!

Who Are You? Who? Who? Who? Who?

Don't we all just love Who Are You by The Who? Ok, maybe not everyone loves it, but I sure do. I love it so much in fact, that every Thursday after we watch Survivor, I have to turn the TV up really loud to hear that song as it plays as the theme song to CSI! (CSI comes on right after Survivor in case not everyone knew that!) And what do I do while the song is playing?

While I sing of course!

Loudly AND badly! The joke is always after the song I turn to Ron and ask him if any of the notes I just sang were on key! Sometimes I think I'm having a good night and I think I might have hit one or two of them! However, Ron at least is honest with me and will usually tell me the truth that while none of them were actually on the key they should have been, maybe I did get close on a couple! Hey, good enough for me.

That's fine while we're in the house, just the two of us. Poor guy has to put up with a lot of things from me, my terrible singing voice just being one of them things.

Let's fast forward to today. I'm just having a bad work day. I don't want to be here and I definitely don't want to be here stuck in a room with the two dufuses. There is not one healthy cell between them at the moment. I get to spend my day listening to the both of them hacking, coughing, snorting, noses blowing, hacking, choking. Yeah, have you ever heard of a sick day? Geez.

To top that off, listening to the two of them talk to each other can some days be exasperating. Today just happens to be a day that I just don't want to deal with the two of them. So what do I do?

I put my headphones on and tune into an internet radio station just to tune them out. Before you start thinking that I am more technologically advanced than I am, this is a trick I've just recently figured out. In case anyone is slower with technology than I am, it's part of the Windows Media Player. Somewhere on there is an option for internet radio. Once you're there, you can choose different stations listed under different genres. The cool thing is no talking (on the music stations at least!) and as far as commercials go, you just get the station promos after every five songs or so to identify the station you are listening to. I don't know one from another, so I just picked a classic rock station that stated they played everything from Aerosmith to ZZ Top! Most excellent! I am old! This is MY kind of music!

So, headphones are in and I am trying not to jam while working. They have really been playing one great song after another! And then it happened. Suddenly I heard "WHO ARE YOU? WHO? WHO? WHO? WHO?" Do you have any idea how much intestinal fortitude it took for me to not join in and sing loudly and badly? C'mon now! I can just imagine the reaction I'd get if I started to sing like I do at home!

I put both hands over my mouth for a few minutes and enjoyed the rest of the song. Who knew I could play music that loudly on my earphones!

By the way, it is pretty difficult to analyze tax codes while jamming to The Who. That's why I had to take a break to blog before going back to it. Uh oh. Golden Earring is playing Radar Love! Yeah, my break just got extended by 3 minutes.

I've been drivin' all night, my hand's wet on the wheel

There's a voice in my head that drives my heel

It's my baby callin', says I need you here

And it's a half past four and I'm shiftin' gear

God, I hope all my singing that I hear is all in my head!

I Screamed!

It was about 10:30 last night and Ron and I were in bed for the night with me already half asleep.

Then his work phone started ringing.

As much as I sometimes envy him with his job, last night was not one of those nights. At least I don't get woken up at all hours of the night and have to immediately throw on some clothes and be out the door.

Not being a good girlfriend last night, I said yeah, whatever, be careful, lock the door, see you in the morning. Then I rolled over and was probably asleep before he made it down the stairs. Hey, why should both of us miss sleep??

Then, before I knew it, something woke me up. I opened my eyes, noticed it was dark and quiet in the house and then I saw something. A MAN standing there, in the dark, next to the bed! Holy crap, what do I do? I'll tell you what I did! I SCREAMED!

Once Ron peeled himself off of the ceiling, I heard his voice saying "it's ok honey, it's just ME!" at which time he turned the light on so I could see it was only him. Whew!

I know, I'm usually the one complaining that he's waking me up when he comes to bed with turning all the lights on and all that. So, for once, the guy tries sneaking back in so as not to wake me and what do I do? I about give him a heart attack with a blood curdling scream!

So, it was a heck of a night at our house last week. Both of our blood pressures were through the roof after that fiasco! But, I did get a back rub out of it, so in the light of day, it's hard to be too upset about it.

And, from now on, maybe we come to a new agreement. If he's coming home in the middle of the night, maybe bells on his boots would be a good start. Then turning on all of the lights in the house on his way up while he sings a jingle! Like that song for freecreditreport.com. I love that song! Then I'd know it was him and no screaming would be necessary.

Have You Driven A Ford, Lately?

This might piss off a Ford owner or two but oh well.

For whatever it's worth, I don't drive a Ford, I've never owned a Ford and as a matter of fact, my Dad always used to say "I'd rather push a Chevy than drive a Ford". In my younger days I was sort of afraid to go against him on the Ford issue and then by the time I bought my Honda I think Alzheimer's already had taken him to the point of no longer caring about Ford.

To be honest, I've had no feelings about Ford one way or the other aside from laughing at the jokes told at their expense like "Found On Road Dead" or "Fix Or Repair Daily". That is until recently when something has been brought to my attention about Ford.

A friend of mine said to check out the cars driving like idiots around you. I don't mean just anyone who is driving faster or slower than you are. I mean the people that anyone can classify as an idiot driving that car. Chances are, they are driving a Ford.

I have absolutely no scientific proof to back this up, just my own observations. Just in the last few weeks alone, here are some of my observations about Fords.

I posted a bit ago about that idiot flying down the road, weaving in and out of traffic in a 35 mph zone and actually getting pulled over by the police? I said I beeped and waved while going by him! Yep, he was driving a Ford.

One day last week, I was heading to work on the Turnpike. Three lanes wide, I'm in the center lane with my cruise control set at 70 mph in a 65 mph zone and there are no other cars anywhere near me. Suddenly, out of nowhere, this black truck comes zooming up on me and has to get so close to me that I no longer see headlights; all I see is his grill. Doing seventy down the freeway, and he has to ride my ass to the point of me starting to have heart failure. There is an empty lane on either side of me but he decides he wants to see if he can kiss my Honda's bumper. Finally he screeches over to the left lane and zooms on by. What was he driving? Yeah, a Ford.

Today at lunch, I ran over to my bank down the street. I have a check to deposit and I am ready to go. Deposit slip is already filled out and the check is signed. For an easy transaction like that during business hours I figure what the heck, I'll go to the drive thru teller. I'm pulling into the bank from a side street. There is a white car just inside of the driveway, just sitting there. A good forty feet in front of this white car are two open drive thru lanes and an ATM lane. Drive thru lane # 1 has a car in it so instead of leaving my car blocking traffic any longer on the side street, I pull around the white car and into drive thru lane # 2. My slips are ready, I grab the plastic thingie, put my check and deposit slip in, put it back on the launch pad and hit send. Whoosh and away it goes. Now I look behind me and the white car is just pulling up behind me and as she gets closer, she flips me the bird! WTF was that about? If you're not ready, park your freakin' car. Don't just stop in a traffic lane and expect everyone to stop traffic in the bank lot and on the street for you to decide what you're going to do. I ignored her and then the car in drive thru lane # 1 pulled out and it was only me. She stayed behind me for a minute then backed up and pulled over to the empty lane to my left. Just as she's doing that, whoosh, I have my receipt. As I'm pulling out, I have to turn left to get out, so now she is outside of my driver's window. I check what kind of car she is driving and you guessed it! It was a Ford! I smiled, waved goodbye to her and drove back to work.

I could go on and on, but try it yourself. Not every idiot driver is a Ford driver. But most of them are! Let me know the results of your own observations!

Freecycle? HA! Ain't Nothing Ever Free

It started out as a good idea.

I heard about Freecycle through someone's blog (I'm not mentioning your name!!) and I thought it was a great idea. It's a free service where people give and get stuff for free. You have something you want to get rid of? Post it on freecycle and someone will take it. You need something for free? Chances are, someone on freecycle has it for you to take.

