2005 Archive – Jan-June

2005 Archive – Jan-June – 172,604 words total. Not responsible for broken links.

January 1, 2005

Hello? Hello? Is this thing on?

Welcome to 2005! How are your heads? Am I typing too loud? Is the light too bright? Sorry, I’ll try to be quieter until that headache goes away.

Thank you very much for your replies to the questionnaire posted Thursday. Your comments were exactly what I had hoped for and I thank you for being honest. Sounds like more photos will be in order. If it snows today like the weather people have been hyping, definitely look for photos tomorrow. Today is the last of the holiday clean up for us. Time to take down the rest of the lights, pack up the tree, and stuff boxes of decorations back into the closets and under the bed for another year.

It’s also time to publicly post the standard official Blogeois disclaimer. It’s just a formality and one I need to post. Frankly, my butt could be hanging out there in the breeze if I don’t and have you noticed how cold it is out there right this minute? Brrr! This disclaimer should just about cover everything. Let me know if I’ve forgotten anything and I’ll make sure to squeeze it in there.

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January 2, 2005

I have a confession to make and this, being the start of the new year and all, I figured this would be as good a time as any to ‘fess up.

We didn’t support the economy over the entire month of December. We didn’t buy a single thing other than food. Not a single Christmas gift was bought. No cell phones, no MP3 players, nothing that everyone else asked for or wanted. No DVDs, no clothes, no fruitcakes. No twizzle-lumpers, no wazzle-thwappers or zingle-flakes. The entire holiday season came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came and went without packages, boxes or bags!

And we feel pretty good about that. In thirteen days, we lose our jobs to a layoff because The Company we work for was bought out by a Big-Ass Internet Corporation last October, and we are now what they call, “redundant”. So it seemed silly to spend money on Christmas presents when we’ll need it for more important things in the future. And then, it struck us. Maybe Christmas doesn’t have to come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.

And what happened here instead? Well, here at the Blogeois compound, we say….Blogeois received a great gift that day. In the form of a small, rescued cat who decided that life here isn’t all that bad. Here’s a picture of Maxx, a.k.a. Jaws, whom we rescued last summer as a kitten after he was dumped in our coyote- patrolled neighborhood (after someone de-clawed him). This is the first and only time to date that he’s ever climbed up in anyone’s lap. He ended up sleeping just as you see him here for an hour. My arms fell asleep after the first twenty minutes but it was worth it to see him sleeping so peacefully. I felt so honored that this half-wild cat who more than makes up for the lack of front claws with his bite and back claws would snuggle up with me, without injury no less! It’s a gift I’ll never forget.

January 3, 2005

I still have to take down the Christmas tree in our bedroom. No, I’m not being lazy. It’s just that it’s a slim, FAKE tree that doesn’t take up hardly any room and I think it’s so pretty, it’s a shame to take it down just yet.

Okay, that’s probably not the real reason but it’s the one I’m going with for now. In the meantime, here’s how I’ve got our fireplace mantel looking until spring. That’s our snowy white owl in the center that WS loves so much and my beloved frosted greenery and white candles. We generally have very heavy frosts throughout January and February here and this morning was no exception. I try to decorate our mantel to reflect what we usually see outside, without the owl of course. We hardly ever see owls around here anymore. Too many people and not enough trees left.

One more day off before going back to work. Ugh. Neither one of us are looking forward to going back tomorrow but we’re not dwelling on it as to hopefully, not ruin the day today as I usually have a bad habit of doing. I’m assuming the Big-Ass Internet Corporation people will have lots of stuff for me to do for my last nine working days. You’d think they’d start putting up through debriefing or something or a mountain of paperwork just to save their own butts legally down the road, but we haven’t heard a peep. In fact, we keep getting both email and snail mail about signing up for the 401K program, insurance, and tons of other stuff we don’t have any use for since we’ve only got nine days left working for them.

Did I mention only nine days left? Yeah? Okay, just checking.

It’s Monday and trash day and the local weather people are wrong again. They say it’s windy outside and on any other trash day, they’d be right, for today. But it’s as calm as the dead outside right now and I’m giddy with happiness because the SportsOrNothing’s trash isn’t all over our lawn, neither is the Dimmers, the Howler Monkey’s (who’s disposable diaper boxes littered our side yard last week), or anyone’s else who lives further east up the street. Sadly, signs of last Monday’s windstorm is still evident. Plastic gallon milk jugs still litter MsNoManagementSkills’ lawn. Are we surprised? C’mon now. We all know better.

Mt. St. Helens is happily puffing away in little spurts today and if you haven’t looked recently, you ought to click on the link to her camera over there on the left. Very pretty. If you really want to see something pretty, click on her web cam link around 4 p.m. Pacific Time to see the setting sun turn her into a golden, pink shining beauty.

January 4, 2005

Back to work today. Ugh, let’s not talk too much about it. Things are extremely slow because MrSmartButFakingIt never replied to WS’s email (sent in November) about what exactly we’re supposed to be doing until our last day. WS sent the email to get our concerns on record. Actually, MrSmartButFakingIt hasn’t answered a single one of our emails since September, and then it was only one reply to one email. This has been going on since last year at this time and is a big joke at Company headquarters. The Big-Ass Corporation will discover this quirk of his soon enough.

Customer email is massively backed up due to several factors. First, there was the holidays and time employees had off. Then, one of The Company’s email servers went down at the same time that another one was hit with a virus. Then, there was the tsunami that also hit India where our jobs are all being outsourced to. It didn’t hit the exact building and no one was killed, lost, or hurt, but communications did get cut for several days and no one there could process any work, not that they should have been worrying about that at that time anyway regardless of what corporations say in my opinion. (Gee but I sure am glad the Big-Ass Corporation is getting rid of me though, one of the top email processes The Company ever had up until early 2004 when The Company CEO pulled me to work on bogus projects instead, but am I bitter? Who me? Never.) Fortunately for me now, I don’t do email anymore.

Instead, I get to sit here and sort out my work email box which someone at Company headquarters decided to route all virus infected email to while I was off on vacation. So far, my virus email count is 4270 infected emails sent directly to my work email address and because I’m used to dealing with this crap, I’m not infected yet. I suspect this is more of the Big-Ass Internet Corporation’s methodology to get people to quit out of frustration before Big-Ass has to pay out severance. Kind of like Big-Ass’ refusal to answer our request to take those last two personal holiday days off before our last day on the 14th. Because they didn’t answer with an approval, time has run out on our request and now, we don’t get the days off, nor do they have to pay us for it. Because we have previously read online how badly the Big-Ass Internet Corporation treats both its employees and contract employees, we’ve expected all of this. It’ll take more than everything they’ve thrown us to date to get us quit first. Just eight and a half more days.

Gee, didn’t mean to go off there over that. It’ll be over soon.

It’s VERY windy here today and has brought the wind chill down to 27 degrees. It was around 26 degrees here last night and I worried all night about the stray animals in our development, particularly two cats that visit here everyday. One belongs to the Howler Monkey’s but they consider him “outside ONLY”. He never gets to go inside. Just last week, they finally put out a towel on a plastic chair they placed on their front, cold, north-facing porch for him to sleep on at night. I seriously doubt a towel is going to do much to thwart off 20-something degree weather.

The other cat is the one helped eliminate the mice population living around our fountain last summer. We think he lives next door to the Howler Monkey’s in a rental house but there’s never anyone there to ask. The Howler Monkey’s cat is a long hair cat, the mouse hunter cat is short hair and really a nice cat. Sad to know they are out there in these temperatures but I’ve always worried about things like that.

All I can do is feed them or forget about them. I can’t bring them in to risk infecting our pets with anything they may be carriers of (been there, done that, have the vet bills to prove it). Animal control in our town cares less about how people treat their animals unless the animals are shot at or hung and they will report anyone who complains to their department to the animal owners themselves and I don’t care to go through all mess that again.

Okay, obviously I’m a bit frustrated today. Let’s hope this doesn’t continue over the next two weeks. Think calm thoughts. Think calm thoughts.

January 5, 2005

Today’s meetings are a joke it seems. No one sent out information on how remote employees should log into them until after I sent an email asking about it and then, it was after the “lock out” time. Apparently, if you aren’t logged into the meeting through NetMeeting and the Big-Ass Corporation by a certain, pre-set time, there is no way to get in. Just another way to frustrate us remote employees. I won’t even talk about how they constantly referred to us over the phone conference call as “Florida” people. Uh, Washington and Oregon people are here too! After the fourth time, I stop saying “Washington!” into the phone.

Listening in, it became apparent quickly that MsNoManagementSkills would never make it in the Big-Ass Corporation simply because they do not allow negative time offs. This is when someone takes paid time off that they do not have, thinking they could just make it up later. She is famous for this. It also sounds like the Big-Ass Corporation has tons of people who had nothing better to do at one point than to make up a ton of rules and laws, including silly stuff like no one being allowed to upgrade airline seats from coach to first class, no rental cars bigger than mid-size (too bad for you tall or large people, WS), and gasoline expenses will be paid back at only 40.9 cents per gallon. Hello? Gas here is going for nearly two bucks a gallon.

Doesn’t matter to me anyway. I’m gone in seven and a half days. I did find out that personal floating holidays don’t go into effect until January 15th, meaning we wouldn’t have gotten ours anyway because our last day is January 14th. And that last paychecks take forever to get, but we can view them online through their system IF you have access to their system. If not, you need to talk to your manager IF you still have a manager. And WHY would you have a manager if you NO LONGER worked for them? There was no answer to this question. Naturally. WS, please take note of this so our electricity doesn’t get shut off.

Here, the wind is gone today. Temperatures are sitting right now at around 30 degrees F. It got down to 27 last night and so far, I’ve seen The Howler Monkey’s cat who ran over to get at the water bowl, not the food, I set out front. C’mon people! Don’t you even have a WATER BOWL out for your cat?? I do not like these people.

There is a large Flicker in the top feeder. Unfortunately, after yesterday’s wind, there isn’t any seed up there. Now, he’s moved down to the suet cage and he’s pecking away. Looks like the suet is frozen solid. After he flies off, I’ll refill the cage with another suet cake. This one is almost empty anyway and I’m so glad now that I grabbed three extra suet cakes last summer before my surgery and before we knew we’d be laid off. If at all possible, I will not let the animals that have come to depend on us to go hungry. The birds can probably find food elsewhere, but the neighborhood cats probably don’t have anywhere else to go.

Of course, I do have “SUCKER” tattoo-ed on my forehead.

The weather news says it might snow here this weekend. Two out of three weather people say Saturday we’re slated for rain and snow mix which is different from what they were saying last night which was snow starting Thursday night. I’m thinking with how right these weather people are, we’ll be 85 degrees, hot and sunny and everyone will be enjoying margaritas out on the veranda by noon. HA!

January 6, 2005

Early this morning, it “snailed” lightly here. This means tiny pellets of ice fell from the sky instead of rain. It lasts about 45 minutes. The temperature is going up and all the tapioca pearl size ice pellets are gone. No snow but there’s always a chance for tomorrow morning.

After our lay off next week, we’re going to try to figure out a way to cheaply revamp our office, the room that we both once loved but has come to represent depression, anger, and frustration over the last few years. Here’s a picture of it at its best and cleanest. The location of the TV, flower arrangement, and side tables have changed but the rest; the couch, chair and ottoman, and work desk and chair is the same. The carpet, in soft frosted seafoam teal, is in excellent shape and is staying. The walls are a darker shade of the carpet and we’re thinking of repainting it. Paint is cheap. The prints on the walls are nice, framed movie posters and there are four of them, two on either side.

We want to keep at least one desktop computer in there (the other is going back to The Company in a couple of weeks) so the office chair needs to stay. It’s a good chair. This means we need to keep the carpet-protecting mats as well. It’s a small room and I think maybe other than changing the table the computer sits on and maybe the wall color, I don’t think there is much else we can do with it. It just needs a good cleaning to rid it of work demons I think.

Yesterday’s work day was interesting to say the least. The meetings were a joke because the Big-Ass Corporation didn’t want to deal with us remote employees over the phone: Nothing new there, but it was what happened later that kind of irked both me and WS. First, they changed our status from exempt to non-exempt regardless of what their official letter of intent said wouldn’t change back in October. The letter we had to sign and return or lose our jobs immediately back then when I was trying to recover from surgery. Okay, whatever. This is just another annoyance but one we can handle. It simply means we have to fill out timecards and extra paperwork every day.

Second, and the change that does irritate us as well as clearly says to me that the Big-Ass Corporation is trying to get under our skins is that they changed who we work under and report to now. Instead of reporting to MrSmartButFakingIt, we now report to Ego! Yep, Ego, the ass who has to put their fingers into everyone else’s pie and nose into everyone else’s business.

Only, no one told us. Finally, FINALLY, we were given access to the Big-Ass Corporation HR website so as to make sure our information was correct and there it was, the new organizational chart and under each of our names was who we directly report to: Ego.

Six and a half more days. Just six and a half more days. It’ll all be over then…if you don’t count trying to get my back pay from the raise I got back in October and our last paychecks, severance, and retention pay.

Finally saw the mouse hunter cat this morning. He looks good still, well fed (probably because we’re feeding him through this winter). The scrub jay with the one broken leg is still hanging around and still looks good too. He’s starting to collect whole peanuts again to bury in all our neighbor’s yard so I think if he can just hang on throughout this winter, I think he’ll heal and survive. Haven’t seen The Howler Monkey’s long hair cat yet, but he’s not an early riser.

January 7, 2005

Oh, this is rich. I’ve just been sent my Exit Interview form to fill out and mail back in. It contains all kinds of fun questions such as these gems:

1. I understood how my job contributed to the success of “Big-Ass Corporation” – Answer using a scale of 1 to 5, 5 equates to Strongly Agree.
2. There was someone at work who encouraged my growth and development – Answer using a scale of 1 to 5
3. I was treated with respect – Answer using a scale of 1 to 5
4. My immediate manager provided direction and support – Answer using a scale of 1 to 5
5. I received timely and accurate performance feedback about my work progress – Answer using a scale of 1 to 5
6. My manager led our team in a positive direction – Answer using a scale of 1 to 5
7. My executive Team Leader encouraged respect, teamwork, and communication – Answer using a scale of 1 to 5
8. Describe what you liked best about working for “Big-Ass Corporation” – Comment box provided

All together, there are forty questions, mostly asking about how my supervisor/manager performed. What manager? MrSmartButFakingIt or MsNoManagementSkills? What a joke both of them are! Where do I add the part about MsNoManagementSkills, FatHead, and BikerDude telling me for years every week that they were going to get me fired “just because they could.” I changed and rearranged my entire f**king life just so I could survive working with them! Where is the comment box for that?

What isn’t clear is do they want to know about The Company and the six years I worked for them or the Big-Ass Internet Company who bought out The Company and ruined people’s lives but that I only “worked” for a month? I think I will add that tidbit of confusion in my comments. Perhaps that confusion was intentional too but I think it’s just a sign that no one is really going to read it and certainly, no one will understand.

This brings up lots of other questions. Do I tell them exactly how life has been working for both companies? Or do I play nice and hope to rely on them to give me a good recommendation for my next job? If I’m not planning on getting another job, not just yet anyway, do I go ahead and unleash everything? I’m sure they won’t believe half of what I have to say anyway about badly things at this job got. Is there anything lower than a 1 on that scale of 1 to 5? Or do I try to find a happy middle ground knowing this won’t fix anything there either. This is just so silly…and depressing. 6 days left. Just 6 days left and a weekend off for me just seven hours away. WS has to work Sunday, thankfully, his last for The Company.

Rain this morning. It’s warm outside. Well, warm for us at this time of year. Around 40 degrees. No chance of snow today. There is the chance for tomorrow and the wind is supposed to be coming back. I can live with that but please, no wind next Monday!

UPDATE: The Exit Interview Form is only for Big-Ass Corporation answers and comments. There is no Company exit anything as that Company doesn’t exist anymore. Since I only worked for the Big-Ass Corporation for three weeks, this basically means MsNoManagementSkills, FatHead, BikerDude, Ego, and MrSmartButFakingIt has gotten away with everything they ever did to smash morale company wide back when we were The Company (before the Big-Ass Corporation bought it in October). There will be no revenge for me through this form. Everything will need to be answered as N/A – Not Applicable.

HOWEVER, remember I did write a novel about all this back in November and if anything gives me fuel and motivation to do a rewrite on that and start peddling it around to publishers, this is it. I will have my revenge and hopefully will get paid for it eventually. Either way, I’ll write it all out, everything this time around, and rid myself of Company toxins. Then I can move on.

January 8 2005

I don’t normally do those “online” tests, quizzes, or “who are you” kinds of things mostly because they bore me to tears after seeing everyone and their mother post their results on their blogs and personally, I don’t care what kind of Lord of the Rings character I am. I know, I know, I’m a horrible person.) But occasionally, I’ll run across something that I can stand. Like this Book Meme list I got off from “The Cheese Stands Alone”.

Here’s how this one goes: Copy this list, delete the names of the authors you don’t have on your home library shelves, and replace them with names of authors you do have. Bold the replacements.

Tracking this meme back as far as I can get, there were some snooty, high-brow authors there once but I’m a people person kind of reader and I like my authors mostly from the normal, everyday life here on earth. Here’s my list:

1. Steve Martin
2. Marie France-Boyer
3. Spike Walker
4. Neal Stephenson
5. Jean Auel
6. JRR Tolkien
7. Margaret George
8. Andy Rooney
9. Stephen King
10. William Shakespeare

January 10, 2005

More job drama:

Today, I got an email sent directly to me requesting that since I wasn’t down at Big-Ass Corporation headquarters and frankly, I have to wonder why the hell I ever would be I need to send them a head-shot picture for my Big-Ass Corporation badge. This is so they can have the badge ready for me to pick up by January 11th which is tomorrow. My last day not of my choice is January 14th.

Sure, I’d love to have a Big-Ass Corporation badge, if for nothing else, to delude tell myself that for a small period of time, I actually worked for the Big-Ass Corporation, a highly respected Internet business that is used literally millions of times every day and probably by most of you. Online, it’s a status symbol to work for this company according to most software engineers, web designers, and Internet technical people even though those people are forced to work upwards of 16 hour days without extra pay. I know I used to use the Big-Ass Internet’s website religiously until the day they called me while I was trying to recover from surgery to tell me I was redundant and would be laid off in January. I hear their employee badges are a cool status symbol. Well, at least the REAL employee ones are. The CONTRACT employee ones, the kind me and all my coworkers would have gotten, aren’t as cool but it wouldn’t have mattered to me.

When we inquired whether we should still send in our photos when we’ll only have three days left at that point, I was told “No. Don’t bother.”

Nice.

The only problem with working with someone who irritates the crap out of you is that EVERYTHING they do irritates you. The mere fact that this kind of person breathes is irritating.

As I mentioned last Thursday morning, it lightly hailed that morning. Very small hail mixed with rain. We call it “snail” because it’s small hail. No biggie. It didn’t “snail” very much and didn’t accumulate anywhere at all. It was completely gone within the hour. Completely gone. These two words are important to remember.

About an hour into work today, some of my coworkers IM’ed me and asked me if I was snowed in yet, if I would have to shovel my way out of my house, and if I had enough food in the house for the long haul.

Huh?

Apparently, MsNoManagementSkills, who, remember, lives five, 5, houses away from me in some kind of monstrous twist of fate that went horribly awry told everyone that we had gotten snow, SNOW, every day since last Thursday.

Let me repeat: Huh?

Back up to her old tricks of looking for sympathy and an excuse to get out of working a full day. The problem is, she moved into my neighborhood to “keep an eye on me.” Well, the watcher has become the watchee over the past year and I let my coworkers know that no, it didn’t snow here, Thursday or ANY day since. Not at all. A few of them did remember that she and I lived on the same street and now it seems it is a matter of my word against hers. What-f**king-Ever!

I have a strong suspicion that no one will IM me for the rest of the day. Perhaps, the rest of the week. Gee, I know I’m all broke up over that.

Four and a half days left. Hurry up!!

January 11. 2005

Things at work in our final days are coming at us rapidly. The next couple of day’s postings may be on a “time delay” to prevent any profanity from getting through or to catch any potential “wardrobe malfunction”.

Today’s job drama in the final week of my employment is whether the Big-Ass Corporation may request that all people who are on the fast track to lay-off stay another week or two or three or another month or two or some unspecified time because they, the Big-Ass Corporation, couldn’t accomplish their goals on time and lost a contract over it. After they, the Big-Ass Corporation, corrects the problem, all retained employees will unceremoniously be tossed out like snotty, used tissues with little to no notice.

Do I want to stay employed by these underhanded people just to “help them out”? You’ve got to be kidding.

Is there any REASONABLE amount of money they could pay me to keep me around just to “help them out”? A reasonable amount? Lemme think about it.

Apparently over the weekend, a big name hardware/software company got into a hissy fit with the Big-Ass Corporation and is canceling their billion-dollar contract. The result is massive scramble time for everyone. Yesterday morning, I had to listen in on what is hopefully my last Corporation-wide conference call where the last remaining original Company CEO told everyone that a new version of our software was going to be rush, rush, RUSHED out the door to our customers so as to make up the lost money that would have rolled in with that billion-dollar contract.

In the past, rushing out a software version has always been a bad idea because it means the software is shoddy at best and utra-buggy and the customers always pay for it. Ultimately, The Company’s name is drug through the mud but since it’s not “The Company” anymore, it’s the Big-Ass Corporation’s name that is in jeopardy.

I’ll take “Bad, Greedy Moves by Big-Ass Corporations” for $500 please, Alex. Ken Jennings could guess at this one and probably get it right.

Okay, here’s my counter offer should it come down to being asked to stay a while longer. Keep in mind, NO ONE has asked me to stay and I seriously, SERIOUSLY, doubt anyone will: I’ll continue working for the Big-Ass Corporation for $5000 retention fee on TOP of my usual salary PLUS my current severance pay PLUS my current retention fee PLUS my back pay you still owe me for the raise I got in October but you’re choosing to ignore PLUS a big, fat written AND signed apology for all the grief you have put me and WS through to date, especially during that early October timeframe when I was recovering and couldn’t even sit up and you called me voice to tell me I was being laid-off.

Oh, and MrSmartButFakingIt’s head on a platter.

No? Okay, tell you what: I’ll stick around for no extra retention fee if you evict MsNoManagementSkills permanently from my neighborhood effective immediately.

January 12, 2005

Three days left at work and today’s drama involves the Big-Ass Corporation continuing to make life a living hell for us. But this time, they picked on the wrong person. WS.

You see, instead of whining and ranting like I do here when they do something to irritate or upset me, WS won’t whine. He just goes into “Let’s see what a lawyer has to say about it” mode. Good man, he is.

Here’s today’s drama: Last week, both WS and I had our access to the tool the Big-Ass Corporation uses to fill out our time cards cut off. Again. For the umpteenth time since last October. If you don’t use that tool, and you don’t fill out your time card, you don’t get paid. It’s as simple as that and oh, so convenient when they want it to be.

Now, normally we wouldn’t need to fill out a time card but since they changed their minds on how we are classified as of the 1st of January, we now do and they decided we needed to have our time cards filled out through the end of our employment (the 14th) by last Friday. Two weeks worth of time projected out. No problem.

After much whining, they re-instated my access so I could fill out my time card so I could get mine in on time. They did not, however, re-instate WS’s for whatever reason, despite his urgent requests that they do so.

So, we used my account to access the time card tool, downloaded it, filled it out for WS’s time card, and then emailed it to MrSmartButFakingIt to be faxed into the Big-Ass Corporation’s payroll department. Then, WS talked voice to MrSmartButFakingIt on the phone to verify that 1) he got WS’s time card, 2) that it was filled out correctly, and 3) that MrSmartButFakingIt would fax it in.

Okay, everything was good. No problem. MrSmartButFakingIt said he was glad to be of help. One less thing for us to worry about.

Except MrSmartButFakingIt didn’t fax it in and the deadline came and went. Nor will he answer any of our urgent emails to him now.

My access to our department’s Instant Message system has been cut off as of yesterday. I can’t IM anyone for anything anymore, including MrSmartButFakingIt who is shown as being logged in online but obviously isn’t answering any emails. When I try to IM him or anyone else for that matter, the log-in program we have to use crashes. Over and over again.

Frustrating, isn’t it?

Then, with the patience of a saint and all the diplomacy of Jimmy Carter, WS left his real job early, came home just to call the Big-Ass Corporation to let them know he did send his time card to not only MrSmartButFakingIt, but to them there in the payroll department and if they would just look at their email, surely they would see it there waiting for them.

Of course, they there in the payroll department barely knew what email was, let alone how to open one to look at it. And this is an “Internet” company? After much placement on hold, during which WS remained calm (I would be livid at this point and slamming the phone against the wall), the woman who WS emailed his time card to came back and said, “Oh, THAT time card email.”

Now the test will be to see if either one of us get our last paychecks.

January 13, 2005

Items to do:

1- Continue to expect Exit Interview packets to arrive from Big-Ass Corporation before tomorrow. They were due here last Friday. No sign of them yet. No big surprise there.
2- Conference call in to HR tomorrow afternoon for Exit Interview final call to go over packet sent If we still haven’t received the packets, I’m guessing we’ll just sit and listen to each other twirl on our thumbs.
3- Send back Exit Interview Forms.
4- Wait for final paychecks, severance pay, retention fee pay, final accrued vacation pay, and my adjusted raise pay.
5- Hold Company computer hostage until I have all the above checks in my hand, have deposited them into my bank account, and they have all cleared the bank. Waiting for all the checks to clear is key.
6- Burn off all items of interest i.e. emails, chat sessions, etc, onto CD for “safekeeping” and potential future reference.
7- Email Big-Ass Corporation the following picture demanding they send all above checks in a timely fashion or the computer gets it.
8- After checks clear, box up Company computer and additional items agreed upon and send all back using Company FedEx account as agreed.
9- Bill them for any charges FedEx demands in case Company FedEx account isn’t recognized or accepted. (Happens frequently.)
10- Stop waiting for The Company CEOs and MrSmartButFakingIt to send reference letters. It’s not going to happen.
11- Breathe deep. Celebrate with a bottle of something, not because it’s our last day but because we are going to learn how to live life again.

Only then is it over. Something tells me it won’t be 100% over for a while though probably because we expect the Big-Ass Corporation will drag their feet. And who could blame them, really. They have some $ to shell out between the two of us and while it won’t even be a drop in the bucket to them, the only way big corporations stay rich is to keep all their money close. ALL their money.

January 14, 2005

Today is our last day at The Company/Big-Ass Corporation. Unless I decide to start drinking heavily after our 2:00 p.m. exit conference call meaning it went poorly, I’ll probably update very late tonight. Otherwise, I’ll update the results of that exit call tomorrow. I think we’re going out for dinner, something cheap like Taco Bell, where I can sit somewhere away from a computer and cry into an enchirito.

Today’s work drama involves an exit paperwork packet that was supposed to be delivered here yesterday so we could go over it with the HR person in a conference call this afternoon. FedEx didn’t deliver it. Oh, they did come to our house, but they didn’t knock on our door or ring the doorbell. They saw our front door shut and so, stuck a sticker on it saying they needed someone here to sign for the packet.

I was here all day yesterday. Waiting for the packet.

Obviously, FedEx uses stealth vehicles now because I never heard a thing. It suspiciously reminded me of two years ago when I was waiting desperately for some silly car part and decided to work downstairs within six feet of the front door so I wouldn’t miss the delivery. The FedEx guy walked up to the door, which was standing wide open, stuck a sticker on the door, and ran, RAN, out to his van and drove off. All before I could stand up and walk the six feet to the door. He had to have seen me sitting right there, but I used to know someone who delivered for UPS and if people don’t “feel” like dealing with people that day, they won’t even bother. It’s easier to attach a sticker and tell your supervisor later that “no one was home.”

Liars.

This morning, I was able to talk to one of the few people I enjoyed working with at The Company. She was a good friend and my connection to what was going down at Company headquarters. She told me that before she met me in person on my first trip there, she was told I was pretty intimidating and she wouldn’t like me, but that after meeting me, she wondered why anyone would say that. There is only one person that would say such a thing – MsNoManagementSkills, who, oddly enough, told me I would feel the same way toward this friend and sure enough, what MsNoManagementSkills told me was completely wrong.

It’s just sad that I couldn’t see MsNoManagementSkills let go first. Nor will I be able to read about it. Last week, she removed her Live Journal from the Internet. I’ve been desperately hunting for a possible second one for over a week now to no avail. AND I AM NOT HAPPY ABOUT IT EITHER! But all is not lost. I, in my paranoid way, worried about something like this happening should MsNo ever find out that I was reading her online journal and so I have found a new friend in our neighborhood over the past four months.

Ms Ears lives in the next house over from the rental house MsNoManagementSkills and DorkMaster live in. Her kids and DorkMaster’s are about the same age and play together occasionally. That is, when DorkMaster’s kids aren’t overly medicated and sleeping or having screaming fits and trying to uproot the trees that are planted on their shared property line.

MsEars knows a bit of me and MsNoManagementSkills’ history, but only because of what MsNo has told her. She hasn’t told me much of those conversations but MsEars says she knew of me first and some things didn’t jive. I guarantee you’ll be hearing more about MsEars in the next few months. Something to look forward to. Or something to be warned about, whichever you want. All I can say is until MsNoManagementSkills moves out of our neighborhood, either by her own choice or by eviction, I’ll be venting sharing whatever I hear about her because until then, she’ll always be the thorn in my side.

Laid Off

(Written immediately after our Exit Interview phone call with an hour left in our employment.)

It’s over. I’m an ex-employee. I outlasted The Company which was Musicmatch, and barely became a Yahoo! Corporate employee, lasting just long enough to have gotten one paycheck with the Yahoo! Letterhead on it. I’ll be sure to “Yahoo!” while I’m in the unemployment line.

Fifteen minutes before our Exit Interview Conference call, I walked into our bathroom and put on makeup. Waterproof makeup because I knew that as much as I didn’t want to, I would cry. And I did. Buckets full. Luckily for me, WS did 99% of the talking. They wouldn’t have wanted to hear what I had to say if I would have been able to find my voice. When I’m upset, my throat gets a big lump in it and I can only speak in a whisper. Or a scream.

So I sat here in my big, office chair, wearing waterproof makeup, a sweater, shorts, socks, and my tiara, because I have one and wanted to feel special on this special “You are redundant and are being laid-off” day, and the HR woman was very nice and cheery on the phone. If I lived near Company headquarters and worked from there, I know she and I could have been good friends. We had very similar interests and thoughts on things. She’s being laid-off at the end of January and will have to go through all this, this cheery “Keep your chin up even though your heart is breaking” Exit Interview thing, for herself then. I think we may have been practice for her. I wish her well in her endeavors too.

But there was one thing I wanted to hear. There were about a hundred things I wanted to say, but only one thing I wanted to hear. It would have made all the difference in the world to me but I didn’t hear it. Not today or any day since that horrible day back in early October. I wanted someone there to tell me that it, my lay-off, wasn’t my fault. Oh, how I wanted to hear this said personally to me because I can’t get over feeling that it is. Again, just hearing the words would have made all the difference in the world.

I have less than an hour left of work. The HR person told us we are paid up through the day. Our FedEx packets arrived along with most of our pay. The rest they owe us in the form of severance will come within twenty days and only after we sign and return our involuntary termination agreements which say we will never sue them for anything. I wish we could have gotten a signed one from them saying the same.

It’s over. The roller coaster ride that was mostly deep dips over the past six years is over and another chapter begins. I have some projects that need work over the next month or two and a potential huge car thing I might do in early March. I think it’s going to take a while, a long while, before I will ever be able to wake up early in the morning and not feel dread, thinking that I need to go log into work and check to see what kind of foul mood MsNoManagementSkills is in so I’ll be prepared for her morale-busting slew of email. On most of those mornings, I’ll still probably get up and get moving with my day, keeping my initial thoughts of dread to myself. But on some mornings, I may just lie there in bed and let the emotions of today rush over me like warm water.

And then, I’ll look around at everything this job afforded me: WS, our pets, our health, this house we built and all it’s contents; and feel thankful to have survived.

Thank you for reading.

January 16, 2005

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

God, how I hate that saying. But now that I am unencumbered by the bonds of employment, it really is the case. Friday night, we went to a local, inexpensive Mexican food restaurant (not Taco Bell) and found a friend of ours there sitting in the smoky bar. My asthma hates smoky bars but weighing how I felt with the strong possibility of sitting next to someone with a screaming newborn out in the main restaurant area, I decided we’d stay in the bar with our friend.

Right off, I ordered two shots of tequila and a large pitcher of water for myself. WS stuck with plain iced tea. Our friend, knowing of our situation, bought the shots and later bought me a drink called a Washington Red Apple which is Pucker Apple liquor, Crown Royale, and cranberry juice. Tastes just like a red delicious apple and luckily for us, I just happen to have all these ingredients at home in our liquor cabinet. And I was wondering if I’d ever use up that gift bottle of Crown Royale. Ha! It is so gone…

My eyes still ache from crying most of the day Friday and are still swollen. I’ve been putting drops in them and the last of my Oil of Olay firming cream on the swelling. I’m such a baby.

But I am moving on. WS has been correctly formatting my NaNoWriMo novel that I wrote back in November for me and I’m going to take it to Kinko’s in town to have it bound into a spiral notebook just so I can have a copy of the original rough draft. Later this month, I’m going to start working and expanding on it. If you remember, it was about my job. Good times….NOT!

Our area had freezing rain yesterday and we spent the day watching the day-long news coverage with all their traffic cameras pointing toward various highways filled with people mostly driving too fast for conditions. By noon, our area alone had five hundred, HUNDRED, wrecks and fender benders. Slow down a bit, people, if you have to be out there at all. If you have a boss or work for a company that demands you have to drive to work in this, even though all the news stations are telling people to stay home, go slowly.
This morning, it’s still the same. Since we live in a low pocket that traps cool air, I think we’ll be seeing ice on everything well into Tuesday morning. Good thing our house is well-stocked with pet food, litter, and people food. That’s the good thing that came from the lay-off; I overly freaked out and overly stocked our house with everything.

Nothing planned for today but writing. Later on this week, it’s time to do an inventory on car polish. Yep, it’s getting to be that time of year again and I have something big planned for the first week of March. More on that later though.

January 17, 2005

Today is a holiday for some, not for others. I would be working today but thankfully, I’m not, at least not for THOSE people. We’re purging our office of all Company stuff and discovered that the last six years can fit nice and neatly into a 9 by 12 by 18 inch inkjet paper box for future reference and reflection. In the meantime, it’ll reside in the back of a dank and dark closet where it all belongs. If only I could stuff MsNoManagementSkills in there. HA! I’d need a barn!

What I really wish I could purge myself of is the ability to grow large zits. I woke up yesterday with not one but two huge zits on my upper lip. What the hell is up with that? Too much chap stick over the weekend is all I can think. Maybe stress. Okay, probably stress. It’s gross regardless. Oh, not so much the zits, although they are disgusting; it’s that I’m forty-eight years old and I still get zits. And yes, for the record I do wash my face regularly and use anti-zit wash twice a day. If I didn’t, things would be much, much worse.

All the ice from Saturday’s ice storm here is gone. I thought it would stick around for a while but no. It’s supposed to be up around 50 degrees F. for the rest of the week with rain. Downright tropical. We didn’t get a single flake of snow anywhere near here and I was wishing for some one minute and wanting to get out of the house for a long drive the next.

So, while we were cleaning out our office, way back in a corner I found one of my original hand-written journals. Sporadically begun on July 18th, 1994, then in August of the same year, it then jumps to December 31, 1996 through March 1997, it babbles on about life before The Company job when we were barely scraping by and living in a rental house that was falling down around us. It also asks such demanding questions such as: “What can I make for my neighbor’s upcoming birthday” and “Do pickles feel?” I’m not sure what was up with that last question but I suspect that it was written during one of my more severe insomnia periods. Anyway, I’ll work on getting these transcribed (along with the other stuff I’m still working on) and get them all uploaded soon.

January 18. 2005

I got a lot of stuff done yesterday with WS’s help. He formatted and printed out my NaNoWriMo novel from November and I hope to get it to Kinko’s this week for binding. I made an abstract-y black-and-white cover for it.

WS cleaned out two horribly unorganized closets in our office (one completely and the other mostly organized) and all our Company stuff is packed away. He then compiled and burned off all Company stuff on all the computers we were using here for work and is currently wiping the Company computer clean. We’ll send it back no later than next week along with our signed severance agreements. He’s also burned off copies of all the versions of software The Company and I worked on together. I seriously doubt I’ll continue using it because, frankly, there is other software out there that does a better job of it.

I took inventory on car polish that I need to get through another year or two of car shows. While I can’t afford to do anywhere near as many as I did last year (23 shows total and 16 wins), I can do half a dozen or so in my local area. The first this year is the biggest of the year for me and the fulfillment of one of two dreams I have had since becoming interested in show cars back when I was fourteen and co-owned my first car with my father. No, that car was far from show quality, but I dreamed that maybe it would become so one day (Not likely. Upon his death when I was seventeen, my mother promptly sold it to a junkyard.)

This will be the Portland Roadster Show held the first week in March. I don’t care if I win anything. It’s by invitation only and I was invited late last year at the last show I participated in. I told myself and the promoters that if I survived my surgery and recovery, I’d be interested in entering and well, here I am, with about eight weeks left to prepare my car.

It’s mostly clean, needs about five coats of polish, the exhaust buffed, and some serious hand cleaning on the undercarriage as far as I can reach considering the car sits about four inches off the ground and I don’t own a jack. The temperatures here over the next week are expected to be in the mid to high 50’s, perfect for applying and removing polish. The first of the five or so coats of Zaino’s swirl removing polish goes on tomorrow and will come off Wednesday…just in time for me to attend a different car club meeting across town.

Okay, I have to confess that I joined another car club. But NOT for the same reasons I joined, and ultimately quit, the original one. Naw, I’ll admit I’m using this different club for my own purposes and that was to get into the Portland Roadster show without having to pay as much as if I were on my own. You see, clubs don’t pay as much in entry fees as individuals. I can eek out $40 from my lay-off money as a member of an invited club. I couldn’t scrape up the $150 if I were to enter as a lone wolf without any club affiliation.

But do I feel bad? Hardly. This club knows all about the crap that went down (and continues to go on) at that original car club I joined and I have had a few people come up to me and tell me they hoped I would defect from that club to theirs. Of course, if I win anything in any show over anyone in this new club has hopes of winning, I know I will hear the name-calling all over again. Trophy monger I’m called. Yeah, and the point? Oh, you don’t want to clean your car as well as I do but you still want the trophy? Yeah, okay, right. Anytime you want lessons on how to polish correctly, pal. You know where to find me.

My second dream is to get my car featured in a car magazine. Not one of those little, black-and-white blurbs in the back under “Reader’s Rides” but a full-blown two to four page spreads. Most of the people I used to chat with over on a forum I used to hang around a few years ago have had their car featured but not me. Neither WS or I have had the time to write something up and send in high quality pictures to the right people. Well, hopefully that will change soon.

After that, I don’t have anything, car-wise, to accomplish in my mind and I can die happy. Yeah, most women want diamonds and a housekeeper. Me, I just want a box of fresh polish, a car magazine spread, and to beat the pants off most men in show car competition.

January 19, 2005

I ran into MsEars yesterday at the mailbox and she had some MsNoManagementSkills tidbits for me. I’m sure MsEars got some tidbits from me to take back to her, like the size of this zit on my upper lip. I swear it winked at me this morning. As soon as I get it all written down and processed in my head, I fill you in on the latest there tomorrow.

Tonight is a car club meeting to go over the upcoming roadster show. The meeting is being held at a local car dealership that has promised that everyone who shows up gets to drive the new model sports car. This is a very big deal to a lot of people, not so much me but it would give me bragging rights, but since I’m a woman, who wants to bet they don’t offer to let me drive it? BTW, this is the same dealership that wouldn’t talk to me before I bought mine because they couldn’t believe I wanted that instead of a mini-van.

So yesterday, I organized the kitchen cupboards completely. When I start organizing the spice cabinet, you know I’m stressed. Going through the spice bottles, jars, and packets and making a mental inventory of what we need in case of some impending doom where we’ll all be living off the street and eating out of garbage cans, where I’ll be the toast of the town with my spice inventory somehow makes me feel…not so stressed. It’s like “THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END! Oh, I need some more ground cumin…”

I made some gunpowder loose tea today (found at the back of the aforementioned spice cabinet) and drank half a mug before setting it down over there  next to the chair I’m sitting in typing this and suddenly, I hear slurping. Maxx has drunk about a quarter of what was left. Great. Young, wild cat spit in my tea. And better yet, a young, wild cat on caffeine. What a day so far.

Ever seen a baby flicker? Well, maybe a flicker yearling? We had one this afternoon and boy, what a noisy bird he was, but cute too, about half the size of a blue jay. I’d like to think feeding the flickers in our area helped create him. And talking about blue jays, the scrub jay with the broken leg is still around. He made it through our ice storm. He still can’t stand on it, but doesn’t look thin, and doesn’t have any problem picking up peanuts to bury in neighbors’ yards. I’d really like him to make it.

Last night’s dinner was seared hazelnut encrusted Ahi Tuna w/wasabi paste and rosemary/lavender baby red potatoes. Tonight’s is Broccoli cashew chicken. Tomorrow is Lean Cuisine TV dinners. No, we haven’t gotten all fancy on the cooking front. I’m cleaning out our freezer and determined to use up everything in it before restocking it. This weekend, I’ll be broiling a whole salmon fillet with brown sugar and butter. If it’s not raining, maybe we’ll grill it outside on a cedar plank and drive our neighbors wild.

January 20, 2005

Like I said yesterday, I ran into MsEars yesterday at the mailbox and she had some MsNoManagementSkills tidbits for me.

