2006 Archive – Jan-June

2006 Archive Part 1 January through May – 140, 798 words total.

January 2, 2006

We hope everyone had a good and safe New Year’s Eve. We had dinner out at a restaurant not too far up the street and then dropped in briefly at a car club member’s house across town. We were home well before midnight and sipped Champagne at the top of the hour.

Yesterday, we busted our butts in taking down all the holiday décor and by all, I mean every last thing, every bauble, every sprig of pine, and every fleck of glitter, all nicely packed away until next December. Amazingly, everything fit this year in the various bags and boxes. Must have been all our de-cluttering, organizing, and tossing of crap we never use earlier in the season. Either way, our place looks like a new house, something we’re enjoying as we hobble around. I think we might have overdone it a bit yesterday.

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January 3, 2006

Today is going to be all about juggling and coordination. Okay confess. How many of you thought that said “jiggling and coordination”? Hmm, no one? Okay maybe it was just me. I really need to swap out this eye contact.

Today, a car club member is coming by to take me and the 8 foot tall mock up of part of the monkey car club Roadster show display to the printer business in downtown Portland. That alone ought to be a hoot ‘cause I’m not sure this club member can drive in downtown Portland. Portland driving is a bit different from driving in our town here. For starters, there are about a million more drivers just in the downtown area alone not to mention the two million pedestrians who have complete right of way no matter where they walk or what they do. Add a bunch of new pedestrian law changes that just took effect and no one is familiar with and the expected pouring rain into the mix and I’m sure it’ll be an adventure to write home about.

Luckily, I’ll have WS driving along with us in his car to help get us there. He can find anything or any place at anytime. Plus he can serve as a witness if anything should go awry.

After dropping me and the mock up are dropped off, I’m sending the club member driver on his way home so he hopefully won’t get stuck in Portland rush hour traffic which begins in earnest at 3 p.m. WS and I will stay to meet with the printer millionaire guy whom I met before Christmas (and if you recall, tactfully spit lettuce at him during our business lunch). Since WS is going to attempt to do the artwork for the club display, we need to get down to the brass tacks of what we need to come up with to send to their printer technicians so everything will be ready by March 1st. We’ll also have to do some convincing on why we’re using wood for the display instead of the millionaire’s preferred ABS pipe which was wobbly at best and highly unstable; not something we can have standing next to a dozen expensive show cars. Having WS there with me should ensure I don’t stick my foot in my mouth by saying something like “Well, using the ABS would probably guarantee the whole display would fall over and damage the cars and maybe you can afford to fix everyone’s cars but as the display chairperson and the one whose ass is on the line here, I can’t.” But that’s how I’m going to feel going into the meeting today and the guy is just going to have to see it my way. I mean, I did consult a professional construction cabinetry guy and had him build the thing. It’s solid as a rock. Maybe I should include diplomacy in today’s agenda.

I don’t really think I’ll have a problem with that convincing part though. Did I mention that the guy who is supposed to get us permission to use the old Portland pictures we have still hasn’t gotten back to me? And that it’s these black and white pictures that the printer guy is supposed to use and we’re going to have to tell him today that we don’t have anything yet? If we don’t have permission to use the bad, low-res, grainy photos we do have, the whole thing is sunk because the whole display revolves around them. No pressure or anything there. I might be able to pull off an alternative course of action though if I absolutely have to. I’m going to take one of our cameras along for the trip today and hope that I can find some older Portland architecture that I can shoot. Sure, they won’t contain any old cars like the printer guy and I would like to see but we might not have a choice. Once back home, we can switch the color photos to black and white and maybe use those if the photo guy fails me.

After all that fun, we need to weave our way through Portland to find Elmer’s Flag and Banner so I can pick up a roll of checkered plastic strip that has to go under each car just in case someone has a drippy engine. Convention Center floor protection is a requirement for all car entries and we all used the same checkered plastic last year. Unfortunately, someone threw all the stuff away after last year and I’ll have to get more. Luckily, Elmer’s is only a few miles away. Unfortunately, we’ll be leaving there just as rush hour traffic hits. If there is enough light left, maybe that will be a good time to take Portland pictures. If not, I’ll have to come back another day soon.

Once we’re back in our town, I need to stop at Craft Warehouse to find cans of fire retardant spray – something else that is required by show officials – for the fabric checkered flags that will be part of the display as well as to look for a big photo album. Across the street is an Office Max where we can pick up printer photo paper for the photos we need to print out both for the display’s photo album and each car’s entry form. With each car’s entry form, three photos of each car entered are required by the Roadster show officials. At tomorrow night’s car club meeting, I’ll find out who doesn’t have their own photos and who needs photos taken. Since all twelve car entries need to be submitted by February 1st, it’s likely I’ll be running around town taking pictures of everyone’s cars at the last minute then printing the photos out and mailing all the entries in together, but only if everyone can cough up the $30 entry fee first AND if no one backs out at the last minute.

I already think I’m going to need three alternates just in case because I’ve got three people who have taken being wishy-washy to a new level. Do you know how hard it is to tell someone their car is gorgeous and you’d like to see it entered in the club’s Roadster show display in Portland, and then have to ask them to fork over $30 just to be in it AND to have it cleaned and detailed specifically for the show? Yeah, those last little details usually kill it for me. One of my biggest worries here is having already requested a space for a dozen cars and then only getting half a dozen to actually show up. I need to find that fine line between begging and demanding these people and that, to me at least, sounds too similar to a sales job. A salesperson I am not. I can honestly say I couldn’t sell a heater to a frozen Eskimo but I’d better figure out something quick I think.

Tomorrow night is the Monkey car club meeting and once again, I’ll need to have an update on what’s going on with the Roadster show. As the club secretary this year, I’ll also be furiously taking meeting minutes and it’s just about when I’m trying to get caught up with everything I need to write down that the update moment is thrust upon me and I end up fumbling around and sounding like a complete moron. Did I ever mention I don’t speak well in public? Well, I can but only if I work my way up to doing it. Taking meeting minutes seems to screw that up for me. But sometime between tonight and tomorrow night, I need to find the time to make a list of everything I need to say and hope for the best.

By Thursday or Friday I ought to have a better handle on what I still need, what I still need to do, who is being helpful and who is being flaky. And that’s when I plan on learning how to delegate. I’ve got a couple of people waiting in the wings who say they are willing to help get this Roadster show display going. All I can do is hope they were serious.

January 4, 2006

Okay so here how yesterday really went:

Car club driver guy comes over, we load the display mock up into his truck, and we all take off for Portland. The rain really starts dumping within mere seconds of leaving and only got heavier as the day progressed. We finally find the printing place after a few missed turns but it was all good. The millionaire printer guy was expecting us but the business’ receptionist looked downright frightened. Silly me to wear my standard faded levis and long sleeved t-shirt garb instead of choosing to drip myself in mink and diamonds. I honestly think she thought I was a bag lady at first, then a salesman making a cold call. I had to repeat several times that I had a meeting with her boss and brought the club display mock up. Like a deer in the headlights she looked. If I had said I was there to herd them all into an office and shoot them I’m sure her eyes would have looked the same. Is it just me or does it seem so childish to judge someone upon first appearance alone? C’mon lady, wait until I stick my foot in my mouth, then you can treat me like the plague.

The meeting with the millionaire printer guy went good, WS will say. We all decided on a few much-needed improvements to the display which changes a fairly major portion of the look but in a very good way. Its fun to see how the look has evolved from my first vision to something that I think will really stand above the others at the Roadster show. I don’t think I made an idiot of myself but I was concerned a few times when it seemed I was having a hard time getting my point across. WS came to the rescue then and now I understand just how annoying I can be when I try to do the same for him upon those occasions when I think he’s being too “engineer-ese” when talking to non-computer people. He wasn’t annoying but it made me feel frustrated at myself for being tongue-tied.

The meeting went for a good hour and a half longer than I expected and when we left, it was downright pouring outside. I ended up locking the directions to Elmer’s Flag and Banner in the trunk in the mad dash to get in the car and out of the fire hose that was the rain. That’s when we decided we’d go to Elmer’s another day and take photos of downtown Portland architecture another day too. It was already getting dark and rush hour was in full swing. We just wanted to get home.

Over an hour later, we were sitting at a quaint little Italian restaurant not too far from home enjoying Bianco Penne pasta, vegetarian lasagna, and hand-tossed pizza while watching the rain streak down the nearby windows and the traffic back up from off the freeway. We’ve got a lot of work to do on the club display – WS is still trying to figure out the artwork we do have and I’ve got emails to send out to bring everyone in the display committee into the loop. I’ve got to go over the meeting minutes from last month in preparation to read them at the car club meeting tonight and I have to make up a list of things I have to discuss about where the display progress currently stands. I think my construction guy is going to very happy to hear that he won’t need to build such an elaborate display and I know my pocketbook is going to be happy now that I shouldn’t have to use any more of my own cash for the project. Heck, I might even get reimbursed for the supplies I already bought at this rate. I’m going to keep my fingers crossed.

Monkey car club meeting tonight. WS is going with me since he’s off on vacation this week. I spent the morning finally getting the patio furniture covers put on out back and I brought in a couple of chairs and a small side table so we’d have something to sit on in the kitchen. We’re thinking of actually buying a kitchen table this year but it depends on how the finances look. Can’t be spending all the money for the year too early in the year.

January 7, 2006

Another one of the original home buyers in our development has put his house up for sale. $314,900 is the asking price. I hope he gets it because it’s the same model and size as ours and if he gets that much, it’ll be a great sign of how much ours is worth should we decide to sell ours. We aren’t interested in selling however. We’re staying here for several more years. It’s just nice to know what people might be willing to shell out for a similar house. (Not that we don’t know – it’d just be confirmation.)

We received an odd email yesterday from MsNoManagementSkills. In it, she congratulated herself on getting a job and, I think she was looking for everyone else to reply with a “congratulations” back. I know money has been tight in her household since she burned through the $150,000 of The Company stock payout and her divorce money last September, though that hasn’t stopped her from spending like there was no tomorrow. It’s an addiction thing I’m sure. And although she still claims that she and DorkMaster has never had a fight, that hasn’t stopped DorkMaster from gossiping about her at work in a not-too-favorable light. Never did I think that men were just as gossipy if not worse than women. Half of what WS and his coworkers hear coming from DM’s mouth would virtually guarantee fireworks at home. And I’m not talking about the “good” kind of fireworks either.

So she was just about to be investigated for unemployment fraud when she finally took one of the part-time job offers at a temp place less than two miles from her house. Sure, she said, it’s just an admin job, not a Manager position that she’s used to but she’s sure that will come with time. It’s time for celebration, she wrote in her email, and went on to tell everyone that she would be “shopping until I drop” all weekend with buying office clothes, something she’s never had to wear before. I’m thinking the wearing of panty hose and dress up clothes is going to get old fast, knowing that she hates to wear anything but DM’s old sweats and rubber flip-flops, clothing she even wore from time to time on business trips with me to Company headquarters back in the day.

Reading her description of her job makes me wonder if she realizes what all will come with it: No benefits because she’ll be working less than thirty hours a week, no real lunch break (she says she’s excited to live close enough to drive home for lunch everyday but at six hours a day, she’ll be lucky to get two separate 15-miute smoke breaks, not a lunch hour like she thinks), and the real possibility that her first few paychecks will go to pay the job agency she got the job through.

Then there’s the whole past behavior thing where she has always believed that any paycheck she gets is all hers to spend on herself alone. The woman has never paid a utility bill or credit card bill or a mortgage or car payment in her life. That was always paid for by her parents, then her grandparents, then by her ex, FatHead, and now by DM.

But DM may be struggling with his job a little bit now and allegedly hasn’t told MsNo that he’s just a temp himself with less than two years left on his contract…that is, if the temp agency doesn’t lay him off before then, something that is a real threat because he keeps taking time off that he doesn’t have.

There’s also an issue with leaving DM’s oldest kid home alone for a single minute because of the kid’s severe stealing problem. MsNo won’t be home before this kid gets home from school. Of course, listening to DM at work, WS says that there isn’t all that much left to steal. The kid ransacks the house at least once a month and MsNo keeps racking up the credit cards buying more stuff for the kid to steal.

I’m sure MsNo is entering a new phase in her life and just wants everyone to be happy for her. The problem is she’s always wanted everyone to be happy for her, even when she actively sought to destroy other people’s lives. Briefly thinking back to all the lies, threats, and demotivational backstabbing stories she fabricated out of thin air to try to break me and all my coworkers during our six years working together at The Company, I do feel a touch of sadness at what her new, unsuspecting coworkers will, no doubt, be put through in the coming months/years. I think back to poor MsEars, the neighbor who lived just up the street from us and next door to MsNo when she lived in our development, and how MsEars finally packed up her family and moved away last spring over MsNo’s terrible and nasty behavior. It makes me wonder if she has already started that same crap with the neighbors she lives near now. Maybe that’s part of what got her out of her house and looking for a job. Maybe she still just hasn’t devastated enough lives yet. I think if I wanted to think about her news at all, the best I could muster is to hope that as an admin, she’s put through some of the negative crap she dished out and that someone lays the smack down right back.

January 9, 2006

WS’s holiday from work ended this morning when he returned to the software mines. Over the past week I encouraged him to do whatever he wanted and for a day or two, we both did little but breathe, eat, and sleep. Unfortunately I usually had something I needed to have done and so, being the nice guy he is, he helped me out. All in all, I thought it was a good vacation but then again, it wasn’t mine to say so.

Today is all about trying to get back to some sort of schedule and routine. It has not been easy. First off, over the last week we both stayed up until 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning and got up between 9 and 11 a.m. One of our pets, The Queen, starts screaming for food around 6 a.m. but we know she’s not starving and it’s too easy to pull the comforter up over our heads to drown her out. I tried to get to bed early for the past couple of nights but I could not fall asleep to save my life. This morning, it took all my strength just to force myself out of bed at 10 a.m. I think a Tylenol PM will be my after dinner mint this evening. I just can’t keep sleeping half the day away, especially when it gets dark around 5, even earlier with the heavy clouds.

It’s been doing nothing but raining every day since before Christmas. It’s not been terribly cold. Some days it felt almost tropical, but rain, rain, rain. We’ve got a lot of it and I love it. We don’t live on a hill or near water so we’re okay and just enjoying it. There’s been lots of concern for landslides just a few miles north and east of us. Of course, most of that is because people decided to cut down all the trees and build their homes on the edge of cliffs with a view. Well, they’re getting a view all right, all the way down the hill. If you insist on a view, people, build on bedrock, not on clay. Geesh! It shouldn’t be so difficult. Oh, and then don’t go whining on TV while standing next to your harem of Mercedes SUVs about the loss of your 3.8 million dollar home that you decided not to insure. Yeah, I feel so sorry for those millionaires…

Over the holidays, WS and I rearranged our old office again and moved his rowing machine in there. It should make for a nice place to row once we pick that back up. There’s an overhead fan in there and a TV although for the life of me I couldn’t get it to work for any of the local stations today (satellite box probably needs to be reset or something), and it’s away from the vast majority of pet fur. There’s nothing quite like huffing and puffing while rowing and then sucking in a floating wad of fur. The rower used to be in the back bedroom, also known as the dedicated pet haven and while we keep that room extra clean, it is where most of the pets sleep and groom themselves. Yesterday was pet bedding wash day and I was happy to see that nothing was overly covered with fur; nothing like in the summer months when everyone is shedding mountains of hair.

But then again, we’ve been putting lots of stuff in the old office lately. It’s where WS works on our budget usually has piles of papers and work books stacked around and where I tend to put anything that needs to be protected from furry paws and noses. A couple of weeks ago, I asked the Monkey car club’s Historian for some pictures that might be used for the Roadster show display. Last Wednesday night at the club meeting, he dumped all the club’s historic stuff off on me, ALL of it. Three big boxes and several photo albums worth of stuff containing years of club photos, awards, and mementos are now sitting on the floor in our old office and taking up a lot of room. I plan on going through everything and pulling out two photo albums worth of pictures for the club’s display and then, everything else will be given back. If he won’t take it back, it’ll sit somewhere other than here until someone else picks it up. I have a funny feeling about why he didn’t give me a few pictures and chose to give me everything instead.

I learned something recently about the club Historian that has me a bit worried. He’s actively announcing that he’s looking for a replacement already and I think he thinks I just might be the one. That thought alone ought to teach me to not be so nice. If there’s one thing I hate it’s someone making assumptions about me. That and someone walking all over me.

Okay, that was two things I hate. So sue me.

After the Roadster show is over and even though I will still have eight months left as club secretary, it’ll be time to ever-so-slowly start to extract myself from this club or else I’ll find myself feeling like I’m being forced into some other board position that I don’t want for next year. I’m already feeling the urge to become a lone wolf without a club again because really, who needs this?

January 10, 2006

Is it wrong of me to just want to do all the running around and gathering of everything needed for the Roadster car club display and expect everyone to keep their mouths shut until I give the order to assemble it? Just nod yes and we’ll get along just fine.

I’ve gotten the feeling that if I were to let some of my display committee members go, they would make the display look more like a frilly, flowery, tacky knick-knack laden woman’s display instead of the professional, clean lined automobile and old Portland artwork display I envision. How does one shut down requests and suggestions for goofy things like people dressed up like Elvis, glitter covered floors, and disco lights? Perhaps I could lie and tell them all the other car clubs are doing those things. Just because I am a woman doesn’t mean I think like the others in my committee. I tend to think like one of the guys and allowing someone to cover their car in the display with pink poodles isn’t what I want to see.

But then again, it looks like I’m going to be a few cars short because some people have bailed out on me already. To fill an empty spot, the other night I accepted an entry from a dear old man who has a gorgeous car but who covers it with all kinds of extra props – vases of fake flowers, stuffed animals, framed signs, and creepy rubber hands that he makes look like they are crawling out from his car’s truck. He says he adds these things because his recently deceased wife liked them. I’m sure his wife was a sweet dear herself but I question her taste. Seriously question it, I do. God only knows what I’m going to have to accept to fill these last few spots. I only have a few weeks to find something.

January 10, 2006

I’m nearly back on schedule though as of late last night I was certain I wouldn’t be. No, I didn’t go to bed early last night. I was going to but then I received an email from one of the specialty car owners I had recruited last month for the Roadster show and in the email he bailed out of the show on me. Great, that put me four cars short and without the most current car model, the one everyone wants to see in a show. He sited a family vacation across the country that had to come first over the show and what could I do other than to accept his apology. News travels fast and if I had been pissy about it, I have other cars bailing left and right even though that’s what it feels like is happening anyway. Needless to say, I was feeling pretty low last night and wondered for the hundredth time what I had gotten myself mixed up in.

Then this morning I received an email from a guy who asked if he could be in the show. Hell yes, I screamed at the computer monitor and replied to him as fast as my fingers would let me. That put me only three cars short. I used that bit of motivation to pull my car out of the garage and washed it despite the spitting rain. There’s one more thing done now and out of the way. Starting tomorrow I can start on the polishing routine that long time readers here are familiar with.

When I finished, I came back inside and another guy had called and left a message saying he’d like to be in the show too if I have room left. Hell yes, I yelled back at the answering machine and I called him back immediately. Apparently I made some kind of favorable impression him last summer when he accompanied a group of us on a drive up to Mt. St. Helens with a group of California sports car people who were visiting the area. After our conversation, I emailed him and sent out a Roadster show application to him via snail-mail and even included a self-addressed, stamped envelope so he could get his entry fee back to me pronto. I need everyone’s money and applications by January 21st because they have to be in the Roadster show people’s hands by February 1st.

Now, I’m only two cars short. Of course, I still don’t have anyone’s money yet and it could all go to hell in a hand basket between now and the show but I’m learning to try to keep a positive attitude and well, if I can’t do that, it simply means I need to go out and put another coat of polish on my car.

People who have seen my car often ask how I got it so shiny and I usually tell them a long, boring story about what products I use and how often, blah, blah, blah. But the truth really is that my car is the measurement of how much stress I have in my life at any given time. Back when I worked for The Company, MsNoManagementSkills, MrSmartButFakingIt, and Ego usually did something directly aimed at pissing me off a couple times every week and instead of letting that anger eat at me 24/7, I would take a break from work and use the time to apply polish to my car. The next time they pissed me off, I took the break time to take the polish off. As a result, the car’s finish is like glass in most areas. If I didn’t have any more polishing to do, I got out my beloved Dremel and polished something on the engine or exhaust. If those areas were already polished, I’d work on the wheels or the interior. Once I took the time to pick out all the pine needles stuck to my radiator with a pair of tweezers, not an easy feat since the car sits four inches off the ground and the only way at the radiator is from underneath.

Over the next month and a half until the Roadster show, I just need to keep in mind that when all looks bleak and dark, remember that it’s probably going to get a bit more dark before the light shines through and when that happens, embrace it.

January 11, 2006

Almost back into the routine. Got up at my old usual time this morning and have been going through email ever since. So far no one else has dropped out of the Roadster show but I’ll be willing to bet that will change by this time next week. Last night I attended a meeting by the actual Roadster show people and it was very motivational for the upcoming show. I also noticed they didn’t hold a raffle during their meeting, something that the Monkey car club does. Of course, the Monkey car club meetings are as dry as burnt toast and they need something to get people to attend. Sad, sad, sad.

Tonight is the Monkey car club board meeting over at Ms. Snooty’s house. Her home overlooks the Columbia River…and the major interstate freeway there. It’s also on a hill and I kind of wonder what kind of dirt the house is built on and if they ever worry about it sliding off especially with all the rain we’re having. Reports of mudslides are all over our local news today.

Shortly, I’ll be going out to put the first coat of polish on my car since last February. I suspect the paint will suck it up and it’ll be a real bitch to take off tomorrow but it’s got to be done. This afternoon, WS is leaving work a bit early to go get his hairs cut and then around 4 p.m. we need to both be downtown at the millionaire printer guy’s shop to approve the artwork they are doing for the Roadster show. That ought to put us smack dab in the middle of rush hour traffic coming home upon which I’ll need to jump back in the car and take off for the board meeting. WS, in the meantime, has a conference call meeting tonight with people he works with.

Good grief, even back when I was working for The Company I wasn’t this busy or had this many meetings. It’s like I’m a corporate whore again only without the fat paycheck.

We recently found out that sometime soon, WS will need to fly to southern California to meet with his new boss and department counterparts. If I didn’t have all this Roadster show crap to deal with, technically, I could go with him. But it would make things here fall apart too much. And then next month he has to do it all over again. Once more, I have to stay and keep everything on track but after that we might be able to afford to let me go along here and there. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen southern California in “spring” and although I’d be stuck at the hotel the whole time, I wouldn’t mind it. I’ve always liked doing things away from the usual routine…up to a point, of course which brings me back to getting on track again here. Time for that polish.

January 12, 2006

The world is moving fast this week and it doesn’t look like it’s going to slow down anytime before March 1st.

Today WS had a neurologist appointment around lunch time way down in Portland to check on his MS progress. Everything looks good and is remarkably stable for the time being. Good news there. Afterward and because he wasn’t in any big rush to get back to work, we had lunch at Olive Garden. Actually, it was one of the good Olive Garden restaurants in Portland. We have an Olive Garden in our little town but it seems to be constantly on the verge of being shut down due to health department violations (as is the Red Lobster that is nearby.) After that, regrettably, I took WS back to work and I went to Craft Warehouse to try to find some of the little things I need for the Roadster show display.

One of those little things is a plain and simple photo album. You’d think that would be easy enough. Just something simple with pages that have pockets in them for photos. But NOOOoooooOOOoooooo…apparently no one makes photo albums anymore. Those are antiques and no one wants those. Everyone wants a scrap book nowadays and why didn’t I want the same thing as everyone else, the saleswoman asked me with an incredulous look on her face.

Because, I replied using my slow and deliberate “I’m obviously talking to an idiot” voice, I not making a scrap book, I need a simply photo album for a display.

“Oh!” She said. “You’ll probably have to go to a professional photo shop for one of those and it’ll probably cost a lot. Why don’t you just make up a scrap book and glue your photos in it. It’d be a lot cheaper.”

Okay, when the hell did people stop wanting plain photo albums. I testily replied that the photos were on loan and not mine to stick glue all over. Then I walked away because I was tired of having to explain myself. Strike one.

On the other side of the store, I asked if they had any fire retardant spray. I need it for the cotton checked flags that are part of the display according to the Convention Center fire marshal. A different saleswoman thinks for a minute and then directs me toward a row of aerosol silk flower cleaner. “Those are fire retardant, I think.” I pick up a can and read it. It said that the can itself was fire resistant, not that it was fire retardant spray itself. I sighed, turned back around, and saw that the saleswoman was nowhere to be found. Strike two.

Then I roamed the aisles looking for silk flowers. I need a bouquet of yellow roses and a bit of greenery but all I could find was poinsettias and again I asked yet another saleswoman where their silk flowers were located. She said they don’t get any in until spring and then she gave me a look like I was the idiot for not knowing this.

“Silk flowers. They are silk flowers, not fresh flowers, and you don’t get them in until spring?”

“That’s right.” She said brightly and went about creating a hideous looking bow from black and purple ribbon that looked like it had seen better days.

“So what do your customers do if they need silk flowers during the winter?”

“I don’t know. No one ever asked that before.” Strike three for me.

Now I know good and well that they used to have silk flowers there lining the back wall year around. Whose idea is this crap and what kind of a craft store has Craft Warehouse become anyway? Luckily for us, we do have a Michael’s craft store in town, although it is way on the other side of town, I’ll have to venture over there this weekend to try to find what I need. Who could have known that three relatively simple items could end up being so hard to find?

Tomorrow, we both have dental cleaning appointments at noon, we need to pick up pet food, we can try to hit Michael’s since we’ll be on that far side of town but only if we’re running ahead of schedule because I have to meet the Roadster show display construction guy in downtown Portland at the millionaire printer guy’s shop at 3 p.m. Then I have to rush home in time to type up the board meeting minutes from last night and get them sent out before the 36 hour time limit and Ms. Snooty has a fit. Any guess as to what I’ll probably be doing late tonight just to catch up? Hey, do I know how to have fun or what?

January 14, 2006

All but one of my trips out today is finished. A trip to a thrift shop per Cindi’s suggestion proved to be the winning ticket for finding photo albums. And then as it turned out, there were photo albums buried in the boxes the Monkey car club Historian gave me. But, years ago, someone had written comments on some of the pages of the albums, usually next to pictures that were missing and usually lewd-implied comments as well so I can’t use those anyway. The thrift shop albums will work beautifully after all. Thanks Cindi!

I also found a frame and some reproduction sports car signs that will work perfectly for the display.

The trip to the millionaire printer guy’s shop yesterday went well. My display construction guy was only a half an hour late, something that I attributed to that whole construction-estimate thing and that I was okay with. Today, I have to figure out how to email a rather testy old guy to see if he will be my electrician. His wife says he will but everyone knows this guy loves nothing more than to put someone through the wringer when he knows they want something from him. I just don’t know how much more wringing I can handle. I might ask another guy who also knows some electrical stuff and the testy guy to be my go-between. That way hopefully I’ll share the wringer treatment and only get half.

I found yellow silk roses at Joanne’s Fabrics but still no fire retardant. WS is going to order me some from the Internet and that will take care of that.

Everything else on the list for this weekend is do-at-home stuff. WS is working on some graphics we need, I’ve taken half the polish off my car (which I should have taken off no later than yesterday and is now a real bitch to get off), and later I’ll email the electrical guy, the display committee to fill them in on where things sit, and a reminder for the car show entrants to get me their entry forms, photos, and entry fee by next Wednesday night’s Monkey car club meeting. I just KNOW people are going to drag their feet. I just KNOW people will not show up to that meeting. I just KNOW I’m going to have to drive around to people’s houses and physically knock on doors to get their money. I ought to solicit help from the display committee to do this or at least ask the club’s Sergeant at Arms guy to help. I know I’d much rather work on the display than twist people’s arms and have them tell me half-truths but I have to have my nose in there somewhere and you know where I’m talking about. That area somewhere between the wringer and people’s butts.

January 15, 2006

One year ago today I was officially without a job, laid off by a Big Ass Corporation who gave my job to someone in another country at less than a quarter of my salary. I didn’t know how I’d survive but I did, we did, and while I still refuse to use that Big Ass Corporation’s web search engine, I’ve grown less bitter about the whole thing. Of course not having to deal with MsNoManagementSkills every day helped. Sometimes I actually believe the Big Ass Corporation did me a favor.

And then I run into the woman not once, not twice, but three times within 24 hours at places that until this weekend, I used to frequent. But that’s not the bad part. The bad part is that she told me she frequents these places all the time now even though she doesn’t really like these places.

Huh? You’re probably asking.

We ran into her at Starbucks. Now, we have three Starbucks all located within two miles of each other with us located in the middle. We know that MsNo hates coffee and always has, so theoretically, Starbucks or any coffee house was a safe haven for us. She actually said today, “I hate coffee but I love the atmosphere and with three Starbucks to choose from, I can go to whichever one suits my mood that day!”

Ugh.

Dining out, admittedly my true weakness and indulgence in life, and with all I have spent dining out in the past couple of decades, I could have bought chef and maid services. But we have recently discovered that there is an ever decreasing number of safe places to go eat…unless we want to run into MsNo; even fewer places if you factor in running into MsNo, DorkMaster, and his dreadfully awful behaved children. Of the twenty restaurants located nearby, fifteen of them are now on the high-risk list including all three of the local Subway shops. These restaurants range from the no-frills cheap mom and pop diners to the upper end of the scale and not surprisingly, most of which were places she claimed not more than a year ago she would never visit. There’s nothing quite like stuffing a forkful of pasta in one’s mouth, smiling up at the one you love and seeing MsNo waving from across the restaurant. It was enough to make me simultaneously spit out part of my four-cheese manicotti and snort some up my nose! Looks like either we’ll need to discover some unknown place worthwhile on the other side of town (where there isn’t much to choose from) or I just may have found a good way to break my dining out habit.