See? A good idea. In theory. I have stuff at the house I want to get rid of. It's too good to just put in the garbage. In just being too lazy to take it to Salvation Army or Knights of Columbus or some other benevolent organization, I thought I'd post stuff and let them come pick it up at the house. HA! Has anyone sensed any sarcasm in the title of this blog? Nothing is that easy.

I signed up for freecycle and I have regretted it ever since. See, instead of what I think it the prudent way to do things, such as post all of this crap on your website and let people come to your website to look and see what they want or to post their unwanted items, yahoo thinks the way to go is to take each of those posts that happen in a day and email them to every single member who has signed up for this service.

I am getting 30 to 40 e-mails a day now. If you were to open one of these infuriating emails, you would see a link at the bottom that states "unsubscribe". Gee, that sounds easy. Do you think it would work? NO. I've already "unsubscribed" over 30 times already. In that same email is a link that goes to where you need to change your settings. However, in order to change your settings, you need a yahoo login! Hello? You let me sign up for this piece of crap service without a yahoo login but in order to change my setting I need a yahoo login? Fine. I get yet another email address I will never check. I go to my settings. I see an option to make my account a "web only" account which means no more e-mails. If I want to find something, I need to go to the web to do it. Excellent! That's what I'm talking about. However, I've changed my settings to "web only" three times already. The daily emails are a reminder that no one is paying attention to that setting.

When you first join this exasperating website, you get five or six emails with terms and conditions and dos and don'ts. Each local version of freecycle has a moderator who is supposed to monitor the website and who you could go to with questions. Herein lies another joke of freecycle.

I have repeatedly gone to my moderator. First I get that it's an easy fix (as if I'm that much of a dumbass) and all I need to do is to hit the unsubscribe link on any of the incoming emails. Of course, I countered with the fact that I have followed the link to unsubscribe. Over 30 times! And, I've also copied and pasted the address into an e-mail numerous time in case the link just doesn't work. Yeah, been there, done that.

I got no reply to this message. So, I tried again stating that I am continuing to hit unsubscribe as well as going into my account via yahoo and choosing the setting of web only. If he/she can't help me, please send along another contact name and number that I can reach to resolve this issue.

Now I've pissed he/she off. First I'm told to quit yelling at him/her. Honey, it's email for crying out loud! I'm not typing in all caps, so I'm not yelling! I'm frustrated! I want you to go away but you won't go! He/she is trying to "investigate" and so far has verified that my account is set to web only and it must be a glitch in yahoo as to why I continue to receive these emails. He/she has requested that my account has been deleted. Great. Will this happen in my lifetime by chance?

So far, I'm not deleted. I continue to receive these emails (so far we're up to 10 today since 7:00 a.m.) and I continue to feel as if I'm just banging my head on the keyboard.

So, now what do I do? How do I make it stop? The only answer I can come up with is to violate their terms and conditions. Per the T&C, live pets are prohibited from their website as is any pornography. So, should I post unwanted pets and pornography? Maybe that will get Chris from freecycle to do something about this!

Any other suggestions? My head is getting misshapen from all the banging on the keyboard!

It's Finally Here!

Do you realize that today is? This is the day I have been waiting for 180 days to finally happen! Today is the opening day!! Yes, baseball season is upon us once again.

My beloved Cubs were the winners of the National League Central Division last year. Can they do it again this year? Can this be our fabled "wait until next year" year? Could we go all the way this year? Holy crap, it's all possible - at least for today!

Today will be a day thinking of Mom for sure. I used to take opening day as a sick day and Mom and I would watch opening day together. I'm not taking today off, but I will be watching the major league baseball's website and will be keeping up with what's going on in the game.

Today is the day. It's a day full of hopes and dreams for all baseball fans. Today the slate is clean and we're all tied for first place. This could be our year, people! Zambrano is looking good taking the mound today for the boys in blue. Yeah, it's finally here! Now let's PLAY BALL!!

Sightings From The Road

Not much has been happening lately. However, my drives to work have given me points to ponder.

Point # 1 - The other day, I was driving to work and I am stopped at a red light. I noticed the silver mini van behind me was inching closer and closer and closer and I was afraid it was going to hit me. I looked in my rear view mirror to see if this soccer mom had her hands full with a van packed with kids or what when I noticed there was no soccer mom driving the van. No, instead was a 40 year old man (obviously I'm guessing his age) who was too busy using his rear view mirror to make sure he was trimming his beard correctly to bother watching traffic or keeping his foot on that pesky brake. There is a lot of work involved in holding out one errant hair on the side of his face to trim it close and tight to the rest of the beard. Or, moving your nose to the side to make sure the top of your moustache lines up with . . . what? Ok, as much as I am complaining about this, car # 3 in line had to honk that the light had turned green because I was too busy watching the guy behind me trimming his beard at the red light. Thank goodness the next light was red so we could all go back to what we were doing. Me watching the guy in the van, him trimming, third car watching the light. That was fun!

Point # 2 - Another day this week, driving to work, I'm again stopped at a red light. This time, I'm behind a limo town car and I'm over a little bit more to the left and have a good view of the driver in his side mirror. The only reason I mention this one is because looking at him in his mirror I couldn't help but see that he had a knit cap on his head and all around the knit cap was skull and cross bones. Um, I'm not a limo expert, but if I'm paying for some guy to drive me somewhere in a fancy car, I'm not sure I want him wearing skulls and cross bones. Call me silly, but I don't wanna see it. Maybe that's why I just drive myself in my Honda.

Point # 3 - This one happened this morning on the way to work. I'm on the turnpike, minding my own business, cruise control set at 70 (in a 65 zone) when I see a police car in the turn around spot between the concrete barriers separating the east and west bound traffic. I am east bound, the police car is sitting north/south and facing the west bound traffic. I would say generally, when the officer is pointing at the west bound traffic, his radar gun would be aimed out his passenger side window to see all the cars heading westbound. Then, if someone was speeding, all he had to do was put the car in drive and go after him. That also means that the cars passing behind him in the east bound lane usually don't slow down too much. The good thing about setting that cruise control at 70, I don't worry about seeing the police. I don't feel I'm going to get pulled over for five miles per hour over the limit. However, as I was passing this officer, I see he does not have his radar gun pointed to the westbound traffic! He actually has his radar gun pointed out the driver's side watching our east bound traffic! That's like cheating! I'm surprised he'd want to back up onto the shoulder to go forward to chase someone in our direction, but that's what he was doing. Tricky, huh? I bet he filled his quota today with this fake out.

At least my drives home have been uneventful.

Oops! My Fault

My car has been emitting a smell - sort of like spoiled milk, when the temperatures are getting to about forty degrees. I know I spilled a couple of cups of coffee in my car, and even though I drink my coffee black, I couldn't think of what else could cause the smell. So, I made an appointment for my local detailer to detail the inside of the car.

As I had posted before, everything inside of the car has been damp and difficult to get to dry up with all of the snow and rain we've been having. One thing I found that helped is when I garage the car at night, I have kept all of the windows open and after a few nights, that did the job and the inside carpets and seats finally dried.

Friday, I finally got around to taking the floor mats out of the trunk and putting them where they belong inside of the car. Unfortunately, when I lifted the floor mats out of the trunk, I realized that the carpet in the trunk was still damp. If open windows worked once, an open trunk should also work. So, Friday afternoon when we got home I garaged the car, opened the trunk and shut the garage door thinking the trunk will be dry next time I go into the car. Unfortunately, the car was never moved all weekend.

Um, does anyone realize that your trunk when open has a little light inside? However small that light might be, it will continuously drain the battery for the entire time the light is on? Yeah, I just found that out too.