MsNoManagementSkills is going the home party hostess route when her regime at the Big-Ass Corporation is up in mid-May. Apparently and at the horror of DorkMaster, her new husband, she’s not planning on going out to get a full-time job. She only wants to be a mom and he’s got the unmanageable kids she thought she wanted but who by the way, only want their real biological mother. And who could blame them with all the crap MsNo tells everyone about them – that one is a liar and a thief, one is openly gay, and the other will be a mama’s boy for life – nice talk!

I’m not saying that doing candle, Tupperware, or cooking utensil parties aren’t a great way to make money. They are. I know, I used to do houseplant parties in the late 70’s and it was a blast. But I do know you need a certain kind of personality and mentality to do something like this and MsNo ain’t got either.

When MsEars was telling me about MsNo’s plans for income (and I must mention here that MsEars is into huge, dangly earrings and today’s were HUGE), she rolled her eyes and I joined her. This neighborhood is less than six years old and everyone here has gone through multiple episodes of the various housewife party thing. In fact, it’s been a big joke around here for a long time that when someone brings up the subject of throwing some kind of “buy something” party, people run screaming the other direction. But I guess MsNo knows what she’s doing and also thinks she’ll get over her terror and anxiety of talking in front of people. Yeah, let her email someone, and she’s all fire and brimstone, but get her in front of a group of people face-to-face and she clams up, faints, and/or has to immediately take more anti-anxiety medication, regardless of whether she’s already taken it that day or not.

When I mentioned this kind of behavior to MsEars, she said she knew a little about this too and said MsNo told her she was just” looking for something to pacify” DorkMaster, who has been up-ing his own medication over the horrific thought of having to support her, his three young kids, and an ex-wife (2 times over) on his measly 35K yearly income while working a job he hates with a passion.

So naturally, last night I told WS all about what MsEars told me and he zeroed in on the 35K salary part. Being an accountant/engineer, he ran the math. We already knew how much MsNoManagementSkills was making because she never skipped a beat in letting us know how much more she made over what we brought home from The Company. Take away her 45K yearly income, add rent at $1300 a month (something she also told us), two new SUV payments, the time share payments, utilities, cell phones for five, food & pet food for a large dog and teensy cat, car insurance plus renter’s insurance (yep, she told us this too), alimony payments to the ex-wife, student loans, medication co-pays for everyone in the household, her maxed out credit cards (yet another thing she told us about just about a month ago), her upcoming cruise payment, and Internet access for his “well-known throughout the neighborhood since last week” porn chat room habit and there is no way on earth they will be able to make it on his salary alone. In fact, he’d have to get a raise of over 20K a year starting in June to be able keep their heads above water.

You might be wondering if she got any stock or retention money from the buy-out of The Company and you’d be on the right track. She did get a chunk of change in stock sell-offs when The Company was purchased by the Big-Ass Corporation. And because she can’t keep her mouth shut and tells everyone everything, we know how much that was…and where she spent nearly all of it too.

DorkMaster had defaulted on all kinds of various loans over the years, owed thousands of dollars to various utility companies and lawyers for his foreclosed house and back-pay alimony. Huge credit card defaults, defaulted hospital bills from the kids, and never even registered, licensed, or insured his cars. She used almost all her stock to pay all this off. But because she wanted something for herself, she put a down payment on a time share Disney vacation deal that will cost her at least 40K in the end if she can keep making payments over the next thirteen years. She also put a down payment on a Caribbean cruise for herself alone slated for this spring, in place of a honeymoon together because obviously THAT is over, and don’t forget all the new clothes, shoes, jewelry, and luggage to match, and let’s not forget that she put down payments on two brand new matching SUVs.

Sounds like the coming months ought to be interesting in her household and while I am waiting with baited breath for the day when she moves out and far, far away, I am glad I have the “comfort” of at least five houses in between us. Sounds like MsEars has been getting more than an earful lately.

January 21, 2005

I think this out of work thing is going to be an up and down thing for a while. Sure it was only last Friday that I was laid off, and I really should be focusing on what I have accomplished in the week so far. And I will. But yesterday I just could not get out of the funk I was in.

Laundry called to me (when doesn’t laundry call to me?); the desperate need to exercise called to me (but the leftover pizza in the fridge called to me louder); the back yard called to me but it was raining and a soggy mess. I should be jumping in on the whole writing thing, and I have been hacking out a couple of comprehendible sentences here and there on a new story but it’s just not flowing like my first one did and I know why. That one was 100% completely fueled by my burning anger over being laid off. I had motivation and drive. I guess I better start looking for motivation and drive before we have to start dipping into our savings to pay the electric bill, huh? Talk about motivation then!

Since the weather has been so freakishly warm here lately (and yes, it was a only 29 degrees F. here just a week ago), I sat out front today for half an hour. I think what I really need right now is a daily dose of fresh air and some sunshine, a glass of apple/carrot juice, and a good night’s sleep. Up until yesterday, I wasn’t getting any of those and am still on a twisted sort of “Work/Stress” life schedule. I’m sure that will fade and things will even out in the coming months.

It was nice to see some of the bulbs starting to poke up out of the ground. Crocus seem to be a mere week away from blooming and the early daffodils should be blooming come valentine’s day.

I guess what I really need is some time. Time to do nothing but what I want to do – sleep – not what I think I ought to do – write. Since we’re pretty good at living within our means when we need to, at least for a few months, I can afford to not look for another job just yet and can recover, recuperate, rebuild my mental health and self esteem first. I wish everyone had this luxury and I feel extremely fortunate that I can. I just hate the “off” days.

I’ll stop whining now.

Polish coat number two is on the car now. During the next dry/sunny/warm days, I promise to start polishing my exhaust. Good times. Actually, in some bizarre-o kind of way, I don’t mind polishing it. I get to use my Dremel, which I love like nobody’s business, and a half a tube of Wenol metal polish and boy, oh boy, can I make things shine! I have to thank the nice Competition Boy for introducing me to the wonders of home polishing. He does it on everything, not just car stuff and I wish I had half the polishing equipment he does. Unfortunately, I haven’t heard from him since last summer. I hope he and Drill Sargent Dave’s ex-wife are doing well together. He told me last year that this would be the year that he would get serious about car shows and he planned on taking them all, but I haven’t heard a peep out of him and I do know that Drill Sargent Dave’s ex-wife had become very tired of the car show thing. The nice Competition Boy is the kind of guy who would give up something like that for her if she asked him to. Sweet, but sad too.

And I’m going to start work on a backyard project that I’ve wanted/needed to do for well over a year but didn’t have the time to do. No more bird seed and garden dirt on the walkway under the feeders! More on that later.

January 22, 2005

I’ve mentioned here that I was working on a new novel. I’ve got a basic idea of what it’s about but on the whole, it’s revealing itself very, very slowly to me, and so, writing it seems, at least to me, taking forever. Over the next few weekends, I’ll post here a section for your reading entertainment. Please keep in mind this is a work in progress and a very rough draft. Enjoy!

“Working Title – Cabin 4
Copyright 2005 by Blogeois

The sound of the tires on the road from the interior of the car hadn’t changed in nearly twenty minutes, or so thought Amy as she sat in the passenger seat, eyes closed, willing her self to doze off. Amy tried to remember the last time her and her husband drove to the coast. “Wasn’t the highway being repaved then, and wasn’t it just out of Newport that the repaving began?” She wondered a moment before berating her self yet again for letting her mind dwell on something as silly as road construction instead of relaxing. Frankly, as much as she was tired and could have used a nap, she couldn’t make her mind stop flitting from this, that, or the next thing. “When we get into town, I’d like to pick up a bag of salt water taffy. But who am I kidding?” she thought. Todd hated taffy nearly as much as he hated stopping for anything before arriving at a destination.” Amy could feel her throat constrict and knew tears weren’t far behind if she didn’t stop and think about something else. “Why does it always have to be all about Todd?”

Amy shifted slightly in the leather passenger seat, and tried to make it look as though she were sleeping. She also tried to get her self into a better angle to take a peek at her husband of eleven years behind the wheel of the Oldsmobile without him knowing it. Barely opening her eyes, she glanced over at him. He was in his usual driving position, ramrod straight in the seat, eyes on the road ahead of them, rarely looking into either the rear view or either side mirrors, with his right hand firmly clenching the top of the steering wheel and the fore finger of his other hand decisively crammed up one of his nostrils. “Mining for gold,” her father used to call it and always added, “but I think his mine’s gone dry,” when talking about Todd.

Amy’s father didn’t like Todd from the first moment he met the man. He liked him even less the second time and told him so over dinner. The only redeeming quality that Amy’s father could see in Todd was that Todd showed backbone when he announced he didn’t like her father any better. Amy’s father had laughed so hard over that comment he had to up the oxygen output on his portable tank just so he could catch his breath. He was dead six months later without giving Amy and Todd his blessing. Amy didn’t think her father would have given it anyway.

Todd pulled his finger out and inspected it briefly before rubbing it on the side of his pants, thankfully away from Amy’s sight before sticking it back up his nose. She shifted in her seat again and turned her head to face the timber landscape whizzing by her passenger window. She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed they would arrive at the cabin soon because she knew if they didn’t and she didn’t get out of this car before long, she might have a screaming fit right here, right now, and Todd would continue to ignore her and keep driving, picking his nose, and refusing to stop for anyone.

Before long, Todd turned the car off the main highway and wound their way through miles of thick forest. The bright sky turned hazy with mist dotting the windshield. Amy could see patches of fog forming in low areas of the woods and she hoped the weather would remain clear enough for her to go for a walk before Todd decided on what they would do for dinner. A few miles later they pulled off onto a gravel road that rose sharply uphill for nearly a mile before turning back almost onto it’s self. Finally, just beyond a bank of wind-bent cedars, their destination came into view; a row of weathered cabins sat on a bluff overlooking the foggy Pacific. The on-site manager knew Todd and Amy were coming and had opened the cabin windows to allow the fresh, chilled air to blow out the stale smells of past summer visitors. A neatly stacked pile of firewood peeked out from under a small blue tarp next to the cabin door, and the keys to the cabin itself hung from a hook next to the front window. In the distance, the low roar of waves crashing on the beach could be heard above the whisper of wind in the tops of the pines. None of the other cabins had cars parked next to them and Todd found himself hoping that he and Amy would be the only visitors that week. If there was one thing Todd hated while on vacation, it had to be listening to neighboring vacationers coming and going. But then Todd hated many things.

Todd pulled into the slot beside cabin number 4 and shut off the car. “I gotta hit the head,” he said and got out. He walked up to the cabin door, took the keys off the hook, and unlocked the cabin before disappearing inside. Amy leaned across the driver’s seat and pressed the trunk latch. She knew Todd would be in the bathroom for at least half an hour and as usual, he had left her to unload the car.

“Are you going somewhere?” Todd asked Amy. He had just come out from the bathroom. Todd always insisted on using the bathroom first whenever they went out of town and Amy learned early in their marriage to give the bathroom time to air out before using it herself.

After unpacking their clothes from their shared suitcase, Amy had pulled on her jacket. “Well, we are at the beach, Todd. I thought I would go for a walk on the beach before dinner.”

“Okay. Do what you like,” he said as he plopped down in a big, upholstered chair with a newspaper. “Just don’t bring back any of that goddamn candy crap.” He added and punctuated each word “goddamn candy crap” with a rustle of the newspaper he always brought with him. For Todd, going to the beach was time to catch up on reading or sleeping, not for stuffing oneself with taffy or chocolate.

“It never even crossed my mind. See you in a while.” Amy slung the camera bag over her shoulder and quietly closed the door behind her. As soon as she heard the door latch click, she stopped. As usual, she forgot to ask Todd for her cabin key but this time, she decided against knocking on the door to ask for it. As much as forgetting the key seemed to be a part of her subconscious ritual whenever they went on vacation, it was part of his ritual to make her feel like a feeble-minded child when she finally remembered it. Amy decided this time she would break the routine by deciding that when she came back up from the beach, she would go to the manager’s cabin and ask for another key before humbling herself in front of her husband.

The path that led to the beach was covered in pine needles, slick with mud in spots, and steep. Amy nearly fell right from the start before she slowed herself down. “No need to do something stupid by hurting myself,” she thought as she picked her way down the damp, tree-choked hillside to the foggy shoreline below. She caught hold of the flimsy railing a few times to steady her steps and was revolted by the feel of slimy slug residue under her fingers. A vision of Todd driving and picking his nose popped into Amy’s mind and she surprised herself with an outward cry of disgust. Tears that Amy held back in the car during the drive to the cabin finally sprung forth and she blindly started running down the trail toward the sound of the water. “If I could just get to the beach to sit and watch the waves, I’ll feel much better! So where is the stupid beach?” Amy whimpered impatiently as the path continued to wind back and forth amongst the tall, thick pines down to the sandy bottom below.

Several minutes passed and it seemed to Amy that she hadn’t gotten any closer to the beach. Just as she decided to stop and look around, she tripped heavily on a tree root crossing the path, slippery from the mist. She was almost able to halt her momentum before she lost her balance sliding onto her knees and crashing headlong into a moss-covered boulder. The last thing she thought before losing consciousness was hoping the moss would soften the blow. It didn’t.

Todd was convinced that Amy would lightly knock on the door immediately after she left to let him know she had forgotten her room key. That she didn’t knock on the door irritated him and the fact that it had been over an hour and she still hadn’t knocked on the door irritated him even more. Todd was used to Amy running off to the beach alone every time they visited. “Better her than me,” he thought. He sure as hell wasn’t going to go down there to get sand in his shoes and the smell of sour saltwater in his hair. It was safe to say Todd hated coming to the beach. He hated everything about it; the constant, annoying wind, the sand, the smell, and the same cheap gift shops that filled every seaside town. How many carved wooden seagulls from China and how many baskets of petrified starfish could a man be expected to look at on every trip to the coast? And how many times did Amy have to goad him into eating a piece of that god awful taffy she liked so much. If he didn’t know that a week at the beach meant for him a week left alone in the cabin reading or catching up on sleep while Amy walked along the shore or wandered through shops that were still open at this time of year, he would never agree to the trip in the first place. Amy voiced a need to “connect with the ocean” often; once a year was more than plenty for him.

Still irritated, Todd finally threw the newspaper aside, got up, and walked to the window in hopes of seeing Amy returning. Unfortunately, the view offered nothing but a lovely view their car, the trees, and the next cabin over. He opened the door, but Amy still wasn’t anywhere to be seen. “Just like her!” Todd muttered under his breath as he slammed the door. Amy liked to inspect every rock, every shell, and practically every bump in the sand along the shore and that aggravated Todd to no end. No doubt she had lost track of time again and in the meantime, he was getting hungry and the sun was setting fast.

He walked back across the room and sat down thinking he would just take the opportunity to sit and relax as much as he could until Amy came back. He could envision her excitedly running back to the cabin with another one of her beach treasures cupped in her hands and calling him to open the door. “Well, we’ll just see about that!” Todd said out loud. He felt that since this was his vacation too, he might want to set some ground rules upfront. And that meant he shouldn’t need to be on her timeline and that he wasn’t interested in looking at some scrap of seaweed.

It was fully dark by the time Todd woke up, his neck and shoulders stiff from sleeping in the chair. The cabin was dark with the exception of the low reading lamp nearby. “Amy?” he called out. “Amy? Are you here?” He sat up, rubbing his neck, and cocked his head to one side to listen. He thought he heard a low, muffled groan in the adjacent bedroom and a sound like something heavy sliding across the bare floor. He got up and walked to the bedroom door. “It’s about time you got back. I’m hungry.” Todd found the door was locked and he wiggled the knob as he pressed against the rough wood. The knob turned, but the door would not budge. “Hey! Open the door! When did you get back? Didn’t you see me sleeping in the chair?”

The sliding noise ended with a slapping sound and Todd stood back from the door for a moment. The noise sounded odd, like a wet towel being slapped repeatedly on the floor. “You in there? Amy?” He called out and pressed his ear against the door. The slapping sounds suddenly stopped, replaced by a low growl. Now acutely aware of how cold the air felt and no longer so sure of himself, Todd whispered, “Amy?””

January 24, 2005

And…this is where Blogeois comes back from exhausting herself by doing heavy manual labor and admits that the new story segment I posted last Saturday is my first attempt at a scary story. I’ll post a segment every weekend hopefully until I finish it BUT I will post it somewhere else so that 1) I don’t get myself into trouble by pre-publishing it (a legal thing that publishers do NOT want to see, and 2) so I don’t scare anyone, including myself if I find out I don’t have it in me to write scary stories. On Fridays, I’ll post where the new chapter is so anyone can read it that might want to.

This past weekend was a busy on here. First, we went and got my NaNoWriMo novel professionally printed out and spiral bound at Kinko’s. After I’m done working on what I’m currently writing, I plan on going back to the printed one and doubling, maybe even tripling the word count. There was lots of stuff I wanted to add but didn’t have the time to, knowing that if I didn’t finish it for the 50K NaNoWriMo contest before going back to work late last November, I’d never finish it.

Then it was off to Lowe’s for some home improvement. Not only did we order an entire pallet of retaining wall block, when it came, we hauled each one into the backyard and installed them ourselves. Saturday ended up being reasonably dry and warm for this time of year and I wanted to take complete advantage of it. Poor WS and I worked like slaves all day and if you visited here at all on Saturday, you probably could have seen us on the web cam.

I love the block and absolutely LOVE how the birds won’t be able to drag seed, dirt, and wood chips all over the walkway anymore (or at least without some difficulty now). Our walkway back there was a constant mess and pain in the butt to keep clean, not to mention looked awful. Now the whole area is definitely more in keeping with the rest of the yard.

We also installed the block around 2/3rds of our eating patio which ought to make that area look a hundred times better too this coming summer. The back and half of the sides had a big problem with the planting areas eroding dirt and wood chips down onto the cement patio. No more problem there now either. Secretly, I’d love another entire pallet to do the entire back area of the fountain that has the same erosion problem but as WS says, “What we have now looks good, but too much of a good thing doesn’t look good.” I agree but still wish for that extra pallet anyway.

So we’re both recovering now from hauling 128 thirty-five pound blocks first out of our driveway to our side yard (to clear the driveway so we could get a car out of the garage), then dug the planting bed borders so we could lay the blocks, then we laid the blocks. Yeah, you could say we’re both stiff and sore. Just typing makes my upper arms ache a bit.

January 25, 2005

Every morning, around 10:30 a.m., I find I have to remind myself that I don’t need to log into work. Six years of logging in nearly every day, whether I’ve been awake or sleepwalking awake is showing itself an interesting habit to break. All last week I kept myself overly busy each day, but still around the same time in the morning, I would catch myself saying to myself, “Okay, when you finish this project, you better go get logged into work.” Silly me.

So, last Wednesday I went to that new car club meeting. There was supposed to be a new model sports car there for all the members to drive. Yeah, right. Sure there was. Nope. Supposedly, they “sold” just hours before. Uh, huh. Heard that one before. I also found out that I probably know more about the big upcoming Roadster show than they do even though they have participated in it before. Obviously, it looks like it’s one of those “wait until the last minute when the shit hits the fan” kind of deals. Ah, the stress of a car show…the real show season will be here before I know it and this looks like it will be a good warm-up.

Yesterday, a fresh batch of polish was delivered (THANK YOU WS!) just in time since I was getting pretty low on a few things. I just finished removing Polish coat number 2. Technically, I should have taken it off last Saturday, but I chose to nearly kill myself by installing a hundred and twenty-eight retaining wall blocks (see yesterday’s entry). Sunday I could barely lift my arms above the waist and yesterday wasn’t much better but I did manage to get half of it off then. I’ve also got a new air cleaner coming in sometime soon. The one I’ve currently got installed on my car has seen better days and you know, it’s all about being able to breathe as well as looking good.

My plans for this week include getting coats 3 and 4 on and off the car before Friday evening and then to try to see how badly the underside looks before deciding whether it makes any sense to try to clean any of that or not. I’ve never done a big indoor show before but been around long enough to know the judges look at everything. I keep telling myself my goal in this show was just to participate but old habits die hard.

Naturally I won’t be looking to get the underside as clean as say, my dinner plate after eating chicken enchiladas (I’ll admit it here – At home ONLY, I lick my plate if I really like the food), but I do want to try to clean up the obvious outside edges and remove any big chunks of road crud, like clods of dried mud or pine needles. Then if I feel like I have time and I want to wipe it while prepping the rest of the car at the Roadster show in the Expo center, it’ll be relatively easier to wipe down then. I know the judges will be looking under there with mirrors but my car ain’t no Trailer Queen and there is going to be three years of the usual road grime under there. I drive my car, damn it, and I’ll be driving it to the show, rain or shine. If they want an underside they can eat off of, they can go look elsewhere. “Oooo…Look! Someone chromed and polished the whole bottom of their car!” Good grief!

My work computer was sent back yesterday along with our signed exit interview paperwork. We should get our severance money sometime in the next month or two. Naw, big-ass corporations aren’t too motivated to mail out severance checks on any real timeline. WS has done great things with our budget and combining that with our diligent habit of clamping off the money flow just before I had surgery last September, things aren’t looking too bad. Our house second mortgage finally went through after that company dragged their feet every single day since last October (meaning the interest rate wasn’t as good as it was originally going to be), but at least that part is done. All our credit cards are being paid off as I type and that’s a great, powerful feeling.

And finally, WS ought to get his car back today. The battery has been dying left and right for over a month. It’s less than three years old and no, he’s not happy about it. Thankfully, his car is leased and so he just needed to find the time to take it all the way into Portland, Oregon to get it fixed or replaced or whatever kind of story they will come up with. He brought home a loaner car last night and I wished I could have ridden in it just once. It was a white 2004 model with all the bells and whistles, but we were both tired and still sore from putting in those wonderful retaining blocks. Sitting in the garage next to my black car, it looked like one of those white storm troopers from the “Star Wars” movies standing next to my car in it’s “Darth Vader” black.

January 26, 2005

This past Monday, trash day, was the fifth consecutive week that The Dimmers next door have not taken out their trash for pick up. It looks like they are starting up that crap again, but as long as the renters on the corner across the street don’t move and take the mouse hunter cat we hired last summer, he ought to take care of any rodent problem we might see again. I’m not sure where The Dimmers are storing their garbage yet.

I finally saw The SportsOrNothings next door for the first time since last September. I should clarify that: I saw Mr and Mrs. SportsOrNothing. Turns out they took off to Miami and Chicago most all of last fall and early winter and left their seventeen-year old teens here alone to go to school and hold down the fort which also included numerous drunken hot tub parties until the wee hours of dawn. I’m sure their kids didn’t tell them that part but overall, and from what we can see from just living next door, it looks like the SportsOrNothing kids can take better care of the place than The Dimmers do on the other side of us. How sad is that?

Across the street at the new neighbors’ home whom we will start calling “The Teachers” because they both supposedly are, she has been calling a tow truck service every day to refill the air in one of her car tires. Why she doesn’t have them remove the tire and fix it, I don’t know, but I’d be willing to bet both her and the tow truck driver is getting a little tired of having to refill the same tire over and over again. At last count, he’s been out here four times, four days in a row. I can understand having to call someone, being as her husband is so severely handicapped that there would be no way he could remove and fix it, but with the cost of having someone drive out and refill the air four times now, you’d think that the cost by now would be the same as to just have it fixed right the first time around. Oh well. Maybe they have the money to burn.

The warm-ish weather streak continues here although the local news people keep telling us it has ended. Highs in the mid 50’s F and lows ranging anywhere from the low 30’s to upper 40’s. The night before last it got down to 33 degrees F. here but last night it got no lower than 45 degrees. All this warm weather has started things growing again here including a few early spring flowers. Pink violets, the rock cress, and a couple of yellow crocus are showing color next to the winter stand-bys: The pink heathers (I LOVE heather) and the white pansies. I’m guessing true spring weather is a solid two months away but going on two weeks of this kind of weather, and the time to pay attention and enjoy it for once, really have me looking forward to spring this year!

January 27, 2005

Last night I was working on the new novel I’m writing tentatively called “Cabin 4”, you know, the scary one, and I had to write the first particularly scary chapter. Never having done this before, I figured that professional writers did certain things to get themselves into the right mood: Put on scary music, previously watched a scary movie or read a scary book, sat in darkly lit rooms, forced a black cat cross their path, got a raven to sit on their shoulder, etc., but as it turned out, for me anyway, I didn’t need any of these things. I don’t have any scary music unless you count that Wayne Newton CD we have, (HEY! It’s got Danke Schoen on it!), I didn’t want to sit around watching or reading anything first, it was sunny here yesterday for the most part, no black cats here, and the only raven we have is a fake one sitting up on the top bookshelf (next to the Poe book) that probably has an inch of dust on it.

No, I just wrote. And wrote and then, wrote some more. And just as I could really feel the tension, one of our pets started yowling like she does because, well, she’s just a yowler that way and it added to the apprehension I was trying to create and just as I got to the really scary part, the phone rang and I nearly wet myself.

Yeah, I think I can do this…er, the writing part. Or maybe I’m just fooling myself about become a real published author…but I’m not going to believe that until some book reviewer from the New York Times labels me a hack and Stephen King phones me personally to tell me I suck.

WS is playing editor to my work on this novel and I think he’s doing an awesome job at making it sound better and make more sense. Kudos to WS! I’ll post the next chapter Saturday.

Polish coat number 4 is on my car; only one more to go…probably. This weekend, I plan on getting under the hood to check the oil and fluids and then to polish some exposed metal parts before tearing apart the top half to replace my valve covers with the new ones I bought last summer (to replace the one side I screwed up the custom paint job on back in June when I was being less than careful.). Next week, it’s time for me to start working on the wheels that currently look so sad and water spotted and the polishing of the exhaust begins. After that, with just under four weeks left before the Roadster show, it’ll be time to get the interior cleaned out, vacuumed, and shined up, the interior glass cleaned (Ugh, my least favorite job), and to take a critical look at the problem areas: around grills, interior door sills, seams, hinge, and latch areas. After that, there’ll be nothing more I can do until the day I drive it to the Expo center and park it in the new car club’s display along with nine other picked sports cars.

You know, if I was really nice, I’d finish up my car early, then contact a few of the other people in the club who are entering their cars and ask if they need any help. And I wouldn’t really mind being helpful but if I’ve learned anything over the years of being around car people, it’s that car people are generally men, men with wives who aren’t so “into” cars and definitely not into feeling comfortable with some woman around to help their husbands whip their car into shape. I think this is what partly happened with the nice Competition Boy and a few members of the old car club we belonged to. People just can’t accept that sometimes, some women know their way around a car better they do AND don’t like to talk about nothing more than recipes and babies that their wives only seem to want to talk about. (Now if I could only find any wives who could talk cars AND recipes and such, that would be another story.). Of course, I’ll never find out if people in this new club feel the same until I assert myself.

Ah hell, who am I trying to kid? People are the same everywhere.

January 28, 2005

MsEars informs me that MsNoManagementSkills has finally made her decision on which “home party job” to attempt…and I do say attempt because this is just too ridiculous for words. MsNo is going to try to become a Pampered Chef representative. At Pampered Chef parties, the representative goes to the party hostess’ house and cooks something. Something edible…for party attendees to eat while they are browsing the catalog for mountains of stuff to buy like lemon zesters and implements to make flowers out of tomato peels.

The ridiculousness comes in somewhere around the fact that MsNo cannot cook. Never learned, never wanted to learn, it’s fast food and chocolate ice cream for her all the way and has been since she was a child, an only child where her mother, much in the same vein as Jessica and Ashley Simpson’s mother, always said, “Honey, you will never need to know how to cook so don’t bother.”

MsNo’s only known experience with cooking came about a year and a half ago, when she tried to cook a roast for her then husband, FatHead (who was probably wise in that he wouldn’t eat anything she tried her hand at). In that disaster, she thought she had to flip the huge pork roast that she was boiling in water for some reason and ended up “splashing her face” with the hot liquid. This could have been bad if anyone had actually gotten hurt. Later that day, she posted what she did on her then up-and-running online journal and her online friends told her to go get help immediately. She rushed herself to the hospital on their advice and as I recall, got two weeks paid time off of work and started complaining so loudly that no one cared, The Company ended up sending her enough flowers to make neighbors think that someone had died.

She had one (1) pea-sized blister on the side of her nose as the picture she posted on journal showed. Her oversized glasses protected the rest of her face but she claimed to have had to take heavy medication for “cooking anxiety” for a month. FatHead told her to get over herself and three months later, she filed for divorce.

Looking at the pamperchef website, it is obvious which testimonial she gravitated toward: Mary Ann Harrold’s story. MsNo even looks like her (but remember, MsNo is only 29 years old):

“I began as a Consultant with The Pampered Chef® to fill the void of empty nest syndrome as our children were leaving home. I knew I needed a positive focus in my life and about that time, Pampered Chef came along. It shocked my friends and family because I didn’t cook, I didn’t do home shows, and I certainly didn’t want to talk in front of groups of people. What I discovered was a Mary Ann just waiting on the inside ready to get out!

I’ve grown so much personally and professionally through my career with The Pampered Chef®. My self-esteem has soared, and it’s drastically improved our marriage. Now we’re enjoying trips like this on the Big Island of Hawaii, together.”

And let’s remember that MsNo can’t, no, doesn’t like, no…HATES talking in front of groups of people. At least, not unless she can call them “vultures” or “people over 30 who should have been shot”. Yeah, this venture ought to be fun…

January 29, 2005

I’m taking a break from writing and working on my car today to watch the Barrett-Jackson Car Auction on the Speed TV channel. Back in the mid-80′s I used to volunteer work for Mr.Jackson driving these fancy cars up onto the auction block and it was an experience I’ll never, ever forget. I loved that job and in the five straight years I did it (each spring in Scottsdale, Arizona), I never ran into a car I couldn’t start or drive; from 1928 Yellowstone Tour buses made mostly out of wood and had to be hand-cranked to 1985 Ferraris.

True to my word, if you will look over to the left and scroll down to Projects on the side bar, you will find a link to “Current novel – Cabin 4″. There I have posted Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, and as a bonus, Chapter 3 is included. Look for the next chapter next Saturday. And as always, all comments, good or bad, are welcome!

January 30, 2005

We just finished watching all there was to see at the Barrett-Jackson Car Auction on Speed TV and my eyeballs feel it. I can’t remember when the last time was that I watched so much TV, being as I am not a usual TV viewer. Oh yeah, I remember now. It was last year at this same time.

On the car front here, this coming week I’ll be swapping out those valve covers and replacing the air filter box. Sounds like one should be easy and one part hard and you’d be right in thinking that. The valve covers are easy because they aren’t the same as valve covers were previous to the 1990’s. The air filter box which used to be easy to change is now difficult because you can’t change just the filter anymore on these newer cars; they make you change the whole assembly and it’s a two-person job meaning, you need more than just two hands. Oh, for the days of the 60’s and 70’s muscle cars and cheap Volkswagens.

The body polishing is done. Next up is the wheels and I’ll get a coat of anti-swirl polish on those this evening. Earlier today, I took a look under my car to see exactly how dirty it was under there and I was happily surprised for the most part. Dirt wipes off easily enough. It’s just covered in white water spots from washing it and occasionally driving it in the rain over the past three years. I’m sure they would come off with a bit of car polish but who in their right mind would do such a thing?? Don’t answer that.

The rest of this evening looks to be a low-key one. I’ve got some laundry to do and WS is trying to fix the leaky kitchen facet. Chicken Cordon Bleu is on tap for dinner. And I caught myself again a little while ago telling myself to get the house cleaning done now because I’ve got work tomorrow. Obviously, it was a flashback.

January 31, 2005

Really, I’m trying hard to be motivated today but I just so tired. Slept crappy, pet fight bright and early in the morning followed by constant whining at the bedroom door to be let in (she’s spoiled rotten and it’s all my fault), neighbor dogs barking and children screaming outside. I did manage to make the bed, start laundry, start the dishwasher, row 500 meters, and take the polish off my car wheels, so the day isn’t a complete loss. I’ve got a serious caffeine headache that is also my own fault and damn it, I don’t want to do damned thing today. Is that so wrong?

February 1, 2005

The ever-so slight hints of Spring abound here and it’s not just because the daffodils are poking out of the ground or because I shaved my legs for the first time since last September either. Here the more subtle signs of Spring are of the huge flocks of Canada geese leaving the wetland greenspace that lies half a mile away. Where they go in the Spring I don’t know but I miss then terribly during the hot summer days. The robins are here now in flocks of a dozen or more, eating the red cotoneaster berries and pulling worms out of the wet soil before leaving most of them on the walkway to petrify in the sun.

The star magnolia branch tips, as fuzzy and soft as a cat’s muzzle, are swelling. Will the long, white, strap-like flowers show themselves this year? Who knows? A hummingbird buzzes me now anytime I linger out in our backyard and so, I have dug out one of their feeders and have it hanging in its place outside the back door. The moss we allow to grow on boulders and chunks of wood is bright apple green and I’ve seen a few equally green frogs nestled alongside. We didn’t have frogs here in the fountain this past winter like we always have in the past. I wonder what’s up with that? I’ve missed hearing them from our bedroom window at night.

In the crevice of our front porch railing, a resident jumping spider lives and he made his appearance yesterday afternoon, and then promptly did what all good garden spiders do: He caught a big horsefly. Good spider!

Honey bees are buzzing on the pink heather along with bumblebees. We don’t have many honey bees left in our area so I take extra care not to disturb them when they find something here they like. In a month, when the grape hyacinths start blooming, they will flock to those too. They really seem to love those and somewhat regrettably, we have hundreds.

I found our first bird casualty of the year over the weekend: A pine siskin lying dead on the concrete slab. Last Thursday, I noticed one sitting, sleeping(?), in the main feeder out back all day long until way past dark. He didn’t seem to want to move when I went out to check on him early in the morning and by afternoon, I found what I’m assuming was his stiff body on the patio. Sad to think he’ll miss Spring as I’m sure Spring will miss him and his cheerful morning songs.

February 2, 2005

In this month of Valentines and love, an Ode to my Dremel:

Oh lovely Dremel
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
Your variable speeds can reach, when polishing metal out of sight
For the ends of your tool assortment and ideal ease.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most handy need, by sun and head-strap flashlight.
I love thee freely, as it was purchased for me as a gift.
I love thee purely, as so simple a tool I cannot live without.
I love thee with the passion I have to put you to use
In my car’s most shineless nether regions, and with a dab of Wenol blue, my faith.
I love thee with a love only car show people seem to know
With my lost sanity, I love thee with your handy case,
Smiles, pride, of all my life; and if the judges choose,
I shall but love thee better after winning.

I worked on my car again today, polishing stuff (No way! Ya think??) and I do indeed love my Dremel power tool. There’s a section of plain aluminum metal, one of either side, that’s a heat and rock shield for my gas tank. The metal is fairly visible just in front of the back tire and if you are looking at the side of the car. Dull, dull aluminum. I’ve been thinking since last year, why do I have to look at this dull, lifeless metal when the rest of my car screams SHINY?

Well, because I’m silly, that’s why. But maybe more importantly, no one shines that part of a car. It’s just not done. I mean, who wants to lie on a cold, hard garage floor with the road gravel and occasional ant or spider and polish a six-inch by six-inch piece of metal.

I do, that’s who, but only because my Dremel did all the hard work in less than half an hour and now that dull metal is a fricken’ mirror. Tomorrow, after WS leaves for work and I have the extra room, I’m moving my car to the other side of the garage and I’ll do the other side. I’m giddy, can you tell? I tell you, if I ever figure out a way to jack up my car and take off the wheels and tires, look out world!

February 3, 2005

More car work today and later this afternoon, I need to write. I had an odd dream about being enrolled in a university writing class where all students had to live in the university building, a high-rise building, for an entire year, and one of the graduating requirements was that all students had to write a full length novel that met the following requirements: The story had to contain some plot element of a current or recent event, had to include some element about the university high-rise building, and has to include yourself and your true personality as one of the main characters.

So, my story contained stuff about a tsunami and all the possible things that could be brought ashore from the ocean after the water retreated so far out and before the huge waves came in. As a side plot that contained another story requirement, I had the university building located within the area the tsunami flood zone, sealing off all exits, and leaving the remaining students and faculty to fend for themselves for weeks.

Yeah, there could be a story there and I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if there weren’t books being written right this very second, maybe even being published right this minute, that contain many of these elements. I just can’t write that fast.

More signs of spring here. We have a confirmed Flicker pair and the female is very noisy. They look healthy and fat. A few chickadees are checking out our dedicated Swift nest box, that the Swifts have ignored for two years now, so I guess it’s time to go check it out myself and clean out any wasp nests that are probably in it from last summer. Mini irises are starting to bloom and I saw my first butterfly of the year yesterday out on the pink heather. Boy, is that heather popular this year! Honey bees, bumble bees, and now butterflies! This particular butterfly was about two inches across, mostly black with orange edges, and a sprinkle of white dots on its wing tips.

I’m sure we still have several weeks of very cold weather left but it is looking like Spring here more and more everyday. Mid-February weather around here is usually interesting with a yearly chance of snow right after Valentine’s Day on the 14th but I don’t remember when the last time was that this area had temperatures in the 50’s F. every day starting in mid-January and continuing through February.

February 4, 2005

Nothing much going on today here. I’ll spend the afternoon writing so I can get another chapter in the Cabin 4 story uploaded tomorrow (Cabin 4 is located over there on the left sidebar under Projects), we’ll do our much-needed grocery shopping this evening after finally getting through all those TV dinners that had been in our freezer since 2002, and then, we’ll just enjoy the return of the rain. It was supposed to be cloudy until late in the afternoon before turning to rain but we woke up to pouring rain this morning. Or I should say, we woke up the last time to pouring rain.

Last night was odd. Multiple pet fights – Maxx a.k.a. Jaws and another pet Do.Not.Get.Along. and although neither has claws, the older pet does still have two teeth left in her head and isn’t afraid to use them either. After getting up to break each fight up and checking to make sure no one was hurt, I think WS was just about ready to stay up and get a really early start on the day. Then, Mr. Dimmer next door, who has one of those really loud diesel pickup trucks, was coming and going at all hours of the night. I counted four separate times that he went out and started up that beast that just happens to be parked right on the other side of our obviously thin bedroom wall. From past experience and overhearing some of their arguments, because they scream at each other at the top of their lungs, I knew that his comings and goings was because they were fighting, but luckily, we didn’t hear any actual screaming this time.

And so, to erase any trances of the odd night and poor attempts to sleep, WS made French press coffee and I made low-carb French toast (which wasn’t low-carb anymore after we poured syrup that contains all the carbohydrates in the world over it), and then we vacuumed the entire house, ran the dishwasher, and finally finished up the laundry (for once).

Yep, we’re just living in paradise over here. Hope you have a great weekend too!

February 5, 2005

Chapter 4 of Cabin 4 has been uploaded and can be found under Projects on the left sidebar of this web page. Yes, it’s scary and if you don’t like scary, you probably won’t like it. I scared myself earlier in the week when I was writing it so let that be a warning for you. Or maybe I’m just a big wuss…but I don’t think so.

Have a good weekend and don’t let anything get you

February 6, 2005

This is the true story of Happy Scrappy Hero Cat and Pancakes House, two of the bestest best friends you will ever find.

Happy Scrappy Hero Cat was the runt of the litter of a dozen kittens born under an abandoned house. He came into the world with one skewed eye, thin, weak, forward-bowing front legs, a bobtail, and the happiest personality of the bunch. Nothing upset or bothered him. When all his mother’s nipples were being occupied, and his little belly was growling from hunger, he made happy mewing sounds to his other brothers and sisters who also were without a nipple to keep their minds off waiting in line, and his mother pulled him close with her front paws to lick him and let him know how special he was that he could still find happiness in the situation.

Pancakes House’s birth was highly anticipated with his new home and owner lined up well in advance. Eight weeks later, money exchanged hands and the little blue-eyed, exotic Chinese Bengal kitten was introduced to a world of doting humans, soft bedding, toys, and the very best food a kitten could possible want.

When Happy Scrappy Hero Cat was a few weeks old, a nice woman found him and his family and took a few of the kittens home to feed by hand to ensure they were getting enough food. At six weeks old, the caring woman chose two kittens to keep for herself and put an ad in the newspaper for homes for the rest. Within two weeks, all the kittens were gone to new loving homes except Happy Scrappy Hero Cat, whom everyone agreed was very happy, but not terribly handsome with his skewed eye and thin, bowed, front legs. Not even his happy mewing could melt any of their hearts and this left the kind woman at a loss of what to do. “I know!” She thought to herself one cay. “I’ll make him more appealing for prospective new owners!” And with that, the woman took Happy Scrappy Hero Cat to a local vet for all his shots, a microchip, and de-clawing. “Now,” she said after the happy little kitten came home, “Now, someone will certainly want to take him home.”

Pancakes House was very loved in his new home but the sweet soft white, tiger-striped fuzz ball did have claws and teeth and this displeased his owner. “How could something so cute have such sharp needles for claws?” His owner whined while rubbing yet another angry red scratch on her arm. That very day, Pancakes House’s owner decided to have him de-clawed and the young kitten quickly learned that since he no longer had claws, his teeth were his only defense. Before long, the only communication he knew was to bite at everything and his owner’s family soon tired of him. Shortly, thereafter and at the young age of eight months old, he was driven to a neighborhood across town, tossed out of a car, and left to fend for himself.

Before long, the caring woman who tried her best to find Happy Scrappy Hero Cat a good, loving home came to the realization that no one wanted the sweet little kitten with the bobtail and skewed eye and as much as she wanted to, she couldn’t keep him much longer. Happy Scrappy Hero Cat was fast approaching his first year’s birthday and the abandoned home he was born in had been torn down, his mother was gone, and all his brothers and sisters were living elsewhere. The woman had given it her best shot at finding Happy Scrappy Hero Cat a home but when none could be found, she felt she had no other choice but to take the happy cat to the pound. She had tears in her eyes when the tall young man with the humane society badge took Happy Scrappy Hero Cat from her arms but she felt it was for the best. That night and all the remaining days and nights that he lived at the pound, when Happy Scrappy Hero Cat heard all the other scared and lonely cats and kittens crying from their cages, he talked to them in his happy mewing way to let them know that they were all special and weren’t alone.