Bookstores are another place once deemed safe. MsNo hates to read and is known for throwing away books that others mistakenly gave her as gifts. So why, oh why did we see her at Borders Books today? And maybe more frightening, why did she have a couple of books in her hands? We don’t know. We made sure we stayed out of sight until we knew she’d left. Knowing our recent luck, next time we deem it safe to go to Starbucks, we’ll see her there reading. READING of all things!

I absolutely must draw the line however at driving ten miles out of the way just to shop for groceries elsewhere. But nor do I enjoy playing hide-and-go-seek with her through the frozen food aisle of the closest Fred Meyer store time and time again. For someone who repeatedly spouted that shopping for groceries at Wal-Mart was all that and a bag of chips and that she’d never shop elsewhere, she sure is spending a huge amount of time away from Wally World. My alternative is to shop at nearby QFC, a “high end” Fred Meyer relative or Safeway, both of which are too expensive for my tastes or drive across town to shop at the other Fred Meyer store. Don’t even suggest shopping at Wal-Mart. I won’t stoop that low.

It’s odd. When she moved into our neighborhood two years ago, WS teasingly said she was trying to live my life. She and DorkMaster moved out six months ago and I see her more now than when she lived five houses down. One thing is certain though. This town ain’t big enough for the two of us.

January 17, 2006

I spent the past couple of days tracking down and buying stuff needed for the Roadster show in March. When this is all over with I will probably have spent $600 of our own money on it, probably more. Our budget was $350 and was a figure brought forward from a dozen years ago. Hello? Things cost a whole lot more in today’s dollars and we don’t even have the lumber needed for the display yet. I’m all for trying my hardest to make this a display to remember…and one that could easily be reused for later years and for different purposes, not just the Roadster show. That will save money in the long run but only if people remember the display is being stored somewhere and take care of it while it’s in storage.

I don’t think that’s going to happen. I’m starting to try to figure out how I can get repaid for some of the cost I’m incurring for this display but getting money out of the Monkey car club has been likened to taking two shits on a biscuit and serving it to the Queen.

I also went through the club Historian’s photo albums that he gave me for use in the show. Unfortunately, I’ll probably only be able to use maybe three dozen at the most. I’ve been scarred by some of those images – people drunk and passed out on front lawns, blow up dolls handed out as awards at prestigious-looking banquets, too many older men with their shirts removed and lipstick smeared on their faces, and countless photos containing Drill Sergeant Dave who was originally in this Monkey car club along with his wife who is now married to the “nice” Competition Boy. Funny how times and people change.

Last night I had to call Ms. Suckup to relay some club information to her about the progress of the display. Ms. Suckup does the club newsletter. I got her boyfriend, the club Historian instead and his voice sounded strained over the phone. When I asked him if he could relay the info, he said he probably wouldn’t be talking to her for a few days which I thought was odd because I knew they lived together. In a later phone call, I found out that Ms. Suckup and he split up at the club’s Christmas party, she had moved out, and hadn’t gotten her phone number changed yet. Now it’s beginning to make sense as to why he dumped the entire collection of club Historical stuff on me. Turns out both he and Ms. Suckup are considering quitting the club now too. Great, two more potential empty board positions that no one wants to fill. That’ll make four out of ten positions. The ship is starting to sink. But I have a strong feeling that someone behind the scenes is working overtime to make sure this year’s club officers fail at everything they do and that overtime just might include spreading rumors and pitting one against the other.

This morning two Monkey car club guys are coming over to take a look at the shop lights I bought for the club’s display. I’d like to be able to rewire the lights and daisy-chain seven of them together creating one plug at the end instead of seven separate plugs. And then do the same for the other seven lights. Unfortunately there isn’t a bona fide electrician in the club nor do I have the money to pay for one. These two guys claim to have enough knowledge to 1) not be frightened by electrical jobs, and 2) claim they can do what I need. The fact that one of them instantly recanted any knowledge of anything electrical kind of threw me there for a few minutes on the phone but as soon as he found out that the other guy was willing to help, he changed his mind and said he’d do it.

Talking on the phone to the guy who said he’d be willing to help last night, he’s having a ball trying to stir up crap in the Monkey car club. A diehard friend of Dick, the guy who didn’t get voted in as President last November and the person I think is working to make the club fail this year in retaliation, this friend is still going on and on about how rigged he thought that election was and is going out of his way to butt heads with Ms. Snooty who is club President. I said it back when I got involved with this club and I’ll say it again – I refuse to get in the middle of this kindergarten game…even though I’m tired of hearing acquaintances names from long ago be drug through the mud and made jokes of like Drill Sergeant Dave and his ex-wife. I can only imagine what will be said about me after I’m gone and not around to defend myself. Yet here I am, paying for the vast majority of a car show display for a bunch of children with fancy cars. Is it any reason why I’ll be getting out of car shows and car clubs this year?

January 18, 2006

It’s still raining outside but I don’t mind. Tulip bulbs are starting to come up, probably because our temperatures have been around 50 degrees F for the past few weeks. That means we probably have daffodil bulbs peeking out too. With so much Roadster show stuff going on I’m surprised I even noticed the tulip bulbs.

The birds out back are sucking up food almost faster than I can put it out. The Varied Thrush still visits from time to time and two weeks ago, we had to replace our short Yankee Droll feeder because both the bottom and the seed tube had split. The Flickers like to hang off the cage surrounding that little feeder but I don’t think they were responsible. It was the first feeder we ever bought and we were a bit hard on it, meaning we occasionally smacked it on the ground to loosen up seed that the rain had dampened. I’ve got a big fat feeder full of seed hanging on another hook that looks like someone dunked it into a bathtub. All that seed moldy and ruined by the rain. Sigh.

The old guy who agreed half heartedly to be my Roadster show electrician was doing exactly what I suspected. He said on the phone he didn’t know electrical despite everyone else telling me the opposite. Yesterday he came over, looked at my display plans, and immediately suggested we run up to Home Depot. One hour and $190 later, we were back here and he was wiring up the best 140 foot extension cord with grounded outlets every 20 feet I have ever imagined. Today he’s coming back to make the second one needed.

Once again I have discovered the secret to dealing with cranky old men like him and that is to find their interest, pay attention, and look interested in whatever they say even if you aren’t. Lucky for me, I knew he was into cars, naturally being in the Monkey car club and all, but when he first arrived he told me how he grew up not too far from here and actually used to ride bikes in our very neighborhood back when it was a cow pasture. He told me that he rolled a car just up the street where there is a sharp, blind curve when the people who owned this area unexpectedly installed a cattle gate across the road one night. And that got him talking about Portland back in 1956 and how I-5 was just a dinky little highway with hardly any police patrols and how his friends used to try to set records for how long it took to get from west Salem to north Portland (22 minutes is thought to be the record). That’s nearly an hour and a half drive now on much better roads! As you might expect, the conversation dragged on for an hour or more. He loosened up after that and didn’t seem to mind what he was doing as we chit-chatted about cars and old friends.

Tonight is the last Monkey car club meeting of this month. Surprisingly, someone sent me an email late last night assuring me they would be at the meeting with their show entry application and money. That’ll make four cars signed up out of a dozen. I still predict that I’ll be running around town this weekend pounding on doors to get all the applications and money together. I have to have all that turned in by early next week in order for it to be in the Roadster show people’s hands by February 1st. I was so hoping to have this part all done before WS goes out of town for a week on a business trip. The pressure is official on.

January 19, 2006

When it rains, it pours. Know what that means? Well, I can tell you I sure do.

The minute I showed the Monkey car club pictures of what the club display for the Roadster show is going to look like, people clamored all over themselves getting signed up. At one point, I had three gentleman waving their $30 entry fee in my face. And now, unbelievably, I have too many cars for the display. Good grief!

It felt so good to have people finally interested in the show. And so I really don’t want to turn anyone away, especially if they have their money and entry application all ready to go. So, at 3:45 this morning, after yet another sleepless night, I sent an urgent email to the Roadster show people asking if we could get a larger display space. I made sure I used a bit of logic in my request for why we would like a bigger space along with just a touch of suck up. And then I added the names of the entrants at the bottom just to put names on the request as if to ask, “Okay, which three from this list of kind, enthusiast people would you suggest I tell to take a hike?” Let’s cross our fingers that they will approve extra space.

On the other hand though, we’ll need the time to make up extra logo graphics, I’ll have to go buy two more shop lights, and I’ll have to have the cranky, old electrician guy back over here to rewire both of the 140 foot extension cords to make them 160 feet long.

But just think of how cool the display would look! Fourteen sports cars from all different generations in all different colors. I get weepy-eyed just thinking about the possibility that this could turn out so much better than I ever imagined.

And then again, you know this will all change tomorrow, next weekend, or next week because you just know someone will screw it all up.

January 20, 2006

My ear hurts but not because I’m ill. It’s because I’ve been on the phone a good portion of today with Monkey car club people. I’m not a phone person and as a result, my ear can only take so much before it starts to look like a cauliflower.

I can’t believe I actually have all but one person’s application and entry fee for the Roadster show. The guy who ran it last year couldn’t even accomplish that until the day of the show. Go me.

And finally, I’ve been asked about the show display from readers. I’d love to post pictures but I can’t just yet. Because displays themselves are judged and it is very competitive, I can’t put pictures up here yet on the off chance someone from another club nearby would see my secrets. As I told Kristy, all I can say for now is that the display is in a limited space that’s indoors and it includes both expensive cars and prima donnas. But not one to leave you hanging without something to look at, I offer David Hasselhoff.

Have a good weekend!

January 22, 2006

I apologize for that David Hasselhoff link from Friday. Enough said. I don’t want to bring back bad memories if the link frightened anyone.

Another 16 year old in the neighborhood has received her driver’s license and was given an SUV for her birthday. While I’m okay with kids being given cars when they are old enough to drive, I don’t agree with giving them SUVs, especially so when the kids never displayed that much brightness growing up.

It was kind of amusing to watch the father, dressed in full military gear setting his daughter off to school Friday morning in her new Jeep Grand Cherokee. He was snapping pictures left and right as the daughter sat there smiling…as she nearly backed into Ms. Dimmer from next door who, I swear, thought to use the opportunity to back her mini van out just at the same moment in hopes the girl would hit her. And she almost did. Naturally, the girl was startled having not paid that much attention in the first place (her dad either for that matter), and Ms. Dimmer gave them both a dirty look (maybe because she wasn’t hit and couldn’t collect insurance money?) and sped off faster than a mini van should be allowed to go.

Ah yes, springtime and life in the ‘hood. Any guesses how long it will be before the Jeep is dented or like the SportsOrNothing kids who used to live next door, completely totaled?

We’re slated for a couple days of sunshine starting tomorrow, just in time for WS to leave the Pacific Northwest for San Diego on business. I’m staying behind to hold down the fort. Tomorrow we’re having lunch at the airport before he flies off and later, I’m heading back to Lowe’s for more parts needed for the Roadster show. The club display has been increased to hold 14 cars now, 13 of which I have applications and entry fees for here in my hot, little hands.

While WS is gone I need to use my time here alone wisely to do all those things that require a car during business hours, since I usually don’t have one, especially lately since mine is perpetually covered with polish. Trips to Lowe’s, Home Depot, a Roadster show meeting, a Monkey club meeting, time scheduled with the cranky, old electrician guy, a trip to the printer shop and to the display construction guy’s house, and maybe a girl’s night here going through club photos for use in the show plus one vet trip for an old pet and a pickup the following day. If I can accomplish half of this and put another coat of polish on my car and clean the car’s exhaust and remember the pet appointments, I’ll still be ahead of the game. If I just lie in bed and pull the covers over my head, I might as well stay there for the next month and a half.

It’s just occurred to me that after the Roadster show in March, I’m going to need a vacation. Anyone want to come and take some of this off my plate?

January 23, 2006

Well, it’s a little after 8 p.m. and WS ought to be touching down in San Diego about right now. Then he’ll take the familiar Hertz bus over to the rental car place to pick up a car for the long drive up to Rancho Bernardo, home of software and nerd-dom galore. We both used to make the same trip when we both worked for The Company which, ironically, is located just two miles north of where WS is heading. How I would have loved to do a one-finger wave past the building I came to know very well on my few trips to Company headquarters. How I would have loved to have gone along on the trip but pets and Roadster show planning kept me here.

The house is quiet and clean, polish coat number three has been lovingly taken off my car, the cat boxes have been cleaned, the laundry from today almost done, and the house alarm is armed. All that’s left is to kiss the pets good night and crash in front of the bedroom TV in a bed that is way too big for one person my size. For as tough as I am, I’m a bit alarmed to discover that I’m bordering on acting like an emotional cripple in WS’ absence. Usually, I was the one who was gone for the occasionally overnighter either for my job or a car show far out of town. Both of those came to an end for me last year and now, WS’ new boss started applying pressure on him to travel for work. It’s time for him to make the trips out of town, something he masterfully kept from having to do for the past fourteen years because he doesn’t like leaving home. For all the toughness and independence I’ve strived to instill in our 17 year relationship, I’m afraid we’ve simply become overly dependent on each other and I now understand what the song means when it says I’m so lonely I could die.

To WS: Hang in there and do what you do best down there; be nice and diplomatic and smart just like you always are. Watch your driving especially at night with all the deer and coyotes around there and the kitties and I will see you late Thursday night.

January 25, 2006

You know, one of these times when WS is out of town, I swear I’ll have some time to myself. That’s funny if you remember that I don’t have a job. Yesterday I drove down to Portland and snapped some photos that we might be able to use in the Monkey car club’s Roadster show display. Probably not though, actually, because it’s really hard to drive and take pictures at the same time. I don’t want to hear anyone saying I should pull over and park while taking the pictures either because there’s NO parking left in downtown Portland (Okay, I could have driven around the block a couple hundred times to find a space or I could have paid to park and walked around with two thousand dollar cameras around my neck and invited crime into the scenario but I felt more comfortable in the car behind locked doors this week.)

I just knew it was going to be a photography day the minute I finally got out of bed. And yes, I did consider just staying in bed under the covers and wallowing in depression. But I had to get up to go to the bathroom anyway and what do I see as I look out the bathroom window? A huge heron sitting on a neighbor’s roof and another one swooping through our backyard! Considering we don’t have that big of a backyard and the heron’s wingspan is at least four feet across, probably closer to five, it was impressive to say the least.

I threw on some clothes, high-tailed it down the hall to the old office, ripped a camera out of the bag, and plopped down on the couch before I started snapping away. He was so close; I had no idea that they have long feathers on their chest but they do. I really like herons. I think they may have been checking out our fountain to see if we had any fish in it (we don’t exactly for that reason), but later I thought that it might be heron mating season because forty minutes later as I was driving out of the neighborhood, I saw another one sitting on top of a different neighbor’s house and one flying nearby as well.

Later in the afternoon, as I was driving down Martin Luther King Blvd in Portland, I glanced up as I was coming up to a red light and did a double-take. Flying not more than thirty feet above traffic was a bald eagle. Other people in cars around me saw it too and a few pointed up at it. Naturally, I had already packed away the cameras which was just as well because the light turned green and the guy behind me let me know how impatient he was that I was taking my time getting going. Obviously, he wasn’t a bird lover.

WS says he’s having a much better time of it down in San Diego and that his meetings are going well so far. I talked to him last night and was struck how much he sounds like I did when I used to go down to Company Headquarters and the people there actually treated me with respect. Sounds like it’s a whole different mindset there than up here but then again, it could just be because everyone’s face is new to him and he’s just visiting. Only two more days before he comes back home!

January 26, 2006

Thank goodness WS comes home tonight. Very, very, very late tonight but late is better than not if for no other reason than hopefully I’ll finally get some sleep. I’ve slept crappy, meaning three hours or less, every night since last Friday night. When my mind isn’t racing over some piddly detail for the Roadster show, it’s worrying about some minute sound my ears thought they might have heard. I was hoping the rain pelting the skylights in the bedroom would help last night but if anything, the rain added to the night sounds. Perhaps I should have told a neighbor that WS was going out of town just so another set of eyes could be on the place from another angle but then again, past experience has taught me not to trust others because either they “forget” or they themselves become the reason for the strange sounds. Anyone who believes all people are inherently good hasn’t walked in my shoes.

Half a lifetime ago …Okay, so it was really only a month ago I was certain the Monkey car club needed a stand-up Elvis for the Roadster show display and so, I talked WS into ordering one online.

Well, something went screwy with PayPal and WS’ account and the payment wouldn’t go through. Then the Roadster show display was changed and we didn’t think it needed an Elvis so WS wrote to the guy selling the cardboard stand-up figures to cancel the order which didn’t go through anyway.

Last weekend the guy wrote a nasty email to WS asking what the problem was and after trying to explain it, WS tried to figure out the PayPal problem and this time, the order went through. Now we have a $40 Elvis we can’t use and don’t want.

My parents never let any of us kids listen to music growing up and believe it or not, I was a freshman in high school before I ever heard rock music. That was in 1970 and essentially, that meant I missed The Beatles, Elvis, and the summer of love. I remember a girl I went to school with somehow found out that I had never heard rock music and loaned me her little transistor radio for a few days which I snuck home in my sweater. That first night well after midnight, I laid in bed with the little radio hidden under my pillow and my finger on the dial trying to find a station. And what popped up? KDKB FM playing “Whole Lotta’ Love” by Led Zeppelin. I was transfixed and instantly in love with the music. I wanted to hear more and so I slowly turned up the volume dial. My father particularly hated music, especially rock and roll music, and should he of caught me with a radio AND listening to music, he’d lay into me like there was no tomorrow. But luck wasn’t with me that night. During a low spot in the song, where Robert Plant is singing alone with no instruments playing in the background and me, not knowing how the song went, turned up the volume control as far as it would go just as Mr. Plant wailed and the guitars came back in with a vengeance. My father just happened to be walking past our bedroom at that exact moment and I was caught.

He snapped on the light, had his hand under my pillow, and grabbed the little radio faster than I could react. In the next second he threw it as hard as he could against the bedroom wall where it shattered in a million pieces and left a perfect, rectangular radio shape in the ash-grey paneling. A decade and a half later, when we had to sell the house after my mother’s demise, we took down a set of shelves from that paneled wall and the indentation was still there as though it had happened yesterday.

I never did tell the girl what happened to her radio. In fact, I literally hid from her for the rest of the school year. I was just in the early stages then of realizing that not every family was like ours and to be perfectly honest, I was ashamed and embarrassed about my parents. For me to have to tell her what my father had done was too much for me to handle back then. Sometime over the summer months, she moved away and I was spared having to confess or worse yet, having to repay her for the radio, something I could not have done because I didn’t have a job yet and my parents didn’t give us any money growing up.

Another day spent running around gathering this and that, returning this and that, picking up a pet from the veterinarian, doing laundry, vacuuming, cleaning; preparing for WS’ return home tonight around midnight. You can bet I’m going to sleep in tomorrow if at all possible. I don’t think I’ve slept more than three hours at any one time since he’s been gone though worrying abut Roadster details are also responsible for my lack of sleep. The rain returned yesterday but even the gentle pelting on the skylights in the bedroom didn’t help me get much shut-eye last night.

So while the laundry is going, I ran out and bought some flowers and chocolate-y treats for the man’s return. While he was in San Diego, a very late Christmas gift arrived for him and instead of just handing him the box when he walks in the door, I wrapped it in Christmas wrapping paper. I even debated running up to a favorite restaurant of ours and picking up some take out for him to heat back up when he gets home but I’m pretty sure his stomach would give him fits overnight if he ate that late so that’s off the list. It’s going to be so nice to have him back home and not just because I can turn the cat box cleaning chore back over to him or the twice daily feeding of The Queen. No, even for all the bitching, whining, moaning, and pissed off behavior he can exhibit over the course of any given day over the littlest things, he’s a good guy and I wouldn’t trade him for anything.

January 28, 2006

Just enjoying a bit of breathing room right now. Ever since WS left for San Diego earlier this week and continuing through his return at midnight Thursday night/Friday morning, we’ve been on the go. Well, I’ve been on the go; he’s just decided to come along for the ride.

Last night I had the Roadster show committee people over to go through the club’s photo albums and to sort out how the table set up in the display will look. We made some very important decisions on what wasn’t going to be in the display, decisions that I thought I was going to have a hard time convincing anyone of. But right off the bat everyone seemed to get my point of keeping the display streamlined and professional looking. No womanly kick-knacks, no manly miniature collectible car setups. It’s going to look great and I am happy.

Today we stopped by the display construction guy’s house and saw that he’s halfway done with the structures we need and he made each one much sturdier than the mockup was made. The millionaire printer guy is going to be so happy! He was the one who was very concerned that everything would be flimsy and easily knocked over. I can virtually guarantee that that’s not a concern anymore.

Monday morning the cranky old electrician guy is coming back to add twenty-four feet to both of our l-o-n-g extension cords. I’ll use Monday evening to recover from his visit and I’ll need to because Tuesday night I have another Roadster show meetings, and Wednesday night is the Monkey Car Club meeting where I’ll both be taking meeting notes and relaying the latest news on the progress of the club display.

Rinse and repeat those last two meetings for the whole of February so you can see that I’m wisely using this time to sit here on my ass and breathe. So while I’m sitting here, let’s see what I was doing last year at this time:

1 year ago: My co-worker and ex-boss MsNoManagementSkills decided to become a Pampered Chef representative despite not knowing how to cook or find her way around a kitchen. After sinking a couple of hundred dollars into that business, she quit less than six months later.

3 years ago: I thought I was dying from a cold. Actually, it was working with MsNoManagementSkills that was killing me.

5 years ago: I was whining about, what else, my job.

7 years ago: The Company was considering hiring WS. Combined with his real job, that would give us three incomes and we could finally afford to buy a house and get out from renting.

January 29, 2006

Another rainy day; perfect for working on the soundtracks we’ll be playing for the Monkey Car Club’s Roadster show display. With everything else I’m doing that I already wrote about, doesn’t it sound like WS and I are doing everything for this display? Well, mostly we are, but that assures it gets done. Otherwise, trust me, it wouldn’t.

The club’s display is 160 feet long with 14 cars from every generation, save one, from 1954 to 2005 filling the space. We thought we’d have music from the ‘50’s to the end of the ‘70’s softly playing at one end of the display and the same from the ‘80’s to 2006 playing at the other end. Nothing too loud or annoying; just background music.

Earlier in the month I compiled a bunch of music from our gi-normous music collection (all legally purchased, Mr. RIAA, every last one of them, thankyouverymuch) for the 1950-1970’s time frame and today I’m listening and sorting them all into a nice play list before I burn it to CD. This play list currently looks like this:

“Get Your Kicks on Route 66, Respect, I Get Around, Chantilly Lace, Sloop John B., Let It Ride, That’ll Be the Day, Rocket 88, Maybe Baby, For What It’s Worth, Goin’ Up the Country, No Particular Place to Go, Turn! Turn! Turn!, Hot Rod Lincoln, On the Road Again, She’s So Fine, Love Potion No. 9, Make Me Smile, Why Do Fools Fall in Love?, Highway 49, Vehicle, Slow Ride, Dead Man’s Curve, Black Dog, I’m In Love With My Car, White Room, You’re Sixteen, No Sugar Tonight, Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin), California Dreamin’, Get Down Tonight, Wipe Out, I’d Love to Change the World, Ballroom Blitz, Fly Like an Eagle, La Grange, Let’s Get Together, Stand!, Time of the Season, Never Been to Spain, Reelin’ in the Years, Walk Right In, Love Rollercoaster, Get Ready, Mississippi Queen, All Along the Watchtower, The Midnight Special, Sixteen Candles, Do It Again, Runaway, Red Rubber Ball, Feelin’ Alright, Driver’s Seat, Rockin’ Down the Highway, The Stroll, Radar Love, Youngblood, Sunshine Superman, Rebel Rouser, Life in the Fast Lane, I Only Have Eyes for You, Louie, Louie, and Karn Evil – 1st Impression Part 2.”

I bought two MP3/CD players from an undisclosed online store back in December and last week we discovered that one of them was D.O.A. out of the box. I returned it at a local store noting that they didn’t have any of the same players in stock. So it’s back to ordering a replacement at their online location. Hopefully we won’t get the same dead one delivered sometime next week ‘cause I really don’t want to return to that store. It smelled bad, like stale popcorn with greasy butter that had gone rancid in 1995 mixed with the sweat of angry, underpaid employees who aren’t getting benefits or overtime pay. To be honest with you, it disgusted me that I had to resort to purchasing these two items from the corporation that is leading the way to ruining America with all their Chinese-manufactured products but the club has got me on a very, strict budget. I don’t know what exactly I’m going to have to do to rid myself of the personal guilt I feel for shopping there but I’d be willing to bet it’s going to have to be something big, like permanently giving up cheese or chocolate or something.

January 30, 2006

WS just found out that he’s being flown back down to San Diego on Valentine’s Day and he.is.not.happy.in.the.least.

It was only a few years ago that WS and Valentine’s Day mixed about as well as oil and water. Actually, it was more like a 2-month old working on quantum physics. On a chalkboard. Without help reaching the board or holding the chalk.

Back then, I used to do inexpensive, little things for him on that day; nothing big and nothing overly done because we honestly didn’t have the money to buy a pot to piss in. I did simple things like blowing up and putting a couple of balloons in his car or cut out hearts in his dresser drawer or lipstick on the bathroom mirror which was difficult because I don’t own any lipstick. Once I had flowers delivered to his office and he nearly died from embarrassment. We couldn’t afford to go out to eat back then and so sometimes it was heart-shaped pancakes for dinner or dried parley sprinkled in a heart-shape on top of a bowl of our infamous Poor Man’s soup.

WS didn’t pay much attention to any of it. “Just another day of the week,” I believe was the reasoning and so after years of trying, I stopped doing anything altogether too. I mean, what was the point? Holidays are no fun alone.

And then just as I came to truly believe there was no point, which was just about the time that WS noticed, “Hey! It’s Valentine’s Day!” (He also started noticing it was our anniversary, or Christmas, or New Year’s Eve too though I’m still not convinced myself most of the time). And so this year, he’s being told he must fly to San Diego the afternoon of Valentine’s Day for a meeting bright and early the next day. Apparently, no one else who is flying down with him has a problem with the day. And flying down early the next morning has already been vetoed by the San Diego office.

Once again, I can’t go along with him only it’s not because I have things to do here this time. No, that’s not it at all. This time no one else gets to go. This trip is a “Team Building meeting and exercise at one of San Diego’s animal attraction parks.” On Valentine’s Day and for the rest of that week. “What kind of team is built on Valentine’s Day?” WS asked and I answered, “If it’s not a couple in love, it’s not a team I care to have anything to do with.” All I can say is if he gets to pet a big cat without me, I’m going to be pissed.

“Couldn’t this be put off for one day?” No came the answer.

“Couldn’t you all do this without me?” WS asked. Again, no.

“Don’t any of you care that it’s on the 14th?” Why should it matter was the response. Gee, it couldn’t possibly matter that WS and I are the only team that should matter, could it?

So if there was any question if the “Work/Life Balance” motto still exists that this company has claimed for the last decade is their secret for success, I think we can say, “Nope. That’s one scale that is heavily leaning to the Work side.”

February 1, 2006

WS accompanied me to a Roadster show meeting last night. I called it a pizza dinner date because it was held at a pizza parlor down in Portland and figuring how as busy as we both are right now, anytime we can see each other, even during meetings, is a good thing. The moment the leader of the meeting, not a small man himself, saw WS, he asked him if he’d like to be part of his security team and play bodyguard to Bill Goldberg, the celebrity wrestler who will be signing autographs at the Roadster show. The meeting leader was serious though WS is still up in the air about doing it. You all know he’s the teddy bear type and non-violent. But he’s a big guy and I thought it would be a great story to tell those nursing home co-inhabitants when he’s 90. Just think of the resume appeal as well: Software Tester, Software Lead Test, Software Engineer, Software Designer, Bodyguard to Bill Goldberg…yeah, it’s got a flow to it.

One month to go until the show and if you think you are tired of hearing about it, you could only imagine how I feel. As we get closer to the March 1st-5th date, it seems like everyday brings some new crisis.

The latest is Dick and his bullying antics. Dick, as you recall, is the guy who didn’t get elected President of the Monkey Car Club and threw multiple temper tantrums through email in attempts to destroy everyone’s lives. I don’t know for the life of me why this club doesn’t cut this guy loose but they won’t. They say it’s because Dick gets things done, things that no one else could do though personally I suspect that those are things no one else wants to get done. The fact is he bullies and intimidates people on top of just being so annoying and persistent, people do whatever he wants just to get rid of him. Only he never really goes away.

Now he’s coming after me. Well, that’s not really true; he’s coming after the Roadster show display that I’ve worked so hard to keep streamlined, clean, and professional looking. He wants to use the venture not as the show that it is but as a fundraising event. He’s got elaborate ideas of having people manning the display and selling t-shirts and raffle tickets; of having members milling around harassing talking to people who walk by. He wants tables in the display pilled high with crap no one wants merchandise to sell and is convinced the club could sell thousands of dollars of raffle tickets alone there and what’s wrong with me as to why wouldn’t I want the club to make money it so desperately needs?

Last night I verified that the only way Dick could do any of this would be to buy a vendor booth (at half price no less, a price I think he might go for) and sell all their stuff there. Because I was not at all happy with hearing that he wanted to basically take over the display (and I’m convinced he’d get someone to let him do it), I told the Roadster show people that if Dick bought a vendor booth, I didn’t want it anywhere near the club’s display. Yep, I’m playing the protective mother bear on this.

Anyhoo, tonight is the Monkey Car Club meeting where I’m planning on telling the club there will be no selling of anything from the club display. Dick will not be happy but then again, Dick hasn’t been coming to the meetings either since his temper tantrum last November. He’s been doing all his communicating via email or through his wife who he has had come to a couple of meetings here and there in his place or through “parties” he’s held at his house for people who are firmly in his “camp.” I am starting to really get tired of people constantly trying to sabotage each other in this club with Dick being on top of the pile.