I went to go to work this morning and I tried to unlock my car door. The light on the clicker on my key ring was flashing so I know I had battery power there. However, nothing was happening with my locks. I unlocked the door the old fashioned way, with the key, and reached to the inside button that will unlock all of the doors at the same time. Nothing happened. I again manually opened the back door of my car, put my lap top bag on the floor in the back seat, and went back in the house to tell Ron that I think my locks were frozen or broken. He offered to come out and look at them, but figuring I'm already late for work, I'll just hope for the best for the busted locks today and we can worry about it tonight when I get home.

I go back out to my car, sit down, buckle up, and put my key in the ignition. As soon as you start to turn the key, all of the dashboard lights light up. Uh, that didn't quite happen. There was a faint glow perhaps, but definitely no lit up dashboard. A turn of the key brought no familiar vroom sound. Uh oh. Manually locking the car back up, I ran back to Ron. Even I could figure out that I think it's the battery in the car that is on the fritz.

I am nose first into the garage and the floor of the garage is a good three inches lower than the driveway. This means we can't jump start the car nor can we push it out of the garage with the two of us to jump start it in the driveway. Luckily Ron has a battery charger and he hooked that up to my car and said we just have to wait. I called work to let them know of my dilemma and went back inside to watch the Today show!

Just as Monk was coming on and I was getting ready to sit and enjoy and have breakfast, Ron went to check the car. He came right back in to tell me the car was running and good to go. What? I thought I could get a half a day out of this! Bummer! Since you should never leave a running car unattended in my neighborhood, I grabbed my coat and headed out the door. I'm worrying about having to buy a new battery today and worrying if I will make it home from work when Ron says "by the way, did you ever shut your trunk or was that light on all weekend?" Um, oops! It suddenly all made sense.

Yeah, my fault. I can't blame this on anyone. Who'd have thought? At least there is good news out of this. My trunk is dry.

Score One For The Little Guys

The other day I was coming home from work, and for once, the police were in the right spot at the right time!

Obviously, that means I wasn't the one that was speeding.

Just about every day, I am on this four lane road. I'm not sure if you'd classify it as a highway as the speed limit is only 35 mph on this road. It's sort of rural/residential/farm land/commercial. Yeah, a little bit of everything. What it is though, is a well traveled piece of road that goes from two lanes to four lanes and then back to two lanes.

As I was heading home, just after it went from two lanes to four lanes, some idiot in a big black Ford SUV came flying down the road. There is a good amount of traffic on this road, and to be honest, we were all going between 40 and 45 mph. This SUV had to be going 80 easily as he dodged back and forth between lanes zooming in and out between all of the traffic; he passed me like I was standing still. A real idiot, if I do say so myself. It's one thing to drive too fast, but by him just being an idiot, he truly did put all of our lives in danger with the erratic behavior.

Lo and behold, a few short miles down the road, I see flashing red and blue lights. The traffic from the right lane is moving into the left lane. Sure enough, a State Police officer had his idiot pulled over and the officer was just making his way to the guy's window.

What did I do to show this officer my appreciation for keeping us all safe and for showing this scofflaw that this behavior will not be tolerated? I rolled down my window, stuck my left arm out, waved at the scofflaw and laid on my horn like like no one's business of course!

Thanks to the Ohio State Police for once, being in the right place at the right time. You made my day!

No, I Did Not Pee My Pants

Yes, the backside of my pants is wet as I type this, but no, I did not pee myself.

My car has had a bad odor for the past week, sort of like spoiled milk. I took it to my neighborhood detailers yesterday for them to give the car a good inside detailing. This includes shampooing the carpets and floor mats, shampooing the seats, getting into all the nooks and crannies with the armor all or some similar product. And, it comes back smelling like a new car to boot! Bonus all around.

Ron and I dropped the car off Sunday night. The fact that I could reach into the key drop and pick my key right back up again didn't scare me in the least. Ok, yeah, I had my speech ready to give to the police to explain my stolen car, but I digress. The shop did call me yesterday afternoon to say that the car was ready and they closed at five. As if I needed an excuse to leave work early, Ron picked me up before 4:00 to make sure we got to the shop by 5:00.

The guy explained that the windows were open in my car and I should leave them open for the night to facilitate the carpets and seats drying. My floor mats are in the trunk and as soon as the carpets were completely dry, I could feel free to return them to the car. There was a plastic mat on the floor and a plastic covering over the driver's seat. It's a good thing I didn't have to drive far as I was having a heck of a time staying on the seat covered in plastic! But, I did manage to get the car home in one piece and into the garage for the night. I left the windows open a couple of inches and then took out the plastic covers in the car and threw them out. By morning, I was confident that all would be dry in my world.

Well, the weather didn't cooperate. We are having flash flood warnings all over the area due to the excessive rain. But, my car was in a garage which believe it or not does not have a leaking roof so maybe I'd get lucky and the car would be dry. I didn't take the time to put the floor mats back in. As a matter of fact, all I grabbed was my toll card so that I could get on the turnpike. I didn't even grab my garage door opener, so I had to get out of my car in the pouring rain to shut the garage door! (Hey honey! If you're reading this, how about popping that door open for me when I get home tonight!! Yes, I am spoiled!)

So, I'm in my car, windows are shut again, and I start my trek to work. The drive takes me 40-45 minutes and I'm not even 10 minutes into it when I feel something funny. Not funny as in ha-ha just funny. Yes, my ass is wet already. I slide a hand under my butt and sure enough, my seat is still very damp which of course means my pants are now very damp. Plus, I'm sure they put something like scotch guard on my seat so now I'm sitting in my office on my leather chair (actually, it's probably vinyl) and all I'm doing is squeaking every time I move on my chair. And my butt is damp. And not in a good way. HA!

In hindsight (no pun intended) it's good to walk into work and the first words out of my mouth were "no, I didn't pee myself!" Yeah, that sure makes them wonder about you for the rest of the day.

Beam Me Up, Scotty

Our house has not been fun this week.

I am back to work today, since my fever finally subsided this morning. I guess that’s the good and the bad news.

Let’s talk about cold medicines though.

My family has always been supporters of NyQuil. As good as NyQuil is for making you sleep when you’re sick and taking care of all of those symptoms of the creeping cruds, for me it has one horrific side effect. It gives me nightmares.

I don’t just mean lochness kind of monster nightmares, but wake-up-screaming kind of nightmares. You do that for a few nights and you won’t take NyQuil anymore either.

I’ve switched to a comparable brand, Tylenol Cold and Flu. It’s the same kind of medicine, a multi-symptom cold relief. This at least won’t make me wake up screaming for mercy.

However, it does mess with my mind. Every night and during every nap, my mind has just gone wild with crazy thoughts. The dreams are so realistic that I even woke up scared half to death yesterday afternoon and I was crying.

I can’t remember all of them now, but some of the biggies include:

- Hiding in the attic of the house I grew up in. I’m not sure who I was hiding from or why, but I went through the door in the kitchen up to the attic and blocked the door back to the kitchen. I should have been safe there, but suddenly, almost all of the cousins I’ve grown up with (and now their families) had come looking for me up in the attic. I was going crazy, worrying about my hiding spot and then how did they get up there with the door blocked? I was told they all came up through the new stairway they put from the living room to the attic. What new stairway? My brother Jim in my dream was hiding in the attic with me and I started asking him about why didn’t he ever tell me they put a new stair way from the living room and he told me it was on a need to know basis and obviously, I didn’t need to know! Just like a brother, huh?

- I was working, but in a lobby of a big building, waiting for someone. I don’t know who I was waiting on, but I am assuming it was a client. The next thing I know, security comes and rousts me from the comfy chair in the lobby and manhandles me out of the lobby and into a freight elevator. They told me I was going to be sorry for not listening and being where I wasn’t supposed to be. I was being crushed into the corner of this freight elevator when suddenly the security goons left me, pushed a button and the entire floor of this elevator except for a tiny ledge all disappeared. Do you have any idea how afraid of heights I am? Here I am, barely standing on this ledge, and I’m told to stay there. Buddy, I ain’t moving anywhere! I start to shake, and all I can do is imagine falling through this elevator shaft. I start crying and pleading with them to explain what I did wrong and why were they doing this?