Life was cold, hungry, and scary for the soft white Bengal kitten who had been left on the side of a road to find his own way in the world, and he soon learned to rely on basic instincts – if it moves, its food. Pancakes House now lived under bushes and oily cars for shelter, ate bugs, and tried to stay clear of dogs and other cats. Above all, he learned to distrust humans. He grew mean when he learned that no matter how hungry he was, he couldn’t catch a bird, and he grew thin when he learned to stay away from places that smelled like people. He learned to hide whenever he caught a glimpse of children on bicycles and learned to accept the mud and cold rain in his fur. His memory of his soft bed, toys, and kitten food faded. As he grew weaker and more desperate, it was only a matter of time before he would wander into the fields where the packs of coyotes were known to deal with intruders harshly.

One morning, at the pound, a man walked up to the cage where Happy Scrappy Hero Cat lived and on the bars, placed a card that read, “PS this weekend only” which meant the happy cat would be taken to a local pet shop in hopes someone would adopt him. If no new owner could be found, it was the end of the road for Happy Scrappy Hero Cat, who had remained happy all this time, if only a little sad because he missed human contact for the whole time he was left alone in his cage. Still, at night, he would talk to the other cats and kittens to let them know that he was still there and if only they could get out of their cages, they would have a great time playing together. The weekend finally came and Happy Scrappy Hero Cat was taken in a van to the pet shop where he let all the cats who traveled with him know that it was okay and they weren’t alone. And wouldn’t you know it? It really was okay because as luck would have it, all the cats found happy, new homes that day, including Happy Scrappy Hero Cat who mewed happy goodbyes to all his pound friends and rewarded his new owners with purrs and kisses on their cheeks.

A couple of weeks later, Happy Scrappy Hero Cat had adapted well to his new home and large family. He loved watching birds from inside his safe, warm house and would talk through the window to a little, thin kitten, named Pancakes House that came sometimes to sit outside in the rain, beneath the bird feeders. But the soft white kitten didn’t hear Happy Scrappy Hero Cat or if he did, Pancakes House would become frightened and run away. Soon, Happy Scrappy Hero Cat’s new owners took notice of the happy mewing-sounds directed toward the skinny kitten with the blue eyes and matted fur and felt sorry that there wasn’t anything they could do for him, having just added Happy Scrappy Hero Cat to the family. But they could see how hungry the kitten must have been and placed a small bowl of food under the bushes for it to eat. And eat it, the kitten did! It wasn’t too many weeks later when Happy Scrappy Hero Cat’s owners talked about the kitten’s situation and made the decision to adopt it too!

Since that day, Happy Scrappy Hero Cat and Pancakes House have been best friends. Pancakes House has taught Happy Scrappy Hero Cat that all his happy mewing is loved and appreciated. And Happy Scrappy Hero Cat has taught Pancakes House to play and to not bite so hard, and that not having claws isn’t so bad when you live indoors. And most of all, he taught him to love and trust again, which are the best things of all.

February 7, 2005

Yeah, it was a fun weekend while it lasted.

Yesterday, our TV went on the fritz, and of course as is the nature of things around here, it is just out of its extended warranty. It was a Sony Trinitron 27 inch that was only three and a half years old. There’s $650-plus we can’t afford to spend to replace it or even the $400 it would cost to fix it. I’m sure WS is kicking himself for letting that warranty lapse but how would anyone know?

Our local news channel reports that more people will be laid off than originally expected at WS’s REAL place of employment. Great, just what we need right now after being laid off from the Big-Ass Corporation. I sure am glad the economy is improving…somewhere, ‘cause it continues to suck major ass here.

We got the new air filter unit replaced on my car with minimal damage today, leaving only twelve and a half little piddily things left to do to be ready for the Roadster show a month from now. No problem. After that show and the car comes back home, we’ll take the new filter back off and put the old one, which is perfectly fine except for looking dirty and grungy, back on. This will allow us to save the good looking filter for extra special car shows like the Roadster show which looks to be perhaps the last of that for a while because…

…it doesn’t look like I’ll be participating in many car shows this year due to financial constraints. Doesn’t mean I can’t have a perfectly clean show car tucked under its cover in the garage though, does it? I’ll just keep telling myself how many miles I won’t be putting on the odometer, which will only help maintain its value over time. Well, I always wanted a car for investment purposes only, (even if cars are overall a very poor investment and I’d have to wait a minimum of 30 years before mine will be truly worth anything.) Now is just as good a time to start that.

Here on the home front, at least one raccoon is back and eating the grapes I put out the back glass door for them. Yeah, I know. Most people don’t like raccoons around, but I don’t mind. We had two or three of them last summer but didn’t see any sign of them again after October. Then, just after Christmas, there were two big ones that were hit by cars just up the road from us and I figured with all the deforestation going on around here, we wouldn’t see raccoons anymore.

Saturday night, I turned off all the lights and sat by the glass door to wait. I knew that at least one raccoon came between 9:30 pm and midnight, and around 10:20 that night, one showed up. I’d say it was around thirty pounds and probably a female as they generally eat early at night (males forage more often early in the morning just before dawn). It was very cautious in watching both me and our pets sitting there on the other side of the glass and it was great to sit there and watch it delicately, yes, delicately, pick each grape from the stem before eating it. This one pleased me by choosing to eat just the grapes and wisely left our peanut-filled squirrel feeder alone. I think it is a different one who comes early in the morning, probably a male, finds no grapes left, and raids the squirrel feeder.

I haven’t seen the scrub blue jay with the one broken leg in over a week now even though I’ve been looking for him. He hung around every day here for close to two months. The other day, a starling was up in our main bird feeder and seemed to have a broken lower jaw. He used his tongue to get food into his mouth but his lower beak just hung there. Then, we’re still getting birds with big beige growths covering their feet. Why do we get all the injured, deformed, and/or dying things around here? Is it just a fluke? That’s a LOT of flukes if you ask me. Or is it just because we have food and water here almost constantly and they feel better being close to food? I don’t know.

February 8, 2005

I’ve had an odd 24 hours since yesterday so I’m going to take it easy for the next couple of days. It all started yesterday when I was working on my car. I took my time cleaning the wheels and brake parts and had moved my car at an angle in the garage, taking up both sides, to get to both sides of my car at once. After I was finished cleaning, I moved my car back. Or at least I attempted to.

Somehow, I angled it back oddly, pivoting mainly on the front tires and when I looked into my passenger mirror, I saw my car sitting snuggly up against the side of the garage door opening. Holy $hit! I yell and get out of the car to see what I somehow did. Yep, I parked my car right into the garage door wall. Right into it with the fender rubbed tight right up against the wood, and only a six-ton jack or nerves of steel would get me out of that jam with minimal damage to my car or the garage opening. And since I don’t own a jack, I would have to find the nerves of steel and slowly, ever so slowly drive my car forward two inches, then back two inches, then forward two inches and back, again and again while easing it away from the wall.

And so I did just that. I couldn’t go any further forward than just two inches because 1) all the heavy containers full of part stuff, bird food, painting supplies, etc and the garage wall itself sits three inches away, and 2) my side taillight lens sticks out and would be literally scraped off if I went any further. So it was back and forth, back and forth, and I’m certain that if any neighbors saw me and my predicament, they were having a good belly laugh over the whole thing. Most everyone around here knows how much I baby this car and how seldom it’s taken out of the garage yet no one has ever said as much as a peep about the car to me. In this neighborhood if you don’t own a SUV, you ain’t worth talking to. And all that time, I’m wondering since when did I suddenly forget how to park a car?

A very, very long five minutes later, my car was far enough away from the garage door opening that I could finally park it like I usually do – NOT scraping the garage wall. After I got out of the car, I checked for damage and only found a little scrape that was more rubber from the garage wall weather stripping than anything else. I used some of the stuff I used to remove the nasty water spots I had under the car on the scrape and it took any signs of my stupidity right off.

I must have gone out to recheck that fender half a dozen times yesterday afterward just to make sure I didn’t do any real damage to it, expecting to see a crack in the fiberglass or crumpled something or another. I can’t get the sight of that fender pressed up against the garage opening out of my mind and whenever I do envision it, I physically feel sick…

…which may or may not have had something to do with how ill I felt last night immediately after dinner. It was one of those “I HAVE to go lie down” kinds of feelings followed by a bout of mild diarrhea and headache behind my eyes. Not fun.

I woke up today with the headache still and a stiff neck and I stayed in bed until noon. I’m happy to report that I’ve only checked that fender twice today so far and yes, it’s still okay. Yesterday before I suddenly couldn’t park a car to save my life, I reduced the number of things I had left to work on it from thirteen to eight. I’m ahead of my pre-determined schedule. I can stand to take a few days off, and cars around the world that need parking, are probably rejoicing.

February 9, 2005

Things I’ve discovered today:

1) The CEO of WS’s REAL job stepped down (was asked to step down actually), leading us and many people to believe that a very bad financial quarter is coming up and massive lay offs are on the horizon.
2) The Big-Ass Corporation that just laid us both off in January is moving their entire support department from their headquarters 1500 miles away to a location about two hours from us here (through rush hour traffic both ways).
3) MsNoManagementSkills is considering moving over there and accepting a job with them.
4) My car’s fender is still okay.

Now, here’s a hypothetical quandary for you. If you or your significant other got laid off, would you:

a) Look up the Big-Ass Corporation and plead for a job, knowing full well you’d have to drive two hours each way through rush hour traffic AND work with/for/or under MsNoManagementSkills.
b) Or, look elsewhere for a job and hope for the best (meaning you won’t lose your house and all you own and end up living under a bridge).

There are lots of good and bad things contained in either choice.

1) Bad: Driving two hours each way to the Big-Ass Corporation puts LOTS of wear and tear on a car, plus gas and maintenance.
2) Bad: Working for the Big-Ass Corporation means office attire clothing will need to be purchased. No more shorts and t-shirts to work as I had become used to for the past 6 years of working at home.
3) Bad: Not a single soul at the Big-Ass Corporation has told us the truth to date. These are shifty, untrustworthy, deceitful people running a mega-Internet corporation. We now know how they got this big. Could you knowingly work with these kinds of people?
4) Bad: Why are they moving their entire support department and not outsourcing it to India like everyone else does? Is this just a transitional move before outsourcing, or is this a way of creating “contract” jobs meaning employees won’t really work for the Big-Ass Corporation but be “contract” workers instead (less pay, more hours, little-to-no benefits or time off).
5) Bad: Any salary received from a job with the Big-Ass Corporation would be considerably lower than the one we used to get. Will it be enough to pay for transportation to and from their new location and still allow us to keep our house and pay our bills? Or can we only hope to break even?
6) Bad: Working with MsNoManagementSkills versus poking hot forks in your eyeballs. The hot forks don’t look so bad. Actually, it could be between working with her, or under her (shiver!) versus losing everything we own and I’m not sure which is worse yet, but a person will have to do whatever it takes to survive.
7) Bad: We know that the Big-Ass Corporation prefers “younger” employees, though I haven’t heard of any age discrimination lawsuits recently. I am going on 49 this year, not in their “ideal” age group.
8 ) Bad: We were fairly brutal on our exit interview forms for the Big-Ass Corporation given how much we were lied to and considering how much crap MsNoManagementSkills, MrSmartButFakingIt, and Ego put us through just in the past year (not to mention the flurry of threats from FatHead and BikerDude who left The Company two years ago but still live in the area). Odds are they wouldn’t look twice at hiring us if the opportunity arose.
9) Good: We’d have a shot at a job that we might really need, plus we’re familiar with the job requirements.
10) Good: We’d have some money coming in.
11) Good: We’re not afraid to drive distances.
12) Good: I’m sure there’s another good point out there, but damned if I can think of any right now.

So, what do you think? If you were in this situation, would you sit back and wait to see what happens? Or would you start readying your resume now and mentally prepare yourself to jump back into that bucket of slime? Or would you take a completely different route?

February 9, 2005

5 Things I learned today:

Ground buffalo meat can make darn good meatloaf.

Sometimes the local weathermen are right.

Even when you strive hard to make a day stress-free, someone will come along and screw that notion up.

The CEO of WS’s REAL job stepped down (was asked to step down actually), leading us and many people to believe that a very bad financial quarter is coming up and massive lay offs are on the horizon.

My car’s fender is still okay.

February 10, 2005

Random stuff:

MsEars looked positively peachy today in an apricot pantsuit of some kind and large thick apricot plastic hoop earrings. Not anyone could pull off the look but somehow, she manages better than most. She hinted that she had something to tell me that I might be interested in but that it would have to wait since she was already late to some appointment maybe to buy more earrings?

Using the rowing machine is much harder when you tell everyone you’re going to participate in some silly 6-day rowing challenge. 2333 meters a day for six days isn’t as easy as it sounds.

Rock doves sometimes look like rocks until you walk up to them. Then, they become flying rocks that shit.

The back of our house which faces true north and was oh, so very pretty last summer when WS scrubbed the white vinyl siding and made the place glow, is growing green with moss and algae again. So I did something about it. Really, if you don’t let things get too out of hand, it’s a breeze to fix. Simple Green and a touch of bleach did most of the work. Okay, tell me again why I requested a white house? Truly, I must have been on heavy medication that week.

And if I do not write tonight, which will be tough since O.C. is on and it’s the only show I watch anymore, you are all welcome to come visit and tie me to a chair and my laptop. I draw the line at duct taping my eyelids open though.

February 11, 2005

It’s a beautiful day outside today. Not a hint of the fog that kept us enshrouded for the past week! Bright, sunny, and warm (close to 60 degrees F.). We sat out on our front porch until nearly noon when some high clouds rolled in and I figured that was it for the sun for the day.

So I started work on a project that wouldn’t take but an hour to complete but that I simply didn’t have the time to do, nor the creative energy to do back when I was working. All I needed was a stencil that we found online two years ago. Luckily, it was still available and inexpensive too.

I was looking to add just a touch of scrollwork to my beloved two aged walls in our bedroom. Something that looked like it had been there forever, half faded, barely noticeable, not quite all there (Gee, sounds like my brain sometimes.) Anyway, here’s the result:

I like it. I’ll keep it. The cool thing about paint is…you don’t like it, you just paint over it. Oh, and five minutes after I started the stenciling, the sun came back out. But hey, I did finish the project.

Tonight, I really want to go out to eat, to have someone else wait on me, someone else do the cooking, and clean up afterward. But one of the first things we cut when we found out we were being laid off was our dining out habit. It’s my habit, really. I never ate out anywhere until I was twelve years old and then it was for my birthday. My mother was probably feeling her first real twinge of maternal instinct that day. In any case her generous feeling didn’t last long and the night ended like so many did. I, however, never forgot the feeling of being able to sit there and tell someone what you wanted, and almost magically a few minutes later, someone brought it to you! I made the decision right there and then that if I could only survive my childhood, as an adult I would dine out all the time.

Well, I’ve never dined out ALL the time, but a few times a week is almost like all the time. But expensive? Holy Moly, yes! It’s probably a good thing that WS wasn’t all that hot on eating out all the time. We’d be in financial trouble for certain by now.

Tonight, it’s back to writing and another chapter goes into Cabin 4 for tomorrow’s posting. The weather promises rain for the weekend, then back to the foggy days next week. This has been a very odd winter weather month.

February 12, 2005

Chapter 5 is up and I’ll warn you: It’s weak and short but had to be added. Technically, there will be second part of this chapter added as soon as I finish it which could be as soon as tonight. WS and I had an awesome research session last night when we were hacking out all the Cabin 4 details like people’s ages, dates of birth/death, locations of places and mileage between various points; all stuff I probably should do before starting a new story, but for whatever reason, it seems to work better if I allow it to come naturally during the course of the actual writing.

Had to go get pet food today and, exactly as we feared, the vet is having problems getting our kind of prescription pet food again and didn’t have big bags. And the price had gone up. Again. If it wasn’t that we have pets that require the PH control formula food, I’d be hard-pressed not to change food back to something that didn’t cost $60 for a sixteen-pound bag. But these guys are my kids and my life and I’ll literally chew off my own arm before I will compromise their health ever again.

We stopped at Lowe’s on the way home to see if they had anything to help us improve home improvement, and they did, but we didn’t need their kind of home improvement today. I should have picked up a couple of one gallon magenta heathers in bloom, but I was convinced I’d find them cheaper than four dollars elsewhere. Silly me, and so, no heathers this week.

But no worries. We still have that big blooming one out in the front yard that’s attracting every honeybee in the area. AND, that same butterfly, which I’ve named Fred for the time being, revisits that heather every day. Remember last week when I showed that poor artist’s rendition of Fred? Well, I finally got a picture of him and well, let’s just all agree that rendition was pretty bad.

February 13, 2005

Today we’ve spent rearranging the room formerly known as the office where I used to work. LOTS of bad vibes coming from that room and so, it’s getting cleaned from top to bottom and rearranged. For the first time since we’ve lived here, there won’t be a desktop computer in there. It’ll be a room to relax in instead. Unfortunately, no wall paint color change anytime soon with the tight budget and all. Pictures will be coming soon.

So where is our desktop computer, you might ask? Most of you could probably care less where it’s at or have suggestions on where it could go as far as they are concerned, but run with me here for a minute. It’s in the Library, where we originally, five years ago originally, wanted it to go and on a real desk instead of a long folding table. Yeah, good things come to those who wait and all. Pictures will definitely be coming soon on how this looks. I like it.

Until we finish getting things all arranged how we like, the Blogeois web cam will not be live. And I’m playing with the Archives so those are temporarily unavailable. More about that later. WS is doing the rearranging in the former office right this minute because he likes doing it and is good at it. That means he’s vacuuming in there too while I sit out here. There is so much dust in there, I nearly had an asthma attack two minutes after I walked in, and to think that I used to work in there. No wonder I never had any energy while working in there.

Earlier today, while the sun was deciding on whether to come out or not (it decided to hide behind nasty storm clouds all day), I worked out back, replacing stepping stones, pulling a stray weed or two, and doing the first spraying of roses and rhodies which promptly got washed off with the rain (but it wasn’t supposed to rain today!). Spring is definitely coming whether winter wants it to or not.

February 15, 2005

Is Valentine’s Day over with yet? Yes? Good! A bit too obscenely overblown and commercialized for me personally. We made a nice dinner for ourselves here at home and had Baskin-Robbins ice cream (Love Potion #9 and German Chocolate Cake flavors) for dessert. I long for the days past when every major and minor holiday was reasonably low-key in the marketing world. I’ve been deluged with Valentine’s Day and Easter decorations since New Year’s Day at my local grocery stores and when something like that is so in my face, I tend to rebel a bit, so no cards, flowers, chocolate, sex, etc here yesterday, thankyouverymuch!

I slept late today and didn’t get up officially under after 11 a.m. Outside our front door there are mounds of orange and white cat fur and spots of dried blood in our driveway. It looks like someone got the crap beat out of them, probably from another cat in the neighborhood. I don’t know of any orange and white cats running around here so it’s a cat who is good at hiding or someone new. I looked extensively all around our property just in case someone was lying injured somewhere but I didn’t find anyone. The fur is only in the front of the house; nothing in back or on the side yards. I’m surprised I didn’t hear anything or our pets didn’t alert us to noise outside our door. Man, that’s a lot of fur.

Last night, WS and I finished a six day, 14,000 meter rowing marathon thing for the Concept One rowing site that WS frequents. It was my first rowing marathon ever and boy, do I feel it! But at the same time, I can see the tops of my knees have a whole lot less fat and are more defined when I walk, so maybe rowing isn’t all that bad, you think? I have to give it a rest for a few days before I can row anymore. There isn’t much of me that doesn’t feel sore today.

And as promised, here are the initial pictures of the room formerly known as our office and the new library set up. I think our final goal in the former office will be to repaint the walls and change the wall art but not until later in the spring:

February 16, 2005

So I’m sitting there, in our living room, minding my own business watching the noon news and scarfing down a couple English muffin pizzas when MsNo knocks on the front door. I scolded myself later for having the main door open to let the morning sun come through the glass door, and being as it was only the clear glass and eight feet of unobstructed view between her and me, I couldn’t exactly run and hide.

(I suppose technically, I could have sat there and ignored her but I had already shown my surprise not so much at her visit, but at how huge she had become. I was shocked at what I remember of her facial features are now completely surrounded by rolls of skin and instantly, an image of her face “melting” into puffy flesh flashed through my mind.)

Naturally, I didn’t let her in, I just won’t do that but I did invite her to sit out on our front porch with me saying, “I was just getting ready to sit out here and enjoy some sun. Care to join me?” which was only partly true. And as was always the case with MsNo, she wasted no time in rambling on and on about herself because it’s ALL about her and her alone, telling me that she didn’t know what she was going to do this coming summer without a job and how much DorkMaster didn’t want her to stay home, even if it would save them $1300 a month on daycare for his three kids (ages 11, 9, and 6).

She continued the “It’s all about ME!” story with the kitchen gadget home show venture she’s getting ready to start doing but acknowledged that she didn’t think that it would work out for her because she couldn’t cook, hates to drive to other people’s houses, and hates talking in front of people (just like I speculated last month here) and then she said that she had pretty much gone through all her money from her divorce to FatHead, sale of their house, and her stock option buy out when the company was sold, about $200,000 total, just since last August.

About forty minutes later, she took a breath (finally) and asked how I was doing.

Now, knowing what you know about this person, how miserable she made my life over the past six years, but still in shock that she would even waddle her ample-and-ever-widening ass down the street to present her “me, me, ME!” show to someone who hadn’t heard it since the lay off, what would you have said?

What I said wasn’t exactly a fib. Yes, we’ve continued to keep all our money from our stock buy out (not even a quarter of how much she got) and vow to not spend it. Yes, I’m here trying to get back to writing in hopes I can eek out a living from it eventually, and yes, I’m not actually looking for a job right now. Yes, I’m spending my free time polishing my car and hope to hit a car show here and there this summer. Yes, I plan on puttering around in the yard.

No, I didn’t save virtually every penny I made while working for the past three years in anticipation that I would be laid off any day then. No, we didn’t make any profitable investments over the years, and no, we aren’t getting by with only WS’s REAL job with little to no impact on our finances. And finally, no, we’re not going mountain biking in Tibet this summer in hopes of running into the Dali Lama and our old company bosses (who really are going mountain biking in Tibet this summer, by the way).

Okay, so I made that last part up. But it was obvious from the minute she asked me how I was doing that she wasn’t really listening, she really didn’t care. She just wanted to vent and to try to draw someone else into her constant pity-party universe, having already cried on everyone else’s shoulder for so long that most of those people have had enough.

She did say something though that stuck me as odd, something just before she left. She turned to me and said, “You’re lucky.” And then she waddled back to her own territory, up the street where I can’t bring myself to walk past anymore, and I thought, “Lucky? No, what I am is smart.” It wasn’t I who divorced one jerk and married a worse one in record time just to try to get remarried before the first jerk did. It wasn’t I who clearly saw the end of the money gravy train ending and yet, still spent like money was going out of style. And it wasn’t I who leaned HARD on friends and relatives to pay to get her out of this jam and that jam, never learning how to do anything for herself BY herself, and eventually pissed off and alienated everyone around her.

Finally, just as I was going back inside and she was back across the street where she belongs she called back, “Hey, you should have one of my kitchen parties!”

I replied, “Hmm…”, then waved and went inside. As I closed the main door behind me, I said, “I don’t think so!”

February 17, 2005

My web cam is giving me grief today. Boo-hoo. That’s what I get for wanting to change things around. If the color isn’t messed up, the time is off (by 20 minutes – WTF?). I think it knows something is up…we were going to put up a second camera, one that faces out the front of our house, one that can face up the street if we so desired. And you know what lives up the street, don’t you? Hmmm…

There are problems to that though, the most important of which is the sun that tends to fry and bake cameras I’ve had in the distant past pointing out this front-facing window. And I can tell you that there ain’t nothing like accidentally touching a camera that’s been baked in the sun all day to find that when combined with it’s own generated heat, it feels like it’s about 400 degrees and you’ve just left half your flesh seared to the camera housing.

Then, there’s the whole “Where do I put that live picture on this web site?” issue. Do I just add a second window under the original Live from the Blogeois Compound shot? Or does this mean an entire web site redesign is in order? Ugh. Not that I don’t like changing things; it’s just that I really like this current design; enough to keep it perhaps for life.

Oh, the quandaries an unemployed person can find in their lives. Take yesterday for example. Yes, I was SUPPOSED to be writing, and I did get a thousand words in on Cabin 4 leading us up to what’s left of Ella’s cottage. But that strict, disciplinarian voice that lives in my head and told me in no uncertain terms, after being laid-off, would I sit on my ass and ignore the things around here that should have been attended to years ago.

Like the drawers on the right side of this computer desk that now sits out in the newly arranged Library (see posted picture below from February 15th). All three drawers on the right side, which mostly belonged to me and my stuff. Oh sure, it was perfectly okay to have them literally crammed with stuff when this desk sat in our bedroom, basically ignored at the foot of our bed. And by stuff I mean:

Numerous uneaten packages of Pez plus one dispenser, four scotch tape dispensers, a mini-glue gun and glue sticks, a magnifier, a ring of ancient keys, two lotion bottles – one empty, old business cards from people I don’t even remember, two boxes of Dilbert manage-mints, assorted scratch pads, a tub of paintbrush cleaner, Chap-stick, a near-empty box of “Hello! My Name Is ___” stickers, more pens than you could shake a stick at, an old TV remote, dental floss, a couple of “Jack Bucks”, the remains of a 3.5” diskette that I purposely destroyed in a fit of rage years ago (really, it wasn’t MY fault), a “PAID” bill stamp and ink pad, a plastic case filled with catnip with a SECURE lid, headphones, boxes of envelopes in assorted sizes, assorted spiral-bound notebooks, an OPEN/CLOSED sign, an ancient mouse pad, a package of housewarming invitations for a housewarming party we never had, several 1999 calendars and thankfully, one 2005 calendar, a plastic Carl’s Jr. table number thing, a package of 20-cent stamps (that kind of tells you when the last time I really looked in here, doesn’t it?), a tube of Singer™ sewing machine oil, a miniature Post-It Note dispenser, a pack of wood matches, an emery board, a wooden box of mostly uneaten Starbucks chocolates, a mini screw and washer that I’m certain was for something important once, Q-Tips (unused thank god!), paper clips and twist ties of all sizes and colors, a unopened can of Spam (purchased in 1994 and with a 2009 expiration date) for a parody project I once thought of doing, a leaky bottle of Moroccan Melon air freshener, and four Jack-In-The-Box antennae balls. And I don’t even own a car that has an antennae!

Geeze! Sounds like I am a bonafide slob! But I can assure you that in the rest of my life I’m not. Everyone deserves at least one space to nurture and keep junky, especially if you are as anal as I generally am about the rest of my life. What do you have in your…uh….drawers?

February 18, 2005

I feel like Cameron in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”. I didn’t see anything good today.

We got free tickets to a local Yard, Garden, and Patio show. It’s in the same building that the Roadster show and my car is going to be in two weeks from now, so I guess it was good to see what kind of lighting there will be. Kind of crappy lighting from what it looks like but that’s okay with me. It won’t show as many of the fine scratches I hope.

The Yard, Garden, and Patio show was pretty much a bust. A lot smaller and squeezed tighter together than last year. WS was pissed at all the people standing in the middle of the aisles, EVERY single last aisle to stop and start up a conversation. We went early but it didn’t matter. The place was packed by 11:30 this morning and the only parking anywhere around was several city blocks away.

Still, we had free tickets and only had to pay for parking.

Most of the plants on display were NOT for sale. What was up with that? Lots of people handing out cards and flyers to come to their nurseries to buy the plants instead. I’m pretty proud of myself for not buying a thing, not even a coffee. Cheap day.

Checked out a new Home Depot newly opened by our house. Even that nearly bored me to tears. I’ll stick to Lowe’s. Maybe it didn’t help that we knew a Wal-Mart was getting ready to be built right next door to the Home Depot; one of those big Wal-Marts…that sells everything that Home Depot does. Kind of makes you wonder why they are being built right next door to each other and opening within six month of each other.

I showed someone my car today as it sits in the garage nearly ready for the Roadster show. They weren’t terribly impressed, even though they seemed to be car people.

Still haven’t got our severance checks. They have until a week from Monday. They are waiting until the last second, I’m sure, probably because they are drawing interest on that money. I’d probably do that too.

More of Cabin 4 is going up tomorrow. I think I’m finally getting into a writing routine now that the computer is located some place other than the room formerly known as the office, a.k.a. the ex-creative black hole of de-motivation.

February 19, 2005

Comcast has been giving us some problems on and off since yesterday evening and hopefully, things are back to normal. Chapter 6 (which was originally going to be part 2 of Chapter 5) is up over on the left there, under Projects. Hope you enjoy it!

The weather here has been phenomenal today. It was supposed to be cloudy and windy, but ended up calm and sunny with temps up to 60 degrees F. Sure, sure, everyone is going to be in drought-mode by July, but this is really nice now. So nice in fact, that I took off the patio furniture covers today and set out all the tables and chairs. I even put out the big table umbrella but left the cover over that because I know better than to trust that the winter weather is really over. It isn’t, you know…but wouldn’t that be odd. Looks like next week is nothing but sun too. I sure don’t want to drag out the garden hoses just yet but I just may have to.

February 21, 2005

The problem with having a fuel-efficient car is that, in the off chance that you need to only have a quarter of a tank of gas left, it takes forever to burn it off. Thus, was my dilemma for today, and what’s a day without a dilemma of some kind, right?

In ten days, I’m entering my car in the Portland Roadster show and of all the various rules and regulations they have, one of the ones they strictly enforce is that all entered cars must have a quarter of a tank of gas or less before entering the building per fire marshal code. It’s a good rule, but if you tend to keep your gas tank full like I do, it means lots of days spend starting up the car and letting it burn off gas; Wasteful in my book and yes, I do care about such things from time to time.

For the last month, I have been doing just that: Starting up my car and letting it idle there in the open garage while I cleaned something on it. And it was working….kind of. Technically, if I had until, oh…sometime around June to get the gas level down to a quarter of a tank using that method, it would have worked. But I don’t have that long and so, drastic action had to be taken. I’d have to actually drive the thing, and remember, I just spent the last two months cleaning every square inch of it.

But, I figure, better to burn off the gas by driving it than to risk being disqualified at the door for having too much. And it could have been worse; it could have been raining for the last month. Since it’s been sunny for the past three weeks, although very, very dry and dusty, I just decided to not worry about it getting dirty again and drove seventy miles up the freeway and seventy miles back and now, I’m sitting just a little over a quarter of a tank which after I drive to the Convention center next week, ought to put me exactly where I need to be.

I just need to re-clean most of the car…but I would have had to do that anyway after driving to the Convention center anyway, so it’s all good.

Two things to note about this adventure: Some newer cars won’t let you siphon gas out of the tank, mine being one as it actually has two connecting tanks and an anti-siphoning valve, and the second thing is if I didn’t know better, I’d swear my car is just as fuel efficient at 77 miles per hour as it is sitting idling. It took forever for the gas gauge to even budge from where it originally was sitting at half full when I left.

So, it will need a soapless wash, a loving wipe with a micro-fiber towel, a vacuum, and the windows cleaned inside and out and I’ll be as ready as I’m ever going to be for the biggest show of my life and the completion of one of my dreams.

February 22, 2005

I ended up washing my car yesterday evening after all. Today, I’ll put one final polish coat on it to take off tomorrow. Thursday, I’ll vacuum it and clean the windows inside and out and after that, all that is left is to take a good hard look at what I might also have to clean next week after driving it down to Portland’s Convention center. I think I’m going to be doing a lot of small niggly cleaning and touchup things then, things I really can’t do now.

Last night, I worked on the next chapter of Cabin 4 wherein the mystery deepens, of course. And during which, I nearly finished all the laundry, thank goodness. Honestly, I could swear dirty laundry reproduces. I don’t think we’ve ever had a pile that tall and I hope not to see it that big again. Ugh.

Which reminds me of exactly how long I have been doing laundry, NOT that I’m complaining because I’m not. It’s just that me and technology have come a long way together when it comes to washers and dryers.

Back in the ‘60’s, my mother, who abhorred anything that resembled housework (“That’s what I had children for!” She’d say.), taught me at the age of seven how to operate a washing machine. It wasn’t one of those old wringer types like my grandmother had (and swore by), but a modern-looking, top loading one. Clothes dryers on the other hand, while they existed, were wildly expensive and only the very rich people had them or so I thought, meaning half of everyone on our poor, wrong-side-of-the-tracks neighborhood street already had one and we never would. Anyone who didn’t have to get up just before dawn and hang clothes out on a twisted cotton rope clothesline every morning of one’s young life seemed wildly rich to me. The worst wasn’t that I had to stand on a step stool to reach the clothesline until about the age of ten, nor the fact that I had to hang clothes out there every morning before dawn. It was the fact that my mother made me do it in bare feet, regardless of the weather.

Living in the desert southwest certainly has it’s weather benefits at times, but walking around barefoot in winter on the bare and dead grass covered ground, hanging multiple loads of wet, steaming clothes in 40 degree winter weather in faint pre-dawn light, in my opinion, isn’t one of them. It’s also not exactly conducive to starting a school day on a well-rested, positive, and eager-to-learn note. My mother didn’t buy us a dryer until I was sixteen years old and even then, she didn’t let anyone but her use it for the first year, saying she only bought it for use with her unmentionables.

Thinking back on it, if I had somehow snuck and used it for one or more of our family’s daily five or six loads of laundry, I don’t know exactly how she would have ever found out other than to inspect the lint filter for fibers other than those that might have come off a bra or nylon slip. I think I would have been bright enough back then to have cleaned the filter had I ever used the dryer, but I didn’t. I was scared of my mother, as we all were back then. She was bigger than all us put together and not afraid of letting us know who was boss.

When I was married back in the mid-70’s, I had my own washer and dryer in Harvest Gold color, and I had a hard time learning about laundry soap and fabric softener in the beginning. Growing up, we never used either in our washing machine and to this day, I don’t understand the appeal of any kind of liquid fabric softener and prefer dryer sheets (Snuggle brand, thankyouverymuch). The other day, I overheard a couple behind us in a restaurant talking about hanging sheets outside to dry to “capture the fresh air” and “how quaint that would look” and I was reminded how everything old is new again, even bad old things.

The 1980’s brought years of dire times and near-homelessness for me. Bathroom sinks and shower curtain rods became my washer and dryer and other than the occasional episode of having to wear wet underwear to work because either I forgot to wash it the night before or it hadn’t had time to dry, it was still better than having to stand outside barefoot, hanging up clothes. Can’t say I liked going to laundry rooms or laundry-mats either, mostly because I never had money for the machines.

The 90’s have been much kinder and I have had my own washing machine and dryer since the end of 1989 and until recently, I’ve been completely 100 percent responsible for the laundry job. WS and I had an agreement which I find perfectly suitable: He cleans out the cat boxes every day, something he has faithfully done ever since I’ve known him (some 17 years almost), and I do laundry. It’s a good agreement. Lately, WS had stepped up and taken charge of much more of the housework than I ever thought him capable of doing, and I have to say, that man can fold a mean set of sheets just as sharply as he can hang a pair of pants. But how would he have done if he ever had to hang laundry outside? Hmm, I hope he doesn’t have to ever find out.

February 23, 2005

Really, it’s only beautiful weather until you go out in it.

The past month has been lovely, weather-wise, for the most part. Bright, clear, sunny days making all the bulbs pop up early and the tree buds start swelling and the sun is taunting you to come out and play. The daytime temperatures here have been right around 60 degrees F, which sounds great…until you go outside and discover the cold east winds are blowing and creating a wind chill factor of about 37 degrees. I kid you not. I really did want to plant a couple of heathers we bought over the weekend and take inventory on what I wanted to accomplish out in the yard this year, but I’m just so tired of freezing my ass off every time I go out there. The mere fact that I tend to find myself out there in a t-shirt, shorts and open-toed sandals couldn’t possibly have anything to do with it. My attire is simply the result of indoor weather where the sun is shining brightly in through all the windows, the temperature is some where between 70 and 74 degrees, and there isn’t a breeze to be found. Obviously, the outdoors is taunting me.

Looking ahead on a 10-day indoor weather forecast, I see little to no change. Outside, it looks like the wind will keep blowing and sun will keep shining for everyday except one. A week from Wednesday rain is forecast. Naturally. That’s the day I have to drive my car down to the Portland Convention center. The rain couldn’t hold off for one more day. So very typical…

Everyone seems to be feeling ill lately. I’ve been reading about people feeling sick, or getting sick, and around town, I’ve been hearing people cough and sneeze left and right. Being a decent sneeze and cough sound analyst (because I’ve had to become one due to my asthma and low immune system), I think most of it is allergy-based and it makes sense if you really think about it and live around here. It’s been abnormally warm and dry for a month, causing trees, grass, and assorted other things to emerge from hibernation. Add in each additional warm and sunny day with a few days of breezy weather and you’ve got the perfect environment for allergy flare-ups, even for people who never had allergy problems before. Just this morning, as I tried once again to venture outside without turning into a Popsicle once again, I saw huge clouds of pollen blow off some of our tall junipers in the wind. I’m allergic to juniper so you know, I think I’ll stay indoors again today.

Homemade pizza was on tap for last night’s dinner with WS’s homemade crust. He whipped up a dough batch Monday while I was out trying to empty my gas tank. He also made dinner the night before (Buffalo soft tacos), cleaned up the entire kitchen, and ran the dishwasher. Oh, and that mountainous pile of laundry I discovered over the weekend? He helped fold and put away most of it too. Not sure exactly what’s going on with him, but if he doesn’t watch out, a woman could start to feel spoiled around here.

February 24, 2005

I finally broke down and ventured outside the other day to water our backyard, of all things silly to do. And yes, I did freeze my ass nearly off. You might have seen me on the web cam. I was the ice cube on the right, in my usual indoor attire of a t-shirt, shorts, and sandals. Why didn’t I put on something a bit more…uh…warm? Because the wind was whipping around from every direction and no matter what I would have worn, I would have gotten drenched and cold regardless. I really do hate it when the wind comes at you from all directions, especially when you’re trying to hand water anything.

Yesterday, I took a lesson from that experience and wore a bit more clothing to water the entire front yard. I still got drenched but I was a tad more warm.

We’ve had nothing but 24 straight days of sun, and half of those were with unrelenting cold and dry east winds, which have completely dried out the soil and several plants. Since no rain is forecast for a week, and we don’t want to lose any bulbs or plants, action had to be taken. Normally, we’re practically swimming in rain throughout January, February, March, and April, but so far this hasn’t been a normal winter.

It did afford me a chance to snap a few pictures out there though, including a picture of a natural fern growing out of a north-facing rock from our fountain. It speaks to me of determination and perseverance, things I usually have an abundance of, as WS might agree with, but have taken a bit of a hit with my recent layoff.

I keep thinking in the back of my mind that I should be doing something to be making gobs of money, that I might be wasting time and I don’t want to berate myself later for wasting time when I could have been doing something that the world would deem mega-important, like learning computer programming languages like C++ or ASP or how to invent invisible, indestructible metal or to find the ultimate cure for all cancers, but then I remember it’s only been a month since I was laid off and that I really, really do need time to recover and regroup. Most days, it feels like it’s been longer than a month since the layoff, and other days, it feels like it’s only been about a week. Besides, I’m sure it would take longer than a month to figure out how the world could achieve world peace, right?

February 25, 2005

I got my official acceptance letter from the Portland Roadster show people yesterday. Whew! I guess I’m really going to participate now. To be honest with you, I’d had forgotten all about that part and figured I was in anyway since I entered as part of a car club display. Now I have something else cool to keep with all my car’s documentation that I keep bound in a huge notebook. Yes, I am anal that way and someday, whomever gets my car after I’m dead and gone might whisper a thank you. When it comes to show winning cars, it’s ALL about the documentation.

It’s back to sun and wind today and I’ve decided to stay indoors. My allergies have really been kicking up over the past couple of days and my eyes constantly feel like sand is in them. I was supposed to vacuum out my car and clean the windows inside and out today, but with the wind blowing in through the garage vents, doing that cleaning just seems silly. I’ve still got time to wait out the wind, and joy! It’s not going to rain after all next Wednesday when the car needs to be at the Convention center.

I think I’m going to back off on my hormone replacement medication for a while. Back when I had my surgery, they had to remove my ovaries and put on hormone replacement. Since then, I’ve heard nothing but bad stuff about the exact kinds I take. A month after my surgery, I stopped taking it for three weeks and didn’t have an ounce of problems but thought I noticed my skin was drier. It also could have been the usual time of year when the air inside our house dries out anyway because that was the time we switched over from air conditioning to the heater and I always had a problem with dry skin at that time of year.

The main reason I’m stopping it for a few weeks is to watch to see what my weight does. I am really struggling with it now. I’ve been hungry non-stop since returning home from surgery, even after eating a heavy meal, I can’t get the thought of eating something more out of my head. Exercise, while I know is good, isn’t doing anything except making me even more hungry and I’m not gaining any ground on losing any weight. The next time I see my Dr., who just moved to another clinic miles and miles away, I will stress how this weight gain is absolutely unacceptable to me. I didn’t go through surgery to lose a 23-pound tumor just to gain 23 pounds and then some back. I feel like a cow. Moo.

Tonight is “Survivor” and “The O.C.” on TV night, the only night we schedule to watch TV, plus WS’s shot night, and homemade Kung Pao chicken dinner night, extra spicy please.

February 25, 2005

Busy day. WS is handling things that need attention like where our severance money is and letting the Delta faucet people know we aren’t happy with their “customer service.” I’m taking full advantage of the lack of wind for a change and digging out the sweet William groundcover that still promises to take over our end of the neighborhood. This also gave me time to sit out on the front porch with MsEars for an hour or so and things I’m hearing from her about MsNoManagementSkills are both intriguing me and flat out pissing me off.