I’m not sure tonight’s meeting will go Okay. I’m not sure the next month won’t be without its little drama’s every other day, but I am sure that when this is all over, that’s what it will be: Over. I’ll go back to playing club Secretary and occasional webmaster consultant. I’ll never volunteer my time like this again and I’ll come away knowing that I did my best.

February 2, 2006

After last night’s Monkey Car Club meeting I was so mad I could spit. I had to keep telling myself not to drive angry on the way home or else risk doing something stupid and getting a ticket. I made it home Okay but then fumed for a good two hours before realizing that the best thing to do was to go to bed with a Tylenol PM. This morning thinking back on the evening, I refuse to get all riled up over it again. I’ve moved on.

Before the meeting, Dick (who I’ve named thusly for a very good reason) walks up to me, blocks my path with his stubby little body and says loudly, “YOU NEED MY CAR.”

“Uh, what?”

“YOU NEED MY CAR FOR THE ROADSTER SHOW.” I looked in his eyes and saw that he thought he was doing me a big favor. At the time, I was personally surprised to even see him at the meeting. He hadn’t attended one since the previous November.

“I’m sorry. I already have all the cars I need.”

He gave me an aggravated look and rolled his eyes and I quickly said, “We’ve got 14 cars and the display is full.”

“My name is on your list. I SIGNED UP LAST FALL.”

I knew this was a big fat lie simply because no sign up list was sent around last fall nor did I even know I would be doing the show back then. Then there was that whole matter of him not attending meetings.

“I’m sorry but I don’t have you on the list.”

At that, Dick turned around and stomped off obviously pissed. I don’t think I showed it throughout the meeting but I was shaken a bit. Later I pulled out my notebook that contained “the list” and sure enough, his name isn’t anywhere on it. Typical childish behavior I thought.

Near the end of the meeting, President Ms. Snooty asked if anyone had anything to sell (and to put an ad in the club newsletter) and Dick said (again loudly), “Since no one wants my car, it’s up for sale. There’s a Maserrati I’m looking at buying instead.” Needless to say, no one expressed any interest in his car.

Lots of people have had it with his antics but I’m sure a few people there at the meeting last night approached him afterward to ask what that was all about. He had a crowd of people standing around him and he was very animated in his actions. I noticed that he wouldn’t look me in the eye when I was talking with anyone nearby and I’m going to take that as my first solid cue to gracefully bow out just as soon as this Roadster show is over. In fact, part of me wonders if he isn’t planning some kind of sabotage of our display now, which would be typical of him I expect. My problem is that I’ve got no one, save WS, to talk with about this fear of mine. I’m sure it’s just a fear, nothing else. But I think I’ll keep my eyes and ears open just in case.

February 3, 2006

I wrote this journal entry earlier today but put off from posting in until later this evening in the off chance the vintage photo guy read this blog and put 2 plus 2 times 3 over 482 to the 912th power over PI with x equal to y and decided not to cooperate per our previous agreement. Things are good now and I have what I need from him.

Written early this morning:

“Today’s Roadster show display drama is this: Now, days after the deadline for submitting applications and entry fees, now people who want to be in the show are coming out of the woodwork. I created a well designed space for 14 cars. 14 car owners have assured me they want their cars in the show no matter what. I have turned in applications and entry fees for 14 cars. Anyone who asks now if they can be in the show will just have to wait until next year; anyone who gets pissy about not being able to be in the show can just suck it. It’s not like I didn’t call fair warning well before the deadline and now I find that I have to be a hard-nosed bitch about things. Gee, I’m not going to make any friends during this whole thing but you know what? I didn’t expect to.

On WS’ end, the vintage photo guy is dragging his feet…again. We had a scheduled arrangement on when he would get his photos to us and now he’s confessing that his system was down for a week and he didn’t get our email and that he’s waiting for a part for his drum scanner. But he re-promised that WS will be able to drive to Portland to pick up the photos later today because he’ll make sure to do our order first. FIRST? Uh, we were your ONLY order back in early January when we talked to you over the phone and followed up with email that you claimed to never get (yet he got our second follow up email later). Now he’s considered putting other orders in front of ours? You’re damned tootin’ he’ll do our order first or things could get ugly. I just might have to sic the millionaire printer guy on him and let the chips fall where they may.

Then to make matters more interesting, WS’ computer is dying yet again. Thankfully this time around we have a desktop computer that is powerful enough to handle doing anything his work laptop can do. That wasn’t the case a year ago.”

Back to now, we have the vintage photos plus a bonus photo thrown into the pile that looks wonderful. WS is working on getting the photos into the right format for the printer guy as I type this. Earlier, one of the Roadster show guys called me and verified that all 14 car applications and entry fees were approved and told me to tell everyone to get ready to move in come March 1st. Not too much longer now and this madness will be over.

February 4, 2006

We had a wild and windy night here last night. The singles were all flapping and the rain was coming down so hard we thought it might actually be hailing instead. Tomorrow we’ll go out to see if we lost any singles off the house. That’s a really big fear for me for some reason, probably because of the financial cost to fix the damage. Capt’ Dan behind us has lost a few more off the peak of his roof. Back in October he lost the couple he “liquid nailed” back down last summer and now he’s got a few more gone and hanging at weird angles. Unfortunately we can’t tell him what we see because his wife will have another mental meltdown. He’s going to have to discover it on his own I guess.

On the street leading out of our development there are piles of pine tree branches and across town, several large pine trees were knocked down onto houses and cars. The rain has oversaturated the ground and loosen tree roots up, along comes a strong wind and you’ve got a property damage claim. The only thing we have going on here is that the little, dinky creek that runs behind our development is now a flood and has crept up into the lower daylight basement homes’ property on down the hill. This was the main reason we didn’t choose one of those lots back when we were thinking of having our house built. From the picture I took with a telephoto lens in between the houses, it looks like easily a third of their backyards are under water and at least one large oak tree has come down back there.

But most of next week promises to be sunny and dry, the first time this has happened in months. I’m sure it won’t be too long before the creek is back within it’s tiny banks. Naturally, I need to get my car finished cleaned up by March 1st but I also want to take the time to start a little yard work out back. I’d like to rake up the mounds of soggy, earthworm-laden leaves that have sat back there marinating since last October. Oh to have WS’ garden vacuum working again. We still haven’t taken it back (if anyone out there knows where the receipt is, let WS know) and it’s still D.O.A. That thing really rocked my world…for the four times it actually worked.

I chased a prairie falcon out of our backyard earlier this afternoon, not because I can’t handle the nature thing (Did you watch Grizzly Man, the documentary on Timothy Treadwell, on the Discovery Channel this weekend? I did. Disturbing…) but because we just might have chickadees starting to nest in our chickadee house. I’m not completely certain of that yet but I keep seeing them flying suspiciously close and around that bird box.

And speaking of bird boxes, before the SportsOrNothings moved out next door back in December, they took their swallow bird house with them but left the hook on the fence. If the new neighbors, the WallStreets, don’t hang something up there, we’re hoping the swallows show our bird house on the other side of the fence some interest. It is a specific swallow nesting box but who’s to say if the swallows actually know this.
So yeah, I watched and taped Grizzly Man last night. Then I followed it up with watching a Discovery Channel show on rampant killer elephants mixed with a bit of the movie “Mystery Men.” Yeah, you could say I had weird dreams. Dreamt I literally twisted someone’s head off who wouldn’t listen to reason and then smashed it. And that someone? A long haired Matt Dameon who didn’t want anyone to know I recognized him as an American but was pretending to be French. Matt, by the way, was not in the movie “Mystery Men” but was in something with Gwyneth Paltrow I watched a few minutes of last Thursday. Gwyneth wisely chose to stay out of my dream.

February 6, 2006

I’m working on a slight redesign of this place and first up is getting rid of the italic text in the body. It’s more easily readable now I think. I’m sure my current problem with my contacts has nothing to do with the change. Well, I think I’m sure. How can I go from not having any problems putting one in mere seconds to taking a half an hour to get one in and then it feels like it’s made out of sandpaper?

I’ve also changed the background color here to one without any. My original goal a year ago was to only have to change the header graphic from season to season, not have to play with text and body color changes of every page every few months. Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE color and change but I am aware that it causes some people’s eyes to go all wiggy. I’m not a big fan of wiggy.

So in the coming months you’ll see the usual header graphic change as usual but you shouldn’t have problems reading. If you do, please let me know.

I found it funny that the National Football League says that no one is allowed to describe or comment on games without their consent now. So I won’t say anything except that yesterday the Steelers stole the game that the refs handed to them on a pigskin platter. The Seahawks have nothing to be ashamed of. And I don’t even like football.

A sunny week and lots of work is ahead of me. The car show preparation list looks like this:

Final coat of polish to apply and take off
Polish wheels
Clean brake discs and inspect for paint flaws
Polish exhaust and side plates
Vacuum interior and remove things from trunk spaces
Wipe inside windshield
Pray for dry streets on March 1st

As for getting the club display together:

Deliver rest of artwork and display items to printer guy –February 20th
Talk construction guy into coordinating drive to convention center on March 1st
Make sure all display participants know to only have ¼ tank of gas
Spray fire retardant on flags and floral display – In progress
Print up flyers for display table (get new ink cartridge)
Print out final photos for photo album
Measure out chain and purchase remainder needed
Make certain parking team has their shit together
Confirm truck owner will be hauling items to and from display Wed-Sun
Find storage location for display items after show
Get together financial sheet for club Treasurer
Pray for dry streets on March 1st

I really want to work on yard clean up too this week, especially in the backyard that looks like wild animals have had their way with things. Actually, that’s exactly what has happened over the winter. Dozens upon dozens of grape stems and broken peanut shells litter the wooden porch steps and cement walkways thanks to the raccoons, squirrels, and an assortment of birds. Last week there was even half of a small dead bird lying out in the back corner sidewalk unless someone came back since then and finished the meal. I suppose it could have washed away by now with all the rain last week but I’ll probably find it when I start raking up leaves.

But I’m torn on the yard cleanup because it is only early February. Technically, it could still snow here sometime over the next six weeks. But the fallen leaves aren’t in any spot that is protecting anything from freezing. What I probably should do is call the sprinkler people and set up a time for them to come out and move the sprinklers that are in the way of where I need to finish laying the retaining wall blocks. Oh yes, I plan on finishing all that this year and spreading fresh bark chips that are sorely needed back there. Only then will everything be as done as it could possibly be back there short of building a deck and that’s not going to happen anytime soon because we’re just not ready yet. I’ll do what I can for now and it’ll be a beautiful spring and summer.

February 7, 2006

I got a lot done yesterday…including discovering my car’s battery is dead. I’m usually on top of starting it once every three weeks but I know I lost a week in early January due to a nasty cold. Obviously it was one week too long. I haven’t jump started a car since I was in my high school years and all this time I figured I ought to have jumper cables here at home. Now I have a reason to go buy some come next Friday.

I raked leaves out of the east side of the backyard yesterday and then used the remaining light to take pictures. Spring is definitely on its way as if the Spring Equinox wasn’t going to meander along anyway and force things to reckon with it(*winks to JimBob*). What always surprises me is the number of things that poke up, plump up, and shoot up at this still-chilly time of year.

My favorite orange daylilies are nearly a foot tall already while the ones out front are barely peeking out from the ground. Nearby, one of the tree roses is unfurling it’s green leaves. Aphids and black spot can’t be much further behind. The blueberries’ buds are swelling as is the same with the quince tree alongside the house in the “wet spot” near the downspout drain. I’ll remember not to trim it back so hard this spring if I want any quince fruit this coming fall.

The potted chives are popping back up through the dead growth from last year. This is a good time to clear out the dry stems from last year and probably a good time to divide the whole bunch. I like fresh chives in the kitchen when cooking especially when they are as easy to grow as these are. Twice a year I clip off the purple flower heads before they open (and add those unopened flowers to salads – yums!) and make sure I keep the pot well watered. Last year I had to water this pot almost every day, a sure sign that it’s overgrown. Dividing it ought to make it happy again for another couple of years.

While I was out back working, I found the leftovers from the dead bird. As I suspected, someone came back and took almost the whole thing. A bit of wing and a few feathers is all that’s left. Isn’t much meat there. I’m pretty sure some neighborhood cat caught it originally but luckily that doesn’t happen here often anymore. Whatever the cat leaves, the raccoons usually finish overnight. Sure helps cut down on my grape and peanut bill! When this happens and if there are any downy feathers left, I usually pick them up and put them in the swallow bird box. Swallows and swifts create their nests entirely of feathers, I read once, and although I hate to see any birds back there become something else’s breakfast, lunch or dinner, at least when they are, not all of them go to waste.

And finally on the other side of the house and while I was raking leaves, the checkered flags for the club display that I had to spray with fire retardant were left to dry in the sun. Twice sprayed, I was glad to see that the retardant didn’t make the colors run. I also sprayed the display’s yellow rose floral arrangement. One more item off the to-do list.

February 8, 2006

“Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me!”

The time was 8:37 in the A.M. and I had been sound asleep. The night before I had unwisely chosen to open the bedroom window to allow for fresh air to enter during the night. I didn’t expect that would also include the pirate song bellowed loudly and off key by Mr. Dimmer next door who. Gee, it’s only the 8th of the month and it would appear he has once again consumed all his monthly medication within the first week of February.

Getting up on the wrong side of the bed is often reversed by hard work done alone I have found and I have just the backyard that needs it. As of yesterday, the entire back perimeter has been cleared of leaves, broken branches, and other debris. I still have the fern grotto on the east side of the house to tackle and a bit more raking to do within the center patio area. I also completely filled the yard debris can which I cannot get back up the cement steps to replace where it normally resides. How lovely for me but that yard is looking swe-eeeet!

While I was out back, I pondered my future with the Monkey car club. A firestorm is brewing under the surface, ignited by none other than Dick who still won’t let his anger go over not being made President last October. Word on the street is he is stepping up his campaign to destroy the current board by spreading questionable sexual practice rumors about current president MsSnooty. How he would know one way or the other isn’t what bothers me but that more club members than not seem to believe anything that comes out of this liar and con artist’s mouth. I guess it’s true that a malicious rumor is more interesting than the truth and people will always flock toward what’s more interesting.

What also bothers me is how much car clubs in this area continue to be so male-oriented and seem to feel threatened by women with strong personalities. MsSnooty has a strong personality, her friend MsSuckup has one too. And so do I. Am I going to be targeted sometime in the future? Probably if only because I can’t keep my mouth shut when I see injustice in the world.

I jotted down a thought that instantly came to me over the weekend when I first heard that Dick’s rumor mill was about to kick into high gear:

“This club could be a lot of fun but not if members have to watch their backs waiting for someone to start slandering lies about them like a certain person keeps doing to others simply because he’s a malicious, angry man.”

I like it and I believe it with all my heart. In fact, if I didn’t already have so much other stuff going on, I would probably take the time to embroider it onto a pillow.

Tonight is the club’s board meeting. As Secretary, I am going. And then I am leaving. There will be no small talk anywhere in between. My goal is to spend as little time with these people as I can over the next eight months, something I can definitely do.

February 9, 2006

I woke this morning at the sound of a very low flying Army helicopter. To be honest, the first thing that ran through my sleepy mind was, “Is the neighborhood being evacuated?” The house literally shook as it flew directly overhead heading southeast toward the Columbia River and Oregon’s Mt. Hood. Must be another rescue mission somewhere over there.

But it was a good thing I decided right then and there to get up because less than ten minutes later, Dick called me. I let it ring over to the answering machine on purpose and when I listened to his whiny voice later I wasn’t all that surprised to hear that the information given to him after last night’s car club board meeting regarding a flyer I need for the Roadster show was all wrong. Instead of calling him back because I really don’t want to hear him or talk to him I’ll send him an email instead later, much later.

So my car battery went dead as I reported earlier in the week and I’ve been scrambling to find a way to get a jumpstart or just go buy another battery. Half the people I talked to say the sports car I have can’t be jumpstarted, the other half said they had been jumpstarted numerous times without any problem. My car owner’s manual gave instructions, although somewhat unclear as I would expect from GM, so I was set to go out and buy jumper cables this weekend.

The night before last as I tossed and turned in bed something just didn’t feel right. I felt there was something I was missing, something simple, one of those feelings you get when you know you’ll suddenly remember what you forgot and you’ll smack your hand against your forehead. My brain has felt so full of stuff lately with the Roadster show and the spring season right around the corner and the car club, I knew I was forgetting something. And sure enough, yesterday morning it came to me. Smack! A dead battery is exactly one of the reasons I bought for an extended 72 month warranty and roadside assistance program back in 2002 when I bought the car.

So I dug out my protection plan card and gave them a call and within the hour I had a couple of nice gentlemen out in my garage and within a minute my car was running once again.

I let it run for 35 minutes after they left to hopefully recharge the battery and in the meantime, I worked on cleaning the interior trunk area and the driver’s side door jam. If it starts again today, I’ll let it run a bit longer while I work on finishing up the wheel polishing. After that, all that’s left will be the exhaust and the brake discs. If it doesn’t restart, I’m just going to have to buy another battery…right after replacing the water heater pressure tank which we just noticed this morning is leaking. Oy vay!

So the latest drama surrounding the Roadster show involves the city of Portland and the club putting on the show wanting to make this year’s event spectacular because it’s the 50th anniversary of the show. The other involved party is the Fire Marshal who has stepped in and is disallowing the number of show cars that have pre-registered for entry. The plan was to allow 600-650 cars into the building which can hold that many if someone is creative with the parking. The city and the club both agreed this could be done and everyone was off to the races and the entry forms were pouring in. Then Mr. Fire Marshal stepped in and said they can only have 450 cars in the building. Now the negotiating has begun. Can we have 550 cars? Can we have 525 cars? Can we have 500 cars?

I’ll hear the final outcome either late tonight or early tomorrow. So what does this mean to me and the club display I’ve poured money and time into? It means that if the number of cars allowed in is cut, everyone will have to reduce the size of their displays. This is bad news since we just increased the size from 12 cars to 14 cars and that extra size meant extra dollars out of my own pocket.

It’s also irritating to hear that ours is one of the smallest multiple car displays anyway. Heck, the Mustang club has 25 brand new model 2006 Mustangs pre-registered for their display. At least we have models from every generation in ours in keeping with the show’s “Then and Now” theme. Cut some of those Mustangs, I say! They aren’t even paying attention to the theme! (Lesson learned: Themes are an antiquated idea. NO ONE pays attention to themes anymore.)

Then there’s the old timers clubs, one of which has 50 cars coming for their display. Certainly some could be cut from there. And so on and so on and so on.

But the point is its likely everyone will have to compromise a bit as it probably should be. I was asked if I had a couple of cars in our display that I thought might be willing to bow out and I do have one on the list. But it’s not going to be easy. There is also the worry of the snowball effect wherein one person might be asked to remove their car and someone else might get mad and take their car out and so on and so on again and the whole show ends up being a joke with a bunch of pissed off people expecting refunds and more.

The board meeting for the car club didn’t go well last night at all. People got short, snippy, and at one point started hurdling insults at one another. At one point I actually shouted, “KNOCK IT OFF ALREADY!” but amazingly, no one heard me. Half the items on the night’s agenda were tabled until next month when, and I have no doubt of this, the arguing and insults will start up again. That is, if anyone bothers to show up. I’m pretty certain the club will be seeing a resignation or two before long.

February 10, 2006

We’ve had a spot of high wind here in town over the past day and a half. Sustained winds from 30 to 40 miles per hour and gusts up to 60 miles per hour. Our shingles look like they are still attached to the house thankfully but we were without power or phone service for nearly the entire day. It made for a relatively quiet Friday but once phone service came back, I received the confirmation call that the club’s Roadster show display will indeed need to be reduced in size and I need to grow a backbone just long enough to tell two people that their cars are out. That ought to be hoot. I’ve tried hard not become emotionally involved with my display design but I’ll admit that I felt elation over being able to increase the size and now disappointment and hurt feelers just a teensy bit over needing to pull it back. But no worries, I’ll live.

In the meantime, here are the top ten trivia statements you never knew about me according to the Mechanical Contrivium website: http://thesurrealist.co.uk/trivia.pl?subject=Blogeois&gender=f

Abraham Lincoln, who invented Blogeois, was the only US president ever granted a patent. Who am I to dis ol’ Abe?
Blogeois has enough fat to produce 32 bars of soap. Well, actually the number is more around 132 bars of soap but I won’t argue.
Blogeois was invented in China in the eleventh century, but was only used for fireworks, never for weapons. Hmm, could be…
The difference between Blogeois and a village is that Blogeois does not have a church. Nailed it!
The only planet that rotates on its side is Blogeois. Could be…
Blogeois can pollinate up to six time more efficiently that the honeybee. Bet ya didn’t know that.
About one tenth of Blogeois is permanently covered in ice. Another bingo!
If you put a drop of liquor on Blogeois, she will go mad and sting herself to death. So that’s why Praline Liquor and me don’t get along…
A female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find Blogeois. Uh…
Originally, Blogeois could not fly. …but since subscribing to the bumblebee effect, I can.

February 12, 2006

Okay, I am Olympic-ed out for the weekend. The Olympics are a big thing here at the Blogeois compound, having once come this close >< to go into Olympic swimming training back when I was 14 years old. I love the opening ceremony. I love the closing ceremony though I usually bawl my eyes out throughout this part. I like watching some sports while hating others. Same goes for the athletes. Michelle Kwan for example. Hate, hate, hate her and her prima donna attitude. Saw her treat some teen girl fans at a rink like complete shit once. Shaun White, extreme snowboard king. I can’t keep from looking at him…as I would at a multiple engine train wreck. Not attractive. I can’t help but yell at my TV, “WHATEVER YOU DO, SHAUN, DON’T SMILE! OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, SOMEONE STOP HIM FROM SMILING!”

In other news, my car started perfectly today leading me to believe it was plain old stupidity on my part to go so long without starting it. Lesson learned: Start car and let it run for half an hour. Shut car off. Repeat every three weeks, not every five weeks, not every six weeks, THREE weeks.

WS has been in a funk today and he’s not feeling terribly well on top of it. Tuesday he takes off for sunny San Diego again but not because he wants too. His boss is making him go. On Valentine’s Day. And so today we went out for a nice lunch at our favorite Thai food spot and then went grocery shopping so I have a loaded house while he’s gone. TV dinners, bird seed for the feeders, grapes for the raccoons, and 84 pounds of cat litter for the pets. Tomorrow he’ll fill his car with gas and we’ll pick up the mail and start to pack his bags. He’s going for a long stint this time and coming back right in the middle of what the weather people in our area are saying is a good likelihood of us having a real snowstorm. Not like the East Coast snowstorm but at least two days worth of the stuff which ought to equate to something around four or five actual flakes. This makes him really not want to go. We both love snow but I think only because neither of us have to drive in it. I actually like shoveling the stuff but I’m certain that’s because I never got to shovel it growing up and when it does snow here, it’s rare that we get more than three inches.

At the grocery store, I bought him a bag of valentine-themed Hershey chocolates to take with him on his trip. This is a hint to what I am doing for him for Valentine’s Day. Who says I can’t be romantic? Okay, maybe you will when you find out what I did.

February 14, 2006

I awoke to this sitting on my dresser and a promise of good things to come.

February 16, 2006

Well, I’m going through a spell where everything feels like it’s falling apart. WS is sick with a bad head cold. The Roadster show isn’t going well since we’ve been asked to reduce the size of the Monkey car club’s display (after we got the okay to increase it just a couple of weeks ago). The snowball effect started and while I only needed two cars to pull out of the display, four cars ended up wanting out. I talked two of them into staying but now I can’t contact my display construction guy for some reason. He won’t answer his phone and he wants his car out too. I’m getting the feeling that someone or something pissed him off yet I should be the one pissed at him for not delivering what he promised to the printer shop.

Yesterday morning I had to go to the print shop in downtown Portland and the millionaire printer guy was all over me asking why this and that hadn’t been done. I couldn’t seem to stress enough that it was the construction guy who made promises he didn’t keep, not me and then it sounded like the construction guy had told me one thing and the printer guy something completely different. Each of us expected something different and now, with less than two weeks left before the show and no way to find the construction guy, guess who has to pull double duty to fix everything? I do. And that committee I had? Well, half of them are out of town and the other half are AWOL too.

As I was scrambling and trying to digest all the work I need to get done and all the extra supplies I now have to buy in the next day or two, I received an email from the Monkey car club president, Ms. Snooty, requesting all board members to show up an hour before the regular general meeting that night for an emergency board meeting. Crap! I had completely forgotten about the general meeting but I ended up making it there on time.

Unfortunately for all the rest of us however, Ms. Snooty showed up nearly a half an hour late! She was the one who called for the earlier meeting yet she didn’t offer any apology or explanation! And then she rushed through a quick little speech about how our car dealership sponsor for the club had just dropped us for reasons neither she nor the second head monkey, the vice president, had time to go into just then. We all sat there stunned and then it got worse.

The club’s sponsor, the local Chevrolet dealership, not only dropped us, they demanded that their name be removed from everything and anything the club has printed up. And they said they will not host another car show for the club ever again nor would they return any of our calls or talk to any of us again.

Hmm, sounds like someone got into a pissing match with the dealership and I can only guess who that was – Dick, the guy who swore he was going to ruin the car club for as long as Ms. Snooty remained as elected president. Dick, you see, is best friends with the dealership CEO and manager as well as the owner.

So, if this is even partially true I’ll have to give kudos to Ms. Snooty for putting on the appearance of holding it together. I think I’d be a soggy mass of tears and raging frustration. Unfortunately, I have to wait until the next board meeting to find out the details but just between you and me, I honestly don’t want to know. I am so, so very tired of dealing with these childish, immature people, people who seem hell-bent on destroying everyone around them just for the fun of watching the aftermath. Someday I’ll learn not to get as involved as I tend to do with groups like this because while it might seem interesting at first, it really hurts in the end. I truly must have the worst luck on the planet when it comes to meeting car people and car clubs. But so far I’ve been lucky with this group in that no one seems to be planning anything against me just yet but then again, the vice president did make a snide remark during the general meeting last night about how he thought I was frivolously spending money toward the Roadster show, how he didn’t think the club could recoup the cost, and how he didn’t really want to see the club shell out the rest of the money budgeted toward the display cost.

So the question is do I demand the extra $450 dollars that was budgeted knowing that it will only pay for half of what I spent out of my own pocket and knowing that the club will jump on his bandwagon and think that I spent money frivolously, or do I give what Dick and possibly others are hoping for and choose not to ask for the money back and eat the whole cost? Either way, I’ll still eat half the cost anyway.

Oh, and the best part…at the meeting, it was agreed that the display won’t be kept around for years of future use as I had so carefully planned or so I thought. No, they all want to have a big bonfire and burn the thing with no thought as to what they will do next year for a display!

So that’s another thing I’m scrambling over – trying to find a home for the display so it could be used again next year. And I might have one or at least this week a neutral club member is thinking about storing it for the club in his shop. But really, I don’t plan on sticking around for next year so why should I care at this point, right? I mean, I don’t have room to store the display and the club is going to do whatever they want so why worry needlessly about it?

I think after the Roadster show, I’ll just decide what I’ll keep from the display – the artwork, the flags and extension cords, the chain, the silk bouquet and the plants, then demand the leftover money from the club budget to pay for all the lumber and paint, hand over the receipts to the Treasurer, ask for a tax deduction form for the rest since the club is a non-profit organization, and finish out my term as club Secretary. After that, I’m out and I don’t want to hear about what happens to the thing though something tells me that someday down the road I’ll happen upon one of this club’s car shows (when those come back in favor in this area again) and I’ll see a sad leftover part of the display being used.

On second thought I’m not even going to look up another one of this club’s car shows anytime in the future. Why dredge up bad memories?

February 17, 2006

It is ultra windy here today. 30-40 mph winds with gusts up to 45-50 mph. Cold east wind that is racing southwestward out from the prairies of Canada. The temperature outside right now is 30 degrees F. with a wind chill of 20 degrees F. and the promise of colder weather and wind by tonight through tomorrow. Lots of ice is forming on the fountain out back and the birds are having a hard time staying on the feeders. The ground feeding birds are having a good time though we lost one sometime this morning when a hard wind gust blew a Towhee smack into one of our windows, breaking its neck. I placed it out under a bush in a sheltered area in case it was just unconscious but I really think it’s gone. I also found a Styrofoam house vent cover out there when I tried refilling the feeders this morning and was glad to see that it wasn’t one of ours. The next time I see the Wall Streets next door, I’ll ask if it might be one of theirs even though I’m pretty sure they didn’t know better to put any on after buying the house.

I had planned on bringing Limpy, the ignored Howler Monkey’s cat, inside to spend the nights in one of our bathrooms over this bitterly cold spell but I was happy to see that Ms. Howler Monkey looks as if she is allowing the cat to spend overnight inside their garage. Hey, there’s a novel idea! Let’s actually care about our animal for once! I’ll still be looking for him during the day hours though because we will be below freezing until Tuesday.

WS is feeling a bit better today and might venture out to pick up Powerball tickets tomorrow. 3-something million on the line and you know someone is going to win it. We don’t buy lottery tickets often but when the dollar amount gets up there we subscribe to the “You can’t win if you don’t play” theory and buy five dollars worth.

My list of Roadster show to-do items is finally starting to show more crossed off items on it than not. Today I’ve already cut the checkered plastic strips that will sit on the floor under everyone’s car in the Convention Center, I picked up club courtesy cards, and I’ll finish making the music play list for the second CD player in the display. Later I’ll sew the Velcro tabs onto the tablecloth and hem the long side up and work on getting 500 flyers printed up. Coming up this weekend, I need to buy the rest of the plastic chain, another box of Velcro, and 14 sandbags. Next week I’ll finish up my car – extra chrome pieces added, air in and gloss on the tires, wipe down the exhaust, and do the last minute overall inspection. I don’t know if we’re going to get that air filter changed out in time though. All that will be left then will be to pack my cleaning supply bag.