Ok, in hindsight (and the light of day) neither of these sounds so bad. But when you’re the one in the middle of the dream, it’s made one afraid to shut their eyes at night. And to think this is SO much better than the NyQuil!

Last night, I didn’t take any meds. I still feel like I’ve gone 10 rounds with Lennox Lewis and I didn’t sleep hardly a wink last night. But at least this morning the fever did finally break so I don’t need the meds any longer.

Damn, I’m getting too old to be sick; too old to dream.

How Sick Is He?

I guess it was Thursday night that Ron started feeling punk. Friday he was much worse and by Saturday he was down for the count. I came into it on Sunday and now today on Monday I am feeling like he was Friday. I just know from watching him all the good things coming to me in the next few days.

I guess I didn't realize just how down he was until I started to think about it today.

Let's back up. We all know I'm addicted to TV, especially reality TV. And, there is nothing better for me than a marathon TV day especially when it's a reality show marathon! You know those days when a channel will play an entire season of a show all in one day, back to back to back.

First, Ron doesn't care for TV. And, aside from American Idol which he tolerates, he really hates reality TV even more than regular TV! Oh, the things he has to put up with for me!

Yesterday with both of us feeling punk, Ron was laid out on the couch and I was kicked back in the recliner. What did we watch all day? A marathon of Beauty and the Geek! We are really hitting low to watch like 10 hours of that all day long! I of course was jiggy with it. I think the remote control was just out of reach for him. Then again, I don't know if he'd have had the strength to push a button on the remote even if I'd have gotten up for it.

So, that's how sick our house is right now. Stay away for your own good! Luckily I did make a huge pot of chicken noodle soup on Saturday which has been sustaining us. Other than that, we're downing the Tylenol and chicken soup and hope to be back in the land of the living by the end of the week.

I Fixed It!!

Yes, that's right! ME! I fixed it!

Let me back up a bit by saying that one heck of a blizzard started Friday afternoon. This blizzard is expected to be blowing and bringing misery to this area until Sunday. Here we are Saturday afternoon and boy, they weren't lying. We are snowed in and not going anywhere.

Friday after dinner, Ron remembered a battery charger in the garage that needed to be shut off. He was going to get dressed and go out and do it. Well, unfortunately Ron has also come down with a case of the creeping cruds. Since he was sick, I thought it better that I go outside and turn off whatever needed turned off.

I put my sneakers back on (bad idea - should have been boots) and trudged back to the garage, about 15 feet behind the house. The snow was up over my ankles so I figured that we were indeed in for a bad night. I went into the garage and did what needed done. There is a switch on the inside wall of the garage next to the bay door. I usually hit that switch on my way out of the garage and the garage door goes down. Last night, I hit that switch and started to walk back to the house. As I got to the door, I turned to look at the garage and lo and behold the door was on its way back up again! What's up with that? I hit the switch inside of my back door and watched the garage door go back down. Hmm.

The garage door has safety sensors that are low and next to the track of the garage door. If anything is in front of the sensors while the door is coming down, the door will go right back up. My first thought was that a small animal or one of the neighborhood cats had maybe run into the garage while the door was coming down, causing the door to go back up again. This actually happened once before, but the cat came shooting back out once I hit the button from inside the house to shut the door again. Since I didn't see anything come shooting out of the garage when I hit the button again, I assumed it was just snow blowing in the garage as it was very windy last night.

I didn't think much about it until about 11:00 last night. You know my OCD and my looking out of the windows. This is one of the reasons I MUST look out of the windows! I looked out our bedroom window and the dang garage door was open again! Hey, in this neighborhood, even in a blizzard, I would not leave that door or any door open.

My first response was to go downstairs to the mudroom where we have a numeric keypad that will also open and close the garage door. I punched in the code, watched the door come down and go right back up again. Now I'm on a mission.

With Ron feeling like poop, I said I'm going to fix this problem. Ron in turn, said he'd stand in the window which faces the garage and offer advice from inside. I put my boots on and zipped up my coat and out I went into the elements.

I grabbed the shovel in the garage thinking my problem is the snow on the ground where the door comes down. I shoveled out quite a bit of snow from the entrance and tried to shut the door. Down and right back up again. I shoveled more. Same result. My gloved hands pushed all of the show and ice out and took it right down to the pavement. Still no good. Ron is telling me to check the sensors. With a gloved finger, I just rubbed each of the two sensors, sort of like cleaning the lens. I hit the button one more time and it stayed down! Blizzard or no blizzard, I was doing a happy dance in my driveway! I DID IT! ME! I don't usually do anything right! No Ron, no brother, ME! It may sound silly, but it was damn empowering. I walked into the house to find Ron sitting in the dining room putting his boots on. HA! Take 'em back off, buddy. I DID IT!

That was my excitement for Friday night. Now it's Saturday and it's much worse than it was last night.

Below is a picture of the two foot high snow drift sitting on our front porch. I hope you don't need either of us this weekend because we aren't going anywhere.

My Voice Was Heard

Tuesday, as most of you know, was election day here in Ohio.

Election Day. Wow. Look at the ballots, people! One way or another, whoever gets voted in, we are all part of history in the making here! I don't want to hear you can't get excited about any of the candidates. You need to GET excited because one of them will be leading our country very soon. And, yes, that affects you and me and every one else in the country and in this world. Choices will be made on the budgets, on health care, on the economy, and in war. You should have a say in who is going to squander your money and fight wars no one wants.

Since I vote, I have every right to bitch when things don't go my way. My vote counts; my opinion matters. As a home owner, suddenly I'm aware of tax levies and how they affect me personally. It's really quite a responsibility to walk into a voting booth and vote on what you believe to be right and good for the community. It's a responsibility, an honor, a privilege. So, if you haven't had voting in your state yet, make sure you get out and VOTE when your day comes.

Ok, off of my soapbox.

The only downside to voting is the pollsters. I just don't know about them. I resent them running after me to tell me to vote for Joe Smith or Sally Jones or whomever. If I don't know who I'm voting for when I pull up to the polling facility then shame on me. They yell and shout and try to give you handouts that you're not allowed to walk into the polls with anyway! You need to get a tag team going - Ron goes one way to try to draw the crowd of pollsters away while I have a breakaway to the door! Then I need to sneak back in to distract the mob while Ron makes a getaway. We almost have it down to a science!

Anyway, this election, Ron was smart and went to vote earlier in the day when the lines were down and the weather hadn't gotten too bad yet. By the time I got off of work, the ice storm had hit and hit hard.

I had to break the ice that was covering my car to just get in the car. Brother Jim experienced the same ice storm the next morning. The pictures are courtesy of Jim, of him trying to get into his vehicle! This one is how his entire vehicle was sheathed in ice. You sometimes have to break your way into the car!

And below, once you get in, you turn on your front and rear defrosters full blast to help melt some of the ice from the inside of the windshield. That will loosen all of the ice on the windshield and in a perfect day, you can "break" the ice and it will come off in big sheets. On not so perfect days, you will scrape and scrape and scrape to get that crap off. It's ugly.

So that is what I was faced with when I left my office. Follow that with a harrowing drive home due to the slick roads and the freezing rain and hail and high winds. My poor little Honda was getting blown all over the place. It was really hard to keep the car on the road.

In spite of that, I went directly to the polls. I took my umbrella (which in hindsight was not so good of an idea) and tried to walk across a parking lot of sheer ice to get into the building. Picture me, inside out umbrella acting like a sail, and literally being blown across the icy lot. That is some dedication to go vote! The up side to all of this is that for the first time in my voting life, there was not ONE pollster standing out there! Wimps!