First the intriguing part: If I didn’t think the honeymoon was over before, I definitely do now. MsNoManagementSkills has become estranged from her beloved, purse-string-holding family…because of DorkMaster. Apparently, she’s been pushing “Mommy” and “Daddy” and countless grandparents to accept him. However, after reading through his online journal before it was made “Friends Only” last month, they don’t want a thing to do with him or in acknowledging MsNoManagementSkills’, their only daughter and granddaughter, marriage to him. And can you blame them? Talking about his “mighty wang” all the time, doing this and that with this person and that, about masturbating at his desk at work, the endless months journal entries about anal sex and posting graphically and step-by-step how to do it correctly where his kids could read it.

All this time, MsNoManagementSkills had kept the kids from visiting with her side of the family for some reason…until last week when she took them all back home for a first visit. Allegedly, her entire family was appalled by the kids’ complete and total lack of discipline, their destructive nature, and their temper tantrums and potty mouths. MsEars said she was told it was so bad, that MsNoManagementSkills and DorkMaster were both begged by various family members to do something about it before more was destroyed but neither of them would lift a finger or tell his kids to stop, preferring instead to “continue sweet-talking one of her ‘grannies’ into writing DorkMaster and his terrible kids into her will.”

It didn’t fly and after a second night spent at granny’s trashed home, MsNoManagementSkills, DorkMaster, and his kids were sent packing. Once back home, the phone calls back and forth began and where it sits now is that granny has cut her off financially until she divorces DorkMaster and moves back home with her which is several hundred miles away (oh please, oh please, oh please, I say!).

Now for the pissy part: MsEars, who was sporting a soft green and lemon yellow head bandana and matching blouse today and long, straight, dangly silver earrings, told me that MsNoManagementSkills has been going around the neighborhood trying to wrangle neighbors into attending her first cooking utensil show, and that everyone to date has refused for one reason or another. Apparently, while she is trying to talk people into attending, she’s introducing herself, something she had yet to do even after living in the neighborhood over a year now, and telling them all sorts of interesting lies about herself. Lies that are actually things that I accomplished when I worked with her but that now she’s saying she did herself! Like meeting famous musicians that was briefly part of my job whenever I was flown to Company headquarters.

I’m at a complete loss as to why she would say such things unless she truly believes them. She has to know that I would hear about it sooner or later/ Or maybe she thinks that I would be more likely than not to let her lies slide and not set the records straight with my neighbors. Or maybe she really is trying to live my life as WS thinks.

There’s also a very interesting development going on with my old job but more on that next week after I do a little investigation.

February 26, 2005

This has been a long, long day filled with lots of sunshine, good coffee, good company, and lots of writing. Chapter 7 of Cabin 4 has been uploaded. Happy reading!

We’ll be taking a writing break over the next couple of weeks due to the Roadster show preparations. Chapter 8 will debut on March 19th.

Our oldest pet at almost sixteen years old lost another tooth yesterday, leaving her with only one large lower tooth left. At least now she doesn’t have that many left to attack Maxx with. God how she hates Maxx with a burning passion. I have begun feeding her small amounts of wet food twice a day to make sure she is getting enough to eat, and I have to do this in a room well away from everyone else. Not exactly fun especially since everyone else wants to both get into the room AND get at her wet food (no one else here eats wet food). She still picks at the dry food bowl with everyone else and swallows those bits whole as usual( and every other day barfs it). Sometimes, I can’t believe she’s gotten this old with some of the antics she’s pulled over the years. I think it’s her bitterness toward the others that keeps her going.

During a writing break today, we lopped tree branches and I planted those heathers. Then we sat in the last sunny day of the month and soaked in as much as possible. The rain comes back late tomorrow for at least an entire week. Yep, I get to clean my car all over again come Wednesday. Good times…

February 28, 2005

Rain at last. We so desperately needed it and it looks like for most of the week, we’ll get it. Yeah, I know. Come Wednesday I’ll whine about having to drive my precious show car in it down into Portland for the Roadster show, and then have to re-clean the entire thing, but at this point, I could care less. The air and everything else has been so bone-dry around here, immediately after wiping down my car, it would be instantly covered with another coat of dry, dry, scratchy dust. Honestly, just knowing the rain will wash down all that dust makes me feel that driving my car in it will be a joy this time around.

Because it was dry all weekend long, it afforded me time to get some good pictures of all the early blooming bulbs coming up. Like the sweet little mini-daffodils (variety: Tete-a-Tete), mini irises (variety: Harmony), and crocus (varieties: Joan of Arc ‘white’ and Mammouth Yellow). The rose trees are starting to sprout so I moved those out to spots around the back yard from their winter protected area. Our pot of chives made it through and is sprouting bright apple green baby chives which ought to be absolutely delightful in salads or cooking.

We’ve got one rhododendron that’s got sooty mildew on it and though I’ve been spraying it with the right stuff, I don’t really see any progress. After this week of rain, it’ll get another soaking with fungicide. I spent most of yesterday doing major weeding and clean up of the fern grotto area on our east side back yard. This was technically the first area I landscaped the first spring after we moved in here. After hearing that WS had officially been diagnosed with MS, I was angry which is normal for MS spouses I’ve read, and I needed something to vent my anger on.

So I spent a good month digging in hard packed clay to create a cool sanctuary complete with mortared brick path and patio, a rock fountain, and all the ferns and plants you’d find in a wooded glen. The first two years, it was beautiful back there but then, we had underground sprinklers installed throughout the property and the sprinkler guy was less-than-careful with my ferny glen.

The following year, I misguidedly planted sweet William and blue star creeper in an attempt to cover the mess the sprinkler guy left of the ground and now, half our street has Sweet William and blue star creeper. BIG mistake. This year, my goal is to eradicate the Sweet William and curb the blue star creeper, and if I can squeeze some money out of our grocery budget, to replant all the columbines, bleeding hearts, the lupines, and delphiniums that were lost three years ago. Luckily, the only things that weren’t affected were the many varieties of ferns including a beloved maidenhair and a Japanese Painted fern.

March 1, 2005

Thank you to everyone who is reading Cabin 4. The feedback has been invaluable to date and motivational too!

I nearly forgot that I had a hair appointment today and that would have been tragic as they charge you if you are a ‘no-show”. I had my hair colored, cut, and highlighted for the first time since being unencumbered by the bonds of employment and who knows when I’ll be able to afford to do this again. But I’ll tell you what…that three-inch skunk streak of mousy-brown and gray hair I had going topside was probably scaring people left and right.

There’s nothing left to do with my car until tomorrow after I drive it down to Portland. Then, well, you know the routine. Clean, clean, clean. A guy I met last fall is also entering his brand new sports car, a screaming bright red one. I had been talking to him on and off over the past month or so about this wax and that polish techniques because he wants to get into car shows this year. Yeah, you can call me a car nerd.

He was pretty excited about entering his car in the Roadster show until his employer told him he had to go out of town on a business trip tomorrow. Not wanting to give up this chance, he elected his wife to drive his car down and clean it. Luckily, she knows how to drive it (at least I am choosing to assume so… but just in case, I’m going to have her drive in FRONT of me, not behind me), and he emailed me asking if I would give her pointers on cleaning it once we all got there. Since he hasn’t had the car long enough to participate in any car shows, he hasn’t had the opportunity to train her on how to clean it and in the car circles I find myself around, ALL the wives learn to clean and make some area of the cars their own. This is usually the interior, but this guy’s wife is going to have to learn how to clean the whole enchilada, just like I do. Ought to be fun, but I can say this: If she learns how to clean it real good for this, the biggest car show of the year, any show after this will be a breeze for her. Who knows? Maybe she’ll be able to teach him a thing or two. But my vote is that she’ll find all sorts of reasons to never go to another car show again as long as she lives, just so she’ll never have to do all that work again.

It was supposed to rain today. Torrents of rain was promised. It’s been sunny and dry, a vast difference from yesterday’s clouds and showers. Tomorrow it’s supposed to rain some more, like today, but will it?

March 2, 2005

It rained last night and the roads are soaked. The clouds are breaking up and the sun is starting to shine though I doubt it will dry the roads in time for me to take off for Portland. I don’t mind. It’s going to be a long day, too long to get upset over anything.

I had the mother of all headaches last night and at one point, I feared I was going to have a stroke, which, by the way, is how my mother went. Mine was purely tension based that turned into a migraine of sorts. I was so glad I had already done everything earlier in the day because I couldn’t do a thing last night except roll around in bed. I feel fine this morning and I’m glad I got that out of my system.

We learned today that SportsOrNothing next door will be putting their house up for sale this coming summer. The kids are going off to college and they want to be close to their boy whom they are still certain will become a world famous sports superstar and support them for the rest of their lives. Personally, I think the kid will impregnate several someone’s first and the parents will divorce based on loads of stuff I’ve heard from over there (remember, their house IS only fifteen feet away), but that’s just my opinion.

Leona, wife to DrunkTank Willie, who used to live next door saw us out front the other day and stopped by briefly in her new SUV. She invited us to stop by their spread out in the country some thirty miles up the road, and that was nice and all, but after all the damage DrunkTank Willie did with his rumors and outright lies about everyone in this neighborhood when they lived here, about the LAST place we would ever visit would be anywhere that he lives.

And finally, I’ve confirmed that the Big-Ass Corporation is shutting down The Company office headquarters and laying off anyone who isn’t willing to move. And move where, you might ask? Well, surprise, surprise. How about an hour and a half away from where we live. How’s that for a slap in the face? But it gets better.

- Most of my ex-coworkers there bought houses in the last two to three years and feel they can’t really move.
- Only one of them wants to move from sunny San Diego to Hillsboro, Oregon and who could blame those sun-worshippers anyway?
- Hillsboro, Oregon has an extremely high crime rate.
- Absolute NO moving or travel expenses will be paid for if they decide to move up here.
- All employees who do move get an automatic 10 percent pay cut because the cost of living is so much lower here than there.
- Two weeks severance pay for anyone who chooses not to move and opts to be laid off. At least I was offered two months but we’ve yet to see it.
- Absolutely no break on commute time or gas allowance will be given for anyone who already lives here. The traffic coming and going from Hillsboro is brutal to put it mildly. (My commute time out there would over two hours during peak rush hour traffic followed by over two hours back home.)

And the best part? MsNoManagementSkills is first in line for a big job and promotion at the new support center. Of course, she doesn’t really want to work at all and she is scared to death of driving and traffic, AND she does have that whole kitchen utensil home show thing going now (and I’m pretty sure the Big-Ass Corporation doesn’t really like it’s employees working multiple jobs, especially since she seems to be doing a lot of it when she’s supposed to be logged into work…).

Yeah, what I’ve got going on today ain’t so bad.

March 4, 2005

THAT was an exhausting couple of days but boy, oh boy, does my car look good inside the Portland Convention center. It was even on TV this morning on Fox’s KPTV12 news as a backdrop for an interview from the Portland Roadster show. I know I’m such a car nerd but when I saw the interview, which WS recorded, I wept, and as soon as we can figure out how to get that video clip from the PVR to one of our computers, you’ll get to see it too.

Okay, enough of car stuff (except to mention that judging should be completely over by now but I won’t find out results until Sunday night after 7 pm), it was cold and foggy here this morning but just an hour ago, the sunny popped out and the weather people swear it’s going to be 70 degrees F. by tomorrow. I think it’s time to drag out the water hoses since we only got about three hours worth of rain over the past few days when we were supposed to get at least three DAYS worth. Tuesday afternoon, I planted six Indian Hawthorn shrubs in back to fill in a couple of horribly ugly empty spots where something or other had died or had to be moved due to size issues. And without those three days of rain, I’m willing to bet they are drying out a bit.

I really like Indian Hawthorn (Rhaphiolepis indica, variety: Ballerina”), especially for their flowers in the spring and their evergreen leaves during the winter. The butterflies and birds love them too. I planted two around the fountain two years ago and it’s really behaved itself beautifully, and I haven’t needed to prune them at all. In fact, it’s possible that I might be able to talk WS into finagling a way to allow us to pick up three or four more for that last big empty spot in the back, since I’m pretty sure I’m never going to re-locate the true burgundy Rhododendrons that I fell in love with four years ago (variety name started with the letter “O”) that I originally planned to plant in that spot. As the last area in the back yard to be planted, I’m at the point of just wanting to get it done and over with. But I am being very mindful of our budget and I’m also not willing to compromise that. I can live within our means.

March 5, 2005

It should be a fairly low-key day today. I got busy watering the back yard this morning and cleaning the big patio table. We’re thinking of going to Lowe’s for some home improvement so WS can fix our kitchen faucet sprayer finally, and I need a 5/16th wrench for my car battery connection, and Lowe’s does have the best Indian Hawthorn plants on sale right now…

Late this afternoon, I’m thinking of going to the Convention center to check on my car. I do have a free three-day pass to get in, but I’ll have to pay for parking which is never fun finding down there. Tomorrow evening is awards and again, I really don’t care about winning anything but I have to go to this. Just having participated meant everything to me.

We’re going to have a big cheese, meats, crackers, and wine kind of dinner tonight, mostly because I’m trying to use up the cocktail crackers and rye breads we have left over from the holidays, and because it’s quick, easy, and we like cheese and crackers.

We finally got our severance checks from the Big-Ass Corporation. They took much more tax out than WS figured (and he tends to figure things well on the high side), but that may ensure we get a tax return next year. Our return this year is due any day now too and I think we’re going to buy a new desktop computer for ourselves. We’re still using Windows 98 and Windows 2000 systems and personally, I am sick to death of all the pop-ups I get from my favorite sites that some I have had to stop visiting for the time being. Windows XP stops pop-ups and our desktop is so old and slow, it can’t run Windows XP. Luckily, we already have the monitor, keyboard, and mouse we want so the cost will only be for the actual computer part. I think we can afford that for now.

March 7, 2005

It was almost comical watching all those hot rods, street rods, and custom cars leaving the Convention center last night in a mad dash after the Roadster show was over. What took dozens of people working meticulously for three days to set up their displays was ripped down in mere minutes. The club display I was part of was down in less than ten and I was on the road home within a half an hour after closing.

The awards ceremony was mercifully short and sweet. I took class winner in my category, something that wasn’t hard to do in the least because it ended up that I was the only person in the category. But that wasn’t why I entered; I just wanted to achieve a goofy dream of mine by participating and I loved every minute of it. Would I do it again? Probably not, I mean, I did what I wanted to do. I don’t need to keep doing it, but who knows?

The temperature was warm last night for my drive home and there hadn’t been a cloud or raindrop in the sky since last Friday morning. All I need to do is damp wipe my car and vacuum out the interior again before covering it back up making it ready to go for the official start of the real car show season in late April/early May. I can get back to my real life now, and I’m sighing a big sigh of relief.

Early this morning, there was nothing but blue skies. Since then, however, clouds have rolled in making it look dull, gloomy, and cold outside. I was looking forward to working in the yard but I might put that off until later in the week.

Next door, Ms.Dimmer confessed to us over the weekend that she has mice living in her attic, her garage, and under her house. She says it’s because of all the construction going on around our development. We know it’s because they are pigs. They are going on two months without taking any trash out on Monday garbage days and are storing it again somewhere. Luckily for us, our killer neighbor cat survived the winter and still prowls our fountain for mice appetizers, though I don’t think we’ve had any since last summer when he did such a great job wiping them out. Good kitty!

March 8, 2005

So, MsNoManagementSkills survived her 30th birthday after all. Remember, she was the one who went around openly and told people that everyone over 30 should be shot. Unfortunately, she didn’t take a gun to herself on that fateful day because I just had the misfortune of seeing her up close and personal.

She said she didn’t get the diamonds she requested for her birthday but that her new husband, DorkMaster, did buy her exactly what he wanted himself: a PDA. With her money, no less, because he doesn’t make enough to buy her anything.

She also said she’s doing fabulously with her kitchen utensil parties. She only threw one but out of all five people who showed up, every one of them booked another party and even signed up several cross-town apartment complexes for parties. But I’m sure that would last long. How many overly priced kitchen utensils can a person buy anyway?

The sun came out yesterday after all and I got most of the yard work done that I needed to do. All-in-all, the outside is in pretty good shape and I won’t need to touch any part of it again until veggie planting time, which I think will start in a couple of weeks. Talking with WS about this, we think we’ll plant a cherry tomato, a Best Boy or Girl tomato, potatoes, a red bell pepper, and replant the herb container. All of these will be planted in large pots since we don’t have any ground space or sunlight back there to plant anything any other way. Last year, the cherry tomato was a big hit, the Thai peppers finally produced a small crop by early fall, the heirloom tomato and the basil were both a bust. Someday, I’m going to plant up a big planter of lettuce but have yet had the time to do so. I love all the different kinds of lettuce and really miss our lettuce garden we had at our rental house years ago. What I don’t miss is all the baby slugs who used to race me to the harvest.

Since the Roadster show is over and I have a two month breather before any other car show comes up, I got back on the elliptical machine today. It’s been a L-O-N-G time since I used it and I can’t believe how much of a slug I’ve become. Two minutes and I’m wiped AND thinking of food again. I really need to get my personal body shit together because I’ve come to be embarrassed by my own self.

March 9, 2005

Over the past couple of days, I spent as much time outside as possible. It continues to be dry and warm and everything is in bloom. As a result, today I am bedridden with massive allergy problems and have discovered that a person really can’t get enough “Law & Order” on TV.

Thanks go out to WS who ran to the store last night to pick up some Benadryl allergy formula when I discovered we didn’t have any. That man also makes a mean grilled chicken salad and if you are ever in the area, you should look him up and have him cook for you. You won’t regret it.

Yesterday, before my nose started to slide off my face, I took some lovely flower pictures. From primroses to a white star magnolia and all the assorted bulbs coming up, yesterday was a lovely day for photos. Here you go. It’s back to bed for me.

March 10, 2005

I think I’m having a bad day and you know, if you have to say “I think…” that’s probably the sign that you truly are having a bad day.

Still no rain and warm, bordering on hot temperatures. It was 75 here today, 80 in the house with the windows open and the pollen blowing through the place. Okay, time to close things up and turn on the air conditioning because we have it. It’s only a higher electric bill, right?

WS calls and tells me that he’s got a meeting to go to this afternoon about lay offs at his job. Naturally, I start stressing. Didn’t we just go through this? YES, and it’s highly possible we’ll be going through it again, only this time, we could lose everything.

Now, what kind of company won’t tell you if your job is being eliminated but says, “Everyone who will be let go will be getting a packet via FedEx on April 1st.” Excuse me? Don’t companies even have the common courtesy to tell this kind of thing to their own employees’ faces anymore?? Oh wait…I get it. It’s not personal; it’s just business, right? Well, I’ll try to use that logic on the electric company, the water company, and the mortgage company when we can no longer pay anyone. And to think we just took out a second mortgage to pay off all the credit cards and little bills. A lot of good that did us.

Sound like I’m upset? You betcha! Makes me want to crawl under a rock and die.

March 12, 2005

Okay, I think it’s time for a little honesty around here because this is something that honestly needs to be said. Be forewarned: If you like Capri pants AND are over 5 foot 10 inches and weight not an ounce more than 118 pounds, read no further. This isn’t completely about you.

What is it with Capri pants and large women? Do we honestly think Capri pants look good on our bodies? Because if we do, it’s because someone lied to us and made us believe the lie. Capri pants are the equivalent to pink stretch bike pants of the early ‘90s: Possibly a good idea if you weigh under a hundred pounds, have a heroin problem, and stand on street corners; terribly, terribly wrong if you weigh more.

Let me tell it straight: Capri pants on large women, myself being one, makes our thighs and butt look twice, no, three times larger than they really are. Capri pants do not draw the eye down to our maybe or maybe not slender ankles. Wearing Capri pants makes us look like we’re too big and dumpy for the pants we chose to wear that day or possibly, someone sold us a pair of pants that wasn’t finished being sewn yet. And if that’s the case, I strongly recommend we all take them back to wherever we bought them and demand that they give us the rest of the pants’ legs. It’s a fashion media lie that we should all be wearing Capri pants and by buying and wearing them, you are making someone else very rich; someone who is laughing all the way to the bank with your money on your lack of fashion sense.

In closing, I implore all us large women to just say no to Capri pants this year.

Thank you.

March 13, 2005

It’s Sunday morning, 8:30 am as I type this and I’m listening to Mr. Dimmer next door start, rev, and shut off his loud diesel truck over and over again for some reason. He’s been doing this all week and is currently on number six on the number of times he has started it up. I know I’m not the only neighbor who is annoyed by the obnoxious sound. I think he thinks he’s tuning it up from inside the cab of the truck. Remember, this is the neighbor who called 911 because he couldn’t connect to the Internet. It’s also the middle of the month which means he’s either low or out of his depression medication, and if this is the case, it ought to be a interesting rest of the month. Don’t you just hate people who feel that just because they have to get up, everyone else should to?

The swallows are back and I’m happy. I tease WS about these being “his birds” because every spring, without fail, they seem to show up about the same time I’m able to get WS to sit out in the back yard with me to enjoy the morning sun. As they soar overhead, I like to think they like WS because he is very tall and he’s closer to where they fly than most of the rest of us.

It’s chilly this morning but dry and sunny once more. Half of the local weather people are forecasting rain for the second half of the coming week while the other half says it’ll only be cloudy with temps down where they should have been all along – mid to upper 50’s F. The night temps are supposed to go back to the high 30’s and low 40’s meaning summer veggie planting is still weeks away and that’s okay with me.

A new development has been planned for a forested piece of land about 1/8th a mile up the road from us and over the course of the past week, all the trees were cut down and the land scraped bare of every living thing. We’ve been seeing raccoon road kill on and off since then when we drive by on our way into town and I figure we’ll not see too many more of them or visiting squirrels for that matter over the course of the next year or two. This leaves only three small forested parcels of land left close to us and the green space behind us that only contains deciduous scrub-type trees and bushes and not many pines or evergreens. Just four years ago, we were one of only three small developments in the area. Now I’m beginning to feel that we’re practically living in the middle of town again, especially with all the traffic (which is completely outrageous now). We originally had a plan to live here between twelve and fifteen years and nearly six years are already up. I can only imagine in horror what this place is going to look like in another five years. Heck, they might even build a mall down the street. -shiver- But at least one raccoon is still with us and has been visiting nearly every night, eating the grapes I put out back and raiding the squirrel peanut box which sadly has few visitors any more.

Well, Mr. Dimmer has finally left in a wake of strong diesel stench. Time to go out and sit in the sun for a bit. Have a good Sunday.

March 14, 2005

DanG’s sweet kitty, Charlie, passed away over the weekend. He has posted a few great stories about him. Definitely worth a visit to read how special Charlie was.

Our oldest pet goes in for a broken-off tooth extraction Thursday afternoon and comes back home Saturday morning. Total unexpected cost: $433. We love our pets but we’ll be eating Top Ramin noodle mixes for half a month.

My laptop is experiencing all kinds of connectivity problems frustrating both of us to no end and as a result, I haven’t been using it for the past four two weeks. It seems our neighborhood has suddenly become full of people using wireless connections and we think someone(s) may be using the same setup as us or some technical mumbo-jumbo like that. Daily, I’m becoming more and more ecstatic over WS’s vast knowledge and paranoia about security holes, breach prevention, and firewall stuff. Me…I would never be able to figure all this stuff out and would just find out who was blocking my access to the Internet and go pound them. Obviously, diplomacy isn’t my strong point.

Warm, dry weather continues here with the once-promised rain later this week quickly becoming just a wish. Now all the local stations are saying no chance of rain before St. Patrick’s day. We’ll see and in the meantime, I’m hand watering plants. At least until the water police make me stop.

March 15, 2005

Regardless that the rest of the country is snowed in, we here in the Pacific Northwest have got to face the facts: It’s spring. Trees are leafing out, flowers are bursting out, and the birds are singing. Every single morning the birds are singing, or squawking as in the case of the blue jays around here. Yesterday, I witnessed the young stellar jay who knows how to get into the closed squirrel feeder full of peanuts in the shell, not only lift the lid and take a peanut out, but take several peanuts out, drop them to the back porch floor before swooping down to gather several at once in his mouth before flying off. This is one bright bird and if he ends up teaching everyone else in his family to do this, we’ll be spending more on squirrel/blue jay food than food for ourselves. Luckily, I have yet to see any other jays do this so I think our food budget is safe for a while longer.

Spring here also means it’s time to revamp our fireplace mantel into a spring motif. Off come the frosted-look branches, the pinecones, the snowy owl, and winter white candles and on go faux blooming bulbs in clay pots, pale hydrangea and lavender silk flowers, small Audubon and gardening books, and a feathered bird nest. A couple of crystal rose bowls with tea light candles complete the scene for spring. In May, I might swap the potted bulbs for red geraniums for a bit more color or else I’ll just wait until full-blown summer and add the potted sunflowers from last year that I liked so much.

Today’s schedule includes a bit of writing, some online investigation about a past family relative, work on the upcoming new Blogeois Photo Gallery, and the usual housework. Tonight’s scheduled dinner is Buffalo soft tacos and quesadillas. Yum.

Blogeois.com time line:

Posted a year ago: MsNoManagementSkills was making life a living hell for her coworkers because she was pissed at not getting the world for her birthday and because DorkMaster told the world that she farted in her sleep.
Posted two years ago: Another day filled with work and housecleaning chores. Laundry, vacuuming, blah, blah, blah.
Posted five years ago: I was soul searching and feeling low about WS who was in the process of being officially diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. He was in the middle of a bad exacerbation and could barely walk. I had only slept about four hours total in a week’s time.

March 16, 2005

It’s cloudy today and all weather reports say it’s raining everywhere except here. We’re in a big pocket of dry that’s not supposed to change anytime soon. Sigh. It’s windy too but that’s a nice change from dry and warm. The wind is blowing all the flower petals off the neighborhood flowering plum trees, filling the air with pink confetti and making a high-pitched whistle bleed in through our latched windows.

Hoards of pine siskins have been raiding the bird feeders today and taking baths in the fountain. They know how to party when the weather changes. And there have been a larger than normal amount of hawks patrolling the area in the last week or two. All kinds of hawks and in fact, last weekend, while we were sitting out back at the patio table, a small hawk chasing a bird flew up Cap’t Dan’s yard and almost directly flew into WS’s back. It pulled up and away at the last minute but still brushed the vine maple WS was sitting next to. I’ll admit it, I flinched. Nothing like seeing bright yellow claws coming right at the person you love though I’m pretty sure the hawk would have had a hard time carrying WS off had it latched onto him.

Lots of spring flowers coming into bloom including creeping Phlox, early azaleas, and my favorite daffodil variety “Tahiti” which should be fully open by the weekend. And one of our daylilies already has a flower spike coming up. And I thought they bloomed early last year. Normally, they start sending up flowers in mid-May thru July. Last year, we had them in April. What is it now? Mid-March? Yeah, it’s early, the weather is screwy, and all this odd weather is probably a good basis for a decent science fiction/horror story…but not from me. Cabin 4 will resume this coming Saturday and there are some entertaining chapters coming up.

I’m going to a car club meeting tonight just to see what happens in the aftermath of a major car show. I suspect no one will talk about it, or care really how anyone did. This club is like that with so many people no longer interested in car shows and more interested in driving to some local winery and getting drunk instead, which is definitely not my cup of tea. I don’t really understand that mentality other than to notice that everyone who does this is at least ten years older than me (and I’ll be 49 this year) and tends to have the attitude of “I’ve done my time in life, it’s time for me to do whatever I want to do.”

Tonight’s dinner is Kung Pao chicken made with the Sun Luck packet mix and all the veggies in our fridge. After I get home from the meeting, we’ll cue up “The Incredibles” DVD that WS picked up last night. He’s wanted to see this for so long and I think it’s going to be a hoot!

March 18, 2005

Yeah I know. I didn’t post yesterday. It was St. Patrick’s day, a day that means nothing to me. Blame all those cruel kids who took the pinching thing a bit too far back in grade/high school.

We got rain here Wednesday evening, not terribly much, but enough so I’m not worried about plants or the lawn dying. Miracle of miracles: We expected to get more rain starting early tomorrow morning and…hold your hat…it’s supposed to rain right here for the next four days. Woo hoo! Okay, so it won’t be enough to make up for anything since we’re already something like nine (9) inches behind for the year because California got it all last month, but I can live with it for now.

This morning, WS had to take his car into the shop so they could fix something the mechanic screwed up last month; when you open the driver’s door, it sounds like the door is either going to fall off or is bending metal in a most unflatteringly LOUD way. There ain’t nothing like driving a nice, snooty, yuppy car and having it sound like it’s a piece of shit. And speaking of that, I have to take my car in to the dealership to get the oil changed and belt tensioner replaced for the second time. Again, nothing like driving an expensive sports car around town with the belts squealing like a stuck pig. Ahem.

Last night’s dinner was Grilled Chicken Alfredo and a side salad. We used the Ragu Carb-Smart Alfredo sauce mixed with a little aged, freshly grated parmesan cheese that we’ve had a hunk of buried deep in the lower refrigerator drawer for the last ten months. It thickened up the sauce, which is normally fairly runny. With dinner, I opened one of our last Italian bottled waters that I’ve been saving and then, in a moment of melancholy, I decided to make Cosmopolitans as well, using the last of our Grey Goose vodka and a recipe I saw in a recent Vanity Fair magazine.

3 parts vodka
½ part Cointreau (orange liquor) or Grand Marnier
Splash of cranberry juice
Splash of lime juice
Slice of lime

Unfortunately, this recipe was for a bigger glass than the one I had at hand so it was mostly straight vodka, and on a mostly empty stomach…well, let’s just agree that I was quite talkative and animated last night, sniffle-y nose and all from consuming so much cheese with dinner, but I slept pretty well. I’ve come to like the idea of drinking Cosmopolitans lately and so, I’ll need to work on that recipe which I am certain is a subtle marketing attempt to get consumer whores like me to use up more vodka that I normally ever do just so I’ll have to buy more.

Tonight’s dinner is Buffalo Manicotti with Italian tomato sauce base and steamed veggies. If we can remember to go buy a wine bottle opener today (ours gave up the ghost a couple of weeks ago), we’ll probably open something dark and woody like an old bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon to go with it.

March 19, 2005

The next chapter of Cabin 4 is up. There’s a little bit of back story on Pete, John & Marie are back at the hotel, solemn and unable to leave town to continue their vacation until they are cleared by Sheriff O’Neil who is back at Ella’s burned cottage investigating how the fire started and what’s going on with the huge clearing in the forest behind the cottage.

Last night’s dinner turned out much better than I could have hoped. Only two things could have possibly made it spectacular: if Mary Lou and lostdawill would have shown up on our doorstep, and if a crew of cute Italian guys were on hand to clean up the kitchen afterward. Naw, skip the Italian guys; we have a system of cleaning up after dinner that makes it fast and easy.

The wine we had with our Buffalo Manicotti was something I found at a local wine shop where we stopped earlier in the day to find a new corkscrew. It was the label that caught my attention because it has a Right whale on it and I liked whales so much at one time that I once thought to go to college to get a marine biology degree specifically to study them. (I never did.)

It was a red, earthy yet fruity Southern Right Cellars Pinotage, vintage 2002, from the Hemel En-Aarde valley in Western Cape Hope in South Africa, a region that we’ve found to have both some very good wines and some not-so-good wines, depending entirely on the year and the weather there. The winery is located just 3kms from the cold Atlantic Ocean and they donate a portion of every bottle sold to the conservation of the rare Southern Right whales, a delightful informational tidbit we didn’t know before we bought the wine, which was $14.99. Anyway, it was pretty darn good and really good with the tomato-sauce based manicotti. A Cabernet Sauvignon out of our closet collection couldn’t have been any better.

I got some good shots of some of my favorite daffodils yesterday before the rain came in and I’ll post those pictures tomorrow. Enjoy Cabin 4!

March 20, 2005

A lazy, rainy day here at home, the drops softly pattering on our library window from the dark gray clouds that have shrouded our area since early Saturday morning. The sound is so relaxing that I’ve nearly decided to take a nap a few times today, something I don’t want to get into the habit of doing because that is one that is murder for me to break. Years and years ago, I too easily fell into the habit of taking a “brief” afternoon nap everyday but weekends and to this day, I swear, a person has got to have a better time of coming off heroin that one of daily naps. The other day, I was reading through my earliest hand-written journals when I napped regularly and only now could I see why I was having such a bad time with insomnia. Duh.

A friend and coworker of WS recently gave him CDs full of photos she took on a recent trip through Italy (oh, to dream of such a thing!) and he showed them to me today. Heavenly! I’ll post some of the more spectacular ones in the coming months. Quite a number of them would make perfect puzzles or great calendar photos we think.

But in the meantime, here’s a few more flower and garden shots from around here. The blue hyacinth is from a batch that we planted with a pair of dwarf Alberta spruce in resin pots that stood flanking our garage door. When the spruces got too big for the pots because let’s face it, even dwarf spruces get big after a while, we planted them back alongside the fountain with the bulbs still lost amongst the potting soil and root balls.

The others are my beloved “Tahiti” daffodil and a yellow-cupped variety called, “Passionale”. The yellow-cup of Passionale slowly turns pale pink after a couple of days and as long as the sun doesn’t get to it for too long, this daffodil will last for a week or more in the garden.

Also, here is a shot of where I planted most of those Indian Hawthorns in back under and behind the star magnolia. I think they look nice together although I think the Indian Hawthorns usually don’t bloom for another month or two. These were fresh from a greenhouse somewhere and already in full bud when I bought them a couple of weeks ago from Lowe’s.

March 21, 2005

Happy birthday to my very first serious boyfriend. He’ll be 49 today, wherever he is. Oh, and Greg, I knew you were screwing Mary behind my back all along. From what I last heard, you really did get what was coming to you. Some people just never learn.

MsEars attended a kitchen party thrown by a neighbor and presented by MsNoManagementSkills over the weekend just up the street from us. I heard this morning that MsNo thought she’d be able to take this neighborhood by storm with her kitchen utensil parties but it turns out, there is another kitchen utensil seller that lives just a few doors down from her. The last thing people want to hear about is yet another home party where everyone is expected to buy over-priced crap. Looks like MsNo won’t be making a killing around here anytime soon.

According to MsEars, things did not go smoothly at the party MsNo did do over the weekend. Most invitees didn’t show up, hardly anyone bought anything or booked parties of their own (big surprise there), and MsNo was visibly nauseous most of the time. Just what I’d want: Someone looking like they are going to barf any second on the food she prepared and then expects me to eat. Ugh. But then again, MsNo admits she’s no cook.

In other news, I received an email from Drill Sergeant Dave’s ex-wife the other day, telling me that she and the nice Competition Boy got married on the coast in February and that they weren’t going to do any car shows this year. That’s nice and sad at the same time because while I’m happy for them, I know the nice Competition Boy really likes showing his sports car. I wonder what’s up with that. I didn’t reply to that email because of a miscommunication I had with WS at the time: I thought he was going to reply. He probably thought I was going to reply. It was confusing.

Then last night, I got a second email, this time from the nice Competition Boy saying he was going to do car shows this year after all and asked if I was going to the tulip festival show next weekend. Not sure what’s up with that, but no, I’m not going to that show and I’ll reply back to him later in the week saying so as well as congratulating them on their marriage. I seriously doubt I will see much of them in the upcoming show season between me not attending as many shows and them probably not wanting to attend the ones I may attend. It’s complicated and a stupid political clique-type thing that I abhor. Why can’t people just get along for once??

Regrettably, the rain here stopped late last night and it’s been cloudy/sunny/cloudy/sunny all day, about like our Internet connection – Up/down/up/down. Looks like rain is forecast for next weekend (another reason not to attend that tulip festival car show). The temps are back down in the upper 50’s F where they should have been for the past month and the night temps are nearly back down to freezing. Not a good time to buy veggie seedlings just yet. Another couple of weeks maybe before the hunt for the perfect tomato plants begin.

Tomorrow, pictures from the spring hunt for fountain mice. Our friendly neighborhood mouse hunter is back and taking his job very seriously!

March 22, 2005

So it’s official: Our fountain has mice again. I saw one large one this morning, not that I didn’t expect to see a few again because, after all, The Dimmers next door haven’t set out any trash or recycling to be picked up since Christmas and Ms. Dimmer did tell us they had mice in their attic, sub-floor, and garage. Over the past few days, our neighborhood mouse hunter has been sniffing around our fountain rocks fairly intently and I’m certain he knows something is scampering around in there. It’ll just be a matter of time before he’ll find and get them.

At the community mailbox this morning, MsEars mentioned that MsNoManagementSkills is starting to drive a few neighbors insane with her phone calls. Apparently, MsNo has made some good friends with a few of them and is now calling them a couple of times a day to talk about kid stuff, joining the PTA, and constantly using her latest lingo annoyance, saying “It would have been NICE if so and so had told me this blah, blah, blah….” MsEars says she herself heard MsNo say “It would have been NICE if…” no less than ten times at the kitchen utensil party over the weekend, complaining about something or another each time she said it. Most of the complaints were over stuff that EVERYONE already knows or things that if she had only bothered to inquiry about, she’d have nothing to complain about. Gee, the world just isn’t breaking down her door to make sure she knows about everything and it isn’t treating her fair I guess. I think she’s starting to realize that no, the universe doesn’t revolve around her and I know, I’m just all broke up over it.

Still, I know exactly how annoying MsNo can sound when she gets some word or phrase stuck in her head and says it over and over again. It’s like some of the people you’d expect to see on the “Maury” show; the ones who say “Ya know wha’ I mean, ya know wha’ I mean” over and over again, or “Whatever! Whatever!” That was exactly what MsNo used to do when we had those god-awful conference calls every week at work. At least, she isn’t saying “hella” or “that’s just CRAZY!” or “You know what I’m sayin’…” every thirty seconds like she used to, I warned MsEars and she laughed because she’s already heard enough “That’s just CRAZY!” out of MsNo to start making a gagging face whenever she hears it. I sure am glad it wasn’t just me who was driven stark raving bonkers by that woman and boy, am I glad I don’t have to listen to it anymore, Ya know wha’ I mean?

Buffalo chili soft tacos tonight for dinner, made from the left over Buffalo chili we made yesterday. With fresh lettuce, chopped tomato, onion, and diced fresh jalapeno, a sprinkle of grated cheese and a dollop of sour cream, these are so good. Tomorrow night, we go to a local Mexican food restaurant that we call “Church of Beer” because it was formerly a church and formerly a brew pub, to have dinner with some of the new car club people. The Mexican food restaurant isn’t that good and the service positively sucks, but the company ought to be entertaining and that’s why I’m going.

Tomorrow, why I’m becoming “Flame Woman” and my adventures with HRT.

March 23, 2005

A couple more varieties of daffodil are opening up here, the late March bloomers like “Geranium”, a variety I love because it smells like the paperwhites we cherish so much during the winter months, “Unique”, a multi-petal white and bright yellow number, and “Ice King”, which opens white with a yellow cup that slowly turns white itself. I like the name Ice King for a reason that may become apparent a bit further along in this entry.

It’s been cold and windy here since Sunday night; outside, that is. Inside, it’s hot. Or to be more specific, I’m hot, and not in that Jennifer Aniston/Jennifer Lopez kind of way either. It’s the menopause kind of hot since I had Emil, Hubert, and my ovaries removed exactly six months ago today, and a month since I stopped taking the horrible hormone replacement therapy (HRT) drugs they gave me that made me feel like an itchy, befuddled, obsessed with the thought of food zombie.

Let me explain first about the HRT drugs: Immediately after surgery, while I laid in that hospital bed and because as you may recall, I don’t do well on most medication, I cut (actually, bit with my teeth) all my hormone replacement therapy pills in half and only took a half a pill every day. My doctor said this was perfectly fine but he wanted me to take them for five years regardless.

A week later after I got home, I saw a big report on our local news station about how dangerous some HRT medications were and this turned out to be the exact kind of drug I was taking. Okay, I thought, so when do I believe anything I see on TV? Uh, never, and so I kept taking them. A month later, NBC Dateline did a big report on the same thing and I start thinking about stopping my HRT medication sometime in the future. In the meantime, I start investigating regular naturally occurring menopause, instant menopause (surgical removal of ovaries with a hysterectomy), and both synthetic hormone replacement therapy and natural replacement therapy.

I also investigated why menopause symptoms happen and all the kinds of symptoms a woman can have. And I feel extremely fortunate to only experience a couple – hot flashes, weight gain, and a heightened level of allergy symptoms. I don’t get cranky (unless I have another day like last Monday when absolutely NOTHING went right and a pet was determined to drive me insane with her yowling), I don’t throw things, and I don’t act like I have the worse case of PMS ever recorded.

I discovered that wheat, that’s right, wheat consumed by menopausal women and post-menopausal women inhibits absorption of calcium (as does any soda pop) hence, osteoporosis sets in. Wheat consumption also heightens menopause symptoms such as the hot flashes. No wonder I feel like I’ve been a walking flame ball lately. A day without wheat is a day without a bagel or muffin, or most cereal, or pancakes, or a sandwich or pasta, pizza, tortillas, or half of the desserts on the planet, not that I eat dessert usually but I do like half of that other stuff. Wheat surrounds us and surrounds me and I’m going to have a hard time cutting most of it out. But I will if it means I can go through an entire day without feeling like I’m going to spontaneously combust at any second.

Now, here’s another interesting part: Last week, I received a letter from my health care provider saying they wanted all their menopausal women to wean themselves off hormone replacement therapy medication if at all possible within six months due to the serious health risks. I suspect it’s really to save their asses when women and their families start suing health care providers and doctors for insisting that we take the stuff long-term in the first place, but that’s just my opinion. The letter said that those women who cannot live without hormone replacement medication, and I do know there are many, they are asked to try every six months to wean themselves off again. The letter then listed the various health risks and I’m a potential candidate for at least three of the five more serious ones: Stroke, Gallbladder disease, and Alzheimer’s, all forefront in my family.

The letter also mirrored what I discovered with my own investigation: Stopping HRT will cause symptoms like hot flashes to return in force, but that the symptoms will diminish within six to twelve months as a woman’s body naturally gathers estrogen from other sources in her body.