The display construction guy is still missing in action. Phone calls and emails have been ignored. Rumor has it he is working on the other side of the state and will be for the next three weeks.

If I don’t hear from him by next Monday morning, I’ll have to take over his previously agreed upon portion of this event in coordinating all the display participants down to the Convention Center at once. WS has agreed to be the display parking guru which means he’ll help in getting everyone together at the same time and place and then get all the cars parked correctly in the display.

After that and only after that will the stress level drop a bit because that’s when the millionaire printer guy takes over and sets up the display that surrounds the cars. All I’ll need to do after that will be to come in early every morning Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to dust off the cars and make sure flyers are out on the table. And finally after that I’m sure my sleep schedule will return to normal and the stress pains I feel sometimes in my chest will subside and life will go back to something resembling normal. Only this time I will have learned a very hard lesson, one I plan on keeping in the forefront of my mind.

February 18, 2006

X-nay on the Limps-nay. The Howler Monkeys were not letting their ignored cat, Limpy, stay in the garage after all. Last night I happened to look outside and in the sub zero wind I saw Limpy shivering near our front door trying to get water out of the water bowl we keep out there. The bowl was a block of ice even though I had just filled it with very warm water not more than an hour before. That’s when I decided Limpy was going to spend the night inside.

I made him a bed of big, old towels and put fresh water, food, and a small litter box in our tiny downstairs bathroom. He took to it like he had been trained to live in small rooms all his life…and from what I understand about his past, that’s exactly what he grew up living in. Allegedly, he grew up being smuggled and hidden in dresser drawers and closets for days on end of a troubled girls’ school that was torn down a few years ago. It was Ms. Howler Monkey who took pity on him after finding him and discovered that one of his front legs had been broken and healed without medical attention.

Unfortunately at the same time Ms. Howler Monkey was dating the man she would marry, a man who despises cats and who will not allow them to live inside. Here’s the reason why Limpy, one of the sweetest cats I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing, is forced to live outside through burning heat waves of summer and the frigid, rain and ice-choked season of winter all the while trying to avoid the heavy street traffic, the roaming coyotes from the surrounding fields, and the maliciousness of mean kids in the neighborhood. Oh, and did I mention that he’s de-clawed? Yep, he’s got no way to protect himself but his demeanor would lead you to believe that he’s never thought twice about needing to protect himself. A real sweetheart.

As I sat with him in the bathroom last night I noticed a tangled mat of fur on his neck that I’ll have to see if I can get off. I was surprised to only find one mat. He takes pretty good care of himself and likes being brushed. I can imagine back at that girls’ school away from the disapproving eyes of teachers and supervisors, there were lots of girls who brushed him and fawned over him. He’s starting to show a little grey on the back of his neck, something that wasn’t there last summer. From what I understand, Limpy is only 7 or 8 years old. Looks like outdoor exposure is beginning to age him faster than he should be.

I’m planning on letting him back outside today for a little while but he’ll come back in tonight, tomorrow night, and Monday night until we get out of the sub zero night temperatures. Next week the weather looks like it’ll go back to our usual late winter/early spring routine and he’ll be fine outside.

Having 7 ourselves and being absolutely squeezed for room with no more finances to pay for another, I just I could find someone to adopt Limpy, someone who won’t make him live outside, and someone who would love nothing more than to allow him to live out the rest of his days safe, happy, and loved.

February 20, 2006

It was another cold night last night; down to 16 degrees F. downtown; at least 3 degrees colder out where we live in this little low valley pocket. Limpy spent the night in our bathroom for the third night in a row though I put him back outside all day yesterday. There was no wind yesterday and the temperature got up to 38 degrees F. He was fine outside and the Howler Monkeys seems like they didn’t even miss him. Imagine that…

The fountain in our backyard however, didn’t see much in the way of sunshine or the “warmer” temperatures and the ice layers that have built up on it has been nothing short of spectacular. While I was out gallivanting around yesterday doing this and that, WS took some photos of the icy fountain that have become my latest favorites. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

February 21, 2006

It was an odd day yesterday. WS was home from work and we went out to get the remaining items we need for the Roadster show display. The sky clouded up heavily by the time we got out of Lowe’s Home Improvement center but the air was still dry as burnt toast. Hours later the clouds turned a steel grey color and teensy tiny snowflakes fell for about five minutes. Unfortunately we didn’t get anymore than that but I believe that’s what people mean when they say they are sure snow is coming.

While we were out and about, we ran into DorkMaster who said he was picking up lunch for his wife, MsNoManagementSkills who had to work today. DorkMaster was off for the President’s Day holiday as was WS but what was odd was the woman he had on his arm. He sure was making lots of fun and jokes with her and I’m not talking about the “just good friends” kind of fun and jokes either. But I’m sure MsNo knows all about that, right?

Later in the early evening, it snowed again the same way. Five minutes worth mostly consisting of tiny flakes. I went walking in it, enjoying the muffled quietness that comes with the softly falling flakes that quiets my mind as well…until who should drive by but MsNo and DorkMaster, sans girlfriend, in one of their oversized and OPEC-friendly SUVs. She saw me walking along the sidewalk near her old rental house and stopped in the middle of the street to roll down her window and squeal, “B, can you believe it’s snowing?!?” as if she had never seen the stuff before (which she has because she grew up in eastern Washington where they are buried in snow from November through February).

I hesitated before taking a step toward her berating myself for not ignoring her – oh when will I learn? but stopped myself from leaving the safety of the sidewalk. I called over something to the effect of “Oh hey, how’s things going?” which opened the flood gates as she started telling me about the wildly fascinating world of part time receptionists (that was sarcasm, people) and how her boss thinks she is God. Rudely and purposefully I’m sure and without me having any control over it I swear, my mouth opened after a few minutes of her yammering and mentioned that I had seen her better half earlier in the day. In the quiet beauty of the snow fall, it was amazing how loudly she snapped her mouth shut.

DorkMaster sitting beside her in the passenger seat was silent. A moment later she eked out a rapid, “Well, gotta run” and took off in a flurry of swirling flakes. Neither of them even looked my direction when they passed me again on their way out of the development; my friendly wave pointless and unseen. It would seem that every time I see her anymore I’m sticking my foot some place where it doesn’t belong. Or maybe that’s just my subconscious doing it on purpose.

This coming week will be all about getting my car’s final detailing done before March 1st and the Roadster show. Items left to do are to install a new polished stainless piece in the engine cowl area, swap out my air filter, wipe the exhaust, and spritz the body one last time with Ultra Gloss spray which in theory will make the road gunk come off easier on that drive down to the Convention Center on the 1st. And that’s a good thing because the forecast predicts rain on that day, lots and lots of Pacific Northwest rain.

February 22, 2006

The weather is taking a romp on the warm wet side after four days of cold, drying wind followed by four nights of sub freezing temperatures. Amazingly, nearly all the ice on the fountain has melted leaving us with about one hundred beautiful photos and a filled lower pool. Yippee for not having to drag the garden hose out to fill that thing. We saw our first ruby throated hummingbird yesterday who flitted around the ice capped stone pillars in the fountain until I quickly whipped up a batch of food for him and hung a feeder out. He also reminded me that I need to replace the Monarda this spring which I plan to plant in a large pot instead of the ground where it gets out of control.

After spending four nights indoors locked in a tiny bathroom, Limpy is back to living outside. Naturally he’s spending most of his time sitting by our front door. Really, he needs a permanent home with someone who has the time and the space for him. The Howler Monkeys didn’t win any points with me for leaving him out to fend for himself in eleven degree weather.

Last week I offhandedly mentioned the Hershey Company and something I got for WS for Valentine’s Day. It took a week to get here but that was Okay because originally WS was going to be in San Diego all last week but lay here at home instead with a bad cold. I think his present which arrived yesterday helped him feel a bit better. Two pounds of assorted Hershey’s chocolates in a Valentine tin including an oversized Hershey Kiss in the center with a message that read:

“Happy Hershey Investor’s Day!”

You see, with all that chocolate, I also bought him ten shares of stock in the Hershey Company. Who says I’m not romantic? Oh I think romantic with some foresight for the future. LOL!

February 23, 2006

Why are some people, people you just KNOW FOR CERTAIN wouldn’t make good managers, often given the role of just that? I theorize that management people are a different breed; that something about them make them instantly identifiable to one another, and in the same vein, they can smell when someone isn’t their type. There has got to be something to this because we all know of an example of a manager who is a real ass.

On a semi related note, WS is feeling a little down in the dumps this week even after getting over a cold and not having to go to San Diego and even after getting all chocolated up (Official new Blogeois word there – chocolated tm) with Hershey stuff. It’s a work thing. He’ll ask me not to say any more but I will say that he still has a job and that’s good. He says he’ll refocus on his writing and I think that’s good too. God knows it’s helped me purge my anger and frustration. I can only hope he’ll find the same relief.

Less than a week away from the Roadster show now. My car is about as ready as it’s ever going to be with the exception of the air filter. WS says he’ll change it out this coming weekend. I’m not as stressed over the cleaning as I was last year for obvious reasons – this is my second time in the show – and surprisingly enough, my stress level is beginning to drop a bit over the car club display. I guess I just figure that since all the construction and artwork is done, there’s little I can do at this point other than to just get myself and all the other participants there at once on the 1st. I’ve list-ed myself out with making the list of things that need to be taken to the show, things that still need to be done, things to move around should some people decide not to show up at the very last minute, etc. Those lists kept me on track and soon it’ll be time to make a new list – what to do afterward.

I’ve got a stack of books a couple of feet high that I want to read. And those are just the new books. I’ve got a stack a foot tall of re-read books. Plus there’s that two foot tall stack of Vanity Fair magazines, all still in their plastic wrappers. Sure, everything I read in them will be out of date but that’s never bothered me before.

But what I’m really starting to get excited about is picking my latest novel back up to finish it and posting it here so you can read it too. I took the first step toward that by rereading a portion of it last weekend and I like it a lot. The characters feel real to me and I owe it to them to finish their story. I took the next step by signing up for National Novel Editing Month in March which consists of fifty hours spent rewriting, revising, and editing an existing 50,000 word novel that a participant has previously created. Right up my alley, I thought. Look for chapters of “A Familiar Chill” coming here soon.

February 24, 2006

Obviously I spoke too soon on the level of Roadster show stress I was feeling. A spike in the level starting rising yesterday when I started receiving calls from participants saying they couldn’t get their cars to the Convention Center until the night of the 1st…even though they have all known for three months prior that their cars needed to be there around noon. But what can I say? “Okay, fine, don’t bother then!?” Naw, it’s not worth blowing an artery over. People have jobs and lives. “It’ll be Okay. Get your car there when you can and we’ll work something out,” I calmly told them. I tried using the same soothing tone of voice with WS when I told him what was happening but he’s used to those Jedi mind tricks of mine and didn’t want to have much to do with it.

But really, the worst that can happen is that most of the cars won’t show up at all and the printer guy won’t be able to build the display around the cars until Thursday evening instead of Wednesday, but I know at least two cars will be there and look spectacular and afterward I’ll know that I gave the whole project my all. This is my last big car show, more than likely my last car show period for at least a while so no matter what, I’m determined to have fun with it and look for the warm fuzzies.

Then today we were test playing the MP3 CDs we made for the display and one of them stops playing partway through for a minute or two before resuming and then replays a same song later on the CD and won’t progress to the end of the CD. We also found out a limitation to the CD/MP3 players we specifically bought and that’s that it won’t smoothly play from track to track as it was recorded. So we’re working on trying to fix that problem but again, it’s not worth getting our panties all in a bunch over.

I suspect we’ll run into several more glitches before the show opens Friday afternoon to the public but I’m determined to keep my good attitude over the whole thing. Still I could use a few good thoughts tossed my way over the next week so if you have any extra lying around that you aren’t using…

February 27, 2006

This is the calm before the storm. The car is clean, all the car show items are waiting to be loaded into WS’ car for the trip to the Convention Center early Wednesday morning, and we both have one last phone call to make to different people who will be at the show to help. Naturally I can’t help thinking that I’m forgetting something but that’s usually just me over thinking details. In the meantime, I’m revisiting things that I used to enjoy before I got all wrapped up in car shows and my old job – watching the stock market, drinking coffee, gardening, and writing.

We had $4000 to plunk down this year in a Roth IRA. Everyone agrees that everyone should have an IRA but honestly, up until just a couple of years ago, we literally couldn’t afford one. I know that sounds silly but that’s how tight we were on a budget. We lived very precariously from paycheck to paycheck with lots of bills that were carried over from education loans and past financial mistakes. All those years living on generic Mac & Cheese and Poor Man’s Soup paid off eventually though it was a long time before we saw the hint of light at the end of the tunnel. So we have $4000 and already it’s made a little money in interest.

A few years ago I seemed to be able to get a feel for the stock market. At the time, WS was able to trade his 401(K) in and out of the market without incurring any trading costs. It became a daily thing for us. Shortly before the close of the market, 1 pm for us here on the west coast, WS would call me and we’d discuss what he saw online and what I saw on CNBC. We’d make our call on whether the money in the 401(K) should stay in or get out for the following day and for about two years, his money grew from $20K to over $100K. It was always a risky gamble but it was also fun.

In July of 2001, the US economy took a nosedive and the dot-com world crashed. In September 9-11 occurred. Stocks that had already taken a hit really dove toward the bottom. But the good thing about bottom dwelling stocks is that they can only go up (unless they just go away permanently but I’m not going to go into that just now). But with the uncertain economy, no matter what that guy in Washington keeps trying to convince us of, stocks tend to bounce erratically everywhere. It becomes scary because there is little “getting a feel” of things. Who knows what a stock is going to do from hour to hour and in tracking some stocks, I felt and continue to feel to this day that there was and is some serious manipulation going on within companies. I’m talking about the people at the top creating a false running up of some stocks followed by lots of profit taking that leaves company employees and little traders in the lurch. Stuff like that pisses me off.

Eventually the economy is going to come back strong. It’s already making progress albeit barely noticeable in some areas. In the meantime, there are still stocks, underrated stocks that are worth watching and tracking and that’s what I’m doing again. Stocks like SII (Smith International), OMPR (Optimal Group, INC), CPB (Campbell Soup), PEIX (Pacific Ethanol Inc), and COLM (Columbia Sportswear – though not technically an underrated stock, COLM is a solid long term performer). I have a few others I’m watching as well but these few have looked good for a few weeks and have solid paperwork backing them up.

The key is research because who wants to put their money in some place that was nailed for insider trading or has a flakey past? I get most of my research from Clearstation.com and Yahoo Finance. Because I’m not a day trader nor do I want to be, these two places have served me well. I also have access to company reports through my online investment house but Clearstation.com usually kicks everyone’s ass for research. The really good part is that I’m neither a member of Clearstation nor Yahoo Finance even though they are both free. The stuff WS and I find is available to anyone who wants to look for it.

Well, enough of the boring money talk. It’s nearing noon here. It’s time for me to see what those watched stocks are doing and decide if today is the day that I want to dip my small hat into the ring.

February 28, 2006

Well tomorrow is show time. The weather people are still mixed on whether it will rain, pour, flood half of Portland, snow, hail, or be mostly cloudy with no rain. Personally, I’m betting on showers with filthy, mud-laden streets from here to Portland and I’m predicting not less than a dozen other people will complain about having to drive cars in the rain before noon Wednesday as if I could have had any hand in changing the weather.

I’ll be spending most of the next five days at the Convention Center. I’m also planning on being hopped up on assorted Starbucks coffee drinks between Wednesday afternoon and Sunday evening. Posts here may or may not be sporadic depending on whether I can sleep or not when I get home every night and chances are good that the buckets of caffeine I’ll willingly consume will have its way with my sleep habits. But photos will be coming as well as whining entries about who may or may not have shown up and whether or not the display came together as I envisioned some four months ago.

Stick with me here and I’ll try to make it worth your while.

March 1, 2006

Well let’s see. In the past 24 hours:

1)I have discovered that both CD players I bought for the Roadster show display randomly won’t work right meaning that part of the display is O.U.T,
2) I’ll have to keep an eye out for Dick from the Monkey Club over the next five days who was told by Monkey Club President Ms. Snooty to “go ahead and put flyers in the Roadster show display.” Uh, what flyers? I didn’t come this far to have the display riddled with “flyers” for God knows what made by Dick who is exactly that: a dick. How about, “No?”
3) I bumped WS’ debit card into the shredder…while it was shredding something else,
4) And I’ve been sending WS email that apparently doesn’t gets to him without corrupting itself.

But in the good column, its FREAKIN’ SUNNY outside! In about an hour I’ll be heading off to meet up with all the other car show participants for the trip down into Portland and after all the headache this show has dumped in my lap and that I think I’ve handled fairly well, you bet your bippy I’m going to take credit for the sunny, dry weather. FULL credit.

Actually, the weather people say the rain will be moving back in this afternoon. By that time, most of the cars should be safely inside the Convention Center. I say most of them because clear up until last night, people were calling me and saying they couldn’t bring their cars until this evening. I guess they are going to get wet then because even though I’ve been heavily accused of being an Uber coordinator and borderline control freak in the past, I’ll secretly admit to you and me that even I can’t hold off the rain.

March 3, 2006

Hello! This is WS!

B’s at the show again today, so I thought I’d guest-host.

The good news since B’s last post is that the wonderful sunshine that all of you sent us on Wednesday held up for plenty of time to get all of the cars into the display area. As a result, there was far less cleaning required than we expected. I would like to add my thanks to all of you for helping us out!

Further good news that I think is still intact is that the display is complete and looks great. I’m looking forward to B’s return tonight to see today’s pictures (as of last night there were just a couple remaining missing parts. I’m sure she’ll post pictures here at some point – particularly with some not-so-subtle prodding from an unnamed source.

What I’m not looking forward to is how shredded B must be when she gets home tonight. This is the third day in a row of getting one or both of us to the convention center between 8:00 – 8:30 and busting ass until they kick us out at 10:00PM. On night 1, I lost my balance while working on the display and propelled myself away from the cars to land hard on my backside. I didn’t break anything, but I sure felt it yesterday and today as well. The fatigue and stiffness has been obnoxious today as I tried to get some basic house cleaning done, but as much as I feel, I know B’s feeling it and she’s in the midst of the lion’s den at the same time. I expected to see her back at home today for a couple of hours around lunchtime, but that never happened. It’s probably a good thing though, because if our roles had been reversed, staying away from the bed would have been the only way to keep going.

I’ll tell you what though. This show has B leading a large contingent of the Monkey Club like I somehow knew she could, but that she kept denying. Just last year she was freaking out over this show – she was a complete basket case about every little detail that she didn’t know. That paid off with this year’s experience where she’s gone beyond just a relative level of comfort with the details to the point that when nearly anyone at the show from any organization has a question, B knows the answer or can immediately point them in the right direction. It’s induced a level of pride I didn’t know I had inside myself. Many props to my lovely wife Blogeois!

March 7, 2006

The 50th Roadster show has ended and as expected, there’s good news and some bad news. First, the good news:

The weather held both for the drive to the Convention Center AND back again. Amazing.

The Monkey Car Club display accomplished a first – we won best club display which comes with a hefty $500 cash award. Looks like I just might get paid back for all my costs after all.

Five cars out of the dozen in the display were entered into judging – Four of the five won best in their class or runner up. More about that fifth car that didn’t win anything below.

The guy who was so instrumental in helping the club win also won two awards for his car which was parked next to the club’s display.

Now for the bad news:

The fifth car of the Monkey Car Club display as mentioned above was mine. After the awards were handed out and I hadn’t received anything which everyone thought strange, I was told to go to the judging room where they told me the professional ISCA judges had “forgotten” to judge my car. As I was standing there, a small argument broke out between the seven judges with each one pointing to another saying, “I thought you judged it!” It was like a routine from the 3 Stooges except there were seven of them. Needless to say, I felt and still feel crushed. But hey! They refunded my $30 judging fee….like that’s supposed to make me feel better. This was the very last show for this car and being as this was the 50th anniversary of this show and I’ll be turning 50 this year myself, I so wanted to win something for myself. It just wasn’t to be, I guess and I’m going to have to find a way to get over it.

The guy I mentioned above who helped the club so much had been trying to get his car into the Roadster show’s Hall of Fame for the past seven years. He lost his chance again this year by one vote. He said he won’t be showing the car ever again; it’s going into long-term storage. Needless to say, the man seemed completely defeated.

There was lots of in-fighting during the show between club members who didn’t lift a finger to help with the club display but who expected to get free tickets to the show and those who worked like dogs to make sure it looked great. Typical childish crap.

And finally, sometime Saturday I came down with the flu. It could have come from any number of people I came into contact with, any one of the thousands of spectators, or maybe from Bill Goldberg himself when he gave me a hug for driving to Ruth’s Chris steak house to pick up his dinner (THAT’S a whole story in itself!). All I know is that I spent all day yesterday in bed shivering and sweating and soon, I’m going to return to that soft, comfy cocoon. WS and I have nearly everything here back to normal – all the Roadster show stuff has been filed and stored away because I don’t want to look at any of it, the garage is clean and organized again, and a few of the things I had put off doing until after the show have been done, like laundry and throwing out that bowl of fruit that had become a fuzzy science project. In another day or two, life will return to normal and hopefully by then, the cats will have caught all the fruit flies.

I want to thank WS for helping me so much during this last week. I made sure he stayed home resting Friday through Sunday afternoon so he wouldn’t get a MS flare up and so far, it looks like he isn’t going to have one over this.

And I’d like to thank you, my readers, who have patiently read about Roadster show this and Roadster show that over the last few months, and then patiently waited for an update. Thank you!

March 10, 2006

“Okay, ENOUGH already!” My semi-clouded mind yells at my stiff body as I shuffle out of bed for the first time since last Sunday night when it was clear that the flu had found me (Bird Flu, Bird Flu, tweet, tweet, tweet!) So I’m sitting here in front of the monitor having just “zoned out” for twenty minutes watching the latest snow and hail storm come through. Yes, it snowed here yesterday morning; the big coffee cup-sized flakes that makes everyone say “Ooo” and “Ahh”. Naturally, the weather people denied it was going to happen and so it did. Last night, they said it was going to happen again this morning…and it didn’t. At least not for us. But just a half an hour ago, a few flakes fell before it all turned to small hail that looked like dry tapioca pearls falling, bouncing from the sky.

I can tell I’m nearly over the flu because I’m craving bad, trans-fat laden foods I see on TV – Pringles, overly cheesy pasta sauce from Olive Garden, BBQ ribs – all things I normally shun. My head is still a little befuddled and my lungs insist that I still have a slight cough but from the looks of the alarmingly large chunky bits I’m expelling when I blow my nose, I’d say I’m definitely on the recovery road.

I’m not thinking twice about the results of the Roadster show anymore. Danelle said something the other day in response to me being forgotten at the Roadster show that struck home with me, something about needing some distance at the end to make a clean break and putting too much into it being the last show, and I think she hit the nail on the head. It wasn’t just me trying to forget that the judges forgot to judge my car but the addition of being sick with the flu that helped me make the break. I do still have a few things to do to wrap my part of the club display up but the time spent doing nothing in bed feeling ill has helped me see which of those things are truly important and which aren’t and that the path ahead is much freer of silly crap than I thought it would be. What she said was the thought I needed. Thanks, Danelle!

I wonder how I could apply some of that same thinking to that box of Mac & Cheese that I know is sitting in the back of our kitchen cupboard? Oh heck, I’m going to go eat it and be done with it!

March 11, 2006

My taste buds are still lying sick in bed. Everything, and I do mean everything, water included, has a foul taste akin to deeply burnt chili. I’m going to take that as meaning I was really sick instead of just having a bout of exhaustion. Today, I want to go somewhere, anywhere outside of home but it’s way too early. My insides still feel shaky. If I rush getting better I will pay dearly for it later and so I sit and sit and sit with a fuzzy mind that won’t let me concentrate long on reading or writing and everything else bores me to tears. Wait! Do you hear that? A tiny violin is playing in the background. I’d take a bite out of that violin if I thought it would taste like anything other than burnt chili.

Somehow that leads me to outdoor container gardening (you see, when someone isn’t feeling well, subjects suddenly switch without warning). Last year was the highly successful great potato in a pot experiment. This year I promised myself I would grow salad in a pot and normally by now, I’ve already drooled over various varieties of greens with names like deer’s tongue and mustard wort and start pre-worrying if I’ll be spending every waking moment picking slugs off the leaves. But with our still freezing temperatures and hail not to mention that car show last week and now the flu, I’m glad I hadn’t previously had the time to plant up something that would most likely be frozen mush by now.

But that shouldn’t stop me in a week or two, should it? I’m already envisioning a big garden pot overflowing with tender, leafy baby greens untouched by slug or slime. If I’m really going to give this a try, maybe I’ll check out some of that copper striping stuff that’s supposed to keep those buggers out. And what else might be in store for growing this summer? Will it be a hot one, good for tomatoes and jalapeno growing? Or another green tomato and rotten basil summer like last year? And maybe more importantly, was it silly of me to have bought those strawberry plants last summer after all? They are vining all over the place out back from the hanging baskets that are still hanging out there to the “herb” pot that looks to be all strawberry vines now to an adjacent empty pot to the gravel bed below. Now I like strawberries but I think the idea of buying a few plants last summer might not have been that wise an idea but who knows? By this time next month, I might have fallen in love with them all over again.

I guess my point is that I can’t wait to get my hands into the backyard. I’ve got things to transplant, things to trim, and things to enjoy outside again. But with the still freezing weather, it’s just as well that I’m sick inside dreaming of spring.

March 13, 2006

It’s been a while since we checked in on the neighborhood so let’s take a day or two to dive in on the latest.

It’s been remarkably quiet here this winter thus far, probably due to SportsOrNothing moving out in early December. No more teens screaming obscenities at each other, slamming SUV doors just to piss the other off, or loudly screwing the girlfriend-of-the-moment in the hot tub out back while the parents are gone drinking. What sounds and annoyances will fill my summer days now?

Ah yes, at least the screaming will continue, as in kid’s screaming. The Dimmers next door still has a couple of them and over the past week they have been very actively exercising their lungs. Remember, they have no air conditioning and when the house heats up, the windows are opened and everyone hears their business. I can’t wait until the new neighbors, the Wall Streets on the other side of us, start letting their kids go over there for the daily backyard scream fest that has become the signal that spring and summer have indeed arrived. I’m pretty sure that will still happen. Parents with kids around the same age have always gravitated toward one another on this street though I still think something is seriously wrong with Mr. Dimmer; I just don’t have anyway to prove it and I’m not about to start rumors about anyone unlike neighbors in the past have maliciously done about one another.

A couple of weeks ago we heard excuse number five on why the Howler Monkeys won’t let their cat Limpy into their house – from Mrs. Howler Monkey herself. Obviously she had forgotten that she had already given us a completely different excuse which was completely different from the first one she had told us earlier still. This time she said that she was allergic to cats. Funny ‘cause she had told us just a few months ago that she loved cats so much she had rescued Limpy from an all girls school and that it was her husband who hated cats and wouldn’t let Limpy inside no matter the weather.

Okay, whatever. The odd thing me trying to keep the excuses straight but that her kids were running around on the sidewalk at the time and then ran next door into The Dimmer’s open garage. After a few minutes, the oldest, a boy six years old ran back out and up to his mom who was still talking to me and loudly laughed, “I’m going back to show them my butt.” Before she could stop him, the kid ran back into the garage but she was right on his heels. She looked at me and laughed nervously and then pulled both her kids back home across the street and didn’t say a word more.

Don’t know what that was all about but I have noticed that they haven’t been allowed back over there since. That hasn’t stopped Mr. Dimmer from going out of his way to talk to parents up and down the street and offhandedly say that kids are welcome over at his house anytime (not that anyone supervises the kids once they are there – The Dimmers never even supervise their own kids. Never.)

I’m sure everything is fine next door and I haven’t seen anything out of hand but I just get the creepiest feeling whenever I see kids over there.

We still have several houses for sale nearby. The house with all the fancy Italian wallpaper and tile was finally taken off the market. It just wouldn’t sell and the owners wouldn’t lower the price. Up the street in the other direction in a house identical to ours (before we upgraded everything) the people have lowered their price yet again. No one is buying. It is no longer a seller’s market here.

Behind us, on the lower street with the daylight basement houses that all come close to flooding every other winter, the worst house on the block has been up for sale for a few months too. New five years ago, those houses went for nearly $300K and most of them are probably worth well over $450K now. But something’s wrong with that house and I wish I knew what it was.

The price has been reduced down to $310K and they won’t show any interior pictures on their flyer. Knowing what we know about the family and seeing firsthand how badly they treat their dog and each other, it’s likely the house has been trashed. It’s even more likely that the lower daylight basement area has water damage. The creek back there is halfway up their flat backyard even as I type this and we’re looking at two weeks of nothing but more rain in the forecast.

It’s a shame really. If it weren’t for the low backyard, the high water table, and our lack of money, I once would have nearly killed for one of those houses back there. They all look out at a heavily wooded creek and greenspace and nothing but cows and coyotes in far off pastures look back at them. Imagine being able to walk around without a stitch of clothes on and no curtains or blinds and no one around to look in at you. Heaven for me it would be. But back before we chose our lot in this development, we wisely listened to a neighbor who grew up here and took his warning about flooding to heart. He told us he and his family used to canoe where the street back there is now. Well, in the six and a half years we’ve lived here we haven’t seen the creek get that high but I’d bet the owners of those daylight basement houses back there do get a little nervous during rainy winters like we’ve had this year.

Back out front, The Dry Cleaners across the street have been pretty quiet too. In early January I officially introduced myself to young Mrs. Dry Cleaner, having never spoken to her before and I found her clipped and downright rude. I suppose it’s possible I caught her on a bad day and so I won’t hold that day against her just yet. Mr. Dry Cleaner goes golfing every weekend, rain or shine, without her or his young daughter and it seems that that is when Mrs. Dry Cleaner takes the opportunity to sit out front while their daughter learns to ride a scooter, also rain or shine. Funny how I never see him sitting with his daughter and they seem to be oblivious to the cold, wet weather. It’s almost as odd as The Dimmer kids who never seem to wear shoes outside during the winter months regardless how cold, wet, or icy it is.