So, my voice was heard. I was soaked, I was cold and I was tired. But at least someone heard my voice.

Vote For Me!

I have a more important story about voting today, but this story is on my mind right now.

While I was at the booth casting my votes today, I came across the position of coroner. According to the website dictionary.com, the definition of coroner is: "an officer, as of a county or municipality, whose chief function is to investigate by inquest, as before a jury, any death not clearly resulting from natural causes". Gee, call me silly but it sounds to me like there should be some kind of training or qualifications needed in order to be a coroner. It shouldn't be someone who wants to run for office and doesn't know what they're doing, albeit like most politicians. But I digress.

While I came across the position for coroner, I saw the note by the voting blocks that stated there are no candidates for this position. All of a sudden, my mind went into overdrive! I am going to write my OWN name in that spot and vote for ME! Yes the notoriety, the accolades, the money, the TV show (cue Quincy theme music here) yes, all for me! The hell with auditing! My next career is coroner! I was out of my mind!

Then reality hit.

My nephew had quite a scare from writing his name into a position for Crawford County Assessor last year. Luckily, I remembered his story just in the nick of time.

Whew. Thanks, Michael! You just saved my life! Besides, I wouldn't make a good coroner. I hate the sight of blood.

Did You Hear That Beep?

Well, neither did I!

I woke up the other night to see Ron standing on my side of the bed using his cell phone as a light looking for something.

"What in the hell are you doing" or words to the effect came outta my half asleep mouth. Ron stated that he kept hearing this beeping sound and he's looking for where the beep is coming from. Unfortunately, the beep only happened about every minute or so, making it difficult to follow the sound to the source.

Finally, he decided that the beep sounded like a cell phone beeping that the battery is low. And, since he had both of his cell phones in his hands, I was looking like the guilty party.

I know I was a bad girl that night getting ready for bed. My slacks ended up in a pile on the floor in the corner of the bedroom with my cell phone in my left pocket. Since that is not a place you usually find my slacks or my phone, he was aiming the light from his cell phone at my night table, thinking of course, that would be the obvious place to find my phone. However, three in the morning or not, I had to join him out of bed and look for my phone.

Sure enough, it was me! I woke Ron up at three in the morning because MY phone was running out of battery on the floor of the bedroom. Sorry honey!

My bad.

Welcome To My World

Every day, at least twice a day, I have to survey my world. It's part of my OCD! Every night before getting into bed, I walk by my bedroom window and I have to open the blinds, look outside and make sure all is right with my world. The first thing I do when I get out of bed in the morning, is open those same blinds and once again look outside and make sure all is right with my world.

We had snow last night. A lot of snow. This picture is what I saw out of my bedroom window this morning.

Say what you will about the snow, it may be cold, it may make driving horrendous, but it is beautiful to look at, especially through a window. The view above is a view from the back of the house, straight back out of my window. You can see a little bit of Ron's snow covered van parked right in front of our plum trees in the bottom left and our garage on the bottom right.

The view above is out my window looking to the left. You can see the side street up towards the top left as well as our neighbor's house and again, our plum trees on the bottom right. I am hoping to get those plum trees out of there this year and replace them with maybe some kind of fir trees, but that's a story for another post.

So, now I am fully awake and very aware of the snow situation. That does something in helping you get your butt out of bed and into gear. The snow didn't look so deep that I was afraid to get out of the garage and down the driveway, but as anyone who has lived in snow country before knows, the hard part is the bottom of the driveway mess!

Our street is an emergency route as there is a long stretch of nine blocks with no stop signs or lights. That means that the ambulances, police cars and fire trucks all love to zoom up and down our street as well as a lot of other traffic trying to avoid all the stops on the main streets running parallel with our street. The good part of that is our street is always well plowed. The bad part of that is that our street is always well plowed, right into our driveway.

Whatever the plow is moving off of the road, goes by design to the right. That means a lot of that crap all piles into the bottom of the driveways. If you can get out there quickly to remove it, it's sometimes not too bad. But, the longer you leave it in your driveway, the harder it is to remove since it all seems to turn to ice. This morning, the bottom of my driveway was my concern. Sometimes that stuff is too laden with chunks of ice to power through with my Honda.

I'm cleaned up, dressed and getting ready to head out the door. I'm in the kitchen getting my cup of coffee ready to go with me when I hear a rumble. Lo and behold, our friend Larry was backing up our driveway with the plow on his truck! Go Larry!! In less than a minute, he not only had our driveway down to the cement, but he had all of the crap from the bottom of the driveway out of there too! Thanks, Larry! That was a HUGE help!

With no excuse left to not go to work, I grabbed my coffee and my laptop and out the door I went. It was still a harrowing drive at times since some of the roads were slippery. Luckily though, since I go in a little later, I can avoid some of the traffic of rush hour and have a quieter drive. Below is a picture of how the turnpike looked on my way to work this morning. Visibility was down, but the turnpike was well plowed and salted. Here's hoping I can make it home with no problems.

Family Tag Team

Sunday was the first Mass to be said for my Dad at his Church since his passing. I may not know what I believe in anymore, but I do know this would have been important to my Dad. I knew that brother Jim would attend, and I felt compelled to join him in Church.

Unfortunately, the Mass was in my hometown of Erie PA at the ungodly hour of 8:30 am. That may not be ungodly when you live in Erie, but to get there from Cleveland on time would be close to a miracle.

I happened to be talking to brother Philip (who lives in California) Saturday evening. I was telling him about how at 9:00 in the evening on Saturday, my plan to attend the Mass for Dad on Sunday morning was a good idea. However, I had a feeling that come 5:00 am on Sunday that idea might not be burning so brightly. Here came Philip to the rescue! He offered to call me in the morning to make sure I was awake. I thought that would be half the battle. As long as I could wake up on time I figured the trip would be a no brainer. So, thanks to Philip, who stayed awake until 2:30 am California time, just to make sure I got up in time for Church! That's what big brothers are for!

Since I was now awake, I did the kind deed of waking Ron up to go play with me. Why should I make the trip myself? Luckily, Ron was jiggy with the day trip, and he got up with no trouble.

The only bad part of this day was the crazy woman who was standing in the middle of I-90 just past I-271. She was standing over a dog that I am assuming was hit by a car. Keep in mind, this is 6:30 in the morning, the sun is not quite up yet, so she is almost invisible in the morning twilight. Sorry honey, but if it was me, I'm not putting my life on the line to save an injured dog in the middle of the freeway! Some people.

With this little fright moment aside, the trip went well and we even made it to Church on time.

After Church, we offered free breakfast to brother Jim and to Aunt Mary too. Aunt Mary cited a better offer from her great-grandkids so she didn't join us. That didn't stop the three of us from going without her! We had a great breakfast, great conversation, a little family gossip and lots of laughs. Not necessarily in that order.

I did go in and look at the old homestead for awhile. It's really strange. The house is the same, but it isn't. The furniture is moved around a bit or not there at all. And, like the rest of us, it's showing its age. Every room I went into, the memories came flooding back to me. It was good, it was bad, it was surreal. The only thing I don't understand is how my old bedroom could have gotten so much smaller? For real, I remember having a LOT more room in there! Even with all of the same dressers and bed in there, where did the rest of the space disappear to? It's not that Jim has anything stored in that room that doesn't belong there, it just still looks so dang small. Weird.

Since Jim had to eventually head to work, Ron and I opted for heading home. The day didn't finish there though, as we stopped at brother Michael's on the way home to scarf up a free meal from them! Mary Jane's meatloaf IS one of my favorite meals in life so who am I to say no? Again, great dinner, great conversation, a little family gossip and lots of laughs. Not necessarily in that order.

All in all, a darn good day. We finally had a decent weather day, and the trip was mostly uneventful coming and going.