So, I got six to twelve months of “FLAME ON!” Six to twelve months of sleeping in the nude with a thin sheet over a small part of me while a fan blows directly on me every single night and WS shivers under a sheet, a coverlet, and a medium/heavy weight down comforter next to his own personal habenero pepper. Six to twelve months of feeling fairly certain that the jalapenos we buy fresh from our grocery store have nothing, NOTHING, over me. Six to twelve months of sweating in public places like a big, huge, uncomfortable sweaty thing, feeling the trickle of sweat running down my neck, down my back, and off the saggy bottoms of my breasts. Six to twelve months of a red face and damp limp hair. Hmm, okay. Sounds a lot like how I feel when I’m working on my car during a car show. I can handle this. No problem.

But in the meantime, you can call me Ms. Fire ball.

March 24, 2005

I awoke amid odd dreams to the sight of three, screaming-yellow Goldfinches in my feeder this morning. This is definitely the earliest I ever seen them here by easily three weeks. I’m so glad they’re back and wonder sometimes, how they find our backyard. By chance or are any of them past visitors?

I finally replied to the nice Competition Boy yesterday afternoon and told him that I wasn’t going to the Tulip festival car show. He replied this morning in a snarky kind of way, I thought:

“Sorry you won’t be at the Tulip Festival, made ALOT of modifications this past winter. The biggest one was getting married to [Drill Sergeant Dave’s ex-wife] last month. Neither of us has been happier in life than we are now. She inspired me to move on with my car. I did things I didn’t know I was capable of doing…things some have never seen or dreamed of.(are you curious yet?). If anyone from the new car club you belong to now goes, I’m sure you’ll hear about it.”

Okay, so he probably installed a supercharger and scissor doors or something like that. Whatever. I’m glad he’s back into his car and car shows because I know he loves it. But I also remember how put out, angry, and semi-violent he became last summer when he lost over and over again and I honestly hope he doesn’t lose again this year. Or gets a grip and learns sportsmanship. I’m sure whatever he’s done to his car will make mine look downright boring and non-descript now, but I’ve never really had a problem with losing. Car shows are so political and clique-ish anyway. Knock yourself out, I say, just have fun either way.

I depressed myself yesterday afternoon, almost on purpose, and I’m trying hard not to let it continue today. Going to the mailbox, I inadvertently ran into MsNoManagementSkills, because I chose not to turn away and ignore her walking toward me, and she went on and on about her plan to suck as much unemployment benefits as she could come May when she is laid off from the Big Ass Corporation (that laid me off in January) while working her kitchen utensil shows (which I would have thought was illegal to do) and that she didn’t plan on looking for a real job, all the while smugly asking me if I had got a new job yet. I told her no, that WS assures me that I don’t really need to yet, but that didn’t prevent me from looking high and low the rest of the day online at Monster.com, Personnel Source.com, Jobdango.com, my local government, my local newspaper online, and a myriad of other places I have been bookmarking since last November.

During my looksie, which wasn’t really a search for an actual job just yet (I was getting a feel for the lay of the land), I was reminded that WS’s chances of getting a “volunteer lay off packet” in the mail on April 1st from his REAL job are running at about 99.3% likelihood that he will get one. That’s about a week from now and by May-something, I ought to know for sure if I have to get a job again and how quickly I’ll need to find one. In the meantime, I probably ought to learn Excel for the first time ever (no joy there, I’m sure) and learn it well, as well as brush up on MS Word so if I have to, I could go back to wearing business whore clothing and working out of someone’s local office for nine bucks an hour, which is the going rate around here, and which is only marginally better than working at the local Taco Bell where one still has to wear business whore clothing in the disguise of a hot and scratchy polyester uniform, get paid eight dollars an hour, and come home smelling like refried beans.

I did say I was going to try not to depress myself again today, didn’t I? Well then, let’s touch on one more thing before I go. Over the past couple of months, I had been trying to get my photo gallery up but can’t figure out why it doesn’t work right. In the meantime, I had been checking out “Flickr”, a photo gallery site that does a SUPER job of doing exactly what I was looking for.

Last weekend, I gave up on my gallery and plugged my photos into Flickr and posted the link under Photo Gallery over there on the left sidebar. I like it for the time being, especially the slideshow (not done in a new window, however).

Yesterday, I learned that the Big Ass Corporation is purchasing Flickr, and although Flickr is publicly saying nothing will change with their company, we all know better, don’t we? Sad, so very sad.

March 25, 2005

Really, I must stop doing this to myself. I’m talking about getting depressed over some silly thing. Much like the weather here in the Pacific Northwestern part of the U.S., my usual April month of depression seems to have started early this year, and I was so hoping to avoid that whole thing this year.

Last night, WS and I investigated with a fair amount of depth what it would take for us to move permanently to Canada, preferably the BC area, and to a country we both have come to like immensely and love dreaming about being a part of somehow.

A recent ex-coworker of WS’s is living in Calgary, writing screenplays for a living because he needed to move to where the demand is, whatever that means. Who knew Calgary was a screenplay hotbed?

Another coworker who was born in Canada, but moved here, got married, and has raised a family for years, is thinking of moving to Vancouver, and Under Canada’s immigration Family Support category, they should have no problem moving there.

And so, we went online and took the National test for the Immigration Skilled Worker category method (the only category we’d qualify for), I received a score of 65, WS, easily the smarter one in this household, got an even lower score of 62. Minimum score requirement is 67 which leads us to only one heart-dropping conclusion: Canada doesn’t want us.

Oh Canada…sniffle…On ne l’a pas censé être.

The nice Competition Boy emailed me back yesterday, affirming that yes, he did do all those things to his car that I asked him about (see yesterday’s entry) and then some. Good for him. Spent his retirement money doing it. Okay….not the smartest move in my opinion but, whatever I guess.

Cabin 4 is coming along swimmingly. New material goes up tomorrow morning and I’m hoping we can take an actual trip soon to the area this story is based within along the coast. It’s too bad we’re not already making money off writing because if we were, I think location research trips are tax deductible.

Okay, something positive: We ran to Home Depot this morning because there is a new one nearby and bought additional home security items because we’re paranoid that way. We also watched several episodes of “It Takes a Thief” on TV a week or so ago and although we’re pretty secure here, there was an area that we weren’t. Later tonight, that will be fixed permanently.

When we were at Home Depot, they had just got in loads of bright red and magenta geraniums and I bought ten bright red ones. We had a dozen or more of them planted here and there last year and they did exceptionally well. After getting home, I got right to work potting them up, and I even planted the last daylily I had in a pot from last year, meaning two things: I now only have veggies and two huge pots of Asiatic lilies left to plant, and…only one spot left to plant on our entire property. Yes, after five and a half years, I have nearly filled every square foot with something green. A big ten or twenty gallon Rhododendron would nicely fill that last spot but I’m not rushing out to buy one just yet. It’s likely that if I just wait another year, the spot will be filled in by a couple of those Indian Hawthorns I just planted last week, so I’m waiting. It’s not like the spot is some gaping hole or something.

That’s not to say I don’t still have garden projects because I do. I WILL re-varnish the ENTIRE fence this year. I will find the money and time to finish the retaining wall project, then to be followed by the every-other-year fresh wood chip chore (seven yards is the magic number this year), and I will find, pay for, and have delivered a huge ceramic pot to transplant my black bamboo into before hauling it back indoors and upstairs into our bedroom to hopefully start re-growing. I will start mowing and edging our grass again when our contract with the lawn guy, Spencer, is up in May, and I will learn how to prune AND shape most everything we have here. I will buy more gray brick to complete the west side area where our trash cans sit and get rid of all the crap that is currently sitting there attracting every slug in the neighborhood. And, I WILL look up, photograph, and categorize every single plant we have here and post it here so that any gardening bloggers who might be interested can see what I’ve got and how it grows in this climate.

Big projects, very big projects coming up, but I know that if I just work on a little bit here and there, I won’t overwhelm myself and I’ll finish them all.

March 25, 2005

Really, I must stop doing this to myself. I’m talking about getting depressed over some silly thing. Much like the weather here in the Pacific Northwestern part of the U.S., my usual April month of depression seems to have started early this year, and I was so hoping to avoid that whole thing this year.

Last night, WS and I investigated with a fair amount of depth what it would take for us to move permanently to Canada, preferably the BC area, and to a country we both have come to like immensely and love dreaming about being a part of somehow.

A recent ex-coworker of WS’s is living in Calgary, writing screenplays for a living because he needed to move to where the demand is, whatever that means. Who knew Calgary was a screenplay hotbed?

Another coworker who was born in Canada, but moved here, got married, and has raised a family for years, is thinking of moving to Vancouver, and Under Canada’s immigration Family Support category, they should have no problem moving there.

And so, we went online and took the National test for the Immigration Skilled Worker category method (the only category we’d qualify for), I received a score of 65, WS, easily the smarter one in this household, got an even lower score of 62. Minimum score requirement is 67 which leads us to only one heart-dropping conclusion: Canada doesn’t want us.

Oh Canada…sniffle…On ne l’a pas censé être.

The nice Competition Boy emailed me back yesterday, affirming that yes, he did do all those things to his car that I asked him about (see yesterday’s entry) and then some. Good for him. Spent his retirement money doing it. Okay….not the smartest move in my opinion but, whatever I guess.

Cabin 4 is coming along swimmingly. New material goes up tomorrow morning and I’m hoping we can take an actual trip soon to the area this story is based within along the coast. It’s too bad we’re not already making money off writing because if we were, I think location research trips are tax deductible.

Okay, something positive: We ran to Home Depot this morning because there is a new one nearby and bought additional home security items because we’re paranoid that way. We also watched several episodes of “It Takes a Thief” on TV a week or so ago and although we’re pretty secure here, there was an area that we weren’t. Later tonight, that will be fixed permanently.

When we were at Home Depot, they had just got in loads of bright red and magenta geraniums and I bought ten bright red ones. We had a dozen or more of them planted here and there last year and they did exceptionally well. After getting home, I got right to work potting them up, and I even planted the last daylily I had in a pot from last year, meaning two things: I now only have veggies and two huge pots of Asiatic lilies left to plant, and…only one spot left to plant on our entire property. Yes, after five and a half years, I have nearly filled every square foot with something green. A big ten or twenty gallon Rhododendron would nicely fill that last spot but I’m not rushing out to buy one just yet. It’s likely that if I just wait another year, the spot will be filled in by a couple of those Indian Hawthorns I just planted last week, so I’m waiting. It’s not like the spot is some gaping hole or something.

That’s not to say I don’t still have garden projects because I do. I WILL re-varnish the ENTIRE fence this year. I will find the money and time to finish the retaining wall project, then to be followed by the every-other-year fresh wood chip chore (seven yards is the magic number this year), and I will find, pay for, and have delivered a huge ceramic pot to transplant my black bamboo into before hauling it back indoors and upstairs into our bedroom to hopefully start re-growing. I will start mowing and edging our grass again when our contract with the lawn guy, Spencer, is up in May, and I will learn how to prune AND shape most everything we have here. I will buy more gray brick to complete the west side area where our trash cans sit and get rid of all the crap that is currently sitting there attracting every slug in the neighborhood. And, I WILL look up, photograph, and categorize every single plant we have here and post it here so that any gardening bloggers who might be interested can see what I’ve got and how it grows in this climate.

Big projects, very big projects coming up, but I know that if I just work on a little bit here and there, I won’t overwhelm myself and I’ll finish them all. Unless I have to go back to work, and well, then I’ll just get them done whenever I get them done. I’m happy with that.

March 26, 2005

Okay, it’ll be a better day today, because I say it will be. Chapter 9 of Cabin 4 is up and at the end of it, there is a little surprise in the form of a link to Chapter 10. Yep, two chapters this weekend. We’re starting to get so excited about this story that our little fingers were just flying this week. Happy reading! And happy Easter tomorrow. Click here for a happy little Easter ditty.

March 28, 2005

It’s Monday and very Spring Pacific NW-ish outside which equates to rain, sun, rain, sun, rain AND sun which means it’ll rain again tomorrow. Rain is good. Rain is our friend. We’re welcoming the rain. Bring it.

Question: Does it mean anything when a reoccurring dream consists of being enrolled in college but forgetting when and where your classes are? Panic, fear, and frustration ensue. I keep having this dream over and over again, about once a month or so for the past few years. I’ve got to believe something is trying to tell me or remind me of something but having a clue as to what.

Last Saturday, around 9 in the morning, I drove across town to attend a work day the new car club I’m in threw at someone’s house to help tear apart an old car that they plan on raffling off come next September. Not many people were there; far less than the number who said they would be and I figured this was due to the rain. We were getting buckets of it all day Saturday and to be honest, people were driving like complete idiots who had never seen rain before. WS stayed home and fixed both the kitchen sink sprayer and installed a dead bolt on the last remaining door that didn’t have one.

When I was over there at the work day, it was clear that, for a change, there were too many Indians and not enough Chiefs. Guys were ripping stuff out of the car’s dead engine left and right and generations-old oily parts were thrown about here and there. Only three women showed up: Myself and two others who came with their husband/boyfriend, and one immediately left to go shopping at a local mall. The other alternated between taking pictures with her new camera and asking me if I thought we should go fix “the boys” lunch anytime soon.

I’ll admit I’m not a girly-girl in the least. I don’t talk babies. I don’t talk recipes. And I don’t talk shopping and throughout my entire life, I’ve found that this basically eliminates any semblance of connectivity I might have with my fellow sisters. I like cars. I like car stuff. And I don’t mind getting my hands dirty. But this was a new group of people, a group I had yet to hang around with and I did want to make a good impression, one that said, “I care, I’m not dainty, and I don’t sit on my ass.”

So what did I do? Why, I got in there and handed the guys tools, put oily parts in the parts box, and swept the floor every time they raised the car back up on the hoist while trying to avoid talking to the woman who was planning how many diagonally cut sandwiches (with the foo-foo cellophane-topped toothpicks inserted in each one), sides of potato salad, and length-wise cut pickle slices she thought each guy would consume, because that was basically all I could do. Remember, too many Indians. Simply put, there weren’t enough tools and not enough room with all those burly, Sears Craftsman tool-toting, greasy men in the way.

Three hours later, I came up with an excuse to leave, because *sarcastic mode on: I was having way too much fun and who wouldn’t be?

I drove right home, again in the pouring rain, and immediately washed my hands, my face, and even rewashed my hair. Then I changed clothes and washed the ones I had worn over there. For some reason, I felt “dirty” after leaving, and I’m not talking about grease under my nails dirty. The time spent there felt odd, unclean somehow, and the feeling lasted most of the rest of the day.

I don’t think I go back to another one of these.

March 29, 2005

Happy birthday to my youngest twin brothers. They’re 41 today and probably still hardly talking to one another. That’s the way it is in my family. Yes, I do have one but it is one I purposely live far, far away from. Having all your belongings stolen over and over again by your own relatives tend to do that to a person. I’ve been very much happier since I moved thousands of miles away, secretly and in the middle of the night almost sixteen years ago, and have been able to hold onto my things for that long as well.

If you live anywhere in the Pacific Northwest and have Fred Meyer grocery stores available, get to one quick to take part in their latest Buffalo meat sale. They were supposed to hold it at the end of April, but surprise! It’s all this week instead. Although we had between ten and fifteen pounds of it frozen in the freezer, we picked up the same amount yesterday when WS accidentally ran across it while grocery shopping. Yes, he grocery shops too (not all the time but a good portion of the time) and he does a very, very fine job of it too.

Chapter writing on Cabin 4 has been going very well since taking that much needed break at the beginning of the month. I “feel” like writing often now and have found myself thinking of future projects to toy with sometime near the end of summer. I still have the rewrite of my National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWrMo) to hack through after Cabin 4 is done and I’m starting to get excited about that in an odd way. Just the thought of rewriting scares the living crap out of me but it’s something I had better get used to sooner better than later.

No sign lately of the yellow goldfinches that visited here once last week. I think the rain shoo-ed them back from where they came from. It’s been raining buckets and buckets here since Saturday and we’re just tickled pink about it. The rain hasn’t kept the raccoons away though. They continue to eat the grapes I leave out on the back porch every night and only devour half of the squirrel feeder peanuts. Grapes are still cheaper than peanuts here. I am hoping, so hoping, that we get to see baby raccoons this year…in our backyard, not as road kill.

A few years ago, as I was leaving our house to go pick up WS from work, I came across a freshly hit baby raccoon that was unconscious and breathing heavily in the middle of the roadway. I parked the car in such a way that if anyone came flying around the corner, they would theoretically hit the car instead of me standing in the road, scooping up an unconscious baby raccoon, whom I wrapped in a spare towel from my trunk, and placed in a nearby driveway of a house that had a large “Caution: Raccoon crossing” sign posted in front of it. While I couldn’t go up to the door to ask the residents if they could help (because a Doberman was barking and snarling at the gate), there was a second, more prominent sign that read: “Smile, you are on 24-hour security camera”. Somehow, I felt the people inside saw me place the small hit baby in their shady, cedar and fern-lined driveway and came out to investigate after I left.

Less than a half an hour later, I returned, having picked up WS, and I drove slowly past the house to see if the baby raccoon was still there, but it was gone, as was the towel I wrapped it in. I want to believe the people there came out and got it, and I still drive slowly past that same house every time I round that corner. Technically, I suppose they might think that I was the one that hit it and I was a bad person for dumping it in their driveway, but I’m not going to ever think that way. People who have “Caution: Raccoon Crossing” signs like raccoons, don’t they?

March 30, 2005

Canada’s baby seal hunt began today. How 19th century this slaughter is. And I really wanted to move there too.

Nothing much going on here today. I probably should have taken something to sleep and stayed in bed. No motivation and no desire to do anything including things that need done. Hopefully my mood will change in the next hour or so.

Oh look! Oatmeal cookies!! That’s right! WS and I made oatmeal raisin cookies yesterday. Okay, these are so gone…

March 31, 2005

Okay, I’ll admit I still want to move to Canada regardless of their annual seal hunt. Lostdawill posted a very good link in the comments section explaining the things and the regulations around it. No, I still don’t like it, but I’d be a hypocrite to think that the U.S. doesn’t do equally, if not worse things to animals, both wild and domestic, and the facts all boil down to one glaringly obvious issue:

I’m a bunny hugger at heart. I’ll just have to live with myself and my love of all of nature…well, except for houseflies and wasps. I mean, what is the point of those?? Give me a can of bug spray anyday!

See what I mean? It’s hard being me. Be mad at me, not Canada. But let me tell you, if I ever….ah nope, not going there today.

Now, where was I? Anyone know if I can snail mail cookies to Belgium? I think I have to call the post office about that one.

Last night, I started writing an entry about our backyard and fountain and how we got it, from square one when our property didn’t have a single blade of grass or weed back there. It still doesn’t have any grass (because we like it that way) and as soon as I can get both the long version and short version done, I’ll post it, probably next week. The long version is, well, l-o-n-g, includes most of the grueling adventures with contractors, and will no doubt, bore everyone to tears. The short version, while it may be an adventure in itself to get it under half a novel, will at least be readable in a single day. Okay, it won’t be that bad, I promise. In the meantime, the whole daily play-by-play can be found in the 2000 thru 2002 Archives. LOTS of reading there and yes, I still have lots of words in my head.

The pets here have been acting unusually strange this morning. Lots of jumping up onto things, ripping around the house, getting into stuff and places they normally don’t and it has made me a bit worried that we’re going to have an earthquake or something. Over the past few years, those do happen in the month of March and today is the last day of March and all.

April 1, 2005

It’s been pretty quiet around the Blogeois compound today, not because of the Pope, but because we’ve been holding our breath, waiting for WS to receive his lay-off packet either by mail or by hand delivery. So far, so good in that he hasn’t received anything (and he even drove to the P.O. Box too!) but the night is still somewhat young. They deliver until 8 p.m. around these parts. Unfortunately, we’ll be playing the same waiting game tomorrow, Sunday, and Monday just in case his packet was delayed or the address was wrong. It happens.

Since it’s better than just a pretty good chance he’ll get one, WS is pretty down about the whole thing and beat up emotionally so if you could leave him a “keep a stiff upper lip” comment, that would be just swell. If you are a lurker and can’t bring yourself to leave a comment, it’s okay. I understand completely.

The next chapter in Cabin 4 goes up tomorrow morning. John and Marie finally get to the cabins and you’ll get to meet Martin. I’ve met a few people just like him – He’s a real hoot.

Well, back to sitting with the puppy dog-eyed man.

April 4, 2005

We’d like to take this time to thank you all for your comments and encouragement over the stressful weekend. Every word was very, very appreciated and big hugs go out to each of you.

And the good news is…WS didn’t get a layoff packet nor the email that preceded delivery of the packets over the weekend. No word yet on who all got one in his department but for now, it looks as though his job may be safe. We’re breathing here again.

Needless to say, it was a fairly stress filled weekend and all that stress and worry made it a virtual funktown around here, not to be confused with funkytown of which it was certainly not. But for me at least, a few good things came out of it.

First and not least, WS still has a job and we’ll be taking this whole experience as another financial wakeup call – Time to find an additional revenue stream (Writing? Photography? Software program? Web business? Real estate rental?). Who knows? It’s still a big, scary world out there but somehow, we have to find the courage to jump.

Second and of much smaller importance, we had a momentous event here in that we officially finished our landscaping by purchasing ($5.99) and planting the very last plant in the very last empty spot in the yard. The plant is a Magenta/Red flowering azalea, variety “Silver Streak” probably because of the slightly variegated leaves, a type we don’t have many plants of around here for some reason.

Now, me being a gardener and a plant lover, you know that this won’t REALLY be my very last plant ever bought. There will always be annual geranium replacements, assorted summer vegetable plants, and the yearly hanging baskets when they can be afforded. I’m not counting those. I’m simply counting a five year long process of landscaping our entire property and the one sad area that nothing ever seemed to fit or look right in. Now, it’s done. Let’s move on.

Third, I visited a nearby craft store to see if they had any spring silk flowers worth a second look and came away with a few things to create this arrangement for our living room. It brings some much needed life to the room which looked downright sad and gloomy over the weekend, and ought to look nice in there until at least June when I switch everything over to summer décor items I’ve got stashed away.

Next, WS spent time playing Uber-handyman by fixing things around the house. A new deadbolt, a fixed door latch, my increasingly noisy elliptical machine, our computer network; if we had the money, I’d have him build us a deck in the back, not so much because we want one but because I’m convinced he could do it, from start to finish, completely on his own.

And finally, the long weekend gave us time to have a serious long conversation about the coming months, our lives and where we want to go from here both in the event of another immediate layoff or not. We’re planning on making some cuts here and there of things that don’t fit into our lives anymore and maybe some cutbacks of other things but all in all, nothing too dramatic, meaning we’re not going back to eating nothing but Top Ramen, washing out clothes by hand in the shower, and reading by candlelight. But if we had to, we would.

Again, thank you all for your comments. They mean the world to us and helped us find strength in each other. Thank you.

April 5, 2005

Last night was odd here. We both came down with bad headaches and that rarely happens at the same time, leading us to believe that either it was something we both ate or the barometric pressure is bouncing all over the place outside, which is more likely than not given this is the way spring weather works around here. I ended up staying in bed most of the late afternoon/evening with my eyeballs feeling like they were going to explode, and went to sleep early. WS stayed up late writing and playing computer games. Today, I still have a headache as well as alternating between my usual hot flashes, chills, and general lack of motivation. Too much fun.

Still no word on exactly who all was affected by the layoffs at WS’ job.

MsNoManagementSkills is off on her spring break cruise through the Caribbean WITHOUT her husband, DorkMaster or any of his out-of-control kids. Seems even at the age of 30 now, she’s still not willing to give up doing the Spring Break teenage thing just yet, while DorkMaster could care less about it, hence, she’s off on vacation alone. Yeah, I think it’s odd too, and so much like her marriage was to FatHead right down to the “Well, if she’s doing that and spending money, I’ll just go out and buy a bunch of stuff for me!” reasoning that MsEars’ and her husband patiently listened to DorkMaster ramble on about last weekend. If she doesn’t watch out, he’s going to suck her remaining bank account dry, we all agreed. I’m still wondering who MsNo thought she was trying to convince when she told me she choose DorkMaster over FatHead because DorkMaster was “the more mature one.” Yeah, right…

Our neighborhood mouse hunter is gone. His family moved out last week and took him with them. Thankfully, they didn’t leave him behind like others in the neighborhood have done, but I just know I really wish he was here, especially since seeing a large mouse out back yesterday morning, sunning himself on a rock. Since we know of no other mouse hunters around here (all the other neighborhood cats seem to be interested in nothing other than the birds), we ought to be overrun with mice by mid-summer. It has me debating once again whether we ought to give up feeding the birds since I know the mice are feeding on the seed that falls out of the feeders. That cat had more personality that most of our neighbors and was incredibly wise about traffic, non cat people, and other animals. I spent a lot of time with him and already, I really miss him. I’d like to think that he’ll miss me too. Take care, little guy. I won’t forget you.

April 6, 2005

The headache continues although it is much, much softer today. It’s that storm that’s sitting spinning off the coast and causing the barometer to drop lower than usual. Those give me a sinus headache, and no, it’s not fun.

But I’m determined to do something today other than lie in bed with my sinuses and eyeballs throbbing so I showered, got to work on that gargantuan pile of laundry, vacuumed upstairs, worked a bit on my car removing a chrome piece that has been giving me trouble, and drove up to the gas station just to pay now to put air in my tires and get gas.

Rant alert! You know, it’s not enough that we have to pay $2.60 a gallon for gas; now they charge for use of the air hose too! Money-grubbing slimes. At least we’re not in L.A. right now and paying $3.25 a gallon…yet. I suspect that’s coming soon, and all the neighbors on our street with their two and three SUVs…they’ll keep paying it. Just let one of them say something to me about my car again, like someone did a year ago. I get almost 30 miles to the gallon. My neighbors are lucky to get half that!

I also drove to the grocery store to pick up grapes, a bunch of carrots, and assorted other things that I can start juicing. Yep, I’m getting into juicing, something I like anyway. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for well over a year and lately, with my hysterectomy and surgery late last year and the hot flashes and all, I’ve been thinking about all the toxins my body is sweating out. Doesn’t really make any sense to just keep putting so many more toxins in with eating crappy food here and there without at least putting something truly good in, I figure. So, shortly, I’ll be juicing carrots (something I don’t really like but makes me feel like Super Woman), spinach, bananas, strawberries, blueberries, and whatever else I can get my hands on (that won’t cost an arm and a leg because I don’t have any to spare). And to my juice I’ll be adding soy protein powder; something I use most of the time anyway when I’m working out and lifting weights. I like soy protein because I’m allergic to milk and whey protein powder, and the soy is good for menopausal women anyway.

I’m still working on the post about our backyard and how it went from a clay-packed cow pasture to what you see on the web cam and I hope to have most of it up by tomorrow. WS hooked up the scanner for me and we’ll be scanning fools in the coming days because you just never know when you’ll wish you had a digital scan of that night when you painted your drunk buddy’s toenails bright red.

April 7, 2005

Another day of getting busy and doing stuff. My headache is gone finally and it is pouring outside. The strong spring storm finally came in off the coast and we are getting a good soaking. A perfect day for baking banana bread (sorry zed, this can’t be shipped to you) out of old, soft bananas and assorted other things in the house (See recipe below).

Also a good day to complete the story of how our backyard became a plant-lovers haven. You can find that in the sidebar over there <- to the left under About – Tales from the Garden. Lots of reading and a few pictures for now, so to make the long story short we bought an empty lot, built a rock retaining wall, leveled the ground, hand-built a brick patio, had walkways poured and a fountain “professionally” built, and landscaped the whole thing ourselves. The story naturally contains the headaches that we went through with each step but would we do it all over again? Well, maybe with a few other choices of contractors but, YES! And no doubt we will someday, somewhere else.

I’ve got about a hundred pictures to take off the camera for the upcoming plant database I’ll be working on next, mainly so I can keep track of what’s growing around here and how it’s all growing. Cabin 4 is still going well and I think we’ve just about hit the halfway point. Of course, it’s a first draft. The rewrite will need to be at least twice as long, but if Tom Clancy and Stephen King can to it, so can we.

Yawn, the weather’s making me sleepy. Or maybe it’s the smell of that bread baking. Looks like it might be a good night to curl up by the fire with a white wine and warm buttered banana bread.

Blogeois’ Own Banana Bread recipe

Guaranteed to be chalk full of yummy goodness!

½ cup butter flavored shortening
¼ cup sugar or Splenda sugar substitute
¼ cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons blackstrap molasses

Cream together until light and fluffy. Add:

2 eggs
1 teaspoon butter flavoring
1 teaspoon vanilla flavoring
1 ½ teaspoons orange peel, fresh or dried

Beat well for two minutes. Add:

3 very soft bananas, partially chopped and mashed

Beat well for one minute. Add:

1 ¾ cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons flax seed
½ cup oatmeal
¼ cup dried chopped dates
¼ cup dried chopped fruit such as currants, apricots, cherries, etc.
½ cup chopped pecans or walnuts if desired

Beat until well mixed. Pour into greased loaf pan and bake at 350 degrees for 40 – 50 minutes, checking often with toothpick or knife for doneness. Cool in pan before removing. Slice and store in airtight container for up to a week. Stores well in the freezer for up to a month. Makes one (1) loaf. Best served plain or with warm butter or jam.

April 8, 2005

Grocery shopping, laundry, cleaning, writing, taking pictures, admiring the sunshine and the tulips – All good things today. Feeling that Thai food lunch work it’s way through me – Not so good. Should have figured something was up when the service, usually excellent, was practically non existent today.

Tomorrow morning, Chapter 12 of Cabin 4 goes up. This week, you’ll learn a little backstory on Martin, the cabin off season manager.

And in the meantime, here’s an odd link to a music video that has scared me for life.

April 11, 2005

The local weather people are on one of their “off” days apparently. It was supposed to start raining last night and continue throughout the week. We woke to bright sunshine this morning without a cloud in sight. If I had known that, I could have driven my car in for service. It’ll have to wait for another day.

Lots of pictures today. The peacock, or known around here as the photo that proves how badly we need a camera with a mega-zoom lens. This was the absolute best we could do, and no, I’m not happy about it either.

Next up is a shot of some tulips I planted last fall. I believe the variety is “West Point”, a strong yellow, emperor-style tulip that has thin, slightly flared tips and holds up to wet weather well, which is good because the rain really came down last Thursday and Friday. In fact, it hailed fairly hard here Friday afternoon, and afterward, I walked around outside to see if anything flowers got hit hard. Everything was okay with the exception of one of the Trillium which had a flowering stem broken in half. I brought in the broken stem and it’s been sitting next to my side of the bed in a vase ever since. I’m surprised how long it’s lasted since mine don’t seem to last long outside at all. This picture was taken this morning. It looks exactly as it looked when I first brought it in.

And finally, I got the front web cam straightened out and the focus sharpened a bit. Here is a shot of up the street toward MsNoManagementSkills’ house. The trees between her and I are starting to fill in very nicely and are almost completely blocking her direct view from there to here, although, we still occasionally stop to look out this window at night to see her or DorkMaster standing in front of their windows, looking over here (WHY??). Another couple of years and the trees ought to completely block the view, but by then, I am hoping with every fiber of my being that she will have moved out of that rental house by then. And the way she and DorkMaster are blowing through her money, and with her job coming to an end in less than a month (and her refusal to get another one), there is no way they can continue to pay rent over there.

April 12, 2005

So, last week I mentioned I was getting into juicing. No, not the steroid kind of juice; real juice from real fruits and vegetables, and I really like it. I hope my body likes it too ‘cause just mentally, this is doing me a world of good. I just feel like I’m doing my body some good. You don’t need a fancy-shmancy juicing machine necessarily; a blender and a not-too-fine strainer will work just fine.

Last weekend, we had to go grocery shopping. Nothing in the house except four cans of enchilada sauce, a bottle of Atkins’ catsup (Yuck!), a unfortunate frozen head of iceberg lettuce, eight-two individual packets of Splenda, two forgotten rutabagas, and a dangerously low amount of toilet paper – you know how the cupboard can get that bare but hey, we still have 80+ bottles of wine so we could have opted to go on a liquid blotto diet for another week or two.

We do our produce section shopping last because that’s just the way we shop and, well, I knew we were buying a lot of fruits and veggies, but I didn’t think I’d have to come up with inventive ways to cram everything in the fridge once we got it all home. I’ve since juiced about a quarter of everything we got (because I’ve since discovered that you can juice just about anything and most of it will actually taste good), so, looking back, I think I could have still got more stuff in the fridge if I really wanted to. The fact that nothing flew out at us whenever we opened the refrigerator door for the first day or two was the tell-tale sign of that.

But I’ve since learned a few other things. When juicing: 1) You can never have enough whole carrots or parsley, 2) Buy the cheapest apples you can find and buy them in bulk, 3) Bananas work great in a blender, not in a juicer, and 4) If you walk around in a grocery store mumbling to yourself about what all could make good juice, i.e. “Carrot juice, tomato juice, potato juice, string bean juice”, people will look at you very oddly.

Anyway, today’s juice is a combination of pear, apple, parsley, and kiwi fruit. De-lish! And a pretty color too. Not like the strawberry, carrot, kiwi, spinach stuff I made yesterday, which tastes good, but is a mucky, muddy brown color like something nasty you scraped off your boot. Luckily for me, I generally don’t care what something looks like as long as it tastes good…which is why I knew juicing would be great for me.

Oooo…MsEars is out front waving up at me. And that means she’s probably got some dirt on MsNoManagementSkills who is back from taking her week-long Caribbean cruise without her new husband!

April 13, 2005

MsEars, wearing a pale lilac, knee-length, wrapped dress and wisteria earrings, reports:

Last week, MsNoManagementSkills took a week-long Caribbean cruise…without DorkMaster, her husband of only six months. Why, when they have yet to take the honeymoon they swear they’ll take “when they can afford it”?

Back a month before she got remarried (after a quickie divorce from FatHead just the month before), she agreed to do something out of the blue with her childhood best friend who thought a cruise would be a good idea just after giving birth to her first child. The plan was that the cruise would be “girls only.” Surprise! It wasn’t. MsNo’s best friend brought her husband, her mother and her boyfriend, another friend and her husband who brought another friend and her husband, etc. etc., and guess who “forgot” to tell DorkMaster OR pay for him to go along? Oopsie! But it’s all good. MsNo wasn’t bored on the cruise alone. She rapidly developed a crush on one of the cruise ship night show singers.

Houston, we’ve got a problem.

MsNoManagementSkills, along with many other annoying vocal habits as MsEars and most of the neighbors living down on that end of the street can attest, for months has proudly announced to everyone that the true sign that she and DorkMaster were meant for each other is simply because they had yet to have a single argument about anything. People living nearby will say that’s simply because they argue at each other through DorkMaster’s kids and not directly at each other’s faces. But all of that may have come to an end just an hour before MsNoManagementSkills left for the airport on her flight to the Miami-docked cruise ship. All MsEars could say was that she heard a whole lot of yelling, a bunch of screaming, and the sounds of things being thrown and doors being slammed. She ought to know; she lives right behind MsNo and DorkMaster.

As to what exactly the argument was about is anyone’s guess (perhaps he found out that everyone else’s husband was going?), but as a result, MsNo chose not to speak to DorkMaster all week long by phone or by email while on her cruise, choosing instead to phone and send emails to all her friends, family, and a few neighbors, and only on the last couple of days of the cruise did she copy, COPY, DorkMaster in on an email, saying when she thought she might be back in town, oh, and that she missed him. How romantic. *insert wry face here*

But apparently, DorkMaster didn’t get the email and how could he? After deciding to take the same week off work for vacation in order to take care of his kids since MsNo wouldn’t be there to do so, and after discovering for the very first time ever that taking care of his out-of-control kids alone sucked, he dropped his kids off at his ex’s across town and didn’t come home until just before MsNo did. Guess he should have spent a little time cleaning up the disastrous house mess before he took off because she just about hit the fan when she walked in and saw it, and has been complaining to anyone within earshot ever since. She doesn’t know he wasn’t at home. He claims he had a migraine for a week and stayed in bed the whole time. Maybe she ought to be asking questions or checking the mileage on the SUV she bought him.

Two days later, she’s dreamily talking about working on a cruise ship for a living, but alas! “I’m thirty years old now and too old to work!” MsEars says MsNo wailed to her (and admitted that she wanted to smack MsNo right then and there). After listening to MsNo seemingly “rub her vacation trip” in her face (MsEars’ actual words), she asked MsNo if, just perhaps, she is discovering that becoming an “instant” mother to three unmanageable kids that aren’t hers and an immature husband isn’t all that and a bag of chips as she thought it would be.

Interestingly enough, MsNo wouldn’t answer one way or the other.

April 15, 2005

We’ve been having connectivity problem here left and right over the past week. Comcast says there is both a nationwide outage problem that is ongoing AND a regional outage due to some upgrade work. Sounds like excuses to raise rates to me.

Lots of storyboard work and actual writing has been accomplished and it looks like things are falling into place nicely. The next chapter goes up tomorrow morning and I know I’m pretty excited. It’s my favorite chapter and one I originally wrote months ago before we had all the other stuff in place. Funny how writing works that way sometimes; We write a chapter here and there that have no seemingly possible connection and then fill in the connection gaps. That’s the fun part for us.

The nice Competition boy called me yesterday to see if I’ll be attending a big car show at the end of April. Yes, I am, and now I’m stressing. Not about doing well in it, but because I’m very worried that if he doesn’t win the class we’ll both be placed into, he might go off the deep end (again). I’ve already sent in my registration form and the required $10, but I’m starting to have reservations about going and that has me beating myself up over it. I mean really, how stupid is it that I would be worried about how someone else is going to react to something that is out of my control? See what I mean? I just know that I will feel kind of bad if after he’s spent so much money on making his car something above and beyond anything I’ve done to mine, he should still lose because of any number of reasons: People not liking what he’s done, political squabbling, dislike of the guy, etc. Me, I could care less if I win anything or not this year. I’ve already sent out to do what I wanted in participating in the Roadster show back in March. Anything I might happen to win at this point would be extra frosting on the already heavily frosted car show cake!

We’ve had lots of heavy rain and hail here over the past couple of days and it’s taken a toll on some of our tulips. Wednesday afternoon, I cut a bunch that threatened to snap off in the icy onslaught. WS’ favorite tulip, variety: “Temple of Beauty” is a big hit around here and usually holds up well to wind and rain. Very tall and sturdy, it’s one that we try hard to purchase more of every year but I think the squirrels or something might have eaten a bunch, or perhaps the older bulbs have finally given up, and we seem to have quite a number fewer of them this year than we should.

This other one is my favorite perennial tulip, variety: “Queen of Night” is a deep velvet maroon color. We originally brought a batch of these bulbs over to this house from the rental place we lived at previously and every spring, I’m surprised to see them come up. I threaten to transplant them every year to a more noticeable location, out from under the protection of a pine, but then I second-guess myself, thinking that moving them will do them in. I just need to order more of these someday maybe and leave this batch alone.

We’ve both got eye checkup appointments today. Ugh. I’ve found I don’t’ like these at all. I’m never sure if all the eye charts I’m seeing are really more clear than the previous one or the next one in the queue and then I feel like I’m stuck with whatever prescription I say is best. All I know now is that if I had to take the eye exam part of a driver’s license renewal test, I’m pretty sure I’d fail. I just can’t see anything really close up anymore without a magnifying glass. (I have no problem whatsoever seeing or reading anything far away, like traffic signs, so don’t be worried that I’d be unsafe driving on your city streets.)

Oh, yeah, happy tax day. We did ours in February. We don’t believe in letting moss grow on our tax forms!

April 16, 2005

Chapter 13 is up on Cabin 4, located over there on the left sidebar. You’ll read up on how Pete and Martin’s friendship started, and get a bit more insight on Martin’s personality.

Very, very wet here today outside. We had a major rainstorm this morning that dumped probably a half an inch or more in the area. It’s supposed to change to just showers for this afternoon and tomorrow and dry, clear weather is supposed to be on tap for most of next week. If that happens, flowers and plants are going to bust out all over here. Last week, I planted potatoes (Yellow Finn variety) in a big pot half full of soil to see if they would grow that way for me and I’m hoping all this rain hasn’t rotted them. I’m going to be ecstatic if and when I see the first little shoots poking up.

Another relaxing day around here with nothing planned. My gardening urge is in full bore mode but it’s just too wet to go or do anything out there. No worries, I’ve got all spring and summer to garden. Have a good weekend wherever you are!

April 17, 2005

Boy, did we get hit with a big hailstorm today! The tulips got hammered pretty good as well as the blooming azaleas but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love spring storms because no one really ever knows what we’re going to get. Looks like showers on and off throughout the night and into tomorrow morning (which will help keep me cool during a project I’ll be working on outside). Still, I’d like to see those nighttime temps come up a bit. We’ve got an indoor miniature citrus tree that loves being outside all summer long, and it isn’t too happy being cooped up inside right now, but I can’t put it out until the night temps stay above 45 degrees F. We’ve been around 39 degrees for months now.

Yesterday was an adventure in shopping. Or, not shopping actually. We drove to a local fabric store on an adventure, looking for, of all things, green toile fabric (pronounced “Twah” – it’s French but the Canadians still won’t let me in). I had seen a dozen or more bolts of a thin green print toile material in the “Two Yards for a buck” section at this same shop not more than four months ago, but yesterday, every bolt was gone, though it could have been because the shop is getting ready to move into a huge large location that used to house an Albertson’s grocery store. (I hate Albertson’s because the ones around here are filthy inside and always smell bad. Like what exactly, I’m not saying but you could probably come up with something.) Until the new location opens, we’re out of luck. No biggie.

Then we stopped at Radio Shark to get a CB antennae part that I really need but they didn’t have any. A stop in at Payless Shoes located in the same shopping mall didn’t yield me anything either. Apparently, all good looking black summer sandals are only manufactured in sizes two through six. If you have normal sized feet, say…size eight, nine, or above, too bad. You’re just out of luck. You have big feet and don’t deserve cute sandals. I hate companies that think that way.