Cap’t Dan and his Smokin’ Clan behind us have been really quiet too. Actually, I think his wife moved out. If she did, unfortunately, she didn’t take her yappy dogs with her and in fact, they have a third one now, all tan Pomeranians, all with mouths the size of clown shoes. I watched her load up his truck one dry day back in late January with things that looked like where she was headed didn’t have lamps or ottomans. She easily had fifteen lamps of all different sizes loaded in the bed and onto which she piled at least five different ottomans. Then she threw in a few overly stuffed suitcases on top and off she went like a bat out of Hell. The truck has never been back and now only Cap’t Dan or his youngest son, the one who looks like Harry Potter when he isn’t dying his hair bright orange, are seen taking the yappy dogs out back to pee. I’m sure we’ll hear something about it if she did leave sometime this spring during our once-a-year chat with him. To be honest with you, I continue to be surprised every time I walk or drive around the block that I don’t see a For Sale sign up on their house. I’m thankful they haven’t decided to sell yet because you just know another family with screaming toddlers or worse would just buy it and then let their kids climb up the boulders into our fenceless backyard and then sue us when they fall and break something. I suppose we’re going to have to figure out something to do back there between the houses someday instead of blindly hoping that the someday never comes. I just wish they had decided to put a fence up instead.

And finally, there’s a new cat in the neighborhood. A calico thing that looks to be a year old female from what I have seen of it. She hasn’t let me get closer than about eight feet away and she definitely knows where the birds hang out in back. I watched her catch a starling two weeks ago and later found she didn’t eat it. If she’s hungry that’s one thing but if she’s catching birds just to play with them and kill them, that’s another matter and I won’t stand for it.

The tom cats have been hanging around her too I’ve noticed and you know what that probably means. She’s probably not spayed and by now, she’s probably pregnant. Dear, oh dear, please let’s not have kittens running around here in two months. They’ll never survive between the coyotes, the hawks, and the mean kids and I personally don’t want to see one smeared out in the street with all the speeding traffic we now have at all hours of the day and night. I saw the cat again just yesterday as she tiptoed through our backyard and saw that the cheap, white flea collar she had on last week is missing now. No idea yet where she’s calling home but I’ll keep my eyes peeled if for no one else’s sake but the birds.

March 15, 2006

We’ve been getting the predictable spring weather here which equates to full on sun one minute, cold showers the next with a sprinkling of light hail and thunder. I love spring weather because it’s just that – weather. Nothing like living in the desert most of one’s life where everyday was exactly like the day before, for years, to make one appreciate the ever changing weather here in the Pacific Northwest.

Monkey Car Club meeting tonight and as you might have guessed, I’m not looking forward to it. I’ve had root canals that I’ve looked more forward to. I’ve missed both the last general meeting due to Roadster show display set up and the board meeting last week because of the flu and that’s been a nice vacation from all the drama. But as luck would have it, yesterday morning I received what has got to be the fifth or sixth such phone call from the club’s Vice President since last November when I became secretary: The “I’m quitting. No, really this time” phone call.

Each time he calls I listen and offer small insignificant comments here and there like, “Uh, okay” and “Oh, I hadn’t heard that rumor” that alway go ignored because he talks nonstop and most of the guy’s strife is in his head anyway. He’s also a strict Dick disciple meaning whatever Dick says, he just repeats. Dick, if you recall, is the guy who when he wasn’t elected president of the Monkey Car Club last November has made it his point of existence to tear the club apart, and for the most part he’s accomplished his goal.

The latest “I quit” call is over something that was read into an email sent out by the real club president, Ms. Snooty. Now we all know that email is one of those forums where what is written can often be taken completely opposite of what is intended. I, myself, have numerous times been accused of being downright cruel with something I have written in email when actually the complete opposite was meant leading me to now reread ANYTHING I email out six, seven, or eight different ways just to prevent any ill feelings. But I have received enough of Ms. Snooty’s emails to know that she has MsNoManagementSkill’s demoralizing mentality disease when it comes to crafting an email so the guy isn’t half wrong in being upset. It’s just her style to leave people feeling deflated at best.

But after a while during the call, I realized someone had to step up to the plate and say something smart like, “Look, if you can’t handle the heat this time, perhaps it’s time to get out of the kitchen.” And that’s just what I said. Obviously, I meant for the guy to just do it this time; quit and shut up about it, shit or get off the pot as the saying goes here in our house.

But somewhere in the conversation, before I could clamp my hand over my mouth, I heard myself joke that maybe he ought to start his own little club and he wholeheartedly agreed and then asked if I would help him and Dick with information on how to get a website going for his new club.

Naturally, and because my foot was only halfway inserted at that point, I’m pretty sure I said something unwise like “Sure” because deep down I have this misguided desire to help people or some crap like that, and I gave him the URL to some web hosting place to look at online and then I tossed out some things for him to ponder before he could get started like what his club will call itself and whether he wanted to register the domain name or not. You know standard stuff that anyone would do if they wanted to create a web page or blog. Of course, I didn’t mention that he would need to find someone who would maintain it but I did have enough sense about me to not volunteer to do it either. I believe I was well into choking on my ankle by then. I was able to strongly reply with “NO” when he asked if “I was with him” when he asked if I wanted to join his new club and I used his own words when I said that I have found that life was too short for some stuff like clubs, regardless of how they were run and who was in it.

I’m pretty sure he didn’t hear me say that because he just kept on babbling about how he hated Ms. Snooty and Ms. Suckup and how he, in his heart, would never get over Dick not being elected president, blah, blah, blah. And then he started sounding like Dick himself with vowing to take all the upcoming car shows and cruise in business away from the Monkey Car Club as well as most of the current members and I thought for a brief moment, “You’re saying life is too short but you keep playing the same games?” and then I realized that I really don’t care. Go, go on and quit, go take away people from the club, go start your own group, whatever you do just go away. I am tired of listening to your whining and your empty promises of this and that. Quitting your elected position shows your true inner self as is bad mouthing everyone behind their backs. You’re a whining baby and a poor sport. Go start your own cliché and really, to be perfectly honest with you, I hope you choke on yourself.

Now, the only question I have now is…according to Robert’s Rules, when an elected vice president quits, who has to step into that office and perform those duties?

Please tell me it isn’t the secretary…

March 16, 2006

If you’ve been reading here very long at all, you’ve probably noticed that I tend to babble on about nearly anything on my mind…and more often than not, that babbling is directed at people who irritate me. That’s just me.

You may also have noticed that more often than not I tend to stick my foot in my mouth. That’s just me too.

Well, yesterday and last night proved to be another one of those times when not only did I stick my foot in my mouth but I easily was able to insert my big shoe and sock and probably should have choked on my knee as I inserted my entire leg up to my thigh but I’m so used it by now that I didn’t.

Last night, at the Monkey Car Club meeting, after I gave what I thought was a short but sweet update on how the Roadster show went and how proud I was of everyone who believed in my display vision which ended up winning Best Club Display, I was recognized for the work I did for the club display in the Roadster show. And I was given a beautiful plague. And a standing ovation. And then another standing ovation with WS included in on that one. And I turned all red and sweaty-looking and blubbered like a baby because I do that too. Geeze, I was an emotional wreck by the end of it all and then they wanted pictures of me even though I looked like I had just slapped my face repeatedly with a hot towel. WS said it best later when he said there was a lot of love directed at me during that meeting and I have to admit I felt it. Having never, ever been recognized for something like this before is something I have to honestly say I’m not comfortable with but it sure felt good for once.

Later in the meeting, everyone’s mood swung wildly to the other side of the emotional pendulum when the club’s vice president resigned and said some nasty, pointy things about president Ms. Snooty and then his buddy, Dick, did the same thing and said some even nastier, pointy things about the club in general and stormed out of the room with his wife (which is the third time I have witnessed him do that since last November yet he keeps coming back, I think, because he’s just not getting the reaction he’s looking for). And then president Ms. Snooty responded with some really pointy things herself right back and actually stood up for herself and her presidency for the first time since being elected.

All in all, I felt everyone who attended the meeting rode a big roller coaster and that’s never really a good thing when it comes to clubs. No doubt there will be some serious fall out over the loss of the club’s vice president and then Dick’s statements and accusations but I felt that by being able to give the show update first put everyone in a good mood and a sense of club pride and hopefully took a bit of the sting out of the ugliness that followed.

I’m not going to get much more mushy over it and no doubt I’ll still have some stuff to complain about in the coming months up until I leave the club in November but honestly, I never would have believed that this group of people who seem to enjoy going out of their way to cause each other so much grief could put their childish behavior aside for a moment to make one of them feel so appreciated.

March 17, 2006

Public Service Announcement

If you happen to know or see this man, Scott Stewart, please do not approach and contact the Vancouver, Washington police immediately. He’s wanted on kidnapping, knife assault, and defying a restraining order and was last seen driving a dark Ford van. But that’s not why I’m mentioning this.

Seven years ago, WS found the little plot of land that we had our house built on. In this newly formed neighborhood, there were a couple of established homes that had been here for ten or more years and one of the home owners was a guy we called Bobcat Scott.

Bobcat Scott had a little bobcat tractor with which he drove around the new development every single morning, collecting and gathering boulders that the developers dug up when digging out the new house foundations. Bobcat Scott had a half acre of land with his established home and a pond bigger than most people’s in-ground swimming pools. He was always looking for more landscape materials to enlarge his pond and if those materials were free, the faster he’d collect them.

I became friends with Bobcat Scott because of my love of landscaping. It was a little hard not to want to talk to the guy running around the neighborhood hauling boulders left and right especially since I’m a big fan of the use of boulders in landscaping. And it wasn’t long after we moved in that we were down at his house meeting his wife and family and admiring his pond. It wasn’t more than a couple months afterward that he helped us build our rock wall that divides our property from Cap’t Dan’s behind us.

But something happened a couple of years after that and one morning we saw his face on the most wanted segment of our local news. Apparently, his wife had had enough of him and served him with divorce papers and when she refused to talk with him over the situation, he allegedly pulled a knife on her to make her listen. Bad decision if you ask me.

Later that very same day, as I was working out back in our yard, I just happened to look up and saw Bobcat Scott climbing up our rock wall and cutting through our property. Casually and without letting on that I knew anything, I stood up and asked how it was going to which he stopped and started telling me nonstop and very fast how he and his wife were getting divorced and she won’t listen to him and how she came to the decision without his knowledge after she went on a business trip to Jamaica and it was just about at that time that I heard police sirens in the not-so-far off distance. And then I think he heard them too because he said, “They’re looking for me. Gotta go” and he climbed back down the rock wall and cut through Cap’t Dan’s backyard toward parts unknown.

A couple of hours later I heard that he was captured after he tried to swim across the fast running creek behind the development and the cops were waiting for him on the other side. I also heard that he had to sell his beloved customized Dodge Sport Ram pickup, the same pickup he used to let me drive whenever I needed to haul trees home from the nursery, just to pay for his bail. Later, he had to sell his house with that beautiful big pond though his son still lives here in the neighborhood right around the corner from where my front web cam faces. I’m assuming the bobcat was sold too.

Now it seems Bobcat Scott is in trouble again and I can only imagine it’s his ex-wife that he’s defied the restraining order against. Or maybe it’s someone new. Either way, he hasn’t learned and his face is being flashed on our local TV stations again. It’ll be interesting to see if he shows up around here again or how long it’ll take before he’s captured.

March 20, 2006

Happy Spring! In the past I know I’ve not normally been known as someone who welcomes spring, being mainly an Autumn lover, but this year both WS and I have really been looking forward to the drier, warmer weather. We don’t really understand our behavior either. Maybe I’m changing as I get older. I hear that happens sometimes.

But not that’s looking very much like spring yet. The daffodils are coming up but the nights are still frost laden and the rain just keeps on coming. Another two weeks they say and probably more after that. We both love rain; it’s why we moved here, but okay, enough already.

The criminal I posted about last Friday has not been caught yet. Good thing is we haven’t seen him around here…not that I’m actively looking, just actively looking out for him just in case he might be around and approach our house. It is the very rare occasion that we have doors open here and we rarely have any windows open. Either way, we’re always in the same room if either should be open and we never, ever leave anything unlocked, day or night. On top of that, we have bars in the bottoms of the doors and windows AND the house is alarmed. Paranoid? Naw, we’re just used to growing up in scary neighborhoods and that part isn’t going to change now that we’re older.

I finally got a picture of that new cat in our neighborhood. Luckily I had the telephoto lens on the camera at the time. This shot was taken about 10 feet away which is just about as close as she will let me get to her. Probably didn’t help that I had just shooed her away from the bird feeder area. Sure, she’s cute but that look she’s showing is probably her “I hate you ‘cause you won’t let me play with the birds” look.

March 21, 2006

Yesterday the weather was a little more on the warmer side, around 55 degrees F., and dry with sun breaks and so I took the time to finish the spring yard cleanup here at Casa du Blogeois. This included that side yard that hadn’t been touched since before my surgery in late 2004. Mess, done, pain. I’m hobbling around like some old wobbly thing and will be living off aspirin for the next day or two. Now I remember why I put off working over there but it ought to look sweet in about a month.

A couple of weeks ago I went on and on about getting back into watching the stock market again. After a month of making a few trades here and there, a little getting in and a little getting out of the market, I’ve made roughly $500. WS who is doing the same made about $1000 but he’s a bigger risk taker than I am. He’s also ten years younger than me. Today, however, isn’t a good day for either of us. Tuesdays seem to be profit taking day for the stock market world but this can be a good thing in that profit taking equals a drop in stock prices and is usually a good time to buy. That’s not so good if you already own what you want ‘cause the goal is to buy low and sell high. There will be no selling today.

In car club news, I’m pleased to report that it would appear I have moved from Dick’s A-List email to his B-List. That tells me that Dick has finally heard the message that I’ve been broadcasting for three months now – that I’m not participating in any more car show or car cruise in stuff. Moving to the B-List might have been helped along by Dick’s friend who stopped by here yesterday not so much as to toot Dick’s horn but I felt to feel out where my loyalties are regarding the Monkey club or Dick’s new club. I tried again to let it be known I don’t have any loyalties one way or the other, that I’m just doing my time with the Monkey club until my term of service is over come November, and that I wished Dick’s new club well. Not that I thought Dick’s friend heard any of it. More selective Alzheimer’s. But I’m hoping being on the B-List will mean less email. We’ll see.

Tomorrow I’ve got an update on MsNo and DorkMaster coming. We’re still sorting out something she said over the weekend but we ought to know more by this evening *cue Jaws soundtrack*.

March 22, 2006

So we ran into MsNoManagementSkills over the weekend at the grocery store. Holy sweet Krispy Kremes but has she packed on the pounds. Now before you all rip me a new one about complaining about weight and women please realize this woman is my ex-boss who ripped me a new one every time I saw her about my weight. Or about my age. Or about something I was wearing. Or this or that. The ripping never stopped with her. Readers from the early days can attest to the amount of grief she created so please, I think I could be forgiven this one time.

She didn’t look too happy at the store with her shopping cart filled with bags of chips, cases of Pepsi, and oddly enough, heads upon heads of lettuce. On the bottom rack of the cart were two double-size packages of toilet paper. We buy our TP in double packs too but more on that in a moment.

We tried to avoid her in the aisles at first but finally gave up playing “hid ‘em” and accepted fate. She said DorkMaster’s kids were all sick with some kind of Neuro virus that his ex-wife let them catch (not sure how that happens) and that they were all home sleeping in her bed. Then she laughed and with a snort said that they were probably not sleeping but barfing in her bed instead.

“Barfing in your bed?” I said, probably a little too loudly.

“Yeah, [DorkMaster] steam cleans our mattress whenever one of them barfs or pees our bed. That’s how it is with kids, I guess. It happens all the time. It’s normal.” And she shrugged.

At that point I think I probably visibly took a step backward as my mind tried to envision someone steam cleaning a mattress. The last time I looked I noticed that mattresses were about twelve inches thick. How does someone steam clean a mattress all the way through? And why are they letting bedwetting, barfing kids sleep with them? Is this normal? Do all parents sleep on mattresses that their kids pee or barf on? Is steam cleaning mattresses something new or am I just out of the loop? Really, I want to know.

WS took my backstepping cue and asked her how other things were going and she started in on concerns about DorkMaster’s job. “They’re letting his contract go at the end of this year and that’s just SO UNFAIR!” This time, it was MsNo who raised her voice.

WS tilted his head questioningly and MsNo went on. “It’s unfair to ME! We just bought a house. That’s unfair! I just bought two cars. Everything is in MY name and now he’ll be without a job! I’m seriously screwed if he can’t find another job!”

“Well, you’ve got a job now, right?” I offered and she snorted again and looked at me as though I were an idiot (actually it wasn’t any different from how she always looked at me). “My job at [some place] is only part time. I don’t want to work full time. He’s just going to have to find something else because I can’t afford to pay for all our stuff myself!”

I didn’t say what was on the tip of my tongue, that it was her alone who chose to blow through $120,000 of stock and divorce money and buy all that stuff to wave in our faces or to mention that it was her who chose to marry a guy who thinks a ruined credit rating is the coolest anti-establishment thing to own on the planet.

“Okay, how’s everything else going?” WS persisted. He was probably looking to find a silver lining in the conversation because he’s cute and does that sometimes.

“[DorkMaster’s] doctor told him he has to start eating fruits and vegetables. He hasn’t eaten any since he was a toddler. His cholest…”

“WHAT?” I interrupted. I just couldn’t help myself. “Hasn’t eaten fruits or vegetables SINCE HE WAS A TODDLER? What, he’s like 40 years old now?”

“He’s 32!” MsNo hissed. “His mother never made him eat anything he never wanted to.”

“So what does he eat then?” I still can’t believe this. Even as I type this my head is shaking back and forth. Again, I want to know if this is normal. Anyone else ever heard of this?

“Oh, he likes Italian sausage, cheeseburgers, and bean burritos.” She said. I didn’t say that I thought beans were a vegetable.

“So literally, he hasn’t eaten fruits or vegetables in almost thirty years. Literally? What about cheeseburgers? Don’t they come with lettuce and tomato?”

“He orders them without or we make them at home plain.” She said and then caught my eyes wandering over the chips, soda and heads of lettuce in her cart. So much lettuce. “He hates lettuce” she said, “but his doctor says he has to start eating it.” I couldn’t help but remind myself how relatively short a period of time lettuce keeps in the fridge and wondered how much lettuce this guy forcing down himself. That might explain the extra toilet paper.

There was an uncomfortable silence. “Well, the kids are waiting for this stuff at home. Gotta go!” She said then and she pushed her cart toward the registers at the front.

“Hope everyone feels better soon.” We called back.

So, we’ve got some kind of Neuro virus perhaps being bred at MsNo’s house or more accurately, in her mattress, DorkMaster losing his temp job though I think he’ll have another one lined up right away, and a revelation about bad lifelong eating habits. Does any of this sound odd to any of you? Or am I really that far out of the loop? Steam cleaning? Barfing and peeing parent’s mattresses normal? Never eating fruits or vegetables? Anyone?

March 23, 2006

Well, that little jaunt into the world of the stock market and making money was fun while it lasted. No, I didn’t lose all my money; the financial company that held our money is going to do that for us.

Yesterday, WS received an email from that financial company, the company that we USED to use to hold our retirement, IRAs, and stock money. The email told him they had a security breach and his and countless other’s personal information had been stolen. Naturally, when I found out about it, my mind basically read something a little less professional, something a little more like this:

“Dear Sir,

Oh dear! Some idiot employee of ours had his laptop stolen and guess what? All of your important and “highly-desirable-to-ID thieves and home burglars” information was on it. We’re sure you’ll understand and not take us to court when your good name is ruined and you lose all you own. To make it worth your while, here’s a 12-month subscription to Equifax so you can watch your credit slid into the toilet much like your stocks picks have had the tendency to do lately. Let us know if we can be of any other assistance. Kiss, kiss!”

Okay, I gotta ask and I need to vent just a little so hold onto your panties.

Why the FUCK was our important information on somebody’s laptop?? Don’t you huge multi-million dollar financial company guys do a data dump into a main computer every day, NOT onto a laptop, only the most sought-after thing people tend to steal nowadays? Why was our social security numbers on this bozo’s laptop? Why? Why? And maybe more importantly, where does this idiot live because I’d like to ask him these questions in person WHILE I AM THROTTLING HIM.

“Let us know if we can be of any other assistance”…yeah, I’ve got your Kiss, Kiss right here…

Let the real paranoia begin. We’ve already called the three credit reports agencies, put Fraud Alerts on the accounts, changed passwords and up-ed our personal level of homeland security…which is sitting at a shiny and lustrous ORANGE. Now it’s time to sit back and wait for the huge cell phone bill everyone says will be coming (even though we don’t own a cell phone) and watch to see how long it takes for someone to open new credit card accounts. Oh, and probably time to stock up on more ammo.

March 24, 2006

I flooded our backyard yesterday and it was so much fun, I did it again this morning. A great stress reliever. I highly recommend it.

Actually, I was cleaning out the fountain using a high pressure nozzle on the hose. A couple years worth of decaying leaves and muck bubbled up in a greenish black tea from the watery depths of the various pools until the water ran clear. Unfortunately, this meant the fountain overfilled and water to the depth of a few inches filled the patio pad where the table sits. Fortunately, there is a flower bed surrounding the patio pad that slowly absorbs the water and retaining blocks surrounding the flower bed that keeps the beds from washing away and keeps gallons of water from running into Cap’t Dan’s yard. Who says I don’t care about the neighbors?

This is also a good thing for a couple of other reasons: 1) the aforementioned stress reliever; I actually do feel better, 2) the fountain looks much, much better, and 3) the last time I did this albeit a couple of years ago, the things growing in the surrounding flower beds actually seemed to like it. Decayed muck has got to be rich in something and it’s possible the evergreen huckleberries that are planted there, will go off on a tear again. We didn’t have a crop at all last year though the year before we did. I wonder if huckleberries produce the same as blueberries, one year on followed by one year off. Last year we didn’t get much from our blueberries either but the year before we picked a gallon bag full from just three bushes.

In other news, looks like I might actually make some money in the stock market today. $40 today isn’t much but it puts me only $90 in the hole from the stocks original purchase prices but about $500 in the black overall.

A big thumbs up to Tim Horton’s who went IPO (Initial Public Offering) today (Stock symbol – THI). Unfortunately, I wasn’t one of the insiders who got to buy the stock at the opening price of $23 a share. If I had wanted to buy any, it would have been somewhere around $31 for me and it’s closed somewhere around $28-something a share today. That would have been a loss and I’ve done too much of that lately. I’m just going to have to wait a bit before I can buy any of Tim’s. But I did celebrate its stock going public by drinking coffee out of my cherished Tim Horton’s coffee mug this morning! What I wouldn’t give to have one of those stores closer than a nine hour drive away. Anybody out there got a Tim Horton’s t-shirt, size XL, they don’t want anymore?

March 26, 2006

I gave in to the gardening gods this weekend even though our night temperatures are hovering around 33 degrees F. Never have I looked so forward to spring. We went to Portland Nursery – the Division Avenue location, and Shorty’s Nursery on Mill Plain in Vancouver who has expanded like crazy. That place is going to become our favorite, even over Portland Nursery, in another year, I just know it.

I didn’t really buy anything that was overly tender; that’ll come in a month after our April 15th frost date, but I did pick up several true dwarf conifers to plant on the back side of the top deck of the fountain. That area constantly looks awful, bare and dead because I originally planted it with perennials, most of which have gone to the great garden in the sky. It gets cold back in that section of the fountain during the winter and covered with ice easily yet fairly dry, I’m talking real dry in the summer unless I stay on top of things. Since other dwarf conifers and creeping junipers have done well in other dry areas around the fountain, I’m hoping our new ones will settle in nicely. I also tucked more creeping phlox and white rock cress here and there. Looked like the ice we got this past winter wiped out the phlox starts I had planted back there last fall.

Of course it poured rain Saturday so working out there was out of the question. Today didn’t look like it was going to be much better. It spit and sprinkled on and off most of the day even though we were promised some sun breaks and I was not at all happy. But come 4:30 this afternoon I looked out the window and practically screamed, “SUN!” and rushed out to get those things planted. I worked right up until dusk so pictures will have to wait a day or two.

I also planted up an urn with white primroses and mini baby tears; finally something there that looks like I knew what I was doing garden-wise. Actually, I wanted to plant the urn with Euphorbia Diamond Frost but the plant is so new and so tender, no one has it online or otherwise yet. This plant blooms with clouds of white flowers overhead like baby’s breath from June to frost but can’t handle temperatures below 30 degrees F. It’s considered an annual here in the Pacific Northwest. Still, I’d like to try it. Maybe I’ll find it next month when I pick the summer tomato plants.

WS wants to try peas this year so we picked up three climbing and three bush pea plants and those I’ll probably plant tomorrow when it should be dry, partly sunny and 60 degrees F. We’ve decided on peas, tomatoes, and our usual herbs this year and although I really wanted to grow a pot or two of mixed baby lettuce, it’s not to be this year. I’m convinced that what I really need is a long, window-box style pot to grow mixed lettuce in, not one of our normal 10 inch round pots that I usually plant up with red geraniums. So I’ll wait until next spring. But who knows? I’ve changed my mind before.

March 27, 2006

I’m convinced there has got to be something wrong with a person who meticulously mows and edges their lawn for a half an hour while their trash can, can lid, and recycling bins are lying in the middle of the busy street not more than eight feet away blocking traffic. It’s not like there’s a hedge or anything for that matter blocking this neighbor’s view of the chaos occurring mere feet away caused by his belongings. No, he just continued to mow the lawn and then edged the grass along the sidewalk which brought him a whopping four feet away from the cans and bins but did he stop what he was doing to gather his things? Nope. An hour later, he lazily walked out into the street and finally brought in his trash cans and lids (of which were some thirty feet further down the road due to the wind) but left his three recycle bins sitting right where the wind blew them: In the street.

Some people might think the guy is mental, and they may be right but it’s a known fact around these parts that this guy and his wife battle every week on which one of them will finally bring in the trash cans and bins. Often times, the cans and bins will sit out at the street (or more likely IN the street) until the following weekend, just a day or two before they need to be out again for garbage pickup. He’ll tell you he hates to lose this battle with his wife. She’ll tell you it’s not her job to bring them in. He’ll argue back that the rule is that he takes the trash out, she brings the cans back in because that’s the way it was when he grew up. She says she refuses to touch the trash cans and he threatens to start storing the trash in the garage again like two years ago when they went ten months before taking anything out to the street for weekly garbage pickup. As you recall if you’re a regular reader here, that was the summer we had oodles of mice living in and around our fountain and “interesting” aromas coming from his open side garage door; all courtesy of our trash collecting neighbors who have a war going on between each other and their trash cans.

But let’s look at some beauty in the world, shall we?

March 28, 2006

I’ve got several things going on here at once, several irons in the fire as some say, and too much blog material to keep straight. But let me try anyway:

An update from yesterday’s post about the trash can wars, the cans are still sitting out there. Yesterday, the neighbor went as far as to add fresh bark to his flower beds that he weeded as well. Seems bringing in those cans would have been nothing compared to weeding and spreading bark but what do I know?

As promised, pictures of my puttering in the garden over the weekend and the pot of white primroses I planted up.

Next on the agenda is moving furniture upstairs. Out of the blue, as he has seemed to develop a tendency to do lately, WS bought a treadmill. I could hardly contain myself when I found out because I miss walking in our neighborhood. First it was fears of West Nile Virus with all the mosquitoes swarming out and around the ‘hoods water drainage areas, then it was a few oddball people moving into a new development nearby on my walking route, then all walking came to a screeching halt when my then boss, MsNoManagementSkills moved in just up the street. That woman took the fun out of everything but now that she’s been gone for six months it’s time to start walking again but the weather has been less than cooperative to people like me who believe that eventually, I’ll rust.

There was also that elliptical machine I bought two years ago and STILL can’t seem to get the hang of without feeling as though I was hit by a bus. Moments after I bought that thing I just KNEW in my heart that I should have bought a treadmill instead. Obviously, that problem has been solved.

The thing should be here sometime next week. The new problem was the matter of where it was going to reside. We didn’t want to repeat what happened with the elliptical machine which started when it was dumped at our doorstep by some no-name delivery company who wouldn’t bring it inside followed by us making the mistake of assembling it downstairs. In the living room. Where it and all it’s two ton heavy self will no doubt remain for all the rest of eternity ‘cause there any no way we can get it upstairs. And of course now, it can’t be disassembled either. Nope, it’s a permanent fixture standing boldly in all it’s steel, iron and plastic glory amongst the fine leather couch, the designer Pier 1 chairs and elegantly adored glass tables, taunting me each and every day to come massage my legs and lungs into a wet pulp. Funny how fast a person can no longer see something that big sitting there. Kind of like my first marriage.

So the treadmill is going in the room formally known as the office, the room of pain, disappointment and tears in its former life but has since become a quiet, calming retreat. Even after I moved WS’ rowing machine in there, it’s still the best place to get away from things in the entire house. We decided to move the big, bold chair from that room into our bedroom which had space for it if just barely, and move the loveseat back over to the window area. The treadmill should be able to fit along the long wall though we probably should have measured the space before I changed everything around.

Moving that simple chair into our bedroom meant the bed, a four foot tall behemoth had to be moved over, bed steps, dressers, tables and plants had to be moved as well not to mention all the stuff stored under the bed (my stock and original car parts mostly if you insist on knowing). And all those dust bunnies. Good Mary on a Pike, were there dust bunnies by the hundreds under there breeding I swear. I actually found myself wishing there was nothing under there, just like in the old days when, other than the bed, we barely had a thing to our names.