As for me being in Church, just like the old days, here is the bulletin as proof! And, no I didn't run into St. John's just for the bulletin like Cathie used to make me do as kids. Honest, I really did go this time!

Laundry Emergency

I know, I can find trouble in places most people wouldn't imagine.

Last week when we had a lot of snow, Ron went to power up the plow to clear the driveway. The first thing to do is to add the gasoline. It was so cold out, the plastic spout of the gas can cracked when Ron went to bend it into shape. Unfortunately, he didn't notice it until he was trying to fill up the plow and the gas spilled all over his gloved hands.

When I got home from work, Ron told me that he got gasoline all over his gloves. I told him to just throw the gloves down to the basement, and I'd wash them with a load of clothes.

Yeah, as I've told people this story, most people stop me right there and ask if I'm nuts. Well, even those of you scratching your head now . . . where were you when I needed you?? It made perfect sense to me to put those smelly nasty gloves in with our clothes.

As most of you can probably imagine, I did not end up with clean gloves. Instead I ended up with an entire load of clothes that smelled like gasoline. I thought if once was good twice had to be better. I ended up washing that load of clothes five times before I accepted the fact that I was in the midst of a true laundry emergency.

I called Mary Jane, my sister in law. And, of course, she had the answer. I was to put a container of baking soda and run it through again. It's a good thing the new washer only uses 16 gallons of water per load instead of the older machines that use 45 gallons per load. I still had to use a lot of darn water, but I guess it could have been worse.

The clothes still smell a little like gasoline, but not as much as they did before. They may not be our good clothes anymore (as if they ever were) but we could save them as lounging clothes.

So, I had a laundry emergency. I learned that next time, I just buy Ron new gloves and call it a day.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Yeah, right. Whatever.

I have never been a believer in Valentine's Day or Sweetest Day or any other made up holiday. If you want to buy me flowers, buy me flowers. If you want to buy me candy, buy me candy (Reese's Cups, please!). But don't buy me flowers or candy just because of a media blitz from Hallmark tells you that you have to buy the women in your life all of this stuff. To me, that's just ridiculous.

So, yesterday, Ron and I were discussing what to do for dinner. Neither of us felt like cooking so there went that idea. I didn't really want to go out since places would be busy due to Valentine's Day. Ron them came up with the winning idea! Our Friday night date place!

Yes, Popeye's Chicken on the Turnpike!

We are wild and crazy people, aren't we? Well, we had a great dinner, "our" table was open and waiting for us and it was just a very nice evening.

I've told Ron from the beginning that I think he's lucky since I don't fall for the commercialism of Valentine's Day or Sweetest Day. However, y'all know how I feel about my birthday! He's not off the hook on this holiday. I've warned him that if he forgets my birthday, it's not going to be pretty!

At Least It's Not Broken

Sometimes the best laid plans just go awry.

Yesterday I started an exercise program. Today I was at the hospital for x-rays. I suck.

Let's go back to the beginning. The girl I work with found out that the rec center in the town where our office is located would let us use the facilities for a nominal cost. So, we decided that we would at least go walking at lunch time as they had an indoor track. We started on this new plan yesterday.

We went to the rec center, put on our tennis shoes and went walking. The track is small as it's over the basketball court. It takes 16 laps to go a mile! We decided that we weren't going to count laps, we were just going by time. We were going to do a good 30 minutes and then call it a day.

You'd think that 30 minutes of walking would be an easy start to an exercise program, wouldn't you? Well, keep in mind that this is ME we're talking about. We did our 30 minutes, I bought a bottle of juice and we headed back to work.

I sat at my desk doing what is supposed to be passing for work for a couple of hours. When I did try to get up, suddenly, my right foot wouldn't let me put any weight on it. What the heck is up with that? I hobbled around the office a bit, eventually my foot started to feel a little better but it still hurt every time I tried to put any weight on it.

I sat back down and tried to forget about it. Eventually, I hobbled to the car, drove home and hobbled through the evening. I took a long hot shower last night and I thought that helped as well. My foot did seem better than it did so I really didn't think too much about it.

Then I tried to get out of bed this morning. Big mistake. My foot would bear absolutely no weight whatsoever. Getting to the bathroom first thing this morning was a freak show to say the least! I am definitely not graceful on two feet, let alone one.

I was able to garner a doctor's appointment at 2:20 since I really was worried about what could be wrong with my foot. She examined me and decided it was either a stress fracture or just a ligament strain. She sent me off with orders for an x-ray just to be sure as well as a prescription for anti-inflammatories and directions for applying ice packs, soaking my foot in warm water as well as some range of motion exercises. I am to stay off of my foot as much as possible, keep it elevated for the next few days and follow the directions I just mentioned.

So, Ron and I headed right to the hospital for the x-ray. Surprisingly, we got in and were sent within five minutes to x-ray. We sat down long enough there just to take my jacket off and get comfy when I was called back. Flo was taking care of me today and trust me, she was a hoot! I even got stickers because I was a good girl. Go me! Anyway, Flo took three pictures of my foot and then returned with another person in a lab coat named Diana. Diana asked me what my doctor told me about when the results would be available. I said that I was told that the results would be ready by Monday. Diana looked at me very seriously and said that she would suggest I wait back in the waiting room while she got the radiologist to read this x-ray and call my doctor. She said it would only take about 10 to 15 minutes. She said that would be better than my leaving and then having to turn around and come back once the doctor was told my results.

Now she had me scared. Why was she concerned that I not leave the hospital until the radiologist talked to my doctor? Just what in the heck did she see in my x-ray?

Ten or fifteen minutes later, Flo did come back to the waiting room to tell us that the radiologist has read the film and the x-ray was negative. He had also talked to my doctor and my doctor said to carry on with the instructions she gave me in the office and I was free to go. What the heck was that all about? She had me nervous as all get out for that 10 to 15 minutes for nothing! Grr. At least my foot isn't broken, and it's just a ligament strain. This is a perfect example of why NOT to ask the technicians what they see and wait for the radiologist to review the pictures.

I got my prescription filled, and I'm back home with my foot up. I guess the good news is that my foot isn't broken. The bad news is that my butt will remain as big as it is for now. I hurt myself when I try to do anything about it. So, if y'all will excuse me, I'm going to the freezer to get my bag of frozen peas. I need to ice my foot.

The Good The Bad And Brother Michael

As soon as I received the title to my car in the mail last week, I was waiting for the shoe to drop.

Sure enough, last Friday on my way home from work, the car started to make noises like I've never heard before. It was a screeching, grinding, metal on metal sound. All I knew is that it couldn't be good, AND it sounded expensive.

So as not to ruin the weekend, I parked the car in the garage and decided to ignore it for the time being. We just used Ron's van all weekend!

Sunday, Ron was nice enough to pull my car out of the garage, pull the front wheels off and look at the front brakes. He thought that might be the culprit, but my brakes ended up looking just fine. As it was a damn cold day, that was the extent of the driveway car repairs. We finally decided that the car could still be driven, and the easiest solution was to drive myself to work on Monday, and try to get into a garage by the office that is used by some of my coworkers.

I was able to get an appointment to drop my car off on my way to work, so all that was left to do was go to my office and worry if I could pay for the needed repairs. The garage called me less than two hours later and said that all of my tires had been removed, and the all of the brakes have been inspected. All brakes looked just fine and were only down to 60% (whatever the hell that means) so that wasn't my problem. However, he did say that there was dirt in the back brakes. He blew the dirt out of the back brakes and my total was going to be "twenty three thirty five". I said TWENTY THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS???? To which he laughed and said NO! Twenty three DOLLARS and thirty five cents! Yes ladies and gentlemen, I have a new best friend!

So my day went from bad to good with that news. I picked my car up that day at lunch time and he's been running great ever since.