We then stopped at Bed, Bath & Beyond, usually a dangerous store for us because we love new bedding, but our wallet was in luck and stayed in the pocket because we didn’t see a thing we liked. Honestly, it was a day that I probably could have hit half a dozen stores looking for one silly thing or another and not see anything good. I thought about visiting Lowe’s for some home improvement but WS has really become frightened of how much I like that place, and rightly so. I think a couple more pallets of retaining wall blocks are in our future and after that, fresh woodchips. (UPDATE: Two pallets of retaining block, five hundred and twelve thirty-pound blocks in all, are being delivered bright and early tomorrow morning! Guess who has to move all those from our driveway to the backyard before dark? Thank god for aspirin and Ben-Gay!)

About the time I get all those retaining blocks installed over the next week or so, and we figure out if we need any more, hopefully not, I ought to have just a few days rest before we get fresh woodchips delivered (called bark dust around here). It’s been a couple of years since we’ve spread this and we need it badly to help keep the moisture in and the weeds down. It also looks so pretty and smells great for about a month too. Seven yards of that, hand spread by the two of us and I think me and my sore muscles will just about be ready to die. I’ll make sure I stop to smell the flowers (and bark dust) before I go, though).

So, we’ve both been working on the Cabin 4 story since February or so, writing snippets here, complete chapters there, editing, revising, rechecking past written chapters here and there, but I had yet to read what we have posted so far in its current entirety until last night. We have found ourselves in a slow section that needs a bit of crime scene researching before we can finish the chapter and I took the opportunity to rev up my creative engine by reading the whole thing at once. Not that I want to toot our own horn but…

OMG! I think we’ve got the start of a real novel here!

Okay, that’s out of my system. Thanks again to everyone who’s been reading it, and reading here!

April 18, 2005

It’s closing in on one o’clock and the retaining wall block still hasn’t been delivered. I’m fairly certain now that there will be no way I’ll be able to get it moved from our driveway to the backyard before dark and this does not make me happy in the least. We have too much vandalism around here to be able to leave it out front but I’m not going to have much choice in the matter. Why did I wake up at the crack of dawn thinking it would be here by 8 or 9 this morning? I’m already tired. It’s going to be a long day, or two.

The Dry Cleaners across the street (the new-ish neighbors who routinely hang dry cleaning for pickup outside their front door – It’s a “lovely” sight) have started paying for lawn service. Our lawn service contract ends at the end of this month. Their crew was out there yesterday in the heavy rain and hail. What kind of service comes out on Sundays? Odd, but it won’t matter anyway because Ms. Dry Cleaner is purposely killing the grass, the tall tree beside their driveway and all the flowers at the base of it. Every day, right around 12:30 p.m. she comes home from work and walks down the driveway to the community mailbox. And every day, she pours out at least half a can of soda, Diet Coke it looks like, onto the grass, the flowers, and at the base of the tree. It really doesn’t take a brain surgeon to know that pop kills plants, but at least her actions ought to give their yard a slightly different look from the lawn’s massive crane-fly infestation they’ve had going on since they moved in last fall which only slightly takes away from the Christmas wreath they still have thrown up on their front porch which isn’t as noticeable when the dry cleaning hanging on the front door is flapping in the constant breeze. This summer’s yellow jacket wasps ought to really love their lawn if she keeps pouring pop all over the place. Some people don’t deserve their own houses.

Down at MsNoManagementSkills’ rental house, no one has mowed their lawn since January. Every time she asks/tells DorkMaster to do it, he conveniently comes down with a migraine, which are actually caffeine headaches (drinking a case of Mt. Dew EVERY DAY for weeks will do that to you if you skip a day or two). Allegedly, she’s told multiple neighbors who have asked about it, that she’ll get out there and mow it when it stops raining. Apparently, she’s yet to notice that everyone around here mows in the rain. Maybe she’s got one of those lawnmowers that can’t get wet. I just wish the neighbors down there would get irritated enough with it to call her landlord.

Next door at SportsOrNothing, Ms. SportOrNothing has warned us that they plan on having a huge, loud graduation party for their teen twins next month. I didn’t ask how that would be any different from the weekend hot tub parties their son usually throws when his parents are out of town (which is at least two weekends every month), so we just smiled and said okay, thanks. But I can assure you that the minute I see a paintball gun firing paint balls over their fence and onto the side of our house or onto the tall fountain pillar again, that party will come to a screeching halt.

Okay, it’s one o’clock and no block delivery. I’m getting irritated, can you tell?

April 19, 2005

Well, we survived moving the retaining wall block to the backyard. I say “we” because WS came home a half an hour after it was delivered and helped me move all 6000+ pounds of it from the driveway to the back. Let’s just not do that again. Needless to say, we exhausted ourselves and were in bed snoring away before 10 p.m. I do want to correct my math from yesterday though. I’m not a math person, in fact, some might say, I’m anti-math. We didn’t have 512 blocks delivered; we had 256 blocks delivered. Half the amount. So, what’s the big deal, you ask? At only 256 blocks, I should have been able to rip right through those in no time flat, you say? Yeah, right. 256 blocks at just under 30 pounds a piece, each one hand carried 100 feet. You do the math this time.

But unfortunately, I can’t start laying the block just yet and if you know me, you know I hate waiting for anything. Our lawn maintenance contract called for them to come out to test and turn on our sprinkler system for the year and we’ve decided to have an entire zone fixed the right way (for a change). Originally, the guy who put in our fountain installed these wack-o power-head sprinklers in the center section of our backyard, the section that has the fountain in it, and to put it mildly, those power-head sprinklers suck big time. Let me just mention here that at no time did we ever request these kinds of sprinklers – the guy just installed them on his own yet installed normal sprinklers everywhere else. Go figure. So every time those power-head sprinklers go off, I always, ALWAYS, have to go out there afterward and water all the areas it missed, which was a good half of the area. Those sprinklers also always sprayed all the patio furniture with as much water as anything you’d see come out of a fire hose, and god help you if you were ever sitting out there and those things came on. Besides drenching you, they’d nearly punch a hole right through you. They don’t call them power-head sprinklers for nothing.

But in a week or so, you can call them trash because that’s where I plan to toss them. We’re going to have new NORMAL ones installed in addition to having them slightly moved so I can lay all that retaining block without leaving gaps for where the sprinkler heads are located. All for the low price of only $300. Yep, not $800, not $1000, not any ridiculous dollar figure that we both thought this would cost. Just $300 and our entire four-zone sprinkler system will finally work the way it was always supposed to. If we had known the price would have been that reasonable, we would have done it last year.

The weather promises to be warm and dry for the next week and since I can’t lay block, I’m not sure what I’ll be doing everyday instead. My car is clean and ready for the show at the end of the month so I don’t have any work to do there. I do have a few plants I’d like to relocate here and there, and a couple that didn’t survive the winter for whatever reason I’d like to replace. Then, there’s the hanging baskets that I was reminded of recently. I’ve got a couple of indoor projects I should probably start looking at: Repainting the downstairs bathroom, uncluttering the garage, cleaning out the pet room closet, getting the Goodwill pile of stuff ready to be dropped off. Good times to be sure.

April 20, 2005

I’ve been working like a mad woman all day today. Laundry, vacuuming, juicing, making fresh salsa, and then I headed outside. Planted the hanging baskets (Grazania, sweet alyssum, and strawberries for fun), planted two new herb pots, one with fennel, Italian parsley, Greek oregano, and thyme, the other with just mint (anyone want an old, overgrown with clover, thyme, rosemary, and spearmint herb pot? Free to whomever comes and gets it!), planted new verbena at the bases of all the tree roses, and a couple around the backside of the fountain where I found the biggest ant colony this side of the Mississippi. It should be an EX-ant colony in a few days thanks to the granular ant bait I use around here. Perhaps that’s part of the reason nothing grew well over there. Not only does the fountain water splash onto the plants and then the sun burns them, but thousands of ants had taken over the soil and doing god only knows what to the roots. Finally, I planted a Grecian urn with baby tears, a ground cover I love if for no other reason than because it can grow here. Afterward, I hosed down the sidewalks and the wheelbarrow, and watered everything in. Are you as exhausted in reading this as I feel?

I still have two one gallon pots of some kind of blue flowering creeper that WS likes and that some of my neighbors have in their yards, but I don’t know yet where they should go. I also still have to find a home for six white plastic-molded patio chairs and the white glass-topped side table that goes with them. These have been sitting on the side of our house since early last year and frankly, I am sick to death of looking at them. Unfortunately, we can’t get them into either of our cars to take them to Goodwill, but they are also free to anyone who wants them as long as they come and get them.

I hung out two yellow-jacket wasp traps. With today’s sunny and warm weather, it looked like a good time to get these up. I also hung a couple of wind chimes we loved last summer. One made from thin shell discs and the other from wood. Who wants to guess that I’ll be taking them down come the next big wind storm? As I recall, I did have to take them down a couple of time last year because in the middle of the night, they drove us insane. If only we had a section of the yard that wasn’t windy, or barely got any wind. Well, maybe in a few years if and whenever the cedars planted along the fence grow tall.

April 22, 2005

I’m still alive, just suffering with allergies for the past few days. A few weeks ago, I was whining (again) about WS’ latest work layoff crisis and then was elated that his job was deemed safe for the time being. Yesterday was confirmation of his job safety. He got a raise for the first time in a very, very long time, and a relatively decent one at that. Thanks to everyone here who offered us positive words and sent good thoughts during that scary time. It worked and now, I’m sending every one of you good thoughts back. Thank you.

During all the sneezing, sniffling, watery eyes, and sore muscles, I’ve been working like a mad woman both in the garden and indoors. I’ve suddenly realized it’s really spring outside finally and planted up a couple of tomatoes, a pot of potatoes, and the hanging baskets. I’ve replaced most of the plants we lost over the winter (only four this year) and was able to get through most of the laundry inside too. I even made fresh salsa yesterday in hopes that the fresh vegetables would help clear my head. I think for the most part it has and I feel almost back to normal.

Chapter 14 of Cabin 4 will go up tomorrow morning. We’re still doing a little research here and there that we need but keep getting sidetracked with looking for waterfront vacant land for purchase in NW Washington state. Last night, we both stayed up until after 1 a.m. looking at all kinds of decent, cheap plots that surely would have to be worth something someday, or at least turn out to be the ideal spot to build a writer’s cabin. A Blogeois’-style writer’s cabin, that is, complete with pets, a garden plot, books, wine, and WS.

Looks like a rare thunderstorm is cropping up here. I see lightening forking off in the distance toward Portland and can only count six mississippi’s before I hear the thunder. I better get off the computer just in case we lose power.

April 23, 2005

Chapter 14 is up on Cabin 4, found over on the left sidebar there under Projects. This week is all about the investigation of the missing forest behind Ella’s burned out cottage. What’s up with that? Who knows? Ella knew, but everyone wrote her off as an old crank. Hmm, people should listen more to the elders. Happy Reading! A rainy weekend here and a perfect day for a bookstore trip (gotta check out a Walter Lamb book as recommended by Momotrips), more writing, and maybe some biscotti making. WS says he feels like cooking today so who knows what gourmet dish he’ll come up with. That man can cook!

April 24, 2005

Another rainy cloudy day outside. Today, I’m working on Cabin 4 again. It should be a daily thing and for the most part, it is. Some days are just harder writing on it than others. But word by word, sentence by sentence, edit by edit, I’m making progress. The next few chapters are almost done though I pretty much suck at chapter endings. WS is much better at that part as he is at overall editing too. I should be closing in on 31,000 words by this evening and although, 31K sounds like a lot, it’s actually not.

Quadruple that and then, maybe, we’re talking about something respectable. All in good time. Sometimes I just lose patience with myself.

WS is looking again at vacant land for sale online, not so much to buy and build on, but as an investment that will hopefully gain us more over the next five years than the 4 percent our relatively small amount of money is making in the bank. WS is good at this too because he loves to research everything to death. Let me properly punctuate those words: Everything.To.Death. Honestly. And just as honestly, it drives me absolutely batshit insane. BUT…his research always pays off, so I can’t really complain. Sometimes, I just lose patience with it all.

Friday, before the rain, hail, flooding, thunder and lightning storms came in for the weekend, my big project for the day was to transplant a yellow New Zealand flax into a decorative pot and to attempt to dig up a black bamboo we originally sunk in a huge plastic tub in the boggisst, soggiest, more water-laden corner of our yard, in hopes that should it grow there, it would do well and stay within the thick plastic-walled boundries of the tub, or if it didn’t grow, at least, it wouldn’t die and could wait until I figured out exactly what I wanted to do with it. This year, I figured it out and I was in luck since it somehow seemed to know its life was in limbo and so, it neither died nor grew and was content with waiting. It, it seems, had all the patience in the world.

While I couldn’t afford a huge, heavy, pretty ceramic pot for it to reside in as I saw in my grandiose dreams, with the help of a free $10 off gift card from Lowe’s that came in the mail, I could afford a similar decorative container to the one I planted the New Zealand flax in for the bamboo and so, that’s what it’s in now. Eventually, I hope to move it and the pot it’s in to sit along side our front door and after that, eventually, to attempt to get it to live indoors where I’m hoping it will like our tall vaulted ceilings and love the bright light that floods in through the skylights. I’ve got the patience to wait to see how it adjusts to each area.

It wasn’t easy in the least to get the bamboo out of the muck and water-filled tub, but it was a whole lot easier than removing the plastic tub itself from the ground, something I HAD to do in order for the landscape people to be able to fix and replace a nearby sprinkler head next week. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever made a bigger mess with anything in my entire life than I made in trying to dig that tub out, my Arizona driving record not included, but eventually, I did and cleaned the mess up too with a little help from Mother Nature. By this morning, the rain had nearly washed all the remaining mud and muck from the walkway back there, running it all back into the boggy hole from hence were it came. Boy, if anyone ever wanted to bury a body, that would be the ideal spot for it…

…which reminds me that I had better get back to the Cabin 4 writing.

April 25, 2005

“Lazybones!” She hissed the word at me all the time. To her, I was nothing more than lazybones; lazy, worthless, didn’t do anything and what I did do wasn’t right. She reserved this name for me alone, never for my younger sister who didn’t have to do anything, ever, and who could lie in bed all day if she so desired and which she often did. She was the pretty one, the princess, the unsoiled one whereas I, who was forced to scrub floors with plain water and a worn, bristly scrub brush and shit-splattered toilets with my bare hands often until two and three in the morning and over doing school homework, who fed and raised four kids that weren’t mine, and who slept in a bathtub because the constant nightmares made me wet the bed, wasn’t pretty and definitely was soiled. Forty years later, I still have a hard time not hearing the word “lazybones”hissing in the back of my mind when I feel like I do today.

I don’t feel like doing anything today. I think WS feels the same. We stayed up late last night talking after having gone to bed well before dark with the complete intention of sleeping. It’s the weather, I think, that has us feeling so blah for some reason which is odd because we usually like cloudy, rainy weather. As a result, he didn’t leave for work until noon today. Good thing he has a job and bosses who are okay with that, unlike all the jobs I’ve held that docked your pay or wrote you up if you were even a minute late in punching the time clock.

One of our pets is “needy” today and won’t let me out of his sight. When I do manage to go into a room without his presence nearby, he calls to me in the sweet, meow-y voice he usually saves for his favorite toy: a plush, golf ball-sized, fuzzy ball. It’s his happy voice, and when I come back into the room, he stands up on his back paws and reaches for me with his front. It’s his sign for needing a hug and so I pick him up and give him one. But secretly, I think he knows that today I need one.

April 26, 2005

The weather people say it’s going to be sunny today but they have said that for the past three days and our area actually set a rainfall record yesterday. Don’t know where the sun was supposed to fall into yesterday, but it looks like we might actually see a sunbeam or two today. Of course, the clouds will be moving in again tomorrow and rain is forecast thru Thursday, but as long as we can keep trying to make up the rain amounts, it’s all good.

Over the weekend, the rain and hail here really wiped out the tulips and most of the leftover daffodils. We had a good showing this year and I can’t complain. The quince is now in full bloom and the Exbury azaleas are getting ready to put on their bright show. The maples and birches are finally leafing out and I think there are a few buds on the tree roses already. This is a good time of year. It’s only a matter of time before we’re eating dinner out back or catching some rays out on the chaise lounges.

No word yet from the landscape people on when they are going to get to work fixing our sprinklers. As I type this, I’m awaiting a callback. Sounds like the office people haven’t a clue about the work order and if that’s the case, I am not going to be happy. I was told one week before work should start. It’s been one week. I can’t install all that retaining block until they fix the sprinklers first and I don’t’ relish doing all that work in the heat of the summer should they drag their feet.

Saturday is a big car show down in Oregon, at the car dealership I originally ordered my car through. I did well last year and this year, I’ll try to defend my title in my class, though I’m okay with not. The nice Competition Boy will be going as well and I’d just as well see him take the class, mostly because he’s not exactly pleasant to be around when he takes less than first and partly because I’ve already proven nearly everything I wanted to prove to myself with my car. Since I cleaned every square inch of the car for the Roadster show a couple of months ago in early March, all I’ve had to do since then to prepare for another show was to wipe it down and cover it back up. That’s how it’s been sitting since then. I looked at the engine this morning and I may put rubber gloss on some of the engine hoses and I do have to trim a chrome piece bracket so it fits better, but that’s all there is to do. The interior is spotless, most of the cleaning supplies have been refilled and packed since last month. Even the glass is clean. I’m a firm believer in getting things done WAY ahead of time if at all possible.

Well, that’s enough prattling on about me. If you’d excuse me now; I just discovered cat barf under this writing desk and my foot has been sitting in it the whole time.

April 27, 2005

I’m feeling a bit under the weather today for some reason; don’t know why. Like a good girl, I drank my juice this morning: A whole glass of plain cantaloupe which according to the juicing world experts, shouldn’t be mixed with anything else to get the full body cleansing effects, and I followed it up with my carrot/pear/black cherry concentrate mix which I’m sure screwed up the full body cleansing effects of the plain cantaloupe juice. But I felt icky before drinking anything so that wasn’t it.

If, if, if it ever turns sunny today, I plan on sitting out in the sun for a bit to see if that will perk me up. Again, the weather people claim it will be sunny later on this afternoon but you all know how much I trust those people. I’ve also felt extraordinarily tired over the past few days so I think my body is just trying to fight something off; something I probably picked up last weekend at the grocery store which seemed to be filled with people coughing and sneezing.

Or maybe it’s just because I can’t get a good night’s sleep anymore due to my hot, sweaty flashes. The Estrovan stuff I’ve been taking religiously for almost a month certainly isn’t making them go away as I hoped would happen if this were a perfect world. In reality, I knew in the back of my mind that it wouldn’t “cure” me of them. So, I bought myself the cutest little personal fan a week ago that sits on my bedside table and blows all night long directly on my face and neck where I seem to get the sweatiest. Our other larger, osculating fan blows all night long too and has for years, on my side of the bed down near my feet, and you would think that I would be enveloped in enough cool breezes all night long to keep me feeling downright brisk. But sadly, no, between three to six times a night I wake to soaked sheets and a pillow, the sweat rolling off my naked body (I don’t wear pjs – shocking, no?) and I lie there in the dark listening to make sure the fans have not shut themselves off in protest, saying to themselves, “Damn! There ain’t no way we eva’ gonna cool this bitch down!”

I can’t help but to keep thinking that all this sweating has got to be capable of doing some good. I mean, the health stores and health food sections of grocery stores sell Thermo-supplements to purposely make your metabolism rate rise and help burn off fat. If that really works, by year’s end theoretically, I should be down to my ideal weight of 125 pounds, a far cry from the 172 I am now. Actually, my true weight could be higher than that. I fried our weight scale the other day. Probably shouldn’t have stepped on it during a hot flash or something. Hmm, maybe that’s the benefit – Frying electronic things on command. Now if I could just get lightning bolts to shoot from my fingertips…

April 28, 2005

I just saw an ABC news story that says studies have proved that nice people both finish last and make less money. Guess that explains a lot, especially my years of working with MsNoManagementSkills.

MsEars has something to share with me about MsNoManagementSkills but says it’ll have to wait until later this afternoon when she gets back home. Something about something nasty MsNo said about MsEars to other neighbors and surprise, surprise, it got back to MsEars. I hate to tell her I told her so, but I did say when MsNo got something in her craw she could get malicious if she felt like it. I am dying to know what it is but of course, I don’t usually let that show in front of MsEars, and to date, that strategy has served me well.

I got a good two hours in sitting outside in the sun yesterday, because, um, there was some sunshine after all. WS came home a bit early, after finally getting his car’s windows tinted, and sat outside with me reading. It was nice. I’m a third the way through Wally Lamb’s “She’s Come Undone” and just finished the rape scene that mirrored much of my own at the same age. It didn’t bother me. I’m light years past that.

So, apparently, the state of Washington is changing their license plates from the raised numbers and letters to a smooth, non-raised letter format. Same colors, same mountain background, same everything else. Even the plate numbers and letters are the same. This seems like a complete waste of money to me especially since they made me change my plates AND pay for the change (five extra bucks) without asking if I wanted to change my plates in the first place.

Since my new plate has the exact same numbers and letters as the old one (and in the same order too), and since everything else is exactly the same, why should I have to swap them? Since I just got the new tag in the mail too, why can’t I just leave the old plates on, plates that are only three years old and just put my new tag on them like I’ve already been doing? Are you telling me that a cop can see that I have a raised letter license plate as opposed to a non-raised letter plate from thirty, twenty, ten feet away as he follows me AND that he’s gonna give me a ticket because I don’t have my non-raised letter plate on? This is just silly. I could understand completely if they were completely changing the look, the colors, the background, but nope. It’s just going from stamped, raised letters to a flat surface. Again, this is just silly.

April 29, 2005

A couple of quick blurbs before I get to MsEar’s weekly report about MsNoManagementSkills:

1) Chapter 15 of Cabin 4 will go up early, early tomorrow morning before I leave for the car show in Oregon. I like this chapter and hope you will too.

2) So it seems that, Washington State has a 7-year license plate update policy (see yesterday’s rant). My car’s plate isn’t only three years old; it’s actually from 1997 and was officially transferred to my car after WS’ car was totaled in 2002. I still think it’s wasteful to remake the same plate but there’s nothing I alone can do about it and they already have my money.

Now to what MsEars has to say: Apparently, MsNoManagementSkills got a little pissy about something MsEars did earlier in the week and sent an email about it to some of her new friends: A few of the neighbors in our development that live near her (and who apparently LOVE her kitchen utensil shows enough to be practically supporting her, DorkMaster and his three kids in high style with sales – what? Don’t these people know they can get can openers and mixing bowls at Target for half the price?). The bad thing for MsNo was that someone then forwarded her pissy email to MsEars, who has decided for the time being to act as though nothing happened.

A few times every week and for hours on end after school, DorkMaster’s kids go over to MsEars’ house to play with her kids while MsNo finishes her work day at home online for the Big-Ass Corporation (the one I was laid off from in January). Earlier this week, MsEars told MsNo that she wasn’t feeling well and asked if MsNo could watch her kids for a few hours while she took a nap. She also told MsNo that she had called her husband and asked that he come home from work early if he could so he could watch the kids while she tried to get some rest. MsNo told her “No problem” and that was that. Or so MsEars thought.

Unable to sleep, MsEars decided to grab a book and sit outside in the sun in her backyard for a bit in hopes that some sunshine would help her feel better. Unfortunately for her, the back of MsNo’s rental house overlooks MsEars’ backyard and when MsNo saw MsEars sitting out in the sun reading, she threw a conniption fit. Why should she have to babysit three extra kids that weren’t even hers when their own mother was lounging in the backyard mere feet away, not looking or acting sick at all, MsNo’s email whined to the neighborhood list it was sent to. It even went on to say that she, MsNo, thought MsEars was a horrible mother and spent more time selecting her daily outfits than she cared about her own children and questioned what kind of wife makes her husband come home from work just because she isn’t feeling well.

Yes, I said I would be upset too, if MsNo hadn’t already spent years doing the same thing to me when I worked those six long years with her. With a sympathetic ear, I listened and then tried to explain that this was how MsNo treated people and that the people she feared the most, were the people she tore down and belittled in an effort to make herself look important to anyone who didn’t know or bother to want to find out the whole story.

I think MsEars is starting to see what I had been telling her bits and pieces off over the past five months. Naturally, I’ve never told her everything I know about MsEars (or FatHead, or BikerDude, or even DorkMaster) because sometimes when I look back on my years working with her, even I can’t believe she got away with so much without someone hunting her down and retaliating. I guess I’ve been hoping just a little bit that MsNo would have changed for the nicer side of life especially since she’s only got two weeks left at the Big-Ass Corporation, but sometimes, a bitch just remains a bitch and no matter how much you choose to tell someone else, to warn someone else about the bitch, sometimes, people have to see it firsthand for themselves.

Let’s hope that’s the end of MsNo’s pissy emails, that MsNo gets over herself, and that MsEars isn’t the recipient of any more bad-mouthing from her. I’d hate to think that anyone else might have to go through what I did, not to mention the time it’s still taking me to recover from that kind of mental cruelty.

April 30, 2005

Chapter 15 of Cabin 4 is up (under Projects on the left side tool bar). Momentarily, I’ll be off to the car show in Oregon. Now, on to more important and stressful matters, I am desperately looking for advice and suggestions concerning an incident that occurred here yesterday.

Neighbor trouble always seems to find us, no matter where we’ve ever lived, no matter if it really has nothing to do with us at all. Yesterday, was one of those days and it has me questioning on whether or not it’s time to pull up roots and find a new place to live.

Yesterday was the last day with our yard service contract. Every Friday, Spencer would come and mow the front grass, clip the bushes, pull a weed here or there, and blow off all of the entire back yard walkways with a noisy blower that I hate. He doesn’t linger with the blower and is done within a few minutes so I’ve been okay with it. I’m sure the neighbors always hated it.

Yesterday, however, Cap’t Dan who lives behind us, down the slope, came storming out into his backyard and started screaming, SCREAMING, at Spencer and his blower. He accused Spencer of blowing debris from our yard into his and for whatever reason, Spencer denied it.

Cap’t Dan went livid, mad dog, a large, red-faced man screaming “FUCK!” over and over and over again while frothing at the mouth, leaning over his deck and pounding on the railing. Spencer didn’t back down, perhaps because he knew it was his last day here anyway, and argued back, finally admitting that perhaps he blew a woodchip or two or perhaps a weed seed over our back boulder wall and down onto Cap’t Dan’s partially weed-choked red rock landscaping. This only infuriated Cap’t Dan more and this was about the time WS, who worked from home yesterday, excused himself from the work conference call he was urgently required to attend, and came out to tell me there was a heated argument going on in our backyard.

I listened and watched, partially hidden from view from our upstairs back bathroom window and within minutes I was certain the argument would surely come to blows. Cap’t Dan was screaming obscenities and Spencer wasn’t backing down in the least. When Cap’t Dan demanded Spencer tell him what company he worked for, Spencer shot back with, “Why should I tell you? So you can call them and report a bunch of lies about me?”

Finally Spencer relented and told him the company name and Cap’t Dan stormed off into his house for a phone. Spencer hightailed it out of here faster than I had ever seen him do so, though he did drive around the block, presumably to get Cap’t Dan’s address then parked just up the street, again presumably to make a call into the company office to get in his side of the story and for the record. At one point, I was truly afraid that Spencer drove around the block to start a physical fight and who knows, had Cap’t Dan been out in front of his house maybe that would have happened.

Terrified of loud, heated arguments for a good portion of my life, at no time did I go out there during the whole thing and yes, I do feel like a wuss for not doing so, not that I would have known what to do exactly. My diplomatic skills rate about a negative -80 on a scale of 1 to 10, one being a brick through a window and ten being ex-US President Jimmy Carter. WS was still trapped in his meeting which lasted nearly two hours, and nearly causing us to miss our later appointment at the DMV to get a title straightened out and a couple of other appointments we had later in the day. Needless to say, we’re weren’t home the rest of the day, and today won’t be any different due to the car show.

Again, not knowing what to do, or if I or we should do anything at this point, as neighbors, you should know that we’ve each talked to Cap’t Dan once, ONCE, over the course of the three years he and his silent family has lived behind us. He’s not a talker, not a single one of his family members are talkers, and neither are we for that matter (I’m a typer, not so much a talker). In fact, they seem to purposely avoid us whenever we’ve been in our own backyard which is a mere forty feet or less from their back deck and back door. Over the past three years, we’ve since all avoided each other and remarkably, have only been in our backyards only once or twice AT THE SAME TIME in all these years. Obviously neither one of us are big backyard dwellers and prefer to observe the beauty of our own yards from inside looking out.

But I’d like to get some suggestions on what, if anything, we should do now? Ignore the encounter completely? Make like we weren’t here at the time and know nothing? Bake them a cake and take it over, thus officially introducing ourselves for the first time? Call down to Cap’t Dan the next time I see him and ask if I can come over and hand-pick every woodchip I can find out of his weed-choked red rock gravel bed? Let him know that he wouldn’t be seeing the lawn service guy ever again and make him believe that Spencer was fired? Place a basket of flowers on their front porch with an apology note, ring the bell, and run? What? What? What??

All suggestions, real and ridiculous are welcome! And I do thank you for reading!

May 1, 2005

Guest post by WS:

Thanks to all for your thoughts regarding the nuclear situation Friday with our neighbor. I’m not sure what prompted Spencer’s retort on this situation and I’m sure it could have been handled by both sides more cleanly, but it just seemed to be the right occurrence to set the tone for much of the weekend. To foreshadow a bit, the situation was ugly, but is now seemingly better off than it originally appeared to be.

After the end of my conference call (that had just begun when the blow-up occurred in our back yard), I walked down to Capt. Dan’s to touch base regarding what had happened. He filled me in on some of the details from his side and I have to admit it probably would have pissed me off a b it as well (though I probably wouldn’t have handled it the same way).

FACTS:
- Spencer’s partner that joined the route recently has been doing most of the work in our back yard lately.
- We have noticed a difference (to the downside) in the level of service and our satisfaction since this change has occurred.
- During the argument, Spencer admitted to Capt. Dan that maybe he blew over a seed pod or a piece of bark.
- Both sides were actively engaged in argument when I first noticed what was going on.
- I would not consider our lawn service folks engaged in the most professional behavior at that point – particularly considering they were at someone else’s home.
- It was the last week of our lawn service with this company.
- Spencer actively resisted disclosing the company he worked for until asked heatedly for the third time.

CAPT. DAN’S STORY:
Capt. Dan told me that he had just poured himself some coffee and heard the blower in the back yard at our place. He looked up and saw Spencer’s partner working back there. Then he saw a number of bits blown down on to his yard over the back rock wall. Later, when Capt. Dan called Spencer on the actions of his partner, Spencer denied that it could have happened and that they don’t operate that way. Capt. Dan admitted that he lost his temper at the questioning of his integrity. Capt. Dan told me that after they had been in the argument for a while, Spencer admitted that he (not his partner that had done the blowing) might have blown something like a seed pod or a piece of bark into Capt. Dan’s back yard.

MY VIEW:
A number of details of the facts that I know of, Capt. Dan’s story and B’s summary have meshed and the rest of the facts around the situation still don’t make any sense to me (i.e., why someone would get into such a heated argument with a customer’s neighbor). I have surmised that Capt. Dan’s assessment was probably accurate and that the rest (motives and actions) is a mystery. No one should have let this get so far out of hand, and I think it was a good thing I went down there to have a talk with the one neighbor we don’t have a fence with. We talked initially about the incident, which he would not allow me to apologize for. He repeatedly stated that the problem was with the employee (he doesn’t have the name) and that if he had just answered “I’ll speak with my partner about it,” there never would have been an issue.

We did a bunch of catching up on a number of topics to the point that B was wondering if I had disappeared for good. I still expect that Capt. Dan will call the employer and we may hear about it. I’m leaning towards saying that I don’t know much about the situation, but that we haven’t seen a temper in the past. I don’t want to side too far because the behavior on both sides was rather deplorable.

THE REST OF THE WEEKEND:
So after I returned from Capt. Dan’s, we packed up and went to the DMV to turn in a new title application for the car I had recently purchased that my credit union had requested I do with such a significant-looking package complete with a check to the DMV. Unfortunately, after waiting for nearly an hour, we were informed that they also needed proof that the tax had been paid on the vehicle. Thanks for giving me a heads up on that one guys. On any other day I would have been anal enough to remember that detail, but not after that morning’s events.

Saturday we went to the car show and we were both surprised not to hear B’s name called for any award at all. That’s all I have to say about that. (B says: Comp Boy took first and a nice 3 ½ foot trophy home. I’m more than okay with the results.)

Today we thought we’d go take Wickes up on their offer of no payments or interest until September 2006, but didn’t find a damned thing worthy of buying (not really a big surprise, to be honest). The saleswoman was the typical forward-pushy-try-to-win-your-trust-by-telling-you-how-many-other-people-trust-her-type. At a previous employer I worked for, they gave EVERYONE including the underlings some basic sales training – you know, just in case – and one of the things I remember clearly is they taught that people want to say yes. That people are more prone to say yes than no and that if you keep it up, you’ll get them to say yes. Well, since that encounter, I’ve developed years of completely honest moves to regain control in the case of a pushy salesperson that won’t take the no for an answer. When she copped half an attitude when I told her we’d have to verify the color worked and responded, “How can you do that?” I responded completely honestly. “I’m in the business of color science. I have samples.” The deflation was nearly as quick as the time a door-to-door reverend wouldn’t take “Thank you, but we’re not interested” for an answer and my next response was “No thank you. I don’t sin.”

That, of course, did the trick.

May 2, 2005

My feet are still tired and slightly throbbing from Saturday’s car show. Nine hours of mostly standing and walking around; when will I ever learn to just clean the car then park my butt IN THE CHAIR I TAKE ALONG FOR JUST THAT PURPOSE for the rest of the day? Um, probably never.

This morning, we drove my car, sans most of the engine chrome, back over to the dealership where the show was Saturday for an oil change and pulley tensioner tweeking again (because, although it could have worse things go bad with it, I’m convinced that this one part is just the thing this car is always going to have problems with on a yearly basis).

The start of car show season always throws me off from my usual boring schedule of life: Laundry gets even more backed up, vacuuming only gets done by WS, I lose track of things and time and have odd dreams nearly every night, and writing gets put off, weight gets put on.

My weight gain is out of control. Eating homemade nachos will do that to a person regardless if they only eat only one or two (at the absolute most) meals a day (one of them being homemade nachos). You might think a plate thinly covered (not mounded as someone else I know prepares theirs) with corn tortilla chips, a covering of shredded real cheese or “low-carb” cheese sauce, and a quarter can of HOT enchilada sauce microwaved for a minute wouldn’t be horribly bad for a person but I’m living proof that it can be. Of course, I could blame my hysterectomy last fall for the weight gain, or the removal of all ephedrine products from the market last summer, or helping WS stick to a no-caffeine lifestyle, or just plain heredity and genetics for my weight gain but really, it’s just that I like food and food loves me. But this has got to end before it ends me. It’s not like someone fed me nachos and cookies while I slept. I did this to myself, and as much as I hate rowing and can’t last more than two whole minutes at any one time on my elliptical machine that sits conveniently in the living room (where I practically fall over it anytime I go in there on my way to the fridge), I have simply GOT to get to doing something or ELSE! There just ain’t nothing like slipping into your baggiest, most comfortable shorts and discovering they aren’t baggy anymore.

So today will be for laundry, vacuuming, writing, drinking coffee, and a couple of short sessions on the elliptical machine BECAUSE I HAVE TO. The time for whining, “Just five more minutes” or “just five more plates of nachos” is O.V.E.R.

Of course, I had them for breakfast this morning. Yes, you have my permission to march right over here and smack me. Please.

May 3, 2005

The landscape company is coming out to fix our back sprinklers tomorrow. It’s supposed to rain, downright pour, the weather people promise. Ought to be a hoot, especially over in that back quagmire area where I took out the black bamboo and huge tub two weeks ago. I guarantee that area isn’t anywhere near the dry end of the scale. The woman on the phone said they figure it will be a four-hour job. Uh, maybe if it were dry, and just maybe if about a thousand pounds of retaining wall didn’t have to be moved out of the way first. But I’m sure they know what they’re doing, right?

No word on my car in the shop yet. I’m expecting to hear from them today and then the adventure begins on trying to get a ride all the way out there to pick it up. If I don’t hear anything, it should be tomorrow which will be the worst timing ever since our sprinklers are being fixed tomorrow and I have to be here for that. So, it could be a Thursday pick up instead. But I’m okay with it. I’m just happy to have a car and one that hopefully won’t squeal anymore. In the meantime, here is a picture I took at the show of the dealership’s current marketing campaign – The Trunk Monkey. Go here to see official Trunk Monkey videos. Some of them are cute and funny.

On the news, the Big-Ass Corporation that laid me and WS off is officially hiring for its new customer call center down in Oregon. The local news went on and on about how this will help our area economy, bringing in X number of jobs and how they are such a good company to work for. Oh, I am soooo tempted to call and let everyone know how crappy a company they really are and how many local jobs were lost when they decided to lay people off first, before trying now to hire people at a much lower pay rate. So very tempting…but who wants a possible lawsuit just because I’m bitter? They certainly have enough time and money to fund one. I can learn to keep most of my bitterness to myself and in the meantime, I’m avoiding watching the news.

It’s official: We are up to our ears in Goldfinches! Since we’ve been feeding them, or financially funding finch food as I like to think of it, we’ve always noticed that for the first six-to-eight weeks after their return to our garden, the goldfinches have been very, very frightened of humans and will scatter at the mere hint that a person might think of walking out there. But that doesn’t seem to be the case this year. On countless occasions since their return two weeks ago, I have practically walked right up to them as they defiantly cling to the nyger thistle sock, pecking out seed after seed until the very last second. They also have been bravely using our fountain for drinking and bathing while we’ve sat out there only a few feet away. Something is different about them this year and I wonder if they are just hungrier. We do certainly have many more of them than in the past.

And finally, here are some shots I recently took of the deforestation just up the road from us. Apparently three homes sitting on close to an acre of old growth forested land each sold out and naturally, some development company went in and chopped every last thing down. Sad. This also might be why we’ve got more birds than in the past, nightly raccoon visits and hardly any squirrels left. This leaves two forested areas close by left (one is planned for a development sometime in the next year or two) and when they are gone, we’ll nearly be living right in the middle of town again. Again, so sad, sad, sad.

May 4, 2005

This morning, the landscape company comes out to fix our back sprinklers. Since some of the retaining block will need to be moved, I’ll be out there as well. You should be able to view all the “excitement” on the back yard web cam throughout the day until 4 or 5 in the afternoon in the pouring rain. Work begins around 11 a.m. Pacific Daylight Savings time.

I picked my car yesterday evening from the dealership. Always a “fun” drive down through Portland, Gresham, and Sandy during rush hour traffic. The service department couldn’t find the cause of the squeal and so, opted to blame it on an after-market part I’ve had on for three years. Funny how they were able to fix the same problem last year and it didn’t have anything to do with that part at all. Something tells me by summer’s end, my car will be going back to them and I’ll have to resort to getting all bitchy with them. Sometimes being nice and gracious does NOT pay off. But at least I couldn’t complain about the repair bill which was only for the oil change.

For dinner last night and after we parked my car safely back in our garage, we opted to go to McGrath’s Fish House restaurant. Usually, we have “okay” service. Nothing really to write home about, but last night’s was so bad, we ended up literally walking out after eating an appetizer that came some thirty-five minutes after we were seated in “no man’s land.” It turned out, no one was assigned, or wanted, to wait on anyone in a particular area and so, we were 100 percent completely ignored from the get-go.

After the first fifteen minutes, some passing waiter asked if we had been helped yet and when we said no, he said he’d get help. Ten minutes later, a waitress came out and said there had been some confusion over who was serving in that area and then she took our order. Since we had been sitting there so long, twenty-five minutes at that point and without any water even, we knew everything we wanted and ordered it all at the same time. Another ten minutes later, we got water and ice tea to drink and an appetizer. Fifteen minutes later, out she came with salads and the bread we had asked for a half an hour previous. Unfortunately for her, we had just decided to get up from the table to hunt down a manager. Also unfortunately for her, she decided at that time to go on and on about some coworker of hers who had just come in with her newborn baby blah, blah, blah, as if that could make everything okay.

That was quite possibly the worst thing she could have used as an excuse; us, who can’t stand kids in the least, ESPECIALLY newborns who,, on our eyes, are more apt to exude all kinds of body fluids and odors, and I began looking at her uniform expecting to see baby cheese splattered on it. How do we know if she was just burping a baby then went on to touch our food? Yes I know it sounds silly and paranoid. Some people are creeped out by spiders and bugs; for me it’s human babies. Raising four sickly kids from the age of eight that weren’t mine can do that to a person.

We told her the excuse and service was unacceptable but that we were more than willing to pay for our ice teas and appetizer but nothing else. She tried to explain again about the confusion and that’s when I told her, as customers, that wasn’t our problem. Amazingly, I think she actually understood and seeing that we were already standing up, she said we wouldn’t have to pay for anything. At the door, WS made sure that was known by the managers there so no one would think we were pulling a “Dine and Dash.” I, on the other hand and not being so diplomatic, let everyone know that this was the worst service we had ever experienced and that we would never be back. I guess I got that bitchy-ness that I probably should have directed at the car service department out of my system.

Then we went across the street to our favorite Mexican food restaurant and had chicken taco salads, served to us promptly, courteously, and without excuses. Not exactly lobster and plank-grilled wild salmon but we sure did save a lot of money that way.

So, if you are ever in the area of Vancouver, Washington, USA, and are driving down Mill Plain Boulevard and just happen to decide to stop in at McGrath’s Fish House restaurant for lunch or dinner, good for you. However, if your waitress’ name is Jade, you might want to ask to be moved to another section, or better yet, give the Mexican food restaurant across the street a shot. Tell them, Blogeois sent you.