But everything is moved and vacuumed and rearranged and vacuumed again just for good measure. The laundry is completely done for the first time since the end of February and it’s on to the next item on the list…but not until tomorrow.

March 29, 2006

This week WS is entertaining a group of people from India for work purposes. Sometimes that work stuff bleeds over into evening hours where, for some work reason not quite clear to me, spouses and/or significant others are not welcome to the dinners out. So much for learning firsthand about a different culture thrust into the technical world and the people who got my job, not that I would have brought that subject up. No, I’m no longer bitter, just curious.

So long evenings have afforded me lots of time to myself. This time alone will be extended next week when WS goes back down to San Diego for a week. He leaves bright and early Monday morning. I would have loved to have gone with him this time. I love Southern California in April but too many other things have tied me to home. One of those things is Cirque du Soleil. In yet another spontaneous move, WS got tickets, no, not just tickets, VIP tickets to Portland’s Cirque du Soleil for this coming weekend. And naturally, I’m at a loss as to what to wear.

I’m a Levis button-up 501 jeans, t-shirt and Vans sneaker kind of girl; always have been since moving away from home at age 19 and finding out wearing pants was a whole lot more comfortable than wearing dresses 24/7 as my parents insisted. But something tells me wearing 501’s, a t-shirt and Vans in VIP seating which comes complete with intermission mingling, wine tasting and hors d’oeuvres with other VIP ticket holders, wouldn’t really be the fashion statement I’d like to make.

For the evening which promises to be chilly and raining outside the Cirque du Soleil tent on Portland’s waterfront, I have chosen to wear an ankle-length, short sleeve stretch velour dress (yes, a dress) in a tiny red and black print, a solid black cashmere sweater with a single Mother-of-Pearl button at the neckline and a pair of elegant black suede slip-ons with a chunky 1-inch heel. If I can find a small black purse at the local Fred Meyer store in the next few days, my outfit will be complete. No, I won’t be putting up my hair or wearing my birthday tiara, nor will I be wearing dramatic makeup though I will be wearing black tights underneath if you must know to keep people from screeching in terror if I exposed my lily white ankles in public.

I will be holding my head high, however, and will act as though I have just as much right to be in the VIP tent as anyone else there though secretly, I’ll be stifling giggles. Who would have ever known I’d be doing anything considered VIP? No one I know. I’ll hand it to WS who, come this weekend, will have given me another once-in-a-lifetime experience for I have been a closet fan of Cirque du Soleil since the early 80’s.

March 29, 2006

Today’s iron in the fire includes searching for car information, planting some perennials, cleaning out drawers and getting out of the depressing funk I’ve been in.

First up, the car information. I’ve had a squealing problem with my car for two years now. I had it “fixed” the first time but the problem returned within a year and the dealership balked at “fixing” it again. They said the problem wasn’t what it seemed (belt and tensioner pulley adjustment) and that it was really due to an aftermarket part I installed, a different and less restrictive air cleaner. It’s typical of dealerships to hand out bullshit like this but at the time I foolishly believed them especially since they threw the term “service bulletin” into the conversation and up until that point, everything they said was right on. Naturally, they couldn’t give me a copy of the service bulletin at the time and now, my car is out of warranty yet still squeals under power like a pig squeezed into tight lingerie. I literally haven’t had time to look further into the problem until now and so I’m gathering all the info I can to educate myself before I can proceed. Looks like I got the heaping pile of bullshit from the dealership all right. The next step looks like I’ll need to replace the aftermarket air cleaner with the stock part, verify that the squeal continues, then debate how much money I will need to throw away on labor costs to some shop that may or may not be able to find and permanently fix the real problem.

Or I could just let the car sit in the garage for the next five years which isn’t such a bad idea in my eyes. Baby steps, I need to take baby steps on this issue.

Tuesday was a nice, sunny day; a day that I should have spent planting the remainder of the perennials I bought. But I was busy moving furniture, breathing dust into my lungs and wrenching my back instead. Yesterday and today are cold and rainy and probably a much better days to plant those perennials…and I will just as soon as I stop trying to cough up a lung and the aspirin kicks in.

Drawer cleaning=fun sometimes. With everything I toss out, things like perfume I’ve had sitting around since 1979, makeup since 1999, and tampons and pads which I gleefully don’t need ever again, I worry about how heavy next week’s trash can will be and seeing the sour look on WS’ face when he discovers how hard it’ll be for him to wheel the can out to the curb. For the time being, I’ve stopped this chore and moved on to other things. Again, baby steps…

Trash can war update: No change from last Monday. The neighbor’s cans and recycle bins are still sitting out on the sidewalk. The neighbor has to physically drive around the cans to leave or enter his driveway yet he won’t bring them in. I’m sure it’s one of those principle things.

Next up, the funk: I shouldn’t be depressed or whiny nor should I be in a funk but for some reason, I just am. Tuesday I made sure I sat outside in the direct sun for a half an hour because I like the spring sun sometimes. I know I don’t have seasonal afflicted disorder (SAD), in fact, I prefer the grey wet weather. It could be the lack of cooperative weather last weekend that pissed me off a bit, or WS’ long, long day at work Tuesday combined with his upcoming trip out of town. It could be that I’m building a physically and mentally exhausting to-do list of things in my head that I really want to accomplish in the coming month but wish I didn’t have to do any of – repainting both inside and out: bathrooms, kitchen, outside garage doorway, eaves of house, moving and replanting several large plants out back, spreading fresh bark out back, rewriting and finishing my latest novel and getting a few chapters uploaded here for you to read, trying to fix my car (see above), clean out closets, condition all the leather furniture, find a cure for war and disease and establish permanent world peace. You know all the important stuff us super women can get done. What it shouldn’t include is biting off heads yet that’s what I did the night before last when WS finally came home at 9 p.m. smelling like delicious Thai food, eggplant-laden and all (that restaurant is just gross), from the dinner he had to attend with the India coworkers. And I wasn’t even hungry either.

I think it might have something to do with bits of conversations WS and I had over the last week and that my brain is still working on. He was referring to the current state of his job when he said he felt trapped but my mind took it completely a different way. I know what he meant but it didn’t make me feel any better.

Then there was something about his increasing desire to not go out into the world, not to interact with people, not to ever have to deal with people anytime, anywhere, and for any reason anymore, and for me that instantly brought up a sad visual of having to do everything on my own if I wanted or needed or desired anything outside of the house (that can’t be ordered online and delivered to our door – how convenient for shut ins, huh?). Kind of like women you might see sitting alone at the beach or on a park bench or in a restaurant or doing all the shopping; kind of like being a widow before becoming a widow. And then over the last few days, feeling like I was already living that life and realizing too late that if I didn’t get a handle on this funk now, next week when WS is in San Diego, life is going to just plain suck and suck hard.

April 3, 2006

So you know I wrote a story last November. Here’s the dealio on that: I didn’t finish the story, least not on paper. Oh sure, it was over the 50,000 word limit for the National Novel Writing Month contest but this story will be much longer than just that; probably more like 150,000 when finished.

I like the beginning and other than a little tweaking, I think it’s good. It’s after that point that I need major revision work. Major, major work. For example, I added handcuffs at one point and my character actually got stuck or should I say, my story came to a screeching halt. I never quite understood it when some authors said their characters became trapped and couldn’t continue on. I have an author friend who ran into that problem last year and although I couldn’t have known exactly what this friend meant, I understand it completely now.

And so a major rewrite from that point in my story on needs to occur. I know it, the characters in the story know it, and now you know it too. But that’s not why I’m boring you with all this just now.

The point of today’s entry is I finally realized that in my post-Roadster show whirlwind haze and in my over-determination to get things back on track despite having the flu, I gave the beginning forty pages of my story to my many-years-experienced writing friends to critique. That was about two weeks ago. I’ll find out what they think of it in mid-April, and hopefully, they will be completely honest and truthful so that I’ll learn something. Hopefully as well, that will be a good tough skin day and I won’t be as whiny or sniffly as I had been last week.

Slap, slap! *pull yourself together, woman!* I say to myself and a scene from the movie “Airplane!” comes to mind…complete with the long line of people waiting to slap my face.

Still working on planting perennials and potting up some succulents in ceramic pots for a change of pace. Pulled some of the dreaded Sweet Woodruff that I mistakenly planted a few years back. That’s going to be a lifelong chore. What a huge fiasco that was but who knew that groundcover would take over a quarter of the neighborhood? Stupid, stupid, stupid. Found a large dead mouse in the backyard on the cement. It was whole with the exception of a large puncture wound in its side. To whoever got it, good hunter, just stay away from the birds, m’kay?

April 4, 2006

In our phone conversation last night via San Diego, WS told me a couple of humorous things he heard last week leaking from out of DorkMaster’s work area, probably because DorkMaster wasn’t there to stop the leak. He and MsNoManagementSkills have suddenly realized they can’t live on what he makes, even with her part-time job and so, they are starting to make some cut backs. One of those is his anti-anxiety/anti-depression/anti-hallucinatory medication Paxil.

Since going off Paxil, DorkMaster, who constantly boasts how he should have been a doctor because he “knows EVERYTHING there is to know about meds and the human body” (His actual words), has discovered that he knows nothing about the effects of Paxil withdrawl.

Two weeks ago at the pharmacy counter at the local Target store, MsNo suddenly became aware of two things: 1) The actual cost of his, her, and all the kids’ monthly medication, and 2) She no longer had enough money to pay for it all. So what’s a woman of her sly cunningness do? She decides DorkMaster is just gong to have to stop his medication, as simple as that.

As a result, this week marks week two that DorkMaster hasn’t physically been able to go into work. He claims severe vertigo when standing, sitting, or driving (makes you wonder how many people like this are behind the wheel anyway), nausea, migraines, things moving in his peripheral vision and the inability to think. After a bit of research, he read somewhere that cold turkey is bad (gee, ya think maybe?) and so, he’s pilfering a small dosage of Paxil from the kids’ stash just to keep him “from killing myself.” Great household that must be to live in right now, huh?

Let’s leave DorkMaster’s problems for just a minute to go into something MsNo called 9-11 for a few weeks back. Seems she had an upset stomach after dinner one night and drank a bottle of Pepto-Bismol before going to bed. In the middle of the night, she got up to use the bathroom and was alarmed to find that her tongue was black. When she didn’t believe the 9-11 operators’ story or advice to read the back of the Pepto-Bismol bottle where it clearly says tongue discoloration is normal, she got everyone out of bed, told them she was dying, and drove herself and the family to the emergency room. Big laughs from DorkMaster’s coworkers when the story was retold. Apparently it took over an hour to convince her to read the back of a bottle of the stuff. Her “anxiety” tells her not to trust words so she doesn’t like to read anything. Yep, this is the boss from Hell I remember.

And finally, I guess I wasn’t the only one in a funk last week though I thought my reasons were more based on events going on at the time. MsNo not only was in a funk, this week she’s positively a mad woman. You see, this is the first year for as long as she can remember being alive that she hasn’t gone somewhere for spring break. She’s just slightly past the age when she used to openly say everyone over the age of 30 ought to shoot themselves (yet she herself still breathes) and she’s spending the week at home and work in actual tears because she’s not down in Cabo where she spent many a year back when she was married to FatHead and sleeping with BikerDude on the side, or out on a Caribbean cruise like she was last year mysteriously sans DorkMaster whom she was newly married to and his kids.

DorkMaster has already called in sick for the rest of the week as he tries alone for the very first time in a dozen years, to baby sit his own children during their spring break though I don’t know how he’s doing that if he can’t stand or sit upright . He told a coworker that he probably could have come in for a few hours at the end of the week but by Friday his wife will have built her idea of how unfair life is because she couldn’t go off somewhere for spring break into something so monstrously monumental, it would be all he could do to watch the kids and keep her from opening even more credit card accounts under fake names over the weekend and shop themselves into bankruptcy.

That should serve as a warning to the credit department at this coming Thursday’s Grand Opening of the first Kohl’s store in our area. I wonder if DorkMaster has called and pre-warmed them?

So once again, readers here were correct in saying that men gossip just as much as women do. And it looks like, or at least temporarily looks like MsNo realizes she’s spent herself into several empty bank accounts. The last time this happened, she divorced FatHead, sued him for money, and cozied up to her formerly well-off grandmother. But that wealthy woman loathes DorkMaster and especially his lying, stealing, uncontrollable kids. It’ll be interesting to see how MsNo gets herself out of this one.

April 5, 2006

Yesterday, in the first true warmth of the spring sun, I planted and planted and then I planted some more. Then I discovered a quandary: I am out of planters but not out of plants to pot up! How did that happen? Hmm, could have been that last trip to a local nursery where everything was green and blooming, positively busting out all over and I fell in love with gardening again.

As I lugged a huge freshly planted pot out back I startled a small hawk who had been sitting over by the east-side fence. Uh oh, I know what that means, it means someone got ate. Sure enough, a pile of downy feathers stuck to a mossy log told the story. Amazingly I couldn’t find any actual fleshy bits of what looked to have once been a pine siskin by the pile of hundreds of tiny feathers lying quivering in the slight breeze as if to protest, “Wait! I’m not done living yet!” A little life cut short served up with birdseed on the side. Less than five minutes later I saw a red-tailed hawk swoop low into a neighbor’s back yard and snatch up what looked to be one of the doves, its released feathers spiraled slowly back down to earth.

Later in the day, after a small squall blew through, the pile of siskin feathers were damp, still and flattened as if they finally gave in to their fate. Lifeless. Later still, as I ventured out in search of food, I saw a woman beating a black lab by the side of the road. Every time she stopped hitting the poor dog, it would run to the end of its leash in an attempt to get away and the woman would respond by jerking it back and beat on it some more. I stopped the car as WS can tell you I do from time to time when something gets my goat, rolled down the window and yelled, “STOP HITTING IT!” She said something back at me in a thick language that told me she didn’t understand English but she didn’t hit her dog again either. I shook a finger at her, wished I had a cell phone for once in my life so I could report her sorry ass and slowly drove onward watching all the while in the rearview mirror. I kept thinking two words she would be well advised to know: “Dog Whisperer” followed by “Stop Hitting” and maybe “Animal Abuse” and then I finally realized “Learn English” would probably be best but of course she would probably counter back with “Don’t Care” and “Stupid Dog.”

April 7, 2006

It’s been a couple of days but WS is finally back home. He had a miserable trip, an absolutely horrid business trip where he sadly discovered he was set up to be the whipping boy for a week of meetings in which he wasn’t able or allowed to defend himself or the projects he has been working on. Apparently the department down there works under a different agenda and has a sadistic idea of what “fun” is.

But the good thing was he had witnesses, witnesses who were on his side and saw the mean game being played against him. Whether that helps WS’ case or not will only come to light in the coming weeks and only if his job remains necessary.

But the really good thing is he might not need to go on any more business trips which would be perfectly fine with the two of us. That way he’ll have less opportunity to accidentally dial 9-11 from his hotel room while trying to connect to company conference calls.

But the really, really good thing was that he was finally able to convince the paramedics who arrived after the accidental call that no, he wasn’t in need of medical attention and that no one else in the room needed it either particularly since there was no one else in the room (no, I wasn’t actually there to verify this but I do believe him when he said that was so and I also believed him as did the paramedics and the hotel maids when he said we were all welcome inside his room to make sure there wasn’t blood sprayed all over the walls).

But he’s home now and done with work for the week as I am with planting things outside and as we both are in dragging our 8×12 foot hand-knotted Belgium wool living room rug and underlying pad outside because we’ve learned that our two eldest cats have been using it as a more convenient litter box and it positively reeks.

But we can’t be mad at our two “oldsters” because when we get to be their ages, we’ll probably pee on a lot more than some expensive rug. We’re a family once more all under the same roof, all safe and sound and for some of us, wary of phones and wondering where the hell the soft living room floor went.

April 10, 2006

WS is in a funk and I am trying desperately not to catch it for I always seem to catch his funks. He’s worried about his job, a topic that hasn’t reared its ugly head in a few months and all because of last week’s bad business trip to San Diego.

Of course, he’s listening to the irrational voice in his head. Sure the trip was bad but it wasn’t bad enough to worry about losing his job yet…yet the irrational voice says differently. Let’s agree not to like irrational voices if not for all time, just for today, m’kay? That ought to teach Mr. Irrational Voice a lesson…

Yesterday in a move, I’m certain, that was made to try to pull himself up from the funk bottom, we drove to the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge and took the camera. We had visited here ten years or so ago and needless to say, things had changed. For one, there are bald eagles there now and ducks and as you can see from this picture, there are duck-catching eagles as well.

Yeah, color me stunned. Sure, I know eagles and hawks eat birds…I just never thought of ducks as birds on the eagle menu. I just wish I could have gotten a clearer shot. I would have loved to have been able to make some money on these photos.

And as for that funk, I’m still funk-less and WS is still working on climbing out of his.

April 11, 2006

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that we were going to Cirque du Soleil, with VIP tickets no less, and we did go but it was so overwhelmingly beautiful, it’s taken me this long to be able to describe the experience.

Driving down into Portland in the grey, cold rain isn’t anything new but as much as we were excited about going to the Cirque, the weather altered our moods a bit. The poor directions from anyplace north of Salem, Oregon didn’t help but I remembered seeing the tents in a previous trip into Portland and knew we could find the place.

The parking attendants were pissy, no, they were downright rude, especially to us VIP ticket holders. What? We already prepaid our parking fee so you’re pissed because you can’t pocket a few bills here and there unnoticed? Get over it. I was a little put off by their attitudes. Our little car was sandwiched between monstrous Escalades and Navigators in the potholed lot but we made it to the gate relatively dry where we were directed to the Tapis Rouge’ tent for the beginning of the VIP Cirque experience.

And oh my! Upon entering, we were both given souvenir programs and Cirque show musical CDs as well as Tapis Rouge’ VIP badges, then, imagine if you can, we had to decide between Champagne or red or white wine. WS selected a red and I went straight for the Champagne. In the back of the tent, a bar was set up for those who wanted something stronger or perhaps, less imported. We sat at a modernistic counter on even more modernistic stools in the plush circular tent that could have held sixty or more people but seemed to have only thirty or so mingling around. Soft lights swirled as hazy snippets of scenes from the show played on a circular screen in the middle. Music wafted in and out and there were display cases and small booths displaying Cirque du Soleil masks and outfits, books, DVDs, CDs, jewelry and the like.

Near the exit to the main show tent, an oversized molded face sat, illuminated with the live facial features of a female entertainer. We stood transfixed and watched the eyes blink and watch people lounge about the room. Through one of the open VIP tent flaps, I noticed people standing miserably out in the rain craning their necks and trying to get a peek inside. Cirque employees repeatedly turned non-VIP ticket holders away and I felt a twinge of discomfort. That was usually me out there looking in, wondering how I could ever afford to be in here.

As we glanced through our souvenir program and sipped and tried to feel like we belonged there, waiters came around with unique platters filled with hot appetizers like creamy tomato basil soup served in Russian vodka glasses and shrimp and avocado quesadillas and toasted ravioli and chicken Satay and after about the fifth different appetizer, I lost track of what all we were being served but that was Okay because it was all good and before long, an accented voice called out over the speakers in eerie sing-song way saying that it was time to come to the Varakai.

Our seats in the big tent were dead center, third row back from the stage. All but the VIP seating was already packed in like sardines and I thought I detected a slight hush as the VIP holders were led in. A couple of animated comics entertained the crowd by poking fun at late-comers who couldn’t find their seats. A few entertainers dressed as lizards scurried across the stage and crouched mere feet away from us, peering out at the crowd but seemingly unseeing the anxious faces. Their expressionless features were made up beautifully with what looked like expertly applied makeup. Then the lights dimmed and the show began.

One fantastic act after another washed over the audience with lights, smoke, sounds, singers and music played in the background. It was impossible not to be drawn in, even more so sitting so close to the stage. Acrobats twirled, flipped, balanced and literally flew overhead interspersed with routines that used the International languages of comedy and awe. It was hard to imagine what would come next and suddenly, it was intermission time. Really? Over an hour has passed already? Indeed, it had.

Back in the VIP Tapis Rouge tent, once again it was Champagne or wine then it was on to the desserts. Bowls of marshmallows, Maraschino cherries and pretzel rods waited dipping in the chocolate fountain at the tent’s center. Cups of chocolate brownie pieces mixed with cream, pineapple chunks and cherry bites were quickly scooped up by the hungry crowd. We decided which souvenir items we’d most like to purchase and a woman set our selections aside to pick up after the show and then in what seemed like only minutes, the sing-song voice called us back to the rest of Varakai.

Another hour flew by smitten with senses of longing, victory and universal love and suddenly, it was over. The crowd went wild and gave a standing ovation. Crepe paper fluttered from the ceiling to the floor. The entertainers rewarded us by coming back onstage without their wigs and headdresses so we could see who they really were. I wanted the show to continue, wanted to see another act, perhaps another entwining scarf aerial act sweeping out over the audience and making us all catch our breaths again and again. But it was time to go. Varakai was over.

Outside the tent it was still daylight but the grey rain drizzled on. I couldn’t help but be struck by differences between what we had all just witnessed for over two hours and where we were now. I thought I saw that same realization on many of the faces around me as we all trudged to our vehicles: We were taken to a magical world where everything else becomes silly and unimportant and maybe, if we try real hard, we can take a piece of the Cirque home with us and dream.

April 14, 2006

This entry was written entirely by unemployed sock puppets (Boo-Yah!).

Skee-Daddy, seven yards. The load of delivered bark dust (Buy! Buy! Buy!) was supposed to be seven yards. What the guy brought was closer to ten. Normally, we’d be happy but Blogeois had the preconceived notion that she was going to spread all the bark by herself (House of Pain!) and let WS off the hook this time.

It didn’t work out that way and they both had to work like dogs to move that pile so they could get into the garage. But boy, oh boy, does the fresh bark look nice now (House of Pleasure!) especially since the rain has come back in hot and heavy for the weekend.

A rainy Easter. Boo-hoo (insert baby crying) to all those who trash neighbor yards looking for plastic candy-filled Easter eggs THAT WERE NEVER HIDDEN HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE. (shotgun blast sound effect). Until the Just Borne company comes out with Jesus Peeps (Hallelujah chorus), Blogeois’ isn’t getting into the whole Easter thing because the holiday just seems silly…and if the story was explained to any normal minded person without all the “ooo” and “ahhh” factors, it’d probably seem silly to most people (Sell! Sell! Sell!). They moved the body, people, and that should have been the end of it. But what can you say? They didn’t have TV or even radio back then. They had to invent their own dramas. You think maybe ER or American Idol will become part of a religion in two thousand years? Hey, maybe a holiday will be created around Donald’s “You’re Fired!” phrase (insert cash register sound effect here).

Both WS and Blogeois have dental appointments tomorrow (House of Pain!). WS is finally going to get his teeth straightened and B has surgery and stitches lined up. She’s raring to go on it though (horse race trumpet call) because the problem is a ten year old badly done root canal that has become abscessed recently. We probably don’t need to tell you what B would like to do to the dentist who screwed that up, do we (shotgun blast)? But she can’t do that, nor can her current dentist who is just as mad about it as B is, so let’s just say that if you live in the lower half of Washington state, beware of dentists who go by the name “Doctor Bob.”

Revised Journal Entry:

Nothing is going on. Okay, that’s not exactly true. We are recovering. Nine yards of bark dust (that was supposed to be only seven) and a couple of dental appointments (one that involved stitches, in the mouth trying to repair an abscessed, poorly done root canal from ten years ago.)
It’s raining and expected to do so through Easter Sunday. A big boo-hoo to all the neighborhood brats that trash everyone’s yard looking for candy-filled plastic eggs that WERE NEVER HIDDEN HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE. The parents are often too busy yakking amongst themselves to remind the kids which yards didn’t participate and which did. Good reason to plant thorny barberry around the perimeter, huh? Thinking ahead, I’m always thinking ahead.

And with that, I’m guessing by now you know who got the mouth stitches, don’t you? Happy Sugar Overload!

April 16, 2006

As things finally get back to some semblance of normal around here, given that there were all those things that were put off with getting that car show going last month followed by the flu and dental visits, I decided to take a proactive role in getting my reading and writing back on track. For example, next weekend I’ll get my first reviews of the first forty pages of my last November’s novel written for National Novel Writing Month and after that, I’ll dive back into rewriting and hopefully finishing the novel by summer’s end. Look for chapters coming soon.

As for the reading portion, last fall I read Steve Martin’s “Shop Girl”. Yes, it’s THAT Steve Martin and although I love how he turns a phrase, I only wish I could think up beautiful sentences half as well as he can, overall I hated the book. It brought to my mind the horrible thought that all middle-aged men were entirely preoccupied and thought of nothing more in their day-to-day lives but of having sex with much younger women and nothing more. Sad. It was if I were reading something that could have been written by a junior high school English major. Big Yawn. Love Steve Martin’s oddball poetry; hate his novel “Shop Girl”.

Then I picked up Rick Steves’ “Postcards from Europe”. Rick Steves is the guy who practically put low-cost budget traveling to Europe from the U.S. on the map. Again, I felt uncomfortable with reading passages hinting about sex knowing Mr. Steves has been married for a number of years and it almost made me feel that he too thought of little else. In some instances, it almost sounds like he regrets his marriage. But what he really makes sound regretful is in bringing tourists to corners of Europe that are now overrun with tourist-y shops and shady characters out to make a buck. Pickpockets, gassed train cars, robbers, thieves, gigolos and prostitutes, overpriced knick-knacks and kickbacks, rooms advertised differently from what they are and the people who feed off the stupid, stupid tourists.

It’s been said often that Rick Steves’ “Europe through the Backdoor” book series actually created Europe through the front door. The minute he talks about a small, unadulterated town in Europe, it suddenly becomes a trashy, tourist-haven complete with junky bric-a-brac and corrupt business owners because, and this is most important, everyone and their mother HAS to go visit. There’s nothing wrong with trying to make money off the tourist industry but Mr. Steves makes it sound like he is tired and saddened by all the changes from charming and undiscovered to big, bold and brash. And he acknowledges that he helped create that brashness.

Upon finishing the book I’m about 99.6 percent sure I will now never travel to Europe. I can’t stand tourist-y crap and I’m just as likely to end up in a foreign prison for beating the crap out of some pickpocket. Why end up rotting there when I can do the same here? We have pickpockets here but at least I’m in my own country. Maybe I’d feel differently if I lived in Canada but damn if I’m not still three points short on the Canada Immigration test. But anyway, I know there were some things I always wished I could see in person but that was then, before the throngs of people and the people preying off all those people. How much fun could I have if I was always worrying about who was trying to rip me off and how much fun could I have if there were always a billion other people in the way of what I was trying to photograph? You know I’m such a control freak…

But all in all, I’d like to thank Mr. Steves for all the DVDs and books we own of his and for his Sunday morning Europe travel show. Those alone are all I needed to see. If I can’t stand one thing, it’s becoming part of the problem.

Currently, I am reading Frances Mayes’ “A Year in the World”. Ms. Mayes is of the “Under The Tuscan Sun” fame, a book I came to love last year. In her new work, she writes of traveling around the world to see the things she’s always wanted to see (now that she can afford to do so, of course). She’s still a bit fixated on religious saints while professing no religious calling whatsoever and although she writes beautifully, again in sentences I wish I could think up, she writes of things that Mr. Steves’ touched on – shoddy rooms and service and tourist-y towns interspersed with bits of charm if one can take the time and chooses to look hard for it.

I’ll admit I am only closing in on the halfway point of “A Year in the World” and it is possible that my attitude toward this book and European travel in the future will change by the end but I’m not counting on that. Perfect prose does not make for perfect visits. I am choosing to live vicariously through other traveler’s tales and to help support their travels by buying a book or two of theirs, and I’m perfectly okay with that.

April 18, 2006

Sunday I posted some of my opinions on a few recent books I’ve read. They always are mind candy but now that I am learning to write, it’s hard not to study the style of writing, the tempo and the structure along with the content. I’d imagine English Grammar majors do the same.

Now for the writing: For the past couple of months, WS and I have been doing writing exercises. Secretly it’s my way of trying to get WS to write because he wants to be an author. Can’t be an author if you don’t write, I tell him. I don’t think he likes to listen but he does humor me from time to time and so we write together.

*Hang on a second….Great, my dental stitches are falling out already. That’ll teach me to eat kettle chips, won’t it? Let’s just put those away, uh, the chips, not the stitches.*

Okay, back to the writing exercises. They are timed exercises and usually on a random subject unknown prior to either of us. We have a little Writer’s Block book that has all kinds of great ideas, sentences, suggestions and single words that work perfectly for this purpose. We’ve also taken a random word out of any book in the house and wrote a ten, twenty or thirty minute bit on the word and what it means to us. A fun exercise and works well to train your writer’s mind toward the ability to write about anything in a short amount of time.

Sometimes afterward, not always, we’ll quietly read each other’s exercise and sometimes it’s hilarious and often insightful as to how differently our minds work. For example when we wrote about “Today’s Voice in my Head”, WS wrote about a host of characters – “Mr. Rational, Mr. Self Doubt, Mr. Compassion and the trump character, Mr. Rebelliousness. I, on the other hand, wrote about the voices that remind me of my internal list of things I should be doing at that very minute.

Our last exercise was entitled “The Most Boring Job You Ever Suffered Through” and initially the exercise was for thirty minutes. No problem, but we both had so much fun and the writing brought up for both of us memories neither one of us had thought about for decades, we returned to that same exercise the following day and wrote on the same thing for another thirty minutes. Unfortunately for both of us, the magic was gone on that topic and neither one of us were happy with what we came up with. But the content didn’t matter. It was just the act of writing that did.

Writing exercises can be fun and anyone can do them. I know many of you have great stories in you. I know because I read your journals and occasionally you touch on those stories. Sometimes it’s just a sentence or a phrase that alludes to something that happened in your past. I encourage you to try a writing exercise using the method of picking a word or a phrase out of a book. Write about it for twenty or thirty minutes; nothing major, just whatever pops up in your head. It’s easy, you’d be surprised how much others will be interested in what you have within you and it’s the first step into becoming a writer.