Monday evening, Ron and I were going to meet at a restuarant over by Sam's Club since we were planning on doing some shopping there that evening. I called Ron when I was less than 30 minutes away so he'd know when to leave the house. I'm driving along, almost got hit by a car, and then my phone rang. Ron was at the restaurant and checking on my progress. I was a half a block away (how's THAT for timing!), shaking like a leaf from the near collision and would be there soon.

I pulled into the lot and parked next to Ron. Ron came right over to me to hug me. In the middle of a great hug, I hear "oh shit". Trust me, not words a girl wants to hear, especially in a cheek to cheek moment. Ron just realized he locked his van and his keys were still in the ignition. Yes, his day is definitely going from good to bad.

The van was off, the keys were dangling and my set of keys to the van were at home, about seven miles away. I said the heck with dinner, the heck with shopping, I'll just go get his keys and be back shortly. Luckily, he came up with a much better plan B. We called my brother Michael and his wife, who live maybe a mile up the street. We said we're in the neighborhood, having a bad day, come help us salvage it. Believe it or not, they came to our rescue!

Before you knew it, the four of us were seated in the restaurant, enjoying the company and exchanging war stories of the day.

Then it happened. Michael is not called "The Perfect One" for nothing. Suddenly he says "hey, I have Triple A"!! Once again, he saved the day.

Triple A showed up pretty quickly, they broke into Ron's van, got his keys and all was right with our world. And, that all happened before the main course was served!

The day sure had its ups and downs. But thanks Michael and Mary Jane, for making it end on a high note!

After all that, I still need to get to Sam's Club!

I'm No Longer A Virgin

A Starbucks virgin that is!

Friday night, Ron and I had a date night. Don't laugh, but we went to the rest stop on the Ohio Turnpike for our date.

I happen to love Popeye's Chicken and the closest franchise to us is this rest stop on the Ohio Turnpike. Besides, we happen to know the back way into the rest stop, also known as the employee parking lot. From the lot, you walk through a man door in the fence and you are into the parking lot of the rest stop. The best part is, if Ron doesn't want Popeye Chicken, he has four other choices for dinner. None as good as Popeye's in my opinion, but there are other choices.

I enjoyed my favorite order of a three piece spicy chicken strip meal with a side of mashed potatoes and cajun gravy with a biscuit. They have the BEST biscuits, bar none.

Even on a Friday night, the rest stop is not packed with people, we can always find a table and of course, I love the food. After dinner, we enjoy a few rousing games of pinball in the arcade and then usually head home after all that fun!

This Friday, while walking from our great table over to the arcade, we passed by Starbucks. While we were in California, I found out my sister almost lives on Starbucks White Mocha Chocolate Lattes, or something like that. It's Friday night and I want to stay up late, so I figured this was the time to try it.

I tried it. I don't get it.

It was $5. For a cup of COFFEE. Coming from someone who thinks a perfect cup of coffee is a cup of black Maxwell House coffee, this Starbucks was definitely not for me. It's sweet, it's sugary and did I mention it's $5 a cup? Paying for two cups of coffee almost came to what we paid for dinner!

I don't understand how these things are popping up on every corner. Well, I don't understand how there is enough business for them to be popping up on every corner. $5 for a cup of coffee? No refills are included! Wow.

Now at least I can say I've been there, done that. I don't see me doing it ever again. However, we WILL be back for Popeye's and pinball!

Another Milestone Reached

Have I mentioned lately that I'm getting old? Well, maybe not old, but definitely older. Try as I might to ignore that fact, it keeps coming up and hitting me in the face!

Case in point: Thursday night after work, I had to go to my eye doctor's to pick up my new glasses. Yes, my BIFOCAL glasses. The recommendation for my new glasses is to not wear my contacts or go back to my old glasses for two weeks. I am supposed to give the glasses a chance and work on getting used to the new glasses - for two weeks. It's been two days and I'm ready to flush them down the toilet!

First let me tell you something about my lenses. They are progressive lenses, so there is no line of demarkation between the regular prescription and the bifocal. It goes from the regular prescription on the top of the lens, the middle of the lens is a lighter bifocal and the bottom of the lens is the stronger bifocal. I kind of like that part, but you hold a book and I have to bob my head up and down until I find where the right spot is to read the print of the book. Unfortunatly, you sure do give up some clarity on the peripheral vision. No one warned me about that part. Well, my brother Jim complained about the same thing on his glasses, but who listens to him?! (I love you, brother!)

One thing I should not have done is drove to work on Friday without a back up plan. I am amazed, and very lucky, that I made it there and back safely.

If I just sit here, I'm fine. If I try to sit and read a book I'm fine. If there is any movement involved however, I am in a boatload of trouble. I can walk up the stairs ok, but walking downstairs I've found it much easier to just close my eyes and count the steps. I lose all vision looking down while going down the stairs and I've almost gone ass over tincups down the stairs once already. I'm woozy, dizzy and quite a bit nauseous. Yeah, good times.

Friday late morning, I had my annual review at work (which surprisingly I passed with flying colors, thank you very much!) and when I walked into my boss' office, he said he was surprised I looked so nervous for this. I told him I'm not nervous, I'm nauseous and proceeded to tell him about the new glasses. Ok, he may laugh now, but he's only a couple of months younger than I am so his day is coming soon.

So, now I have my new glasses. I'm trying to move as little as possible so I don't throw up. Then, Friday afternoon I took my glasses off for a minute to rest and rub my eyes. I am blind as a bat without my glasses, so without them on my face, I held them up close and was just getting a good look at them. I picked them out after my eyes were dilated, so I really wasn't sure what I picked! I was impressed with myself, that I chose so well while not being able to see! They are a purple, or maybe burgandy (did I mention I'm also color blind?) well, they are a lot darker color than my last pair. They have two very small fake gems on each earpiece and then I saw a little something on the piece that holds the lens in. I went to scrape if off with my fingernail when I noticed that it was actually the paint or enamel or whatever it is was peeling off of the frames! What the hell? After the arm and the leg that I had to pay for the dang things, how can this crap be peeling off already?

I immediately called the eye doctor's office and expressed my lack of satisfaction with these glasses. The answer I received was "well . . . that's unusual". I actually had to tell her that I expected her to replace the glasses. "Oh." Supposedly she is ordering me the new ones. Here's hoping that when they come in I am not so frustrated with the dang glasses.

I may be old and I may have bad vision, but I'm not blind! Here's hoping I can find no defects with the next pair. And that I'm no longer nauseous.

Great Gift Ideas!

Yes, I am at work. Yes, I am bored. So I went shopping!

I do love a good Amazon wish list as most of you know. Heck, today I even went shopping for items on my own wish list! These items are after all on my list for a reason. I'm outta holidays for this year and really wanted something on my list. (It was the DVD of the original Poseidon Adventure with Gene Hackman and Shelly Winters if anyone had the need to know that!)

After I made my purchase, since one item came off of my wish list, Amazon gave me the option of inserting the person's name for which I purchased the items. That way, you can keep track of what items you've purchased for whom and all that.

Having a barely controllable case of OCD, I can appreciate a good list. I inserted my name on both items and I was then forwarded to a page that listed all the names of people who I have purchased items from their wish lists. I also had options to look at their current wish lists, or I could see recommended gift ideas for this person.

Aha! Amazon is not as all-knowing and all-loving as I thought!

For example, I have four great-nephews. (Well my regular nephew is pretty great too, but I mean the next generation with the great-nephew part!) The boys range in age from just over 18 months to barely six years old. While they are all great kids, I seriously doubt any of them would want what Amazon suggested I buy for them.

Let's start with Grady. The youngest of the bunch had a recommendation for a cool Canon Digital Camera that is pictured here:

From there we'll go to Isaiah, who is a few years older than Grady, granted. But how this Kitchen Aid fits into his gift wishing future is perplexing me!