May 6, 2005

Some days, you pick your battles, and some days, the battles pick you.

First, the good news: The landscape company did a great job of moving and fixing our backyard sprinkler system, allowing me yesterday to get about 40 feet of retaining block installed. It poured the entire time I worked out there but I kept telling myself I would rather be working in the rain than in 90+ degree heat. Only about 80 feet or so left to go and I’ll work on that on and off over the course of the next week.

Tomorrow morning, another chapter of Cabin 4 will go back up. Things are finally starting to get interesting, I think.

And now for the not so good news: We’ve been battling depression for the past six years, mostly due to working with MsNoManagementSkills. You already know that. We were both looking forward to getting away from her when we eventually lost our jobs with The Company, but then she had the audacity to move in just down the street a year and a half ago with the partial intent to “keep an eye on us while we worked together” whatever she thought that meant. We were laid off in January, her time is up in exactly a week and we’ve been excitedly looking forward to the very real potential of her, DorkMaster, and their three screaming kids moving out and into some lower rent place. The house she is renting now, the exact same model as ours and is painted inside exactly like ours, isn’t that inexpensive and since she doesn’t want to get another job and DorkMaster made considerably less than she did, there was no way they could afford to keep living there. Her attempt to live our life was finally coming to an end and we were SO very looking forward to never hearing a peep about her ever again. I mean, really, too much time has been spent on being depressed and angry over this person, don’t you think?

Then yesterday’s bombshell hit, one MsNoManagementSkills has been combing the neighborhood in search of telling everyone she runs into, and one in which she actually sent us a nasty, “let me rub this in your faces” email about:

DorkMaster got a job where WS works. Now, HE’S going after trying to live WS’ life.

Yes, the same guy who brags online about masturbating at his desk during work, who regularly posts vile, disgusting entries to a Live Journal site called TMI (Too Much Information), who tells everyone how fun it is to fart and belch loudly in his work cube whether he has a cube partner or not, who spends hours sitting in the toilet, playing games on his Playstation, the list just goes on and one…this is the guy the company WS works for hired.

And hired him as a contractor! If you recall, this company just laid off a bunch of people and allegedly, had too many people working there! Why and how could they be hiring people now? Couldn’t this job have gone to someone who was in the middle of being laid off instead of to an outside person?

Welcome to the new corporate world where it isn’t all about protecting talented, trained employees. It’s all about laying off those people who make too much money and hiring contract workers to do the same job for up to two-thirds less pay! Basically, this means anyone is half a brain and a pulse could be trained to do the job and that’s apparently where DorkMaster came in.

And this also meant he and MsNoManagementSkills have already decided to stay living in our neighborhood with her spreading rumors and fighting with MsEars, and he wandering the same halls and bathrooms where WS once found refuge. Looks like we not gotten her out of our lives just yet.

She’s already told most of the neighborhood, according to MsEars, that this will allow her to become what she always wanted to be: A bonafide housewife to someone working and making money in the corporate world, to raise kids (regardless if they are hers or not), and free to shop everyday to her heart’s content, married to someone with a position she can rub in doubters noses as she has already done to us and MsEars, and to her side of the family who had all but cut her off financially for marrying DorkMaster in the first place.

WS has already warned me that he couldn’t possibly be held responsible for anything he might do should DorkMaster approach and ask him if they could carpool into work together.

It’s a good thing I’ve been doing so much work in our backyard lately because I don’t think I’ll be spending much time out in our front yard anymore. And I am reminded exactly why as just as I type this, I see her waddling her substantial butt down my driveway. No doubt she was here to tell me her news in person. Too bad for her our doorbell has been broken for the past four years, good for us.

May 7, 2005

Chapter 16 of Cabin 4 is up! Happy reading. Today, it’s back to working on our backyard retaining block project. You might see us both back there from time to time on the back web cam. Our backs are really sore today but we hope to finish everything up today so we can plan when to get a woodchip delivery later in the month.

No more known visits from MsNoManagementSkills (see yesterday’s bombshell entry) and since we’re no longer having lawn service, we’ve replaced the padlock on the gate that leads into our backyard. We don’t want to be sitting back there enjoying ourselves only to look up and see her standing there. It’s something she would definitely do if she got it into her head.

Have a good weekend and happy Mother’s Day tomorrow!

May 9, 2005

Hope you all had a relatively good Mother’s Day. We spent ours elbow-to-elbow with eight thousand other shoppers at the opening of a Crate and Barrel store down and across town in Oregon. That place could be dangerous, as in financially dangerous, especially if you like the latest colors – lime green, tangerine, pale pink and watery aquamarine blue. Luckily for us, we don’t. We’re classic colors and styles people and generally don’t go for any trendy colors. We did find a set of polished stainless steel plate chargers, a floating glass picture frame for a project I’m working on, and a few bottles of Mojoto and Margarita mixers so the party will start just as soon as anyone can get here.

WS also ordered me a few wrought iron window boxes; the kind I had been drooling over for the past few months. Now that the retaining wall project is done (as of yesterday afternoon), I’m looking for the final touches I want to accomplish back there: One being fresh woodchips and one being installing European-look window boxes. Not sure when our backs will be recovered enough to spread woodchips but the window boxes should be here within two weeks.

I’ve got car shows both weekends for the next two weeks and it looks like I might be going back up to Anacortes on Friday, the 20th for the Waterfront Festival show on the 21st. If I do go, the nice Competition Boy and his wife, ex-Drill Sergeant Dave’s wife will be following in their car – the one that won everything a couple of weekends ago. I suspect this is THEIR year and that they will be winning everything everywhere, Anacortes included, and again, this is fine with me. He’s worked hard on his car and spent a bundle. He deserves to win and enjoy everything that I did last year. I just really like the area up there.

But this means I have GOT to get my car into shape before this weekend. Since bringing it back from the shop last week, I have yet to re-install all my engine chrome and painted parts, stuff I take off before taking it to the shop so it won’t get scratched up, I have GOT to wash it, and I have GOT to get at least one coat of polish on it before I head up to Anacortes. At least this coming weekend’s show is close by, only about a half an hour away. Anacortes, Washington is a good five hour drive one-way, and last year, it rained dogs and cats the whole time. Need lots of water-repelling polish. Polish good! Zaino polish extra good!

It looks more like early April outside than May. Gray, steady, sound-deadening rain, the kind that makes a person just want to sleep. It doesn’t help that I slept like absolute c.r.a.p. last night either, but I do have things I have to get done today, like laundry. I do think I can see a peek of tonight’s early line-up though: SLEEP!

May 10, 2005

It’s Tuesday and we’re both feeling a bit under the weather today. WS is in the midst of a MS flare-up and I must have eaten something over the weekend that didn’t agree with me. WS is working from home today. He’s been feeling more wobbly than usual and, in a new symptom, his facial cheeks are numb as though he’s just returned from a dental visit. Usual tingling in his hands, feet, and lower legs – this is MS and as much as we can be, we’re okay with it. There are tons more serious things a person could have and I do feel WS is light years away from being as deep into MS as Richard Pryor currently is.

The retaining wall project is, for the most part, done. I still have five blocks left over that I could easily find a spot for but it’s been raining nonstop since Sunday afternoon. It can wait. In between bathroom visits, I’m hoping to get at least half of my engine chrome reinstalled today and I need to remember that I need to swap out my new-ish, pretty air cleaner for the old one so I’ll always have a pretty one in backup for any big, special car shows that might come along.

In the neighborhood today, I witnessed Ms. Howler Monkey notice her outdoor cat for quite possibly the first time ever. When they moved in two and a half years ago, they immediately tossed outside a black, neutered, de-clawed furball of a sweet cat and have yet to ever let back indoors. This is the cat we’ve been feeding, making sure it has water and a blanket-lined box to sleep in outside our front door ever since. An absolute sweetheart of a cat with a slight limp, he often limps across the street over to our house, not to see if there is anything in the food bowl, but just to sit with us on our porch. He craves the sound of the human voice and yearns for just the company of people. Lately, I’ve taken to brushing him, since he is long-haired, and discovered that he will roll on his back and let me brush his belly.

Ms. Howler Monkey, on her daily drive in her HUGE SUV from her driveway to the community mailbox – the entire distance being less than 120 feet – noticed that the cat was limping much more pronounced than usual. But other than to barely make sure she didn’t run over the cat, and that was JUST barely from my vantage point, she got back into her monstrosity vehicle, kicked the cat aside with her foot, and sped off. We’ll see if she notices the limp further when she comes home, or if she will continue to ignore the poor thing. I’ve gone out there and looked at his paw and didn’t see an injury or anything and think it is a strained tendon or muscle. If the Howler Monkeys feed this cat at all, they do it in their back yard, forcing this clawless cat to climb a six foot wooden fence to get to the food and water. I’ve seen it struggle to jump that high which is why we put dry food out for it almost every day. Oh, to not have so many pets already and a strained financial situation. I’d be very tempted to find this sweetheart a new, loving home and never admit to a thing.

May 11, 2005

I lived off of fresh juice, a mug of tea, and water yesterday and didn’t eat a single bite of solid food all day. As hard as it was, and yes indeedie-doo it was hard, I did it and survived. I was giving my system a break from Monday’s seemingly “eat everything in sight” day in which I felt outright starved which is about the furthest from reality as it can possibly get. Yesterday morning, I woke from a bloated, Elvis-dead-on-a-toilet semi-sleep/haze and pleaded with myself to never, ever do that again, hence, the quasi-fast.

Do I feel better today? It’s hard to say exactly. Do I feel bloated? Well, not as bad as Monday night and Tuesday morning, but yes, I feel my usual fat and bloated self. Exercise will take care of that but it’ll take time; easily as long as it took to get to this point. What I do feel is proud of myself for going a whole day without eating solid food. Why is it that I used to be able to fast all the time twenty, thirty years ago and now when I try to fast, all I do is obsess about food, food, FOOD every five minutes? Is this a learned behavior? Or is it related to my older age (48)? I think it’s mostly learned and if that is truly the case, it can be unlearned, or replaced by a new, healthier lesson, right?

Last night, I was hoping, no, I desperately wanted to feel empty inside, like my stomach was a big balloon that suddenly had all the air released and ended up feeling small and shriveled like it often did when I was a kid and my parents refused to feed us. I wanted to feel hungry, or to feel what true hunger felt like while knowing I was surrounded by a huge amount of good food. It’s a power thing, I think. You won’t find a cookie or candy bar anywhere here; we rarely buy them. But trust me when I say you can still get portly and robust by eating nothing but chicken breasts, lean buffalo meat, soup, pasta, cheese, and salads, especially if you make each serving enough to feed between eight-to-ten people in a house that only contains two. We are both living proof of robustness.

Will I fast again today? I’d like to. I really would. What I did do was got in three minutes on the elliptical before drinking a glass of cantaloupe juice followed by a glass of soy milk/chai mix. I don’t feel hungry yet but then again, maybe my resolve to fast again today is hiding in the cupboard…there, behind the forgotten box of Ryecrisps…

May 12, 2005

So, all the paragraphs below are going to start with the word “So”. So what?

So I finally ate something around 7:30 last night. Two ground turkey burritos with LOTS of veggies added. I know I could have gone longer, like until today before eating anything solid but to be honest, I was seriously stressing out about my car (story below), and over WS who was saying he was worried because I wasn’t eating (Whatever for? I really was not hungry in the least and besides, I TOLD him I was going to fast for a while!), and then he said that if I wasn’t going to have dinner, he wouldn’t either, which really pissed me off because someone who is in the middle of an MS exacerbation definitely SHOULD NOT be skipping meals just because someone else is. He wouldn’t listen to me and so, I gave in and had dinner. Now, all of you who think he was being silly or downright stupid, please say so and leave a comment. Yes, even you lurkers. If you don’t say anything, I’m going to assume you’re on his side and Phhhhhttt to you all. And by the way, immediately after I ate, I felt very tired and sleepy, like I ate half a cow or something. I should have held out until today or even tomorrow. They say if you can make it three days at something, it’s all smooth sailing from then on. Who knows how long I could have happily gone drinking fresh juice a few times a day and foregoing real food? Until I got good and ready to eat, that’s how long!

So I had to reinstall a bunch of chrome, stainless, and custom painted parts to my car’s engine compartment to get ready for a show this coming Sunday. The nice Competition boy talked me into going with him and his wife (WS is staying home). The weather looks like it’s going to pour all day which doesn’t bother me in the least anymore but he’s not going to like it. You see, now that he’s got scissor doors, also called Lambo doors because they open upwards like on Lamborghini sports cars, and in order to get attention, he’ll have to have them open and raised. He says he doesn’t care; that if it rains, well, then his interior is just going to get wet. Ought to make for an interesting car show, and even further out, the following weekend looks to be pouring rain too up in Anacortes for the Waterfront Festival car show, just like last year. Maybe he’ll start a new trend – wet interiors.

So naturally, reinstalling my chrome parts gave me all kinds of grief because it just wouldn’t be fun if I wasn’t out in the garage swearing up a storm and throwing tools into the drywall, and then, after trying for twenty minutes to get one lousy bolt into a semi-stripped hole, I notice my new air filter, the one I need to take off anyway to reinstall the old one, isn’t put on the way I had installed it originally. I had the new pretty one on for the Roadster show back in March and hadn’t replaced it yet with my old, not-terribly-attractive but perfectly good air cleaner. When I had my car in the shop last week, they removed it to look for the belt squeal and then, didn’t put it back on right. Dorks! Hey, if a fat, middle-aged woman can see that it’s installed wrong, you people at the dealership with your expensive cars and mega-expensive service rates might want to pay a little more attention to what your service techs are actually doing. Or better yet, hire someone like me to teach them a thing or two. I’d have them either peeing their pants in fear or quitting in droves within a month, but I guarantee every car coming out of there would have the air cleaners installed correctly.

So WS was kind enough to get working on swapping that out for the old one while I was trying to un-kink my back from bending over so long in the engine compartment and I do have to say, he knows how to get that job done with little fuss or problems. Then he tackled my new license tags which might sound simple but in reality means The Annual Complete Removal of the Entire License Plate and Frame, a thorough cleaning and polishing of the plate, frame, cover and the area behind that no one would ever see anyway, the Ceremonial Removal of the Old Tag, the Ceremonial Placement of the New Tag, and replacement of the whole thing back onto the car. All went well until I mistakenly handed him some glass polish instead of the plastic polish and so, after destroying the clear plastic cover for my license plate because the glass polish scratched the living shit out of it (who would have known?), we went online and had to order a new license plate cover at $20 a pop. Hopefully, it will be here before the Anacortes show.

So while he was doing all this, I was trying out a new polish product made by my favorite polish people at Zaino, and it is all they say it is. It’s a mist final detail spray that leaves a car finish glossier and deeper looking than their usual detail spray. It was very dark and cloudy outside today but from what I could see after spraying this stuff on and wiping it in, the car looks spectacular, like it ought to be the featured supermodel on the cover of some car magazine. Hopefully the sun will come out over the next day or two so I can see if it really looks that good in the sunlight too, and if so, this will be my new secret car show weapon. I’ll even try to get some pictures of the shine up on here if at all possible. This new polish is also supposed to help with keeping so much of the road dust and grime from sticking to the paint. Well, since my car is black and EVERYTHING shows up on it, I guess I’ll be the judge of whether or not that really works or not. But then again, how is anything going to prevent stuff from sticking if you’re driving in a downpour anyway, especially up in Washington state where half the people driving around here came onto the streets directly from driving on some mud bog, back hills, unpaved road?

So that’s how my Wednesday went. Add seven minutes in on the elliptical machine (two sessions – one three minute, one four minute), three games of Age of Empires on the computer because killing entire civilizations more often than not calms me more than playing Solitaire, and time spent watching WS clean up the mess caused by his burrito exploding off his dinner plate onto half the kitchen and there you have it. Just another typical day with Blogeois. Hope yours went as well.

May 14, 2005

Chapter 17 of Cabin 4 is up. Hope you enjoy it.

Yesterday was a down day for both of us. WS’ MS exacerbation is wearing on us both; him feeling extra uncoordinated, wobbly, tingly, and blurry-eyed and me just pissed at the world that I can’t do anything about it. But we’ll get through this one just like all the others that have come before. Have patience with us for now.

Next door at the SportsOrNothing house, they told us six weeks ago they were going to buy one of those firepit things for their backyard. At the time, I was a bit jealous because I’ve been looking at several models and would love one myself. So imagine our surprise when they didn’t buy one like they said, but started digging one instead! Now, I’ll admit like dug firepits IF you have the space for one and IF you do it right – like not dig it within three feet of our shared wood fence, don’t ignite it with a combination of propane AND gasoline, and don’t leave both the propane tank AND the gasoline tanks sit within two feet of the firepit for weeks on end. C’mon people, what? You need to see something explode or burn down to get a clue here? Oh, and I just LOVE all the sparks and burning embers that float up into the air and into our backyard. One of my BIG fears in life is having myself, my loved one, and my pets caught in a burning house and so, since they have been burning entire logs next door every other day or so for weeks now, I guess no one should be surprised at how poor sleep I’ve been getting.

But one of the things that has really got me chapped about the firepit is that they dug it and burn logs in it within two feet of their birdhouse that every year, gets a pair of swallows to nest in it. And every spring, these people do something incredibly stupid to kill the birds and the hatchlings living in it off. If it isn’t playing football with the occupied birdhouse or taking it down and letting the dogs chew on it, it’s throwing rocks at it or shooting it with paintballs (whereas we get the ones that “missed” over the fence and into our fountain). This year, it was smoking and burning the birds out.

I was so hoping that THIS year would be the one that the returning birds would choose MY swallow birdhouse over theirs but for the third year in a row, mine has gone ignored while SportsOrNothing’s, which sits directly on the other side of the fence, gets settled into just before disaster strikes. It’s just so disheartening year after year.

Yesterday was also MsNoManagementSkills last day at the Big Ass Corporation. I would have loved to been able to add “and the last I should ever have to hear about her again” but no. She still lives right up the street but the worst of it is, yesterday was also DorkMaster’s first day on the job where WS works. Luckily for WS, he’s been out from work all week due to his MS flare-up and didn’t have to run into that idiot. I do expect some interesting conversations with MsEars about his new job in the days and weeks ahead. That place isn’t like it used to be and workers, especially contract workers, don’t get away with stuff like they used to. I don’t think he’s going to find it any more appealing than his old job. The only one who’s going to like it will be MsNo who has already promised to spend nearly penny he brings home. I don’t think she’s realized that yes, while he might have gotten a better job at double his old low-wage salary, when she leaves her high-paying job (which happened yesterday), that eliminates her salary, so in fact, they have actually taken a PAY CUT in lieu of getting a pay raise. And remember, she is refusing to get another job. Word also has it that she’s under the impression that unemployment pays big time and forever. Oh, to be a fly on the wall when she discovers otherwise.

May 16, 2005

Yesterday, I decided to participate in a car show that was about a half an hour away from home with the nice Competition boy. Because he lives in Oregon and way across on the other side of Portland, he had a much longer drive. It poured rain for most of the day during the show, but true to his word, he kept his Lambo doors up and open nearly the entire time. And true to form, he took first in the our class and I was shut out completely, losing second place to a 3-day old white Dodge Magnum with 400 miles and dealer plates on it. But you should know that the show was put on by a local Dodge/Chrysler car club and every class had at least one Dodge or Chrysler car winner in it not that I’m complaining because I’m not. And that is the way car shows go, and again, I couldn’t be happier for the nice Competition boy who continues to add new stuff to his car, the latest being long-tube headers for a meaner exhaust sound and a bit more power (not that they measure that in car shows – it was a personal thing for him).

As for the firepit next door at SportsOrNothing, I do think a call into the county fire marshal might be in order…unless they decide to start roasting whole hogs or something and invite us over every time, right up until the point that the fence gets burnt down and then all bets are off and the fire marshal will get the call anyway. I don’t think they’ll start roasting whole hogs but who really knows with these people? I’m pretty sure they didn’t dig this big thing just for roasting marshmallows and singing Koom-by-yah.

I’m driving WS to and from work every day this week since he can’t and shouldn’t be driving anyway. Let’s hope that he’s feeling better by Thursday evening because he’s still insisting that I leave Friday morning to drive my car up to Anacortes for next weekend’s car show (again, with the nice Competition boy who we all know will take all the awards anyway), and that means WS will be home alone half of Friday and most of Saturday. Well, not totally alone; he’ll have all the comforting pets to keep him company but the last I checked, they haven’t developed any desire to run to the store to pick up anything we might need when we don’t feel like going ourselves. He tells me not to worry but you can pretty much guarantee I will.

Looking ahead on the car show schedule, technically I could go to a show nearly every weekend from now until the end of September. But I did that last year and I can tell you right now, I won’t be doing that again this year. I like car shows and all, but I really over-exposed my car last summer and I’m sure people are tired of looking at it. I could stand to back way off on the shows this season because not only will it give me and my car a rest, it will give others a shot of having as good a time as I did last year AND it won’t tax our bank account with piddley show entry fees every weekend that can really add up after a while. No, I think I’ll be picking and choosing shows here and there and not everywhere. I’m good with this decision. And hey, if it turns out that the nice Competition boy overexposes HIS car in the meantime, well, maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing come next year.

Looks like a trip to our favorite Mexican food restaurant might be on for late this afternoon/evening. I’m really craving their hot green salsa for some reason. I’ve been juicing up a storm lately and succeeded in fasting again all last Saturday and most of yesterday. While the scale doesn’t show any weight loss, my pants sure are fitting looser. And who really cares what a scale reads anyway? I am SO not about the numbers whether it be weight or age…and speaking of age, tomorrow the latest report on MsNoManagementSkills from MsEars who patiently listened to talk all last week about how life is going to be all sunshine and puppies from here on out because that was MsNo’s last week at work. THAT was before DorkMaster’s kids ripped her back to reality over the weekend and now, MsNo is crying “Foul!”

May 17, 2005

Whenever I have to drive WS to work, the day always seems to get away from me. I generally use that time to get caught up on things outside the home – groceries, bird/pet food, etc. and the past two days have been exactly like that. We’ll save that rant for tomorrow because I promised MsEar’s latest report on MsNoManagementSkills.

You all know that for the past year and a half, MsNoManagementSkills has tried her hardest to win over the love and respect of DorkMaster’s three out-of-control children. The problem is, she’s been doing it in only one way, the way she was raised: Bribery.
When MsNo wants something done around the house, wants the kids to do their school homework, or wants some affection from any of the kids, she bribes them for it. All this time she’s been giving them candy or money in return. MsEars said the going rate in that house was $3 a hug and $5 for a kiss on the cheek. Whether it be out in public or at home, the kids have since learned that if she says, “Come give me a hug “ they simply name their price for it and she’s been giving it. Apparently, this has been perfectly acceptable with DorkMaster, that is, if he’s even been paying attention at all and all signs show he hasn’t been. For him, their marriage is a convenience. He gets a 24/7 babysitter for his kids, he gets time to dabble in his own interests: Japanese anime, home electronics, and chatroom porn.

For someone who yammered on and on and on and on about how all she ever wanted to be was a mother, MsNo sure has “interesting” parenting skills. Take just last week. The oldest child, a pre-teen girl who is given a handful of various medications every day “to make her pay attention in class” has been having major rebellion problems ever since her father remarried, something the entire neighborhood has been aware of since day one thanks to all the screaming coming out of that house. Since the girl has been caught countless times not swallowing her meds, but holding them under her tongue until she can spit them out and then giving them to her classmates instead, MsNo has taken it upon herself to literally force the pills down the girl’s throat every single morning while they both scream bloody murder that half the neighborhood can hear. On a couple of mornings, the ritual has been performed outside in front of their house and in front of groups of neighbors and their kids as that is where the school bus makes its first stop in the development. Apparently, the ritual has started including a bunch of name calling and pushing and shoving matches between the two. Nice, huh?

The latest source of irritation has been over stealing candy. MsNo buys candy by the fifty-five gallon drums it seems from Costco, always has as long as I’ve known her, now mostly for herself and DorkMaster who are both bonafide candy junkies, and they sometimes tease the kids with it. The kids have gotten tired of being denied any for themselves so, the stealing has been going on almost constantly since last summer. Recently, it’s gotten worse. A lot worse, but for whatever reason, neither DorkMaster or MsNo has said or done anything to stop it other than to move the candy stashes, yes that’s plural, to yet another location. That was until last week when MsNo decided to stop talking about wanting to clean the kids’ rooms and actually did it. And what did she find? Enough candy wrappers under the girl’s mattress alone to stuff four (4) 33 gallon sized plastic garbage bags and I can attest to the fact that they had set out well over their normal limit of garbage yesterday on trash day with seven trash cans.

But in the girl’s room, MsNo also found, and get this, thirty-one (31) bras.

Last summer, MsNo decided it was time for the girl, age 10 at the time, to start wearing training bras. The girl hated them and refused to wear them, and since the girl is absolutely no showing any sign of any chest development yet, neither MsEars or I could blame her. But instead of fighting the girl or at least, sitting down and talking with the girl about growing up and the changes her body would be going through in the coming years, MsNo didn’t say a word but continued to buy her one or two more bras every week. All this time. MsNo told MsEars that a couple of weeks ago, it finally got to the point that when asked why the girl wasn’t wearing a bra, the girl would just shrug and say she “lost” them. All of them.

Now personally, I would think that a parent-figure at this point would inquire more on this or at the very least, search the laundry area and the girl’s bedroom especially after the first dozen or so bras “got lost” but nope, not MsNo. And here’s what I thought was the oddest thing of all: It turns out MsNo doesn’t do laundry. DorkMaster doesn’t do laundry either. Everyone in that house wears their clothes, dries off after baths and showers, sleeps every night on things that are never washed, day in and day out until MsNo buys new clothes, new towels, new sheets, new everything to replace things that either no one wants to wear or use anymore, or until they “get lost.” And that is why MsNo didn’t ask the girl anything more about her training bras or what was ever happening to them, choosing instead to continue to buy her more every single week! Only now that MsNo isn’t working anymore is that going to be a problem, but not because she thinks the girl continues to “need” bras, but because MsNo hasn’t bought herself anything new to wear since her Caribbean cruise last March! Sounds like the money is getting a little tight over there to me, and probably a bit stinky too!

Listening to MsEars tell it, it was obviously she was appalled at the parenting skills or lack there of, over the bribery of candy and money, but I sensed that while she sounded astounded at the thought that MsNo didn’t know what was being stashed in the girl’s room because it was never being cleaned, I thought MsEars sounded a bit forgiving on the “never do laundry, just buy new clothes instead” part, and then it struck me: I never see MsEars wearing the same thing twice. OMG, is this normal? You mean, I shouldn’t have had to do laundry all these years? I’ve been doing laundry since I was eight years old! Is that why I’ve been picked on and ridiculed all my life, because I did always wear the same things (even though they were clean)? And exactly how much money would buying new clothes all the time cost, compared to the cost of laundry soap, water, electricity, time, and effort? I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve been living in the stone ages all this time.

May 18, 2005

Happy Mt.St. Helen’s day. Twenty-five years ago, at 8:32 a.m. Pacific time, the mountain blew out it’s side and lives were lost. At that moment, I was living in a desert southwest apartment, getting ready for work at 10 a.m. at a local grocery store chain. I had the “Today” show on and they had the most amazing video of what had just happened. Growing up as a kid who LOVED science/geology/space/weather, I was 110% enthralled and if I could have, I would have called in sick to work that day just to sit in front of the TV watching. Never, never, never in my wildest dreams would I ever have believed that 25 years later, I would be sitting here in the pacific northwest in a house that has a view of that same mountain. I’m still giddy about that.

Another busy day today with lunchtime eye checkup appointments and a run back to DMV for more sitting around. Hopefully this time, they won’t tell us we needed to bring in yet another obscure bit of paper and we can get WS’ car title straightened out finally.

After taking WS to work, and before our eye appointments at noon, I juiced a bunch of peaches I picked up on Monday’s errand to the grocery store. I’ve not had the chance to juice peaches before and while it tastes good, it’s more like a smoothie than actual juice and is similar in consistency to what comes from bananas. I’ll try juicing peaches again later in the summer when the big, juicy-looking ones are more readily available (and cheaper). I also juiced up two big tubs of pre-cubed mixed melon which made about 50 oz of juice. It’s safe to say I’ve got enough fresh juice to last until Friday…but early Friday morning I leave for Anacortes’ Waterfront Festival car show so I’ll probably juice again tomorrow afternoon so I can take some with me. Maybe a pear, apple, parsley mix?

Onto yesterday’s rant:

Yesterday’s mission was to go to a new and enlarged Joann’s Fabrics to find the green cotton toile-print fabric at $1.88 per yard I was so enamored with last fall. My thought was that it would be the one fabric that would go nicely with the basil green color we painted in there last year and would look great and fresh this spring. Unfortunately, they no longer carry that fabric any more, however, if I wanted to spend from $9.99 upwards to $26.99 for real linen toile fabric, they do carry that. Uh, I don’t think so but while I was wandering the fabric aisles, touching this brocade here, that sheer gauze there, I came to two conclusions: I really hate that basil green color we painted and I am so very, very tired of all the latest trends and styles of anything being so gawd damned ugly, a fact that forced it’s way further into my consciousness when I left Joann’s Fabrics empty handed and was wandering the aisles of Bed, Bath & Beyond looking for new sheets and a lightweight comforter. Who wants Day-Glo orange or fluorescent pink sheets? Even back in the 60’s and 70’s, I thought these colors were ugly but to have a bed made up with them? And the mere fact that you can get these colors in KING SIZE is just so wrong on so many levels, it made my head hurt and so I went to go look at the comforter section, the real mission I had on my plate to do yesterday and I was equally dismayed there as well. Who in their right mind, prints alternating shiny vs. matte 60’s-style square patterns on 710 thread count comforter fabric, stuffs it at 700 fill power with down from some special Northern Siberian snow geese, and then put a $500 price tag on it? I’ll tell you who, the people who no only want you to spend the ridiculous amount of money on the comforter itself, but then spend almost the same amount on a duvet cover too! My ass, I said, and so, I left Bed, Bath & Beyond where I thought it belonged: Beyond my wallet.

And just for the record, I couldn’t find any sheets of any color that went well with my basil green color swatch, bringing me back to the first of my conclusions today. Something tells me that basil green color’s days are numbered. Why, with the money I didn’t spend yesterday, I should be able to buy a few gallons of a nice neutral butter pecan and finally then, I’d like to find something that DOESN’T go with it for once.

On the way home, feeling quite dejected, I stopped at a home décor place located just up the road. I used to ALWAYS be able to find something, or several somethings, that I just felt in my heart had to come live with me. And yesterday was no exception, unless you factor in my depression and overwhelming feeling of melancholy for the return to an era of classic décor styles, and so, I walked out of that place empty-handed as well, which couldn’t be a bad thing. I shouldn’t be spending money there anyway.

Then, I drove home and opened the door to find pet barf in more places than I want to discuss and half the basket of ‘faux” fruit I have sitting on the buffet table scattered throughout the kitchen and livingroom. With all that fun going on at home, I probably should have just stayed home.

May 19, 2005

Yesterday evening, The Dimmers’ kids were out front riding their bicycles and Limpy, the poor ignored Howler Monkey cat was trying to cross the street, when Little Boy Dimmer (LBD) decided to try to run the cat down with his bike. He’s nearly seven years old and I’m sure knows better. Fortunately, he didn’t get close enough fast enough and I have to give kudos to Limpy for putting forth a timely burst of limping speed in his mad dash away from that little brat. But both WS and I saw the whole thing and of course I wanted to go out there and give that kid a piece of my mind, and The Dimmers themselves too if they were out there as well.

But having gotten both myself and WS in trouble with neighbors before with my big mouth over the poor treatment of animals, I wasn’t going to say a word unless WS gave me the go-ahead. After all, we have to live in this neighborhood with all these people. And then he said, “Go ahead.”

I marched out and yelled to the kid who was still enjoying his bike ride in circles in front of our house, “I SAW YOU TRY TO RUN DOWN THAT CAT AND IF I EVER SEE THAT AGAIN, I’LL BE TALKING TO YOUR PARENTS! OKAY?” The boy looked right at me as I was yelling this and he knew that I knew full well that he had heard me, but he gave me a sour look and turned to ride his bike in another direction without saying a word. So I yelled even louder, “OKAY?” I heard a very low “yeah” mumble and that was good enough for me. I continued to stand at our door watching him, and him watching me, for a few minutes longer before I came inside and closed the door.

Five minutes later, WS and I were sitting here upstairs with a full view of the street below where LBD was still riding his bike and all of a sudden WS says, “And he’s down. Hard!” Apparently, LBD tried to make a hard turn on his bike at the community mailbox and crashed his bike BIG TIME onto the street and started howling at the top of his lungs. Ms. Dimmer finally came out of her house next door and had to help limp her skinned and bloody kid back inside. Another neighbor came out, picked up his bike from the street, and wheeled it into The Dimmers’ garage. There was no more bike riding last night, but I, who is probably a misguided lover of animals over humans, noticed no one came out to see if Limpy was okay, or even to scold LBD for trying to run over the cat in the first place. All I could think of at the time was how much I hated that brat for even attempting something like that in the first place, and that’s when I remembered something that I hadn’t thought of in a about a year; something odd that seems to happen to me and to someone else as well.

Have you ever had one of those experiences when you were just talking to someone about some celebrity you dislike intensely and the next thing you know, you are reading or hearing about that celebrity’s death? Yep, it happens to me about once a year. Elvis? Yeah, that was me, walking on Huntington Beach Pier that year talking about not understanding his appeal and wishing people would stop worshipping him and the next thing I know, some woman walking next to me listening to a transistor radio screamed and yelled for the entire world to hear, “ELVIS IS DEAD!”

Ditto for Burl Ives. In fact, me and a bunch of people I prefer not to admit I used to know were trying to think of older-than-dirt, forgotten celebrity to make as our official mascot and we came up with Mr. Ives name. Within the week, he was dead.

Ditto for Mel Torme.

Ditto for Steve McQueen.

Ditto for Harry Chapin.

Ditto for Natalie Wood.

Ditto for Robert Urich.

Tuesday night, we were watching something on TV (exactly what IT was escapes me – that’s how much I was really paying attention) and Frank Gorshin played a small role in it. I told WS how much I hated that actor. Last night, I found out he died yesterday.

I guess I’ve still got it. Sorry to any fans out there. I’ll try to keep my celebrity thoughts to myself from now on.

Unless I decide to go off on a rant about Paris Hilton like this guy.

May 20, 2005

It’s nearly 8 a.m. and I’m getting ready to head out for Anacortes. It’s a five hour drive for me from here if I drive straight through. I’ll be meeting up with the nice Competition boy and his wife just a bit up the road shortly and no doubt, that will change the drive time a little. She’s a big fan of rest stops on trips; all the rest stops. Just as well, it will give me time to stretch out my back which always needs it on long drives.

Chapter 18 of Cabin 4 has been posted. I know if I were reading it every week, I would hate to have to wait for the next chapter until I got back home late Saturday night/early Sunday morning. Happy reading!

And finally, just because this flash movie has been stuck in my head all week long, I thought I would share it with you. Don’t mention it. *ding-ding*

May 22, 2005

I’m finally back into the land of the living, I think. The five-hour drive to Anacortes Friday and back again Saturday night in the POURING rain was more stressful than I could have ever imagined, with visibility between fifteen and twenty feet and our speed varying anywhere from 40 to 80 mph. Thank goodness for the stickiest tires on the planet, a good radar locator, and the relatively low amount of traffic on the road (Seattle-area gridlock excluded)!

The rain started in Longview around 9:30 a.m. Friday and didn’t let up until we reached LaConner, the little town just minutes away from Anacortes. After check-in, a car wash, dinner, and car detailing in the motel parking lot to scrape the rest of the big chunks of road grime off, we all hit the sack pretty early as the rain droned on throughout the night.

5:45 a.m. Saturday morning, I woke to dry skies, hints of sun trying to peek through the clouds, and a cold, brisk wind. Another chilly car wipe-down later, we were checked out and headed to a Starbucks just up the road for some much needed caffeine fuel for the day. Five minutes later, we were pulling into our appointed spaces at the Waterfront Festival car show, and that’s when the real cleaning begins. A couple of hours later and still without a drop of rain, we were as clean as we would ever be and the judging started. All the while, I was looking for someone in the crowd, someone I had never met in real life but wanted to very much. Mary Lou thought she might visit and I was both so excited and so worried that she would come all that way and I’d miss her, that one would have sworn that I had accidentally Velcro-ed myself to my car, I stuck by it so close.

But by noon, after I feared that she wasn’t able to make it due to the cloudy, windy weather. I wandered a bit, which turned into a bit of a longer wander than I expected. Who knew that some of the marina docks would be so long and that some of the ships would be absolutely magnificent to gaze at? I kicked myself repeatedly for forgetting my camera but vow to go back some day soon. When I finally meandered back onto dry land and into the festival crowds, the nice Competition Boy’s wife ran up to me and told me I had a visitor! Oh my goodness! Was it? Could it be? I had been wandering the docks for an hour, in the wind no less and had to have looked like a wreck, but I was more worried that I might still miss her. But as I approached my car, there she was! Mary Lou! Finally and in person! And that’s when the faucets opened and the tough woman everyone thinks I am saw that I wasn’t. And it was worth every second.

I literally could have talked with Mary Lou all day long. I don’t know if she felt the same but that is really how I felt. And she sounded exactly like how she posts entries on her journal, which is exactly how I would expect except I have met a number of people who are anything but how they portray themselves online. Mary Lou was real, a genuine article, and gosh, but if I didn’t feel like I had known her for years and years.

After what I’m sure was me talking her ear off for far long enough, she had to leave and so, after another hug, she did. As she walked back to her car, I could only think of how I wanted to pack her up in my car and go to some quiet place for dinner to talk for hours. Heck, at that point having just had the opportunity to meet her in person, and if I could have, I would have agreed to go to her place to talk and pull weeds! Her visit made my day (not to put any pressure on her or anything when she reads this), and whatever happened beyond that, I could of cared less about. Thank you, Mary Lou!

I ended up taking second place at the show and with sixteen others in my class, that wasn’t bad at all. The nice Competition Boy took first in his class and again, it was well deserved. Immediately after the show around 4 p.m., and despite various car club members asking if we would stay another night and go to the big after-show dinner with them, we headed back for home. And no sooner than five minutes out of Anacortes, the clouds let loose and dumped an equally nasty amount of rain on us for the entire stressful five-hour drive home. Unreal amounts of heavy rain and had I not known what cities and towns I was driving through, I might not have believed it; the rain was THAT heavy and visibility was nearly non-existent.

I haven’t looked at my car since getting home last night and I don’t plan on it for a few days. It’s been raining here on and off all day and to be honest with you, my ass feels as swollen as Jennifer Lopez’ and sore too despite taking small amounts of pain medication all day. And why is that? Well obviously, I was driving with the seat of my pants. No one should clench anything for that long!

May 24, 2005

Who knew flu bugs could fly that fast?

When I was hauling my butt back home from the Anacortes car show last weekend, little did I know that I was also hauling a flu bug back home which has since settled into my left ear and sinus. Not fun in the least but I do have lots of good medication for it now. And who knew that a couple days of nothing but solid sleep could feel so good?

May 27, 2005

The flu: An icky, nose-clogging, sinus-busting, ear canal-closing, chest-wracking, breath and energy-sapping illness anytime of the year, it seems particularly cruel during the summer months when it’s nice, dry, and toasty warm outside and you can hear neighbors sitting around their firepit/campfire every evening, singing songs while watching them through bleary eyes roasting wienies and marshmallows. I guess it was my time since I haven’t suffered through a single bout of the flu in at least four years.

I have been sleeping entire days away, waking only long enough to stumble into the bathroom for a visit and to take more medication. Today, I stumbled a bit further – into the shower because let’s face it, all fish and all people stink after three days, and then out here where my favorite computer resides. I’d like to think it missed my fingers caressing the keys, gently clicking it’s desktop icons, playing that mind-numbing Crazy Frog video at LEAST five twice a day, and hoped it didn’t think I was ignoring it on purpose as most of our pets have come to believe. Because I hate not writing at least once a day and I do have a book to finish, and another to begin rewrite on soon!

I apologize for my absence and most of all I apologize for not having a chapter to post for Cabin 4 this week. But as soon as I am able and am fairly certain that I’ll be able to write something at least halfway coherent, I’ll get back to Cabin 4. In fact, it was Cabin 4 that woke me up today and when I realized it was already Friday, I tried to get something hacked out for tomorrow’s posting. But as you might understand by now, nothing came out but babbling and rambling and some words that weren’t even real words at all, according to WS, a sure sign that I’m not quite there yet.

Again, I’m sorry there’s no chapter for Cabin 4 tomorrow but if you have patience, I’ll try hard to make it up to you readers. In fact, if I could just go back and lie down for just an eensie-teensy tiny little while, I’m sure I’ll be able to remember what it was exactly other than the gas that woke me up this morning.

May 31, 2005

It’s alive, it’s ALIVE!

Thank you so very much for your kind words and concerns while I was out. Okay, so I’ve basically lost a week due to the flu and all the sleep I’ve gotten but lemme tell ya: If you are out with the flu and if you can at all do it, sleep through as much of it as you can. This was a first for me and it’s definitely the way to handle illness. I’m usually trying so hard to be Super Woman through bouts of colds, flu, asthma, surgery, etc., continuing to clean and live a “normal” everyday life and it always prolongs recovery for me. Sure, I lost a week and I can’t remember posting my last entry here, but I feel pretty darn good today. My left ear is still clogged but I’ve lived with that before. My taste buds are still AWOL too but no biggie there. It’s the pile of stuff I had planned to get done that bothers me but I’m trying not to dwell on that just yet.

Today, I’m planning on getting caught up on Blog-walking and talking with both MsEars if I see her out and about and WS, who has a bit of juicy information on DorkMaster. Seems he’s not telling MsNoManagementSkills the truth about his job and now with her hell-bent to find a house to buy, things could be setting themselves up to come crashing down very soon.