April 19, 2006

The same week that WS was down in San Diego being ripped apart by corporate wolves, I had the opportunity to talk to our new neighbors, The Wall Streets. She was telling me how she already wanted to move out, not because of the weather which she hates with a passion; she’s a southern California girl remember but because they have mice. Hordes of them inside their house. She said it is so bad they can’t open a kitchen drawer without seeing one scurrying off somewhere. I guess the previous owners; SportsOrNothing, didn’t exactly get rid of the problem like they said they did before they sold the house, did they?

The following day I talked to Mr. Wall Street who professed to be walking his young son and daughter for the very first time ever (son is 8 months, daughter is 4 years old). He said he finally put his wife on a plane back to southern California where she could visit her family and get her head straightened out. He’s at a lost as to why she wants to move already but thought that a good tan and a hair appointment would do her a world of good.

He told me all kinds of interesting things about how they found themselves up here instead of staying in the land of milk and honey and I was honestly surprised at his openness. She’s pretty moody and will completely ignore a person standing right next to her if she feels like it whereas he will strike up a conversation about nearly anything as far as I can tell at the drop of a shoe.

For instance, he told me they once thought their future was all wrapped up; her parents put him through law school while he loved working on the side as a certified Volvo mechanic and the plan was that after he took the bar exam, he was going to work for her father’s law firm. Because their future was “all planned out” she felt no need to wait to have children; after all, her husband was going to be a lawyer at a respectable firm, her father’s, a guaranteed life made in heaven!

Well, guess who didn’t pass the bar? Guess who didn’t want their husband going back to the mechanic work he truly enjoys? Yep, young Mr. Wall Street enjoys the pay he’s bringing home now compared to when he worked for the Volvo dealership but he says it’s going out just as fast because he’s got two little ones under five years old and she wants to move now. The money from the in-laws isn’t coming in anymore either he said and he’s got no way to pay them back for his student loans, he added. He alluded to possible burnt bridges being in place unless he takes the bar again and passes this time which he says will happen someday. In the meantime, he took the first job he could find that wasn’t mechanic work to appease her and in the most reasonably priced area of the country that would still allow for quick and cheap airfare back to SoCal if and when his wife wanted. And that brought him here to Washington State, a state that she loathes already.

Last week when I was spreading bark dust, Mr. Wall Street called over that it looked like I was going to have a long day (oh, he didn’t know the half of it) and I called back that if he wanted to, he could come help. He laughed and said no, and that his wife wouldn’t want to have anything to do with it either because (finger quotes) she won’t even carry in her own groceries! (/finger quotes).

Okay then. Stereotypes are certainly forming in my head…

Mrs. Wall Street came home over the weekend looking tan, thinner and with a short, highlighted yet matron-y looking haircut and still acting moody. As she walked down the street to the community mailbox yesterday, two neighbors called out a loud hello, loud enough for me to hear it up here in the library, but she ignored both of them. She did look very smart in her Gap corduroys, white turtleneck and suede vest though.

This morning, The Wall Streets were up early working in their backyard. I glanced out the back window and was horrified to see her attempting to put together not one but two of those ghastly plastic Fischer Price playhouses. Anyone who knows me knows how I feel about those things – they rank right up there and just slightly below Styrofoam peanuts, the scourge of the planet. Why, oh why must we be surrounded with those hideous things in nearly every neighbor’s yard? Why, because we chose to move into a development that was originally advertised as an upscale, progressive one that would be “priced out of range” for young parents with young children, that’s why. That and we all chose not to form a homeowner’s association because Nazi George who still lives down the street promised to slap everyone with lawsuit violations if one was formed.

Lessons learned: NEVER listen to home sellers – their just as bad as unscrupulous used car salesmen. Never let neighbors intimidate you when considering forming a homeowner’s association and never think that your neighbors won’t clutter their yards with children’s toys of all shapes and sizes. If we have a problem with it, plant trees. Obviously we should have planted the tall, evergreen cedar tress on that side of the backyard too instead of deciduous trees. Oh well, maybe she’ll get her way after all and they will move.

April 20, 2006

So I’ve been trudging along, playing the neutral good doo-bee, going to Monkey Car Club meetings three times a month – twice for general meetings and once for the monthly board meeting because I’m the club secretary until November 1st but I haven’t been liking it too much. Oh, the drama and backstabbing these people come up with! Unreal, I tell you, and I’ve been in bad car clubs before but never to this extreme.

Dick, the guy who vowed to disable the Monkey Car Club because he wasn’t elected President last November looks to be getting his wish come June when dues are due for the Monkey Car Club. At last night’s meeting, I was told that six more board members will be quitting in lieu of paying their dues on June 1st and joining Dick’s new club instead. Since Monkey Car Club elections aren’t until November, anyone not paying their dues in June is automatically out of the club. This goes for board members too. What was once a board of ten people will shortly become a board of four and yours truly will be one of the four left.

That leaves Ms. Snooty, the President who backstabbed, spread rumors herself and let things deteriorate to this level, Ms. Suckup, Ms. Snooty’s best friend who weaseled her way onto the board in the first place by helping backstab others to get them to quit back in January and who continues to do so, the Historian, Ms. Suckup’s live-in boyfriend who spends all the meetings so drunk he’s barely conscious and me the Secretary who refuses to participate in anything other than to take the minutes at the meetings. No Vice President who quit in early March, no more Treasurer, no more Publicist or Activities chairperson or Sunshine chairperson or Sergeant at Arms or Stores chairperson – all have joined Dick’s club and don’t realize that he’s just playing them along for his own gain.

Sad, sad, sad.

After last night’s meeting I wanted to bawl my eyes out in anger, frustration and depression. I was already having a less-than-cheerful day when Ms. Snooty emailed me earlier asking that I change something in the last Monkey Car Club board meeting minutes to something that didn’t occur. That pissed me off and so I called her on it and made her explain why she wanted them changed. Sure enough, she hymned and hawed over how she recalled that a discussion went differently than how I recorded it but that maybe, now that she thought about it, maybe she was just thinking of something else at the time and only heard what she wanted to hear.

As if she’s ever paid enough attention during the meeting squabbles to know what the hell is going on anyway.

Something else happened at the Monkey Car Club meeting last night that kind of pissed me off too but in a selfish way. The club billionaire showed up for once and drove his new Candy Apple Red Saleen S7 Twin Turbo to the meeting and told people he would let people drive it afterward. I, who have a pretty extensive history in driving nearly everything under the sun (and driving well too, I might add), was excluded in the offer, and as it turned out, he only let Ms. Suckup’s drunk boyfriend drive it. The man was fricking staggering and he got to drive it.

In a very selfish way, I was pissed. I know for fact I can out drive 99 percent of the guys in this Monkey Car Club. For a fact. But I was treated like I was just another stupid woman by this guy. He treated me the same way back in January when I asked him if he would be interested in entering one of his forty, yes, FORTY cars in the Roadster show display. At that time, he looked down his nose at me and flatly said no, then turned to the guy sitting next to him and told him he was entering a couple of his cars in the show on his own.

Okay, so if I ever become a billionaire, I hereby promise not to become an asshole. And that in itself will probably assure I will never become a billionaire because apparently, you have to be an asshole to become a billionaire. Or does that come after all the money? I’m sure they hold classes on that somewhere.

April 21, 2006

Do you have a dedicated book shelf at home, maybe even several shelves of books at home? Recently and I don’t know why I’ve never counted our dedicated shelves earlier, I was a little surprised to discover we’ve got thirty shelves full of books. Makes perfect sense since we do call this room “The Library” I guess. I just never realized how many we have and obviously it’s been a few years since we moved in here. Since we both like reading and having lots of reference material on hand, this knowledge also gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling not too unlike seeing a cat sleeping in the sun.

Let’s hear about your books.

April 23, 2006

Thanks to everyone who commented about their books. I feel fortunate to be in good company with others who have boxes, bags, stacks and garages full of books. I hate to hear about needing to get rid of books but I know that’ll be in my future someday too. I must have been a frustrated librarian or book collector in a past life. Thanks again for your comments, but now for some Breaking News!

B of Blogeois.com admits she knows nothing of homeowner associations.

Yes, it’s true. I don’t know the slightest thing other than what I’ve been told. Last week I made a comment alluding to wishing there were a homeowner’s association around here to keep the brightly colored plastic Fischer Price plastic toys out of everyone’s view. Silly me. I know nothing of such organizations so how could I make a stupid comment like that! I know, I know, after reading your comments I beat myself up over it half the weekend. BUT I also went out and actively asked others about their experience with associations in order to educate myself and you are right.

For the most part…okay, for the whole part, no one had anything good to say about them. There was one neutral-ish comment made to me this morning about how it seemed that everyone paid into theirs but no one could see anything being done with money but all other comments other than that one was negative. Very negative.

So I’d like to retract my offhanded comment…except that doesn’t really help, does it? I promise to try extra hard in the future to not make comments like that in the future if I don’t really know anything about what I’m whining about. I’ll admit it sounded whiny and I’m never really happy with myself when I get whiny just in case you might have thought it was just you who hated it. So, if it’s alright with you, can we just chalk it up to me being an idiot? I’m okay with that if you are.

April 25, 2006

It was an interesting Monday. Mrs. Wall Street hired someone to come out and remove the fire pit, the fire pit that SportsOrNothing built less than a year ago and as you might recall, built within six feet of our shared cedar wood fence. Hoorah for Mrs. Wall Street. No more worrying about when the fence was going to catch on fire ‘cause we were certain it was only a matter of time.

But…she removed the fire pit without Mr. Wall Street’s knowledge or approval. If anyone would have asked me if the removal of one ton of broken concrete sidewalk slabs, one half ton of spread pea gravel and several boulders AND THEN the laying of several yards of top soil and then sod on top of that was a one-day job for one person, I would have said, “No way!” But that’s all it took. As someone who has done more than their fair share of big projects single-handedly, color me impressed!

Mr. Wall Street left for work around 10 a.m. and within a half an hour, a beefy-looking woman handyman, or is it handy woman?, was there lugging concrete slabs and boulders out and hauling rolls of sod in. And we have to give Mrs. Wall Street some credit for helping. Sure it was only to carry a few hand trowels full of pea gravel out while wearing kitchen gloves that went up to her elbows (they matched her baby t-shirt, Capri pants and thongs) but that little bit would have been extra work the handy woman would have had to do.

Late in the afternoon, they both scrambled to get the sod laid and the tools stored back in the woman’s SUV before Mr. Wall Street came home from work. And once he did, I was sure she didn’t plan to say a word to him about it, choosing instead to see how long it would take him to notice. And I expected it wouldn’t take long since he’s the one who regularly used the fire pit. He, not she, just like the hot tub. He uses it, she refuses. But, well, you know, she did just get that Fischer Price playhouse stuff which would fit perfectly where the fire pit was located and god knows, you shouldn’t have a fire pit if you have young children which begs the question of why someone would buy a house with a fire pit if they had young children in the first place. And we know how much he loves mowing the grass…NOT!

So I guess we can check off the possibility of listening to the tune of children roasting over an open fire. KIDDING! I’m kidding! Geesh, tough crowd.

Just before 7 p.m. Mr. Wall Street returned home. Within minutes I heard their squealing back sliding door open and her take him out back. Glancing out the office window, I saw he was carrying the baby and didn’t look too pleased. Then he said the only thing I heard him say about it.

“What did you do?”

She didn’t answer that. She wanted him to walk on the sod but he was still dressed up in his Wall Street clothes with his tasseled Wall Street loafers and wouldn’t walk on the new grass. He didn’t say another word and finally with hands on her hips, she said angrily,

“I did this because I knew you wouldn’t.”

And then she went back in the house and slammed the sliding glass door. Even our windows rattled. He stood out there, holding the baby and looked…well, I’d call it looking bewildered.

I wonder if the home’s hot tub’s days are numbered now.

April 26, 2006

Last weekend, I had the first forty pages of my last novel reviewed. I volunteered to have it reviewed I should say. It’s been awhile since I purposefully asked for this but I’d like to think I have grown a tougher skin since that last terrible time eight, nine years ago. Writers need tough skins, authors need even tougher ones. I plan to be an author. You already know I’m a writer.

Sunday’s review went unbelievably well. I’m still trying to digest it, internalize it and when I do, I think I’ll come away with this single, simple thought:

“Hot damn! I can do this!”

I asked that the reviewers be honest; I’m not going to learn anything if they aren’t, and they assured me they were. There’ll be more reviews in the coming months and years perhaps. If they weren’t completely honest with me this time, no doubt they will be sooner or later. But I’m going to believe that they were.

I got lots of good feedback and I took a ton of notes to go with the things they jotted down on the hardcopies of my work. And they provided an author or two I should check out and study for good tips on how to seamlessly transition from one scene to the next, from one voice to another. Naturally I jumped right on that assignment because any reason to buy more books is a good enough one for me. P.D. James’ “The Lighthouse” and three Raymond Carver books now grace the chair in our bedroom. I’ve already perused one of the Carver books and found my “style” which I call somewhat flawed – the tendency to shift from one point of view to another without much or any warning. Carver was a master of this, this writing style that is usually frowned heavily upon I have discovered in the slew of books on writing we have acquired over the past couple of years. But if done well, if done as smoothly as greased peas on a Pam-sprayed metal slide sitting in a playground roasting in the hot sun, an author just might be able to pull it off. I’d like to think I can pull it off occasionally but we’ll see. The more I watch out for it, the more I hope to learn not to do it as much. And don’t’ worry about my analogies, they are usually better than the one above about the greased peas.

Review day was good and not just because I got good feedback for once. We had our writer’s meeting here at our house where it was quieter than our usual local Starbucks hangout and cheaper because most of the stuff we already had stocked in the cupboards and we didn’t have to fight for chairs and a table for the four of us. The weather, though windy, was dry and the yards were pretty. The cats were all in their rooms and behaving for the most part and before I knew it, it was after 3 p.m. and four and a half hours of good conversation and flowing ideas came to an end. Dang it! I don’t want to wait until next month!

But it doesn’t have to end for you just yet. If you are interested in reading my first forty pages in their rough-draft form, feel free to click on “A Familiar Chill” under Projects over there on the left side bar. If you like what you read there and are interested in reading more, leave me a comment and I’ll tell you where and how you can do so. I’ll be uploading more sections as I finish them throughout the summer but those will be behind a password-protected area per publisher, editor and agents suggestions. Again, if you want to read more, leave a comment and I’ll get more of “A Familiar Chill” uploaded as soon as possible for your reading enjoyment.

Thanks for reading!

April 28, 2006

As April comes to a close so does National Poetry month. Henceforth, I offer up two awful poems of mine from years past:

Office Blues

Only a job but
what a hold it had on me!

A daily challenge, a mountain of paperwork.
All of us typing furiously
but never, not quite ever, good enough.

The promises of better things,
of fairness and impartiality.
Words.
Just words.

A friend turns wolf.
Another one absorbed into the pack.
All struggling toward the perfect unattainable evaluation.
The difference between hunger
and an extra crust of bread,
or a full night’s sleep.

I sleep now.

Lost Interests

We used to read each other’s minds
And anticipate the rest.
But since we’ve moved in separate ways,
A cat now knows me best.

May 1, 2006

Happy May day, or as its known here in the Pacific Northwest, Happy Reason to Riot day! While I didn’t wake to flowers at my door (an old May Day tradition in some countries), I also didn’t wake to broken windows or graffiti sprayed on my house either (a seemingly new May Day tradition in some countries).

We had lots of loose ends to wrap up over the weekend and we did most of them. We had a presentation to the millionaire printer guy who printed up stuff for the Monkey Car Club roadster show display Saturday morning and that meant dealing with club president Ms. Snooty. I was sorry to see that someone I thought was still a friend from the club choose to boycott my presentation because Ms. Snooty was going to be there and that kind of put me in a pre-funk mood. I also thought dealing with the holier-than-thou attitude of Ms. Snooty had affected WS in the same way and in an effort to try to ward off a WS funk, I suggested we visit our long lost Barnes & Noble bookstore and work on editing our current stories later in the day after finishing up some other stuff around town.

Going to B&N seemed to work well but by Sunday morning, I was feeling very low and depressed and got up on the wrong side of the bed. WS on the other hand, practically bounded out of bed to make coffee and fry up his favorite Apple wood smoked bacon. I’m not sure but I think he was even singing while he was cooking and given my mood at the time, I just wanted to throw something at his head. Something hard.

I’ve not often been one to let overwhelming tasks get to me. I believe its best not to look at the whole picture at once, only after making some progress and only as motivation to finish. Yesterday I could barely get motivated to get out of bed and after a few hours I did actually return to it. It seemed that everything bothered me yesterday; smells, sounds, piles of stuff waiting for me to tackle them, and so I took a mental health day instead and hid behind a sour look and a foul mood and got nowhere near a computer, a washing machine, a vacuum cleaner or garden hose.

After WS made breakfast, he cleaned the kitchen, washed dishes, organized receipts from the past four months, put new tags on the cars, fertilized the whole backyard, put grapes out for the raccoons, and watered everything. Then, in between looking for a cure for cancer and giving a speech to Congress on economics, he made me dinner followed by dessert (which I snubbed my nose at), re-cleaned the kitchen, took out the trash, and worked on laundry. I’m sure I missed something, probably more like several somethings he did while I was pouting and feeling sorry for myself but if I did, maybe he’ll pop in and let us know.

Anyway, I’m feeling a bit better today though I do have a headache which makes me wonder if I really wasn’t in a funk but am going through some kind of restaurant food withdrawal (which is another story for another time). I walked a mile on the treadmill this morning and drank juice, vacuumed upstairs, sold some of my stocks online, and am working on making the laundry mountain more like a laundry molehill.

May 2, 2006

Ever have one of those days where everything goes just as you planned? Yeah sure, it happens but how often does it happen after a day when you felt NOTHING went as planned? See? That’s what makes those days so warm and fuzzy!

Sunday was an off day but Monday made up for it in spades. And then to top it all off, I whipped up a good dinner from a recipe I pulled out of my ass (see recipe below) AND discovered I know how to make Mojitos as if I had invented the drink. Did I swap lives with someone else, maybe with someone who likes to cook and make drinks? Maybe so.

“We’ve secretly replaced B’s Folgers Crystals with another brand. Let’s see if she notices.”

Oh heck yeah!

I also sashayed my hips at that laundry mountain and as I was pulling the last load out of the drier, I asked “Who’s your Daddy?” and followed it up with “I’M your Daddy!” as I finished putting that final load away. And that was before the Mojitos.

B’s Mexican Lasagna

Ingredients:

An oven
30 minutes of your time
1 round deep baking dish
Pam spray
1 large burrito-size soft flour tortilla
1 small taco-size soft flour tortilla
1 soft package Uncle Ben’s pre-cooked instant rice
2 boxes Stag’s turkey chili with beans
1 Roma tomato sliced paper thin
3 tablespoons minced fresh onion
1 cup or so shredded cheese
1 cup or so crushed tortilla chips
Sour cream, salsa, lettuce, tomato, and/or onion to garnish

In a large, round and deep French White baking dish:

Spray bottom and sides of dish with Pam Spray.
Place one large flour tortilla in bottom of dish and press to bottom and sides.

Open one soft package of Uncle Ben’s instant rice either plain or chicken-flavored and spread half the rice on top of the tortilla.

Open one box Stag’s Turkey Chili with Beans and pour onto the rice.

Place half of the thin slices of the Roma tomato on top of chili. Sprinkle liberally with half of the minced fresh onion and spread a thin layer of cheese on top.

Place small flour tortilla on top of cheese and repeat layers up to and including the other half of the rice, the other box of chili, the rest of the tomato and the minced fresh onion.

Before spreading a layer of cheese, add a layer of crushed tortilla chips and sprinkle top with cheese.

Place dish in oven at 400 degrees for 30 minutes, a little less time if you don’t want your cheese crispy on top. Serves 4 or 2 really hungry people and the best part is the cleanup is a snap!

Mojito

In a liter and a half glass add:

Ice cubes
1 shot silver rum
1 shot mint syrup
1 half fresh lime including some pulp
1 chopped sprig of fresh mint (omit if you don’t have any)

Fill glass with club soda or San Pelligrino mineral water. Enjoy but DO NOT DRIVE.

May 3, 2006

So occasionally I get email here at Blogeois.com and sometimes it’s too good not to share. Like the one I got yesterday from Allard who admits he’s a lurker (don’t worry Al, I won’t tell) and was wondering if my neighbor, the one who leaves his trash cans out at the curb for weeks on end, still has his cans sitting out there. I’m assuming he’s referring to an entry I made back at the end of March where I went on and on about the battle between The Dimmers on who was going to bring in the cans.

Well, thanks for asking Allard! I gotta tell you, I was surprised when Mr. Dimmer brought his cans in just a couple of weeks ago but I’d be partly lying if I said that. The truth is, he brought in one can only and left the other one out in the street where it was run over not only by himself, and I believe that was purposeful (that’ll teach it a lesson!), but also run over by not one but two school buses on their race through our neighborhood. The trash can eventually found it’s way into the back of his truck where he, no doubt, dumped it with the rest of his collected trash now that he’s down a can – in the local Wal-Mart parking lot (no kidding) – but the best part is that the big plastic lid of the can IS STILL LYING CRUSHED AND FORGOTTEN in the side yard of a house six or seven houses down the street. Boy, I know I’d want to look at that thing lying there day after day. What’s it been, a month now? Maybe it’s being mistaken for a dandelion. A huge blue smashed dandelion.

Betty from Wisconsin asked if I was going to go the way of so many other blogs by putting ads on Blogeois.com and I have to admit, I thought about it…for about ten seconds. Personally, I hate ads on journals. Personally, I hate being broke all the time. If someone can get enough income from ads on their journals to pay for their costs, great but I think I’d take down Blogeois.com first before I’d muck the place up with ads. Now, if I keep hearing about how some blog ad companies are paying for bloggers to fly to and stay in the Netherlands for a week in exchange for talking about their blogs on a radio station, maybe I’ll revisit my thinking. I’ve never been to the Netherlands and I think I’d like to go just once, especially if it’s free.

Edna1616 not so much asked anything but told me that the reason she doesn’t visit here much anymore was because she got tired of my whining. Nice to hear from you again, Edna1616, long time no see. Sorry about the whining Edna but that’s what I seem to do best. Think of it as personal therapy. It keeps me from going Mount St. Helens on everyone around me as well as keeps me working on the craft of writing. crzyJo asked what the $*@% is the Spice Monkey? Thanks for asking, crzyJo! You’re the first to do so! I’m one of those annoying kinds of people who love spicy food, I can’t seem to get enough of it whether it be in the form of salsa, wasabi, curry, you name it, the spicier the better but I have to have some form of spicy food at least once a week, usually much more often than that. I have a theory that the reason I don’t suffer from arthritis as the rest of my family does is because I keep a reasonably high level of capsaicin in my system at all times. What is capsaicin you ask? Well that’s the compound in hot peppers that is used medicinally for lots of things, one of which is arthritic creams. The Spice Monkey is simply my personal gauge of how much capsaicin I’m craving at any given time, and if you’ve watched long enough, you can tell when I’m under a lot of stress because the Spice Monkey is usually sitting at high. I consume something spicy and my stress level usually drops. Frank from Ontario asked if WS and I were married or merely a couple living together and if we had children. WS and I will celebrate 17 years of wedded bliss on Thanksgiving Day 2006. We chose not to reproduce offspring but have had over thirty cats, mostly rescued, come through our lives over the years together. Thanks for your email, Frank!
And last but not least, Marcy from Redmond wondered what would happen if I ever ran into a neighbor I didn’t take issue with. Good question, Marcy, and here’s the answer: I’m surrounded by neighbors I like, neighbors I don’t have an issue with. Those are the neighbors I don’t write about, not because they’re boring, but because they exhibit good, common sense (which doesn’t seem so common anymore). Some people just seem to stand out more but it’s not exactly like I’m rewarding them by writing about them here. I hope that makes sense because if it doesn’t I’ll have to conjure up a whole different life and change the Blogeois.com tag line from “Far too preoccupied with stuff that shouldn’t matter” to something like “Enjoying all those rose-tinted, puppy dog, butterfly moments of life”.

May 4, 2006

Last night was Monkey Car Club meeting night, the first of three meetings this month I have with this group. It also marks the sixth month into my Secretarial-ship with the club and I’ve been pinching myself lately because I’m so happy that it’s all downhill from here.

In a rare twist of fate, WS’ worldwide conference call meeting was cancelled and he surprised me by announcing he was going with me to the meeting. In yet another rare twist of fate, the weather was warm and dry and I decided if WS was going along, we’d take my car out of storage and go have fun. As it turned out, a highway patrolman “escorted” us most of the way to the meeting place which meant I drove like a grandma, a slow grandma who suddenly woke to find herself planted behind the wheel of a sports car she was scared to death to stand next to, let alone drive across town in.

That wasn’t exactly the case on the way home, I’ll admit right here, right now but notice that at no time do I make mention of miles per hour.

The Monkey Car Club meeting was wonderfully short, as it is supposed to be at the beginning of the month but more often than not, is long, boring and downright painful to sit through. The plan afterward was to drive around town in a group of similar sports cars and end up at a local hangout together for ice cream. Amazingly, and in yet a third rare twist of fate, everyone acted like civilized human beings. Well, everyone but a tipsy Ms. Suckup and her drunk boyfriend who got pissed off because we had missed happy-hour by half an hour and so left right away, and I am assuming here, to go to the local Safeway to buy bottles of MD 20/20 and continue drinking in the back parking lot until they passed out near the dumpsters.

It could have been that hardly anyone showed up to the meeting and therefore hardly anyone went to the hangout that kept everyone in line (I don’t think anyone there was involved with one of long running beefs with anyone else for once) but whatever it was, it sure was nice for a change. I honestly can’t remember a single instance where someone didn’t go out of their way to cause trouble at one of these things and that’s probably why hardly anyone shows up anymore. They sure missed out last night though.

While WS and I were sitting waiting for dessert, a older gentleman sitting next to us started talking cars with me and it became clear quickly that he was testing me on car stuff. You know, I used to hate that and really used to get offended when guys would go out of their way to try to trip me up on car facts and knowledge. But now, I actually kind of like it. It does test me, or at least my memory. It makes me feel that I can still not just talk the talk, but walk the walk too. We talked about models of sports cars, engine sizes and various years of the cars each with their various problems and I think he was satisfied that I wasn’t just blowing smoke. That made me feel good. Not only was the meeting short but everyone got along and I had my ego stroked a bit. Oh, and I didn’t have an “escort” on the way home. All in all, a good evening, even if it was with a bunch of monkeys.

May 5, 2006

Boy, if you thought writing a novel might be hard, just wait until you’re rewriting and editing it! Grueling I say. Words become jumbled, sentences no longer make sense or are found repeated later on using different words, past tense versus present, points of view start sounding all the same but don’t say that just means it’s time to take a break from it for the day; I have been doing just that! I’m not going to overwhelm myself and make it that much harder by saying how much I feared and hate editing but you know I do. Ugh ugh ugh, it’s about as much fun as…

people who don’t believe that I’ve given up car shows for a few years. I’m finding most people are choosing to pretend they never heard about it even though I’m sounding like a broken record. I AM NOT DOING CAR SHOWS ANYMORE FOR AT LEAST THREE YEARS, PROBABLY MORE. Yet my email continues to fill up with requests and entry forms and you know, it would seem to be a good thing for the ego but I know most of them are just looking to make money from the entry fee(s). And I’m not talking about mailing lists I’m on, I’m talking about people I just chatted with last night for God’s sake who are begging me to take my car here and there “for only $25 per show” not to mention the gas cost. Sorry people, I know I’m far from the only pretty car out there. Go find another sucker. I’m sure there’s one living right around your corner…

kind of like Mr. Dimmer who hasn’t brought home a weekly keg of beer in a few months and today I think I figured out why. He bought a pool table, a full sized pool table. I don’t know how he thinks he’s going to get that thing upstairs (unless he’s thinking of installing it in the garage with the mice, the paper wasps, and a few weeks worth of garbage. But in the meantime, while he’s figuring that out, it’s sitting outside, in and hanging out of the back of his truck, in the 85 degree heat, probably warping. He’s been out of a job again for the last five months (temper, temper) so maybe he’s looking to become a pool shark. They make money, don’t they? I’ll go ahead and say it now though I’ll probably regret it later, I can handle listening to balls clacking together at all hours; it’s just that yodeling that.has.got.to.stop!

May 7, 2006

We took advantage of the last dry weather day worked our butts off here yesterday. We finally returned that dead blower/vac and got a new one (silly us didn’t try it out to make sure it works once we got home though) and we bought a new shovel because, well…with WS’ size and my insistence that things need to be dug up and moved we tend to go through a lot of those around here. And he surprised me by remembering that I was looking for a golden yellow Exbury Azalea and so he bought me two.

We also had to dig up the big red New Zealand flax that had finally given up the ghost over the winter. It looked gorgeous all the way up until someone or several someones cut through the lawn and stomped in the middle of it during one of our lingering frosts. It’s funny; last year we were up in the high 70’s temperature wise by the end of February. This year we’re still having frost nights into May. Our last frost date is supposed to be April 15th. But I’m sure it’ll all even out in the end.

It seems everyone in the blogesphere is having odd dreams and posting about them so here’s mine from last night.

I dreamt I was back working for The Company before the layoff and they had sent me to Company headquarters for a few days of meetings. Nothing odd there but I requested, nay, demanded, they put me up in a hotel that overlooked a surfers’ beach. Naturally and in a move that they were famous for, The Company found the most rundown, inexpensive, piece of shit motel they could locate. I knew they would pick something like that but it suited me just fine.