Now, is this a case of parents messing with the wish lists and getting things for themselves through their kids? I think not. I think Amazon thinks I'm crazy! After all, who else would spend $14 on a DVD and then spend another $11 to get $5 in free shipping.

Actually, I spent another $17 on myself to save the $5 shipping charge.

Now as for the wish lists, I think I'll stay away from Amazon's recommendations and stick with the parents' recommendations. The parents do a much better job at recommending gifts for their kids.

It's $5.39 Cold

It's cold out there. It's damn cold.

When the temperature drops to a certain level, it really doesn't matter the number you put to it. Is 14 degrees really any better than 12 degrees? No. They are both just damn cold.

That's how I judge the weather now. It's damn hot, hot, warm, cool, cold and damn cold. Today I came up with a new name for weather. Today was $5.39 cold!

I had to stop to put gas in my car on my way home from work. When I gas up, I always fill the tank. I might not like it, but I fill it. A tank of gas for my car usually runs between $40 and $45, depending on the gas prices.

Today, I was standing out there filling my car and I stopped the pump. I was just too freakin' cold to stand out there and wait for the gas to fill my car!

Yes, it was $5.39 cold out there.

IT'S ALL MINE!!

Ok, I have to brag. I made my FINAL car payment yesterday! I checked this morning and Honda Finance has my payment posted to the account leaving a zero dollar balance!

After all of these years, my car really is mine!

Now if I can only one day say the same thing about my house.

Back To Reality

Talking about a long crash back to planet Earth!

First, thanks to all for the phone calls, the text messages, the post comments and the e-mails for my birthday! That truly made it an awesome birthday!!

Then, the next day, I came crashing back to reality.

I had my yearly eye appointment the day after my birthday. During the last few years, the appointments went very well. My vision had changed so slightly that it did not necessitate a new perscription for glasses or contacts. That all changed this year.

It's official. I hit the big 4-5 and it all goes to pot! Yes, I had to order my first pair of b..b..b..bifocals. Argh, the horror! Bifocals! This is what I get for laughing at brother Jim when he got his bifocals!

Happy Birthday To ME!!

I haven't mentioned my birthday on here before, so I decided I needed to do it.

Not every body likes birthdays. (My sister Barbara for example.) I happen to love birthdays, especially my own. I figure what the heck. Celebrating another birthday is sure better than the alternative!

You know, so many people celebrate Christmas, or Kwanzaa, or Easter, or Cinco de Mayo, or 4th of July, or Memorial Day etc. But - this day, today, is for ME. It's MY day.

So c'mon, help a girl out! No, I don't want presents. All I want are Happy Birthday wishes!! And LOTS of them!

So, call me. Or text me. Or e-mail me. Or leave a comment here. Or, send smoke signals. Or, send happy thoughts. Whatever works for you, works for me!

Happy birthday to ME!

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

Every clock I own seems to be on a different time. This morning I was driving to work wondering how late I'm going to be and I hear the morning DJs stating one time while my clock in my car has another time and my wristwatch has yet another time. For once, I want to know the actual time!

I'm sitting at my desk still thinking about this. I'm sure there is a myriad of ways to figure out the correct time. What did I choose? I called 814-452-6311!

That was the number for the time and temperature in my home town of Erie Pennsylvania!

As a kid, I think we called that number daily. It was just something we did. That way, you knew how to dress for school, or how many layers to put on to go out to play. I know, I could have just looked outside and if I saw snow I'd know to put a coat on. But this was just part of the routine of getting ready when I lived in Erie.

It was always the same lady's voice, stating time the current temperature in Erie in that nice broken robot voice of hers. But it was familiar like an old friend, I had heard her so often.

I haven't called that number at least since I left Erie 12 years ago. And I STILL remember that number! And it STILL works!

The free service is now corporate sponsored but I guess that is to be expected in this day and age. But, the important thing is - The time is 11:28 a.m. and current temperature is 30 degrees.

I got the warm fuzzies over here over that! Good times.

I Knew I Was Good For Something

One of the ladies has a nice little 10 or 20 gallon fish tank in her office. She has some live bearers in there, a few platys and a few mollys. One of the few things I know about since they are in our tank as well.

One morning last week, I was in her office chatting with the office inhabitant as well as the supervisor. The three of us dispensed with work quickly but then started to chat a bit about the fish.

I told them that we were looking for some female silver mollys since our two males were looking lonely. Both ladies looked at me and were surprised that I could tell the boy fish from the girl fish. HEY! I'm suddenly an expert here!

I said sure I can tell and I offered to show the two of them. They got in close to the tank as I knelt on the floor to get a good look. I started to explain that the boys would have a gonopodium and instead of a gonopodium, the girls would have two little fins. It's easy once you know the secret! (Thanks, brother Michael!)

These ladies were so impressed with me. Then, the supervisor said to me "well, I've finally learned something useful from you!"

Ouch! In four years, and with all the money she has paid me for my services and THIS is what she finds useful?

I'm glad I came in handy for something, but if we could not tell my boss that sexing fish is what they find helpful, I'd appreciate it. He thinks it's my auditing skills that keeps this division profitable.

Pizza Time

Friday was our last day at the Chicago audit. There is such a large staff at this audit, we can’t take everyone out of the department at the same time to go to lunch so we usually order some pizza to be delivered for everyone right before we’re done with the audit. Friday was pizza day!

I called Papa John's on Thursday evening to place an order for eight large pizzas to be delivered at 11:45 am. That should be an easy task, but has anyone ever tried to come up with eight combinations of pizzas on a whim? I tried to do a mix of a few with meat, a few with only veggies and one plain cheese pizza for the kid from Home Alone. So, I got all of the pizzas ordered, and we start the process of where we want them delivered. I gave them my work cell number, and he rattled off the address of the audit site complete with “second floor”. Dang, I am known just about everywhere! Ok, it probably had to do with the fact that I ordered pizza from them last year, too.

I don’t know if Papa John’s doesn’t trust their employees, but they wouldn’t take my credit card number on Thursday night, I had to call them with it on Friday. I was told to ask for the manager, Jim, and give the number to him.

Unfortunately, when I called this elusive “Jim” I was told he was not there nor was any manager on site. I explained that I had called an order in the night before for eight large pizzas to be delivered and I was calling to give my credit card number. I swear, if English is not a good language for you, you probably shouldn’t be on the phone with customers. He kept asking me something that I swore was “what’s your orders?” to which I replied “eight large pizzas”! In a frustrated voice, he then said “NO! What’s your orders???” Um, ok, I again said eight large pizzas! Now in an exasperated voice, he asked again for my “ORDERS”. I said I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re asking. Then he yelled again “YOUR ORDERS”! You know how people do when you don’t speak their language. Because everyone knows that if you only speak more slowly and a lot more loudly, everyone will understand you no matter what the language.

Then, one more time, “WHAT IS YOUR ORDERS?” I said “my orders? Do you need to know what each and every pizza is that I ordered?” By now the guy is ready to punch me in the nose if I had been close enough and I wasn’t much better. Finally he tells me to hold on while he did whatever he did. He finally came back and said “is your ADDRESS (sorry, it kept sounding like ‘orders’ to me) 123 Any Street? Ahh. Now I get it! I confirmed he had the right address and then he yelled when he asked my what my credit card number was. After I gave him the number, I made the mistake of asking if they had two liter bottles of soda. He said yes they did, but he had already rung up my order and if I thought I was going to order sodas NOW he’d have to void the whole order and start over again.

Now he’s put me in a bitchy mood. So I said hey, I do NOT want to cause you any more work than I have to; I’ll spend my money elsewhere. He seemed happy to hear it. Oh well.

C’mon Papa John’s. You claim to have a better quality pizza, how about some better quality employees? It was easy enough to find another store to take my $15 for soda.

On the good side, out of eight large pizzas, only three pieces of pizza were left after lunch! Now that’s a hungry staff!