I dreamt the motel was actually just across the street from the beach and the main highway ran in between. But during high tide, the tall waves crashed onto the highway and just outside my motel room window, offering me a spectacular view of the surfing action which I watched as often as I could.

At the end of my stay, I was dismayed to discover that The Company had scheduled me to fly out at dusk. For some reason, this really pissed me off and I let my boss, MrSmartButFakingIt, have it. I told him something I vividly remember, that dusk was a special time, a time of reverence, and it shouldn’t be used for something as insignificant and valueless as flying out of town. He asked what I would see myself doing during dusk instead and I replied that my perfect vision of what to do at dusk would be sitting out on a surfboard waiting for the last good wave of the day and taking in the beauty of the setting sun. Then I laughed and added that that was my perfect scenario and what would probably really happen would be that I would be sitting out there and a shark would wander by and have me for dinner.

Back to the real world for a minute – Have I ever mentioned that I don’t surf?

There was a brief vision of someone driving a wide, blue SUV to the very end of a very, very narrow dock and then backing up quickly; so quickly that the back driver’s side wheel drove off the edge, the axel and undercarriage slamming down hard onto the wood, but the people were able to get it back up again right away.

I woke up after that. I have surf-oriented dreams once or twice a year. I’m not sure what they mean if anything and I do admit to watching surfing on TV about as often as I have the dreams (though usually they are months and months apart) so it’s probably just related. Delayed, but related.

May 8, 2006

From the front of a Kettle Chips Dill and Sour Cream bag:

“Herbs with initiative”.

Huh? What does that mean?

May 9, 2006

I was going to post a great entry. It was so great, everyone would flock here to read it and walk away saying to themselves (and anyone else who would listen), “Wow, that was a great entry. Honey, stop what yer doing and come read this!”

*chirping crickets*

But lately, I seem to be going through that weird phase when you have something really good to post about but you’re nowhere near a computer. You’re in the shower or driving some place or you don’t feel like jotting it down anywhere, swearing you’ll remember it because, after all, it’ll be a great entry and who could forget that?

From the back of the room, I slowly raise my hand.

Really, I’ll remember it sooner or later. I mean, sure, I’ve got Alzheimer’s in my family history but I don’t think it’s catching up to me just yet. At least I don’t think it is…

May 11, 2006

It was a day for the birds, literally and figuratively.

In the figuratively column, some advice: Don’t mix blueberry muffins with Baja Fresh shrimp tacos. Trust me. Just don’t do it.

Monkey Car Club board meeting last night. No one wants to hold them at their homes anymore. Last night’s meeting was held at a retirement home. Retirement centers in our area have been inundated with Norovirus issues lately. People have died, hundreds sick, but no problems have been reported from this particular home. However, upon walking into the place yesterday, I had to use my asthma inhaler to keep my lungs open, the smell of bleach was so strong. It made me think I won’t do so well at a home later on in life if this is how it’s going to smell. Thankfully, the meeting lasted just over an hour. I couldn’t wait to get out of the place. Only five more board meetings left, only ten more general meetings.

Yesterday, the finches came. All of them. We’ve had a few gold finches throughout the winter. Those are the ones who choose not to migrate. In early March the bright yellow ones started showing up. In April we were getting good numbers of them. Yesterday, every gold finch in the neighborhood invited over two other gold finches. “Don’t you know these humans hung a second nyger thistle sock? One of the long socks too. A party every day. Come on over!”

May 12, 2006

About ten weeks ago, I got back into watching the stock market and decided to start playing with my $4000 Roth IRA meaning buying stocks with it so it would make some money. My philosophy on trading stocks is this: Look at it as gambling and don’t ever, ever gamble more than you can afford to lose. Four thousand dollars would be a lot of money to lose for me but at this point in time, I could technically handle it.

In those first few weeks of trading, I was relearning how to look for trends, something I had become familiar with some seven years ago. I bought into a company called Avanex and Transwitch and within three weeks made $548 and $84 on each. Then I sold them and moved on. At one point, I bought back into Avanex and lost $186 on the deal. Boo-hoo.

As I was learning the market, I bought some Yahoo, Smith International and a couple other pipsqueak stocks, all of which cost me money to the tune of $335.69. Another boo-hoo. It was really annoying to see a few of those stocks actually go up the minute I sold them but to date, only one of them, Smith International, is still higher than when I sold it. Not bad, I told myself. I’m still learning and I was still about even from where I started.

Then I found out about PEIX, an ethanol company. A day after I bought it, news broke about the company and the stock soared. A week later, news that Bill Gates had bought 25% of the company. No one could say or print enough about PEIX – Pacific Ethanol. My measly little thirty shares flew from $566.55 to over a thousand dollars. Watching the stock was an emotional rollercoaster. One day the stock would be up seven dollars a share and the next day, it would drop six bucks. Up, down, up, down. Finally, I read that the officers of the company were quietly selling off their shares in huge chunks. Sure, it could have been they were looking for a way to pay for some big vacation to Atlantis or something. Or they could have been worried that people would find out the company hasn’t got anything to back up their stock price.

Jim Cramer of Mad Money on CNBC says pigs are okay but hogs get slaughtered. I was afraid I was entering hog-territory and so I sold PEIX and made a profit of $480.56. I hated to sell that stock which I did at $37 a share. It’s now $43 a share. Maybe I should have stayed with it, maybe not. Who’s to know what it would have done, just like gambling. Who knows where the ball will land, what card will turn up, what row of fruit will match up?

May 16, 2006

I’ve been feeling a little under the weather for the past few days but I’ll share something I witnessed the other day that I wish I hadn’t. Have you ever been somewhere and seen something you had nothing to do with, something someone else did and you wished you were suddenly invisible because it made you feel uncomfortable? No? Well, okay then. Maybe I shouldn’t say anything.

Oh heck, I have to tell someone so here goes:

I was standing in our side yard, watering the other day when Mrs. Dimmer’s dad drove up. He visits once or twice a year. Nice guy. We’ve exchanged about eight words. The Dimmer’s are a bit jealous of sharing their relatives so we’ve not had the chance to converse beyond that.

Dad walks into The Dimmers backyard while loudly calling out, “Hey [Mr. Dimmer], what’s you up to?” Mr. Dimmer replies that he’s been working on getting his backyard in shape. He really has been working on it and I must admit, he takes admirable care of his lush, green lawn. But a week ago he dug out part of a nice red brick patio to plant a huge bush he got from a friend right smack in the middle of it, rendering the patio permanently unusable. The busted up bricks and about a yard of sand and gravel were left tossed in a nearby flowerbed.

Mr. Dimmer showed him around and then they both went into the house. A few minutes later Mrs. Dimmer alone walks into the backyard, picks up a shovel (that also had been left out there since the week before) and starts shoveling the sand and gravel into a wheelbarrow. This is a little odd because Mrs. Dimmer doesn’t do labor. ANY kind of labor. Half the neighborhood knows this because The Dimmers have a habit of having all their arguments about what they will and what they will not do in their backyard. Loud arguments.

A minute later, Mr. Dimmer walked out back and loudly asked his wife what she was doing.

“Shoveling this sand and gravel.”

“Why?” Mr. Dimmer asked.

“Because it needs to get done.” Mrs. Dimmer replied.

“Oh just stop it.” He said sarcastically. “You’re only doing this because your father is here. He’s not going to believe you actually do any work around here.”

If it wasn’t for the birds chirping merrily away in the background, you could hear a pin drop. Then a high pitching squealing started and Mrs. Dimmer threw, actually threw the long handled shovel across the yard like a javelin. She ducked her head, stamped her feet as though she were doing a quick little jig, and then ran squealing like a wounded child from the backyard toward the side fence gate and when she reached it; she hit it like a ton of bricks. I was standing within five feet on the other side of the fence and regrettably witnessed the whole thing.

The gate slammed open and she ran to her minivan, hopped in and burnt rubber both getting out of her driveway and down the street. She was gone for a good hour or so.

The bad thing about this is that we now know why little girl Dimmer acts the exact same way. Right down to the high pitched squealing. She’s learned it from her mother. We’ve seen little girl Dimmer react the same way to something her father has said to her and always thought it was a bit odd and overblown.

The other bad thing is we now think The Dimmer’s have a mentally abusive marriage. Having been through one of those myself, I feel for everyone in that house. It sounds like Mr. and Mrs. Dimmer both know each other’s buttons and aren’t afraid to push them and sadly, their kids are learning the same tactics.

May 17, 2006

…and speaking of squealing (see yesterday’s entry) Mr. Wall Street told us the other day that he is afraid of everything that crawls or flies. His wife has been working on getting rid of the mice infestation their house has and while she’s hired people to do the work of the clean-up of the section of yard the mice have burrowed into, she herself doesn’t appear to be afraid of the rodents. He, on the other hand, confessed to squealing like a little girl when he first saw one. The same goes for wasps.

We live within a block of a stream and greenspace area and the result is that we have paper wasps. Tons of them. Nearly everyone around here has them and their nests are built on the eaves of our homes. It’s not attractive and a pain in the butt but we’re ourselves are used to them by now. Once or twice a year, I get out a long pole and knock all the nests off that I can reach, WS gets the rest and we’re good for another year. We do it either very early in the morning or around dusk when the paper wasps aren’t as active. Whereas they can sting, they aren’t as interested in people as yellow jacket wasps are and so, it’s not that big of a deal for us to get rid of the nests.

Unfortunately, The SportsOrNothings who lived in the house before The Wall Streets bought it, never knocked down their wasp nests and so, not only were there lots of them, a couple were as big as a basketball. Scary.

Early yesterday afternoon, in the heat of the day, WS spied Mr. Wall Street outside with a long pole looking like he was trying to get up the courage to knock one of his paper wasp nests down. He confessed that that was exactly what he was doing – trying to get up the courage. WS told him he ought to wait until dusk or early the next morning to do it. Mr. Wall Street looked very relieved and put the pole away.

At dusk, he came back out, this time with a friend whom he plied with several bottles of beer first. Before long, the friend was whacking at every nest in sight with a complete lack of fear. Each time a nest would drop, no matter the size from an inch in diameter to the basketball size ones, Mr. Wall Street a.k.a. Mr. Squealy-Pants would squeal and high step himself several yards away.

It really was quite comical especially if you were to see how serious and business-like he is the rest of the time.

May 18, 2006

Happy Mt. St. Helens day.

I’m blogging late today because we had our yearly eye exam today and I had taken out my contact this morning. Had I typed anything at that point it would have looked something like this:

Ja[[u Nr, Dr, Jw;wma fsu,

O/, v;ihhomf ksrw rpfsu vrxsidw er jsf pit urst;u rur rzsn rpfsu smf U jsf rslrb pir nu vpmsxr rjod nitmomf/ Jsf O ru[rf smurjomh sr rjsr [pimr ur epi;f jscr ;pplrf dp,wrjobf kulr rjod”

I think we can all agree that doesn’t look pretty. As it was things were probably headed in that direction anyway. My right eye is up to needing a 2.00 level contact, up from 1.50 over the past year. Surprisingly enough, my left eye is still perfectly normal. (I realize my terminology there around corrective eye thingies probably wasn’t worded right but I don’t know much about that stuff…yet.)

In other news, I’ll have the novel I’m currently working on, A Familiar Chill, up in a special place under Projects over there on the left side bar  in the next day or two. It’ll be behind a password protected area per writer agent’s strong recommendations. If you’d like to read it, let me know but be warned, it’ll be full novel length eventually. That means there will be lots of words. LOTS and LOTS of words. Hundreds of thousands of words most of which won’t come with any explanation. If you aren’t big on reading lots of words, it probably won’t be anything you’d like to see.

Our writer’s group meeting is this coming Sunday here at the Blogeois compound. We’re going to critique Ris’ first ever National Novel Writing Month work which she claims sucks (or something to that effect) but in reality doesn’t very much. Afterward, WS will be handing out sections of his latest work, his first for critiquing for next month’s meeting.

Provided that things stay relatively the same as now meaning I don’t have to hunt for and find a job just yet, and after my secretarialship is over for the Monkey Car Club come November, I’m going to dive headlong into what I perceive (and can afford) to be the writer’s lifestyle. I see it as containing lots of reading, more than I can squeeze in now, and chock full of days upon days of writing; of looking for locations and settings that inspire me to write more, not just writing what I might currently be working on, but new works and snippets of work as well; looking for the hours of day and/or night that work best for me. I’ve already got the discipline part down and I don’t plan on stopping that anytime soon. I’ve been journaling since 1996 and writing daily since 1998. Since discovering National Novel Writing Month in 2004, I’ve been working hard to squeeze even more daily writing in as well as working on projects both with WS and alone.

I guess what I’m trying to say is come November, I’ll be taking my writing to the next level. I’m ready for it; I’m ready to learn more, to hone the craft more, and to see where my words might take me. Wanna come along?

May 19, 2006

Some of this entry was written by sock puppets:

I woke up in a great mood this morning. It went all downhill from there.

I’m scrambling to read something that I thought I had already read but by a miscommunication with WS, I discovered I only had half the print out.

WS’ suggestion that I take close up photos of our paper wasp nest was a waste of time and today, I don’t have time to waste. Now, if he wants to buy that $7000 white close up lens, maybe I’ll be able to get a relatively reasonably close photo of it. What lens we have won’t cut the mustard so to speak.

The stock market this week has nearly wiped out every penny I made over the past 12 weeks. I hate the guy who took over for Mr. Greenspan. This guy is an idiot, and apparently, lots of people agree with me. He’s just now realizing that the housing market “may be slowing down”? Uh, someone hit this man with a stick. Hard. He’s not paying attention.

My knees and hip hurt a bit. I’ve been using the treadmill religiously for the past two weeks and, hold onto your panties, I’ve actually run on it a few times. That’s right, I say “run”. I haven’t run since I was 12 years old and even then, my big, over developed boobs nearly gave me black eyes so I swore I’d never do it again unless my house was on fire. I guess I should count my blessing that not only was our house not on fire, but I don’t have the same big boobs I used to. Still, running, people. I was running. Call the media.

Mr. and Mrs. Dimmer have been fighting loudly for the past three days. I had hoped they would give it a rest today. No such luck.

I discovered a friend is cruel to animals. Odd that this never came up before. Anyone who shoots ducks, especially baby ducks “because it’s fun” ought to be shot themselves. I don’t think he will miss my friendship though. I am so weary of hearing about people purposely hurting other things. So very weary.

And why is it there isn’t a single commercial on TV that doesn’t insult our intelligence? And why isn’t anyone saying anything about it or stopping it? It’s only getting worse but the good thing is I’m down to watching one or two things on TV. I just can’t stand the stupidity anymore.

May 22, 2006

The gentle rain is falling outside making me feel like lounging around and not doing much of anything. But the Secret Writing Cult got together last night which pumped up my motivation and my story beckons me instead. Lounge or write, lounge or write. On a gray rainy day with nothing else of importance pressing, what would you do?

Write it is, then. All the animals and birds have been fed (including a plate of leftovers set out back for the evil raccoon that kept members of the Writing Cult temporarily at bay last night – read the story over here at Ris’ blog), I’ve had lunch, and I’ve got a mug of peach tea sitting here. Let’s light some vanilla-scented candles and dive back into the story. I’m working on correcting a slight timeline problem I discovered over the weekend.

The squirrel pictured here though can keep on lounging. He’d probably just chew on the papers anyway.

May 23, 2006

“The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.”

A couple of things to ponder:

Who here has literally been given everything they have?

Who here has not had to work hard to acquire anything, be it personal possessions or standing in life?

Who here has ever thought everyone else has the easy life?

Who here believes everything they see and read on the Internet?

Isn’t it sad how governments can brainwash people into hating other cultures and people?

May 24, 2006

Yep, just another day here in paradise. My captors moved the front webcam so you can see me chained to the computer yet again. After that, the beatings will begin anew and later, I’ll eat worms for dinner. Other countries don’t have it so good I hear. But hey, I have a roof over my head and clean water to drink so I shouldn’t complain. Not bad for a nearly 50 year old woman with bony fingers.

*ahem*

Moving along…WS had the unfortunately experience of listening to DorkMaster, MsNoManagementSkills husband tell a group of coworkers a disgusting story at work yesterday. It was so disgusting, that reportedly, a few workers fell ill themselves and two never came back from lunch. DorkMaster loves to gross people out at work and we’re both amazed he still has a job quite frankly. The guy is constantly bragging about wanking off in the company bathrooms, wiping snot under his desk and on his keyboard, farting noxious clouds in his cubicle, etc. Stupid, grade school, bathroom humor stuff but he’s got an audience that keeps asking for more so what can you say. Kind of tells you what kind of people work in IT departments, doesn’t it?

The latest story was something he said he did partly on accident, partly to get MsNoManagementSkill’s goat last week. He was home sick with the flu and she had been trying to get him to eat. Allegedly, he told her several times to stop trying to force him to eat or else but I guess she didn’t believe he was sick in the first place. He’s been ditching a lot of work lately as it is.

Anyway, he said all it took was watching her lick the centers out of a dozen deviled eggs and he lost it. She thought he was faking the gagging sounds and he knew he couldn’t make it to the bathroom in time, so he grabbed a pot, the pot they cook pasta in, and puked repeatedly into it. Later, he “rinsed” it out and replaced it in the pot rack. He says their kitchen has a “nice, sour [DorkMaster] smell to it now” and he wouldn’t want it any other way.

The way WS tells it, coworkers had covered their mouths and several walked away in mid-story. Again, a few coworkers claimed to have fallen ill afterward and two didn’t come back from lunch. Meanwhile, DorkMaster sat at his desk the rest of the afternoon giggling, no doubt proud of being the high king of grossness.

All we ever hear of MsNo and DorkMaster anymore is how sick they are all the time now and is it any wonder? They allow his kids to pee and puke on their mattress, then steam clean it to get the Norovirus out of it, he and all his kids use the upholstered furniture to wipe their snotty noses on, and now he’s vomiting into the pots and pans? Oh, I’m sure this is exactly what MsNo divorced her first husband for…

May 25, 2006

Well, the Howler Monkeys have taken off for a long vacation. No word on what Limpy is supposed to do in the meantime. I guess they figure he’ll be okay on his own. Yeah, a cat with a permanent limp, matted fur, no claws and that they won’t allow indoors regardless of the weather conditions. And who craves human interaction. What do you suppose he’s supposed to eat or drink for the next couple of weeks?

What is wrong with people?

I’ve been an editing fool lately and am almost finished editing, first editing, everything I have written on the “Familiar Chill” novel. Sometime next week I should be back to the creative writing process and I’m looking forward to it.

I still have three pots of perennials to plant somewhere here. It’s been raining hard on and off for the past few days and should continue to do so for the next few to come. Nothing planned for the weekend other than to keep editing and writing. Boring, yes but productive.

In the meantime, here’s
a penguin dance thing to play with along with another one of those tunes that’ll stick in your head. Have a good weekend.

May 26, 2006

Have you heard the line about given enough time, a thousand monkeys pecking away at a thousand typewriters will eventually type out the works of Shakespeare? Well the other night, I realized something.

I’m a monkey who doesn’t know what a typewriter is to be able to peck out anything.

There has got to be nothing more frustrating than possessing a burning desire to do something you thought you could do and not have the capability to do it.

I also realized something else.

I now know why many authors are alcoholics. They were frustrated too.

I have no formal writing education. Oh sure, I took four years of English in high school. Volunteered to take all four years, actually. I like words. I’ve always felt I had something to say and I wanted to say it well.

I didn’t get the opportunity to go to college and had to work to help support my family. I later learned my meager paycheck helped pay for my mother’s business lunches at a local steakhouse five days a week while her five children went without breakfast and lunch every day. Honeywell ought to have sent me a thank you card.

I once was able to affored one class on creative writing at a local college but the teacher was completely enamored with a student who wove his work, ALL of his work, with words like “illogicality” and “imperatorial” and “paradigm” and she dismissed everyone else’s work “because we used ‘small’ words.”

It’s when I’m angry or impassioned that I think I write my best and I wasn’t angry when I was in that creative writing class. Cruel childhood, loveless marriage, divorce, and death; I usually jotted something down about those periods in my life, during those periods in my life.

And now I’d like to write a book about none of those things but that kind of writing, book writing, has rules and here I am, at 50 years old (almost) without a rulebook and feeling like I’ve got too little time to stop to learn.

I just want to write but it’s all coming out wrong.

So frustrating. So very, very frustrating.

Points of view rules are killing me. Not literally, but killing my passion. Learning that my descriptive phrasing is jerking the pace and jolting the flow of my stories is killing my motivation.

What about style? How can an author create his own style if he must adhere to rules that seem to only apply to him? I’ve been reading countless other authors, all reasonably well known and I see point of view flaws left and right. As for jolted pacing, I’ve never noticed it before and can’t for the life of me notice it now either. I visually get into the books I read; I don’t analyze the words to see where the pacing might be jarred to a halt because the author threw in something about how the protagonist looked just before he begins a bit of dialog. When I try to do that, I tire, get bored, and can’t find reason to keep reading. It’s like being color blind. Where others see red with jolted pacing, I see green and continue full speed ahead.
I am the monkey and I don’t have a thousand years.

But I do whine well, don’t you think?

May 28, 2006

If I had remained in my first marriage, I would have been married for 30 years today. When I told WS this, the man who knows all about that time, he remarked that I’d probably be living with a sexually transmitted disease and he would be right. It would have been probably been Herpes or Gonorrhea at the very least from my sister whom my first husband married me for and with whom he had several secret and not so secret trysts with. That knowledge made me different from the meek, under-spoken person I was at the time. Five months before the end I also learned he had been thrown a huge bachelor party the morning before the wedding where he smoked a cigar backwards and had intercourse with a goat. I was so naïve.

Just like when planning the wedding, no one told me we had chosen Memorial Day weekend for the special day. My childhood and adolescent life was such that I didn’t even know what Memorial Day was until I was 20 years old. Seriously. I know that is hard to believe but back then, holidays weren’t big public displays of marketing and guilt and I grew up not being allowed to watch TV or read newspapers. Furthermore, schools didn’t talk about wars and casualties and honoring those who gave their lives. We were right in the middle of the Vietnam War then and talk of that was strictly forbidden. The last weekend in May for me was all about trying to survive the beatings while trying to graduate from one grade level to the next.

When I chose the holiday weekend to get married when I was 19, I didn’t even realize it was a 3-day weekend for most and it wasn’t until long after I was divorced did I realize why the cemetery around Point Loma in California where we honeymooned was on display with thousands of small United States flags. I thought at the time it was odd but pretty. I think I mentally wrote it off to being the beginning of the summer tourist season or something. After all, I had just gotten married and I had bigger fish to fry. The man who had just become my husband less than 36 hours prior was acting oddly toward me and just wanted to sleep the whole honeymoon. And by ‘sleep’ I mean literally and alone. That and he didn’t seem to want to have anything to do with me. I first started to learn how to do things on my own during that time but it took me years to do anything without looking over my shoulder for blows that never again came. “It was Memorial Day weekend, you idiot!” I told myself when the realization hit me almost literally like a ton of bricks.

May 29, 2006

I nearly derailed myself from writing anything ever again (this blog excluded) late last week and as much as WS claims it was his fault, it isn’t. I’m having trouble communicating what I’m looking for when I’ve asked him to read a section here and there in the novel I’m writing and he’s having problems understanding specifically what I want back from him. I don’t have a formal or even much of an informal education when it comes to writing and that’s simply biting me in the ass at the moment. Being married to an engineer who speaks fluent engineer-ese isn’t making things any easier to learn either. Lately, asking him what some writing style or terminology means will usually get me a long verbal course on something that sounds like a cross between C++ coding language, a history on Finnish flute technique, and a bad case of the hiccups.

Most writing how-to books and many authors say its best not to let your loved ones read your work in process, that they tend to offer tips and suggestions that can change the whole story from what you intended or inadvertently overturn the whole project. Naturally, being the elitist that I tend to be, I believed that bit of ‘wisdom’ was meant for others; lesser people not so in tune with each other as WS and I generally are. I mean c’mon, we wrote a novel together last year and it went fairly well. Certainly we can spend our evenings reading each other’s favorite newly created passages and fawning over them, right?

Those books and authors just might have something there because this time around it’s been a whole big world of tears and depression. After a day of recovering from the latest go-around, I’m torn between writing the whole thing without sharing a single word and then seeking editing help elsewhere, or shelving it while I take a year or two to learn how to do what I mistakenly thought I knew how to do in the first place.

At least I’m not considering scraping the whole thing anymore. That would just be stupid. Yeah, I knew writing was hard and all but is it supposed to make you feel like an idiot at the same time? Time to start reading some of those writing how-to books WS keeps buying.

May 31, 2006

The rest of my calendar for this year is filling up. On just the writing front alone, I’ve excitedly agreed to co-author a story between now and October 1st with a writing group author during which I’ll continue work on editing and writing my current ‘A Familiar Chill’ novel. Then in September, our novel ‘Cabin 4’ which WS and I wrote together last year will be reviewed. National Novel Writing Month is the entire month of November (for which I’m toying with penning a 50K+ mystery piece on the inner workings of car clubs.) and then it’s back to finishing up the co-authored story if it isn’t yet done and the same with ‘A Familiar Chill’. Add in once a month writer’s group meetings where I’m learning to critique other’s work as well as tips to improve my own (June’s critique is focusing on WS’ writings).

In the non-writing column, there’s the repainting of the kitchen which should take about a week with the aging effect I want to reapply to the walls but I’m not sure I’ll get to now, planning what to do for my birthday on this the year I turn 50, and then there’s those seemingly never-ending Monkey Car Club meetings of which will mercifully come to a screeching halt for me on November 8th of this year when my term of office is over. I have a feeling no one will volunteer to play secretary for that sniveling bunch of babies but that’s their problem. I am out.of.there. as of Nov 8th in any case.

I’ve significantly added to my already tall stack of books to read throughout the summer with the addition of several writing help books. ‘The Criminal Mind’ by Katherine Ramsland, ‘Characters & Viewpoint’ by Orson Scott Card, ‘Scene of the Crime’ by Anne Wingate, ‘Stein on Writing’ by Sol Stein, ‘Word Painting’ by Rebecca McClanahan, ‘Getting the Words Right’ by Theodore A. Rees Cheney, and ‘The Novel Writer’s Toolkit’ by Bob Mayer. Most of these writing books are a quick read; a week each at most if I make it a point to get through it; it’s not being able to retain all the information I fear because this is a lot of info to absorb in a short amount of time. But I will read them all as well as write as much as I can every day. This will be my second summer of nearly nonstop writing and here I’ve gone and signed up for a double load this time around. Finally I’ll be able to say with all honesty, “So, this is what being a writer is all about!”

But it’s not all about what I’m doing and what I’m going to do, out back, other things are working hard too. Lookie! We’ve got peas!

June 1, 2006

It’s always good to start your day with good news and yesterday, although it wasn’t exactly the start of the day, I realized something – No Monkey Car Club meeting last night. I was wildly excited about that. It gave me energy and a fresh outlook for the rest of the day. Dare I say, I felt…giddy almost? Never mind the fact that Zooot, the only cat who is allowed in our bedroom a.ka. The clean room (it’s an asthma thing), for the first time in years barfed all over our down comforter. Guess who won’t be going in there anymore…but dang! No meeting! If it wasn’t for all the cat puke, I would have been bouncing off the walls!

So I’ve been meme tagged and who am I to not dive headlong into a challenge like a piglet that dives head first into a bucket of cheese curd? Did I ever mention I saw that happen once? Thank goodness someone else was watching because I wasn’t about to get in the pen to rescue it. There was a 300+ pound mother pig in that pen as well. My grandmother used to scare the crap out of me with human-eating hog tales so my thinking was something along the lines of “Little pig, you got yourself in there. You can eat your way out. Think of it as the creamy center of people.”

Anyhoo, where was I? The meme, oh, yes, the meme: An invitation to list six strange things about myself. Hello? Anyone read here lately? What can I mention that I haven’t whined about or confessed already? Kristy of Fire in the Kitchen asked Tim, her memer, if the strangeness could be categorized along one line or another but nope. A potpourri of oddities is what is called for; a Russell Stover sampler box if you will of chocolate weirdness, of caramelly eccentricity, and crunchy, nutty peculiarity. Of course you could just look on the back of the box cover to see which is which but where would be the adventure in that? They’ll all have some peanut bits in them anyway.

1) In the ‘Ewww’ column, I willingly drink cold, day old coffee…but only if we made it originally ourselves. Upon occasion, I’ve been known to drink cold, two day old coffee under the same prerequisite. It may have something to do about knowing where the coffee grounds have been.
2) Apparently, I have an ear for picking out accents. Note this doesn’t mean picking UP accents which I suck at, except that Canadian one that I could listen to and mimic all day much to their dismay (maybe this is why they won’t let me move there?). While foreign accents are my favorite, I was psychologically scarred from an involuntary, three-week trip to Arkansas once, and still find myself spelling out multiple syllable pronunciations of simple words as a result of eeee-yit (it).
3) I was also psychologically scarred at age 5 when my parents thrust a baby sister upon me. They set her up in my room and she screamed from the get-go. I retaliated by feeding her crayons and I would have gotten away with it too had she not acquired a taste for Crayola’s Midnight Blue and started teething.
4) Emil and Hubert – Tumors I had once. Big ones. Yes, I named them and think everyone should.
5) Once or twice a year, I dream about surfing and when I wake up, my shoulders and arms ache as though I’ve spend the night paddling. In reality, I’ve never surfed. I used to dream about the actor John Goodman but I never hurt from it.
6) I briefly dated a man with three nipples. He said it was actually pretty common. I thought it was weird and broke it off shortly thereafter. It wasn’t because of the excess nippleage; there was something else but I’m not talking.

Here’s the part where I tag six other bloggers to post their own personal strange lists but that would be similar to a chain letter and I hate those. Nonetheless, and if they are so inclined to play along, I tag Mary Lou, Kim, Phyllis, Zoe, Danelle, and Cindi. And WS if he wants to play.

Yeah, I know that’s seven. I’m just weird that way.