June 1st, 2005

Between MsEars and WS, I’m getting caught up on more MsNoManagementSkills and DorkMaster information than I might be able to remember so let’s hope I don’t forget anything.

The Facts: DorkMaster was hired on last month at a temp agency as a contract temp employee for the company WS works for. All contract employees have set release dates, sometimes for as little as a few months, sometimes up to one year. DorkMaster’s name is now listed in the company roster and his release date has been set at a few months from now.

DorkMaster told MsNoManagementSkills he was hired on for the actual company WS works for (a company that has not been doing ANY actual hiring for quite some time now) and conveniently forgot to mention to her that he was actually hired on as a contract temp employee with a set release date. Several years ago, he actually worked for a different temp agency the company used at that time but he also conveniently forgot to tell her or anyone else he was a contract temp employee then either as WS has since discovered. WS has talked to everyone who worked in the exclusive and highly regarded department DorkMaster tells everyone he worked in and to date, NO ONE remembers him. Several people who work in that area have said that it’s common for temp workers to say they worked in that specialized department, one that doesn’t hire contract temp workers as a rule, when in fact, the workers never did. I think we see the likelihood that he worked in a completely different department than what he claims but tells people something other than the truth to boost his ego or something.

Now, before you think someone is just splitting hairs here between working in different departments and whether someone is a contract temp employee or a regular company employee, you may want to know that contract temp employees and regular company employees are vastly different and are treated vastly different there. Just because one is a contract temp employee doesn’t mean those people have a sure-fire “in” with getting hired on as a regular employee. Often, the opposite is true and the company more often that not views contract temp employees as expendable, short-term, sub-level laborers.

On the other side, MsNoManagementSkills has gotten it into her head that it is time to buy a house now that he’s got a “great” job and all, and to finally get out of the rental they all live in just up the street from us. The thought of this actually occurring makes me very, very giddy with excitement as you might imagine. Who knows? I might start walking in my own neighborhood again!

But the fact is, less than two years ago, DorkMaster got it into his head that he didn’t want his then separated wife to get the house they were living in via their upcoming divorce and so, he just stopped making the payments. In fact, he stopped paying for everything: The utilities: water, gas, electric, trash, the insurance on everything, and of course, the house mortgage. Six months later, the house went into foreclosure and DorkMaster and his three kids, who ate at his mothers every day because DorkMaster also didn’t feel like buying food, was out of a home. At that point, his mother stepped in on behalf of the kids and took them all into her home temporarily until he could get his act together. A month later, he met MsNoManagementSkills who has since paid all his bills including thousands in all those unpaid utility bills that were in collection and that has since nearly drained MsNoManagementSkills of the 100K+ she got in Company stock options when the Company we both worked for was sold to the Big-Ass Corporation. Everyone questions whether or not DorkMaster ever really got his act together after all or if he just latched onto the closest sugar mama.

What MsNoManagementSkills has going for her, now that the rest of her money is almost gone, is that she is owed nearly 20K in what she calls “divorce money” from FatHead – an amount she has yet to see a penny of. If she gets this money anytime soon, and FatHead isn’t in any rush to pay her anything regardless of the 12% interest the money is legally accruing monthly, she may be able to afford a down payment on a house. But houses in our area are going up in price literally every week as we recently found out here and lotteries are being held locally for new construction housing, the demand is so great right now.

Even so, getting a down payment together is one thing – being able to afford a monthly mortgage payment is a whole ‘nother ball of wax, one that DorkMaster has hinted repeatedly he doesn’t care to bite into again, especially since he is the only one working now. Apparently, the kitchen utensil business isn’t running so hot for her anymore.

Between hearing what I said and what MsNoManagementSkills has told her, MsEars says she’s gotten the very strong impression that DorkMaster hasn’t exactly told MsNoManagementSkills everything she ought to know about his employment status, house foreclosure, and credit history and she might be in for a rude awakening if and when she finds out. Between his bad credit and her lack of a job, she might not be getting into a house purchase anytime soon. The lies are starting to mount up and everyone is beginning to see them, except MsNoManagementSkills.

Meanwhile, she’s bragging to everyone within shouting distance that DorkMaster got a great job and they’re planning on buying a new house shortly. Well, maybe not within actual shouting distance: DorkMaster, who’s worked the new job all of two weeks now, called in sick yesterday with a “tension headache.” From what I understand, that kind of thing isn’t looked very favorably upon so early in an employee’s contract at this company, especially when it comes the day following a three-day holiday weekend. Or was his “headache” another lie?

June 2nd, 2005

The rain started precisely at noon Tuesday in a heavy downpour as though the previous week of dry weather was just a mistake. Because I almost religiously watch the local weather forecasts and knew that there would be some dry breaks here and there yesterday afternoon, I went outside to work on a house project I had been whining about for years: Installing European window boxes. WS installed the boxes themselves and I “planted” them. Yeah, I think they turned out well. Ask me how I feel about them in three years.

I need to pick up more plant material at Craft warehouse to finish the final one by the corner kitchen window. Come fall, the geraniums will come out and greenery, probably ivy, will stay in throughout the winter. I really like the red geraniums and black wrought iron next to the white of the house.

And most important of all, the boxes garnered the approval of the indoor pets. Here you see Seth and Maxx discussing the finer points of the installation from their vantage point. Maxx would like to go on record stating that the placement of the boxes would be much better if he had physical access to them and that the flowers looked like something he’d very much like to chew on.

Also, as you can see, it was time for a color change here in preparation for the hot summer months. As a color model, Seth found time in his busy schedule to sit in for a photograph and I took some of his colors for use here. I like it.

Over the past few days as I’ve been getting over the flu, I heard and saw a few things around the neighborhood and thought I’d bring you all up to speed since it’s been a while.

Over the past couple of days, Mr. and Ms. SportsOrNothing next door have been cleaning out their garage and hauling stuff away and from what I could see of the stuff, it was perfectly normal, functional stuff too. The barbecue grill, park benches, a weight bench and weights, a roll of carpet, pet cages, etc., which leads me to believe one thing: They are getting ready to move. These self-admitted hoarders of stuff NEVER get rid of anything unless, as they say, they are thinking of packing up and moving because who wants to move a bunch of old stuff when it’s more fun to dump it all and buy new stuff for a new place? I see their point…to a point.

Also, Monday evening, the Howler Monkeys across the street from SportsOrNothing came home from a holiday vacation somewhere (Limpy, the cat, was apparently on his own for care and food once again) and I heard them call over, “Looks like you are packing up to move!” Neither Mr. or Ms. SportsOrNothing said anything in return, burying themselves instead back into their now not-so-stuffed garage, leading me to believe that not only are they in the early stages of preparing to sell and move, but they aren’t willing to let the entire neighborhood know it just yet.

Yesterday, The Dimmers’ dog got out and went after Limpy in a most horrible way. As the dog was attacking the poor cat that everyone ignores, Little Girl Dimmer (LGD) stood on the sidewalk screaming her head off, Mr. Dimmer stood in their driveway screaming for the dog to get home which it didn’t on it’s own, and Ms. Dimmer finally went across the street and dragged their dog out from under The Dry Cleaners porch and back home whereas Mr. Dimmer smacked it several times causing it to yelp. Just as I unlatched the window to scream out, “KNOCK IT OFF!” he stopped hitting it. No sign of Limpy still and I’m just hoping that he is okay. The fight sounded awful and although The Howler Monkeys saw and heard the whole thing, they didn’t seem to care one way or the other about their cat. Can’t someone sic a dog on them? Please?

Kitty-corner across the street from us on the other side is a family I rarely talk about and surprisingly, never came up with a nickname for. A reasonably quiet family who keep to themselves most of the time, he is an ex-military man and used to be quite the arrogant, macho asshole. She is a conservative and quiet stay-at-home mom with three kids. The kids are 16, 13, and 10 now and mom had been going to college on and off in preparation to return to the workplace. Last year, she was diagnosed with cancerous lung tumors and although she was never a smoker, her husband was. She went through chemotherapy and was doing well until last month when the lung tumors returned with a renewed vigor. She’s going through chemo again and she’s a strong fighter, but it’s not sounding good according to her husband who says if chemo doesn’t do it this time, her only alternative is major surgery which his insurance won’t cover. Naturally, the oldest child, a young woman at 16, isn’t taking the situation well and is taking it out verbally on everyone in sight, again, and has taken to walking around the neighborhood in fewer and fewer clothes than ever. What a body. I think the last time I was that thin, I was six years old, my pre-blimp years as I call them. And her father, who claimed to have never wanted children in the first place, really has his hands full this time because this time, he can’t take off for a three-month National Guard stint in Germany like he’s done every year to date.

Last weekend we had a huge wind storm here and several neighbors lost roof shingles, including Cap’t Dan behind us. As we have an excellent view of his roof (as do all of our neighbors), we thought we’d be nice and want to let him know he is missing two shingles from his roof peak but every chance WS has gotten so far to say something whenever Cap’t Dan has been out in his backyard, WS has chosen not to speak up because Cap’t Dan’s wife has always been present.

One thing we have discovered since the infamous profanity-laden shouting incident between Cap’t Dan and our old yard maintenance guy in April is that Cap’t Dan’s wife is…unstable. The littlest thing sets her off and so, much to his credit, Cap’t Dan goes out of his way to shield his wife from everything in the world that would upset her. Missing shingles would upset her, although personally, I would think water damage would upset her just as much if not more, but maybe that’s just me. The renters in the house next door to Cap’t Dan are missing a few shingles themselves but everyone else on our side of the block, ourselves included, seem to have come through it okay.

June 3rd, 2005

Quick! How many times have you watched that Crazy Frog video this week? I’ll admit to at least once a day twice. At least I’m not watching that guy do the Numa Numa Dance thing anymore.

It’s back onto the juicing bandwagon. I probably should have been drinking nothing but juice the entire time I was under the weather but I didn’t. Didn’t eat much during that time either actually, and I lost ten pounds. Now, before you go bitching at me for losing weight, and you know who YOU are, losing ten pounds on me is likened to someone clipping their nails meaning it’s not noticeable in the least. Nope, I’m still up around my “girlish” weight of 170 pounds and that’s okay with me.

Still raining outside so it’s time to look into some of those indoor projects I had hoped to complete this spring – finish Cabin 4, repainting our bedroom and the downstairs bath, and get a coat of sealer on the backyard fence. The bedroom will be first on the agenda because although I like green a lot, I’m convinced that if I had to lie there one more day with the flu last week looking at basil green walls, I was going to start puking basil green colors. I really tried to make the color work but am so very, very tired of it and of not being able to match anything to it other than ivory or white. Anyone who knows me knows I am anything but an ivory or white color person.

So, in between writing bouts, I’ll make sure I’m smart with the painting this time around and am planning on aging ALL the bedroom walls in the tan butter pecan color I love so much which I know goes with everything. Currently, two walls are aged, the other two the dreaded green, and before that, the green walls were a deep burgundy color. By painting all the walls the same, this means all those old linens I have that didn’t go with the green will look great and it will be as if everything were new again. I won’t need to buy a thing except paint which I’ll do today right after my surprise hair appointment that WS set up for the both of us. I’m sure he told me about it weeks ago because NO ONE can get an appointment at that shop for a cut and color with this much short notice, but if he did, it was wiped from my memory.

Lucky for me, I do remember we both have dental cleanings next Friday. That ought to be a hoot since neither of us have been in for a cleaning since my pre-Emil days of last spring. What really ought to be a hoot is listening to the dental hygienists just try to berate us for not coming in for so long. Boy, will they ever get an earful from me if they even attempt to go there, because while most people just put off going to the dentist, I had an actual reason for not going. In addition to last fall’s surgery and since they have me locked into some money-grubbing insurance deal where I’m expected to come in for a cleaning four times a year instead of two or three times like WS is, meaning I have to pay for one cleaning out of my pocket (insurance only covers three a year), frankly I refuse to purposely make someone else rich on my teeth so homey don’t play that game. They’re lucky to see me at all.

Now, back to writing and Cabin 4, I’ve been having difficulty concentrating this week. I feel mostly better and all but my left ear is still clogged shut which is very annoying. I’ll live though. Expect a new chapter a week from tomorrow, clogged ear or not. Hmmm, maybe I could clog up one of my characters ears…

June 4, 2005

I’ve had a fairly low-key morning for a Saturday. Yesterday didn’t go as planned due to a misunderstanding about the hair appointment and so I’ll try to get that done next week instead. And because I was a little down on myself about the hair appointment misunderstanding, we drove to the specialty grocery store we used to shop at back when we had three jobs between us and visited some of our friends who work there. During our visit, we saw someone carting off an authentic wine barrel that had been used for a store display so me being me, I glibly said that if they had another one of those, I’d gladly take it. Never in a million years did I think they would say, “Okay.” And so, that’s what WS is trying to do today – shove a big, authentic sized oak wine barrel in his car to bring home to me because we know it would never fit in a million years in mine and he’s going alone to try to pick it up because if it does fit, it will mean that no one other than the driver will fit in his little car.

I should probably confess here that I have wanted a real wine barrel for some six or seven years now as a décor item, not that I have any clue as to where I’d actually put it since I had given up on ever getting one and have since filled up all the available spaces with other things by now. But we’ll see what happens. I sure do think it would be pretty cool which may just be my way of romanticizing the whole notion because now that I think of if, it might stink to high heavens since I know for certain it was once used for fermenting wine. Oh dear!

Last night, I got a phone call and two emails from one of the local car clubs asking if I would participate in a small town parade just across the border in Oregon early this morning. Sure, I said, as long as it doesn’t rain and it didn’t. The small town of Corbett is one of the gateway towns to the Columbia River Gorge with all it’s waterfalls and gorgeous forests. Once a year, the town of Corbett holds a town parade and the volunteer fire department throws a big pancake breakfast. This was the fifth year of the event and the most cars it had ever attracted at 64 total, they said. But if I learned one thing from today it was this: Before saying “Yes” ask how many Model A and Model T cars are going first. While I really do respect those old timers, the parade was stretched out from one hour long to over two hours long. The words “fast” or even “reasonable parade speed for the 21st century” aren’t exactly in their vocabulary and rightly so. We are talking cars that were built almost a hundred years ago. It just had everyone who wasn’t driving one a bit on edge due to the lack of speed and the multiple breakdowns and near mishaps.

After the parade, I hightailed it back home to help WS with this wine barrel thing but he hadn’t left to try to stuff it in his car yet. Secretly, I think he was hoping I would try again to talk him into forgetting about it since I did tell him before I left this morning that I was having reservations and discovered that he wants it just as badly as I do. But I just have to wait to see what happens. Of course, pictures will be coming should he drive up with it crammed in his car. Thank goodness I finally bought that hand truck earlier this year!

June 5, 2005

I’m sure anyone who saw WS driving down the road with this in his car had to do a double-take. Even I was frightened when he opened his car door and I saw this crammed in there, but I have to give him credit. He measured his passenger side and measured the wine barrel I asked for and got and with only two inches to spare, he got it home.

Figuring out where it put it once it was home was another matter. I had some general ideas but all of them required that wall units, furniture, and rugs be moved. Lots of vacuuming was also involved as well as the obligatory toying with all the electronics and cables that can sometimes enthrall WS for hours with all the different home theatre setup configurations. Finally, he stopped the rewiring madness and uttered the words, “I’m trying to envision this room if I had it to do all over again” and it was then that I realized that if we didn’t finish rearranging things rapidly, we’ll lose all focus and before we knew it, the day would be gone.

Four hours later, I’ve decided a back corner is as good a spot as any and I wonder what would have happened if I had just put it there in the first place, plunked down a few books and a pot of geraniums on top of it and called it done. What would I have done then? Probably whined about how much I really needed to move that big rug someday anyway and how I wouldn’t be happy until I did. I’m happy now. Of course, if I were a professional decorator, I could have charged a client $600 for what we rearranged today plus some kind of dollar figure for the barrel. Ah, if I only knew then what I know now, I think I might have gone into decorating.

June 6, 2005

So I know we’re about a year or two too late for the market but lately we’ve been looking for some investment rental property in the preferable form of new construction. The problem here is multi-fold – growth boundaries, housing lotteries, ever-inflating prices, but the real problem is this: MsNoManagementSkills is looking in the same market and in the exact same areas, convinced that with her lack of a job but a few thousand in the bank and with her husband’s credit/FICO score that is reportedly so low it’s off the bottom of the scale, she’s going to buy a house in less than three months – the same amount of time we hope to find something we can rent out and start bringing in a positive cash flow again.

There truly is nothing worse than looking at a model home, one of the very, very few left in our area and running smack dab into her.

MsNo: “Oh hey, what are you doing here?”

Me: “Nothing, uh…looking at decorating ideas. You?” (Knowing full well what she is doing there and desperately looking for an escape exit.)

MsNo: “We’re going to buy a house! It’s time and nothing is going to stop us!”

Me: “Oh, well, have fun. This one might be a bit small for you and Dork…er, your family. You know it’s smaller than the rental you’re in now, don’t you?”

MsNo: “Oh really? Hmm, well, we’re just looking around anyway. Say, you wouldn’t happen to have a direct phone number for the people who own the house we’re currently renting, do you? We’re hoping to talk them into changing our rental agreement to a rent-to-own but that bastard rental agency they are using won’t give us their number or address.”

Me: “Uh, gee, sorry. Don’t have anything and can’t won’t help you even if you were lying in a desert dying of thirst and I had all the water in the world.

MsNo: “Oh, okay. We were just thinking with these ridiculous prices, maybe we could find an easier way into getting a house. These greedy bastards! At least I’ve got money to look with. My ex-husband is taking out a loan to pay me my divorce money finally. It’s only been a year since he was supposed to pay me, that bastard!”

Me: “Yeah, well, good luck.” (Looking down at my watch.) “Oh dear, we’re really going to be late! See you later!”

MsNo: “Hey, if you get the chance, look around to see if maybe you might have that phone number after all and I’ll stop by to get it from you if you do. Talk to you soon!”

Me: “mumble mumble” Over my dead body you will.

It was all I could do to not pick up a few construction nails I saw lying off to the side of the model home parking lot and put them under her SUV’s tires. Obviously, we’re looking for houses in the wrong area.

June 8, 2005

Still no sign of Limpy, the Howler Monkey’s ignored cat after The Dimmers’ dog went after him before Memorial Day weekend. Either the Howler Monkeys finally took the cat back indoors permanently or they got rid of him. Next week, I’ll put the box away that sits on our front porch and that he used to sleep in over here and start severely rationing the dry food I’ve been setting out at night. I know we are helping feed at least three other neighborhood cats at night from the next street over but I’ve never been able to get close to any of them. On top of that, two of them wear collars and all three are fairly hefty-looking. We can’t afford to feed the neighborhood so the food will be eliminated soon. Only cats we know are not being fed or are obviously starved get free handouts. Remind me to share the story of Cole, a cat literally near death from starvation we found on the eve of our anniversary the first winter we lived here.

A question for all you writers out there: Have you ever been writing something, fiction-oriented, and the story was really going along smoothly right up to the point that a major cliché begged to be written into the piece? And try as you may, you cannot find another smooth way to write the scene without using the cliché? I HATE clichés with a passion, and feel that they cheapen the story but maybe that’s just me.

I’m talking about scenes/chapters where characters do annoying things like think they’ve killed someone/something off yet stay there within reach of the someone/something that isn’t really dead yet and of course, the undead reach out and grab the character’s ankle. Or a scene where the hero finds it necessary to create lots of explosions/car crashes because EVERYTHING has to have explosions/car crashes it in nowadays, or the weak busty female character who falls down and twists her ankle at the worst possible moment. Does not using a cliché ever become cliché in itself?

Gray skies, rain, a peek of sun then back to gray skies and rain adequately describes most of our weather since late April. Today, it might actually hit 70 F degrees and we might see the sun briefly. The weather seems to have had an impact on my motivation, but I think my lack of motivation is being caused by other things as well: My own personal to-do list is growing daily due to the lack of dry, sunny weather, the constant worry about money, having to get a job on a moment’s notice, and my own personal hard crackdown on spending much, if any, of our savings, the constant worry about the next round of layoffs at WS’ place of employment, and the constant dread of seeing MsNoManagementSkills walking her dog up and down our street. I just want my life back, except I’m no longer sure what life that means anymore.

Current to do list, subject to change at any moment:

Varnish the fence (in its entirety this time around)
Finish retaining wall project (1 more pallet? Ugh)
Bark dust all flower beds
Paint downstairs bathroom
Cut back all bushes and attempt to shape them, front and back
Finish “Cabin 4”
Rewrite “In the Trenches” before October
Work on outline for next November’s NANOWRIMO novel
Re-sod portion of front yard grass
Call Salvation Army for junk pickup
- Old cotton comforters
- Broken lamps
- Plastic outdoor chairs and table
- Old fake Christmas tree and box
- Old clothes/shoes
Swap squirrel feeder for new feeder sitting in garage
Take down comforter to dry cleaner
Get watches fixed (new batteries or ?)
Clean out master bedroom closet
Clean out pet room closet
Organize garage (talk to cabinet maker?)
Buy small air compressor (Dewalt or Porter Cable?)
Get back to making weekly menu

See? Enough to keep a person awake at night. And I didn’t even add anything about polishing my car!

June 9, 2005

MsNoManagementSkills had to go to an unemployment job workshop this week in order to collect unemployment after being laid off from the Big Ass Corporation (that laid me off last January). She’s been complaining loudly about having to “waste time at that stupid thing” for a solid week, MsEars says. Funny thing is, according to MsEars and everyone else she has talked to, MsNo plans on continuing to sell those overpriced kitchen utensil products at in-home parties while collecting unemployment. What no one can figure out is if this is against unemployment rules or not. Meanwhile, she’s still got no clue that unemployment only last twenty-six weeks. She’s even told people she a “lifer” when referring to how long she plans on collecting because she hates working so much.

Uh, doesn’t work that way.

MsNo has also told everyone that she’s got a house picked out but won’t tell anyone how exactly she plans on getting into it. She’s calling it “hers” already and has been driving by it at least once a day all week. Apparently, she’s been laying down the law over there and DorkMaster isn’t the least bit happy about it. Other than not being interested in the least to make payments for a house she alone wants, she’s got other changes for him as well. She’s expecting him to give up the SUV she bought him last year in lieu of riding the new bicycle she bought him to work every day since “her” house is only about three miles from where he is working now.

Additionally, his oldest child, an eleven-year old girl, is being put through psycho analysis for alleged behavior problems, also being paid for out of DorkMaster’s pocket. And she’s enrolled all three kids in various lengthy sports and craft programs all summer long when the original agreement was that she was going to babysit them to keep costs down.

MsEars said she delicately asked how they could afford to do all this now that they were bringing in less than when MsNo and DorkMaster were both working to which MsNo turned snippy and started slamming kitchen cabinet doors. MsEars apologized, saying she was just asking since MsNo had supplied her with the income information last week (the woman will tell anyone anything!), but MsNo didn’t seem to hear and let MsEars find her own way out.

I told MsEars, who was wearing a smart navy blue dress suit and gold button earrings today, not to worry about it, that if I know MsNo, and I think I do only too well, she will need someone to brag to soon enough about whatever next drama she chooses to create and that she will gladly welcome her back into her universe where everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING, revolves around her alone.

June 9.2005

Early yesterday afternoon, the sun came out finally and instantly, my motivation soared. I cut dead flowers and out-of-control branches out back and hosed down the walkways. I did all the laundry and straightened up the entire house. Then come evening, I decided to go check out a local summer cruise-in spot down in Portland that had gathered quite a good reputation last year. Held at Portland International Raceway, there is a big non-judged car show (for once my car doesn’t have to look perfect), live music, sanctioned drag races, food booths, and tons of people who are all there for the love of cars.

Never having gone before, I was pretty skeptical. The last time I had participated in this cruise-in, it was held at a local airstrip and all the cars were required to park on dry silt-y dirt per the fire marshal. That’s right, dirt. With four hundred cars driving and parking on inch and a half deep silt-y dirt, I’ll let you imagine how horribly covered everyone and everyone’s car was with the fine stuff. It took me a solid month to get most of it out of all the cracks and crevices of my car and I swore I’d never go there again.

Last year, the same people who put this cruise-in on moved it to P.I.R. and it seems to be a match made in heaven. Up to five hundred cars can sit in a well-maintained green grass park now in a big area surrounded by large, shady trees. Across a small road divider is another shady, grassy area where the motorcycles park. Last night, there were at least two hundred motorcycles, most of which had some sort of custom paint to them (Obviously, that show “American Chopper” has gotten a bit out of control around here). There were also over three hundred cars, most of which were custom too. I honestly didn’t know there were that many around. I’m sure the sun finally coming out had something to do with it. It seemed like everyone and their brother had a hot rod, a street rod, or a muscle car there and it was pure heaven for me. In fact, when I came home and WS asked if it was a total waste of time, something I had said I expected it to be, I replied with a “Nope, and next time, you’re going with me with your car too!” And next time, I’m definitely taking the camera for pictures.

June 10, 2005

The long, long trailer

Well, the weekend of the graduation party is upon us, compliments of SportsOrNothing next door who have invited and paid for relatives around the country to join with them in congratulating their twin teenagers – the quiet, obese girl and the future boy king of all sports known worldwide.

The front web cam has been moved so you can view the interesting SportsOrNothing relatives as they descend upon our little neighborhood from Chicago, Little Rock, Des Moines, and parts unknown.

What? You say you can’t see anything? A big motor home is in the way?

Well, that’s the relatives from Des Moines in the sixty-plus foot monstrosity that they have parked in SportsOrNothings’ relatively short driveway. The last seven feet of it spills onto the sidewalk and a good three feet of the street and we have the pleasure of looking at this for at least the next week and a half. Thankfully, the big ass antenna and satellite dish on top are blocked by our birch trees. Ought to make pulling out of our own driveway very interesting to say the least as our view is now completely 100% blocked of oncoming traffic and no one up the street is known for driving slow around here. Oh, and by the way, it’s fallen off it’s front stabilizing jacks once already and rolled partway back into the street, effectively blocking it until someone noticed (like how anyone couldn’t notice it I’m not sure).

The back web cam has been pointed into the SportsOrNothing back yard and the firepit area at which we were warned today that most of the debauchery over the next week is sure to take place. You’ll see the fire once they get it lit although the rainy weather is expected to return shortly so I don’t know how exactly they think that is going to work out. Oh yeah, when it starts raining, they put up a big blue tarp over everything. I can’t begin to tell you how attractive that appears from here but I guess it beats soggy guests. I hear they are indeed planning on roasting a whole pig next door and surprisingly, yes, we have been invited for the Saturday evening festivities. Only time will tell though if they were serious about this. Their plans include breakfasts on the deck, late nights spent around the firepit, and midnight hot tubs dunks with the whole rowdy bunch. If past relative visits are any indication, the drunken brawls should begin tonight.

Dental cleaning appointments are on tap for today. Fun, fun, fun. WS always tries to schedule our appointments for the same time as each other and I’ve really come to enjoy this. The timing just seems to work out the best overall but what it really boils down to is this: There’s just something about knowing that your best friend is sitting in the next room over with a bib around his neck, his mouth wide open, and someone else’s fingers fiddling around in there with sharp instruments that really holds a lot of weight with me.

Desperately working to finish up a new chapter for Cabin 4 for tomorrow. When we last left everyone, John and Marie were looking for directions to Ghost Beach at the café and Martin and Pete were arguing about whether the couple needed a good scare or not. Tomorrow, John and Marie find Ghost Beach.

June 11, 2005

Chapter 19 is up for Cabin 4! John and Marie find Ghost Beach…and then some. Hope you like it.

We finally got the skinny on Limpy, the Howler Monkey’s cat. Mr. Howler Monkey finally set his foot down and against Ms. Howler Monkey’s wishes, took the cat inside where I think all de-clawed cats belong. Apparently, she doesn’t like cats, especially indoor ones. So why do they have one, you might ask? It sounds as though Limpy is his cat and somewhere along the line, she talked him into throwing it outside to fend for itself. As you might imagine, I’m not a big fan of Ms. Howler Monkey now but I’m happy to hear that Limpy is inside, safe from dogs and cars. I just want him to get the human attention he so desperately craves.

Mr. SportsOrNothing apologized for the motor home parked next door today and pre-apologized for the loud, rowdy-ness he assured me the high school graduation party tonight is going to consist of and for the number of cars he expects to fill the rest of the street shortly. I asked him for two things in return – No paintball guns at his party (the balls of which seem to find their way over our shared fence and splattered against our house and in the fountain) and to please make sure no one blocks our driveway. He didn’t seem too pleased when I voiced these requests. Trust me, I could have easily rattled off an entire list of requests (no trash thrown in our yard, no drunken teens passed out in our yard, no teens sitting on the fence, no relatives sneaking into our back yard to bathe in the fountain, etc.) but I’m certain none of those would have been granted had I specifically asked.

Originally, I had planned on driving up to Tacoma to attend a car club meeting tonight but the chances are very good that by the time we would have returned home around midnight, our driveway will be blocked and all hell would have broken loose next door. Now, because I’ve decided it would be better to stay home to hold down the fort, and per Murphy’s Law, nothing will happen and everyone over there will be as quiet as church mice. I just can’t go off and leave our pets here alone to the mercy of whatever may or may not take place, but you know, I’m okay with that. And you can be sure that if anything should occur, you’ll read all about it here in the coming days. Lucky you!

Happy weekend!

June 13, 2005

We’ve been suffering a bit of Internet connectivity problems here since early this morning as Comcast starts to connect the new development going in just up the street, and that’s always fun. I don’t understand why our street always needs to lose connectivity when they do this though.

The past weekend was a very odd one. It was dark and mostly gloomy due to the fits of heavy rain that fell up until mid-afternoon yesterday. Families all around us got into arguments and fights, most of them audible from here inside.

First on the list was from the SportsOrNothing household next door who decided at the last possible minute on Saturday to cancel their twin teens’ high school graduation party, and sent their kids off alone to another parties across town. (Either of them has yet to return home from what we’ve heard.) This left a houseful of relatives from out of town and no guests of honor, and that turned into a small late night gathering around their back yard firepit in the drizzle which soon escalated into a drunken sing-a-long followed by a shouting and name-calling match between the attendees. An hour later, and the fire was doused and from what could be heard, the guests were well soused as they stumbled back inside. Ms. SportsOrNothing apologized to us Sunday if the noise kept us awake. “Not in the least,” I replied. “It was as entertaining as usual.” I wanted to add but didn’t. Plans are being worked on, she said, on whether the graduation party will be held next weekend just before the relatives all go back from whence they came. Sadly, the weather doesn’t look to be any more forgiving for a hog-roasting firepit party next weekend either.

As we waited to see if the party would ever begin Saturday, on the other side of us, Mr. Dimmer had apparently been wandering around town in his pickup truck and found two large dogs running loose in some neighborhood across town. And so, he stopped and loaded them into his truck and brought them home. Who knew he was such an animal lover especially since he was seen beating his own dog after chasing Limpy two weeks ago? An hour later, Ms. Dimmer came home from shopping, discovered two additional dogs in her back yard, and went ballistic. It did NOT sound pretty in the least. He argued that he was concerned about their safety; she screamed they couldn’t afford to feed them. He argued that he’d try to find the owners; she screamed that he needed to take them to the pound right that very minute, and so he did. Or at least, he left with the two dogs, an older yellow lab mix and a keeshond, in his truck, and when he returned home, he only had a beer keg in the back. Again. Maybe he swapped the dogs for beer? That makes two kegs he’s brought home in the past week and let’s hope he doesn’t drink this one alone like he did the first one, and if he does, that he doesn’t sit in his open garage, hollering and singing Credence Clearwater Revival songs again while drinking it.

Down the street, MsEars has been privy to a LOUD argument that has been going on since Saturday afternoon coming from MsNoManagementSkills and DorkMaster’s place (their back yard, their side yard, their open garage, and in front of their open master bedroom window). MsNoManagementSkills somehow got the house she found for sale and deemed as “hers” last week when she received her divorce money from FatHead, her ex-husband (who had to take out a loan and put a lien on his own house to pay her the 20K he’s legally owned her since last year), and put it all down as a down payment. Reportedly, it took all that and the small leftover amount she still had in savings just to make up for DorkMaster’s overabundance of poor credit, yet it is he who will be making the monthly mortgage payments on the house he doesn’t want. After signing the initial paperwork Saturday morning, they had a big blowup fight over the whole thing. Her stance is she is paying to get him out of financial ruin by buying it even though it will be in her name only (?); his stance is they can’t afford this lifestyle she wants especially now that in less than a year, she’s blown through the 120 thousand dollars she received in stock option payouts and divorce settlements. Her stance is that they will be able to afford everything if he works hard, perhaps if he gets a second job (echoes of what she forced FatHead to do); his stance is he hates working period and if she wants this lifestyle, she needs to get a job herself.

I think I smell a meltdown.

June 14, 2005

Pictures from the garden today. One of my goals I set last year was to see if I could grow potatoes in a pot. I love growing potatoes – actually, what I love is harvesting potatoes. But since we don’t have a sunny garden spot anywhere around here to grow them, a pot would have to do. I started out by planting them in a few inches of soil, and as they sent up shoots, I added more soil until the pot was full. We’ll see sometime in October if any tubers grew or not.

The tomato plants look leggy and pathetic probably due to the lack of hot weather and not worthy of a photograph yet. It might be one of those “green tomato summers” in which case I’ll be happy we didn’t try to grow any peppers this year. Probably should have planted a pot of mixed lettuce though.

Back in April, I planted alpine strawberries along with annuals in our hanging baskets and they are producing a berry here and there. Juicy and sweet! Two of our three remaining blueberry bushes are loaded with green fruit while one never even produced flowers.

Try as I may, I cannot get my hydrangea to bloom blue flowers. Boxes of lime have been mixed into the soil to no avail. I’m learning to tolerate its pink flowers.

It’s well past time for the annual setting out of the baby ducks. Usually, I wait until the hot weather arrives but we’ve yet to really have any. I’ve decided to set them on the back bank of the fountain instead of floating them in the water where they have a tendency to sink or be swept down over the lower waterfall. I’ve heard stories from people who have plastic ducks setting in their backyard that get chewed on by raccoons or attempted to be carried off by hawks. Last year, one of our plastic ducks was gnawed on a bit but nothing too bad. I think this might be the last year for the baby ducks, unless I can figure out a way to realistically repaint their eyes and markings without the paint flaking off. A permanent Sharpie pen and a soft touch might do the trick.

June 15, 2005

MsNoManagementSkills is at it again and it’s beginning to sound just like the kind of crap she used to pull when we used to work together. Am I surprised? Not in the least, just happy it wasn’t directed at me.

Last week, MsEars “lost” her youngest child for two to three minutes. Her three boys, ages 7, 5, and 4, were playing in their backyard when the youngest DorkMaster child came to visit and left MsEar’s side fence gate standing open. MsEars had just stepped inside to grab the book she was reading before returning to watch the kids. Her youngest wandered out the gate and ran across the front of the house and down the street. When MsEars returned to the backyard and saw her youngest missing, she panicked, ran out the gate, and smack into MsNoManagementSkills who had seen DorkMaster’s kid in MsEars backyard from her bedroom window and had come over to collect DM’s child who had previously been told not to leave his room because he was grounded.

MsNoManagementSkills wanted to talk about DM’s kids but MsEars was frantic about finding her own child and screamed to MsNo to watch her other boys while she searched the neighborhood. A minute later, the young boy was found giggling and hiding under her front porch and all was well…except it really wasn’t.

Over the weekend, MsNo sent an email to everyone in our neighborhood who has attended one of her kitchen utensil parties (and mistakenly gave her their email addresses) except MsEars. Here’s a copy of the email sent to me via MsEars who got a copy from another neighbor:

“Nice June weather has arrived and we should all keep an eye on our children! As a reminder of what tragedy could happen, (MsEars) lost her youngest recently when she threw her boys outside to play and one of them wandered off through an open gate! OMG! No harm done the boy was found but we should not trust each other to keep an eye out for each other’s children because some people aren’t dependable!

June also means its time for outdoor entertaining! My (kitchen utensil home party) sales have been down this month so if you want or need anything to make your summer a hit let me know! I’ll be placing an order on the 20th. Help me make my monthly goal and throw a (kitchen utensil) party! Call me for details!!”

Nice, huh? Berates MsEars AND asks people to help HER make her monthly sales quota. Yep, sounds just like old times, only the names have changed.

June 16, 2005

Happy 30th anniversary to all your “Jaws” movie fans out there. Okay, so maybe there is only one other fan. Happy 30th anyway.

Thirty years ago today, I stood for hours in the second showing group of movie goers to see the premier of “Jaws” in the big desert southwest city I lived in at the time. My seat was six rows back on the center aisle end seat which pretty much centered me in front of the screen. As the lights dimmed, I remember feeling a sudden panic in my chest. “What was I doing there?” Not only was I at the theatre alone, but it was the first time I had ever gone to the movies alone. Earlier in the week, I had discovered that the man I had just become engaged to wasn’t a movie fan – he wasn’t much of anything to be honest with you except for being a big stick in the mud – and had forbade, FORBADE, me to go see what was advertised as the scariest movie of the summer. Anyone who knows me knows I chafe badly at the thought of being “forbidden” to do things so I waited until the fiancé left for work, ditched my summer college classes that I was failing anyway, and saw “Jaws.”

It was wonderful. It was exciting. It was horrifying. To say the movie scared me half to death would be an understatement. It changed the way I view the ocean to this very day and although I’m not afraid of the ocean, quite the contrary, I love it and respect it I see it differently than I did before seeing the movie for the first time.

I’d always dreamed of learning to surf. In fact, I used to rabidly tell people that someday I would live on Huntington Beach in California and learn to surf. Things didn’t exactly turn out that way and I’m sure that if I really, really, REALLY still wanted to learn to surf, I could. But I think I’d have a long talk with myself before I plunked down the money and potentially served myself up as a kipper snack. And yes, I know all about how it’s a one in a million rare occurrence. Sometimes, some people just feel in their heart that they are THAT one in a million.

Back to seeing the movie for the first time, unable to share my feelings of terror and adrenaline rush with my fiancé afterward, I kept the whole movie going experience to myself…until three weeks later when I accompanied him and his staunchly religious parents on vacation to Lake Powell in northwestern Arizona. Lake Powell is a huge, fresh water lake – no chance of sharks living there – yet I was scared to death, no, scratch that, I was TERRIFIED to the point of hyperventilating at the thought of swimming or even wading in that lake. Completely illogical, completely absurd, and downright silly. We won’t say anything about those thirty-foot catfish I just know live there.

There is a line in the movie where Sheriff Brody asks Matt Hooper if it is true that most people are attacked by sharks in three feet of water about ten feet from shore. Hooper tells him he is correct. That thought was forefront in my mind when I refused to enter the water on that hot, 108 degree summer day, causing my fiance to paddle ashore, pick me up, and literally throw me into the lake. As a result, I involuntarily peed all over him and confessed why I was so irrationally frightened. Needless to say, the rest of the vacation was somber. My fiancé’s parents accused me of committing the mortal sin of going to a movie theatre without a chaperone and of lying to their son. My fiancé didn’t speak a single word to me for a solid week…but I got over it and later, him as a matter of fact.

Will I go out and buy the 30th anniversary edition of “Jaws” on DVD? No, I don’t think so. I am weary of new-and-improved editions of movies being released in that all-mighty quest to suck the consumer dry of their money. Even though “Jaws” is in my top ten all-time favorite movie list, I’ve already seen the making of the movie several times over the years, I’ve got a DVD copy of the movie and I don’t think I need anything else.

June 17, 2005

Did you see a firepit party late Wednesday night in the back yard webcam? It was the SportsOrNothing teen boy’s no-girls party, complete with a dozen nearly naked teenage boys circulating between the hot tub and the firepit, cigars, yes cigars, and beer, supplied by the parents. The party ended around 3 a.m. I think I finally drifted off around 3:15 a.m. Finally.

Parties are still in the works for this coming weekend next door but the weather people are promising a wetter, more unstable storm track to hit us sometime today and lasting through Monday. Looks like last week would have been the best time for the big graduation party over there after all. The main party is lined up for Sunday evening and we have been given an official invite. Last night, a motor home the size of a Greyhound bus pulled in and is parked along the street on the other side of the motor home parked in SportsOrNothing’s driveway. You might be able to part of its roof over the other one on the front webcam. A couple of rental cars are also parked along the street along with a brand new Hummer with enough bling on it to make even me, the queen of chrome engine parts, blush.

The addition of these vehicles nearly blocks all through traffic on our street; it certainly does slow people down for once, yet the fun isn’t over just yet. Mr. SportsOrNothing told me personally that nineteen more cars carrying dozens more relatives are on their way between now and Sunday afternoon. I don’t know where they are going to put them, cars or people. He’s worried that someone is going to call the cops and I could tell he was trying to find out if that was going to be us. But at this point, I can’t help do anything but laugh and I did confess to him that this isn’t something that happens every day. It certainly is entertaining but it won’t be us calling the cops. Sure, we might sound like uptight assholes online but most of our neighbors really are uptight assholes in real life. I can guarantee that someone will call the police before the weekend is over. It’s getting crazy next door.

Chapter 21 of Cabin 4 will go up tomorrow morning! This is the first chapter written entirely by WS. We hope you like it.

I got stung on the back of my neck by a yellow jacket wasp yesterday while I was trimming roses out back. It didn’t hurt any where near as bad as I figured a sting by one of them would be. The really good news is that I’m still not allergic to either bees or wasps. Today, I can barely find the sting site but I woke up with a face full of zits. Related? Hmm.

Limpy is back! The poor ignored, de-clawed Howler Monkey’s cat that was attacked by The Dimmer’s dog two and a half weeks ago has been hanging around our front porch since Wednesday, which was also the day I started off by stating to WS that I was going to stop looking for the cat and definitely going to stop putting out food. Limpy doesn’t look like he is recovering from any injuries from the attack and is just as desperate for human companionship as ever. Now if he just doesn’t end up getting run over by all these cars!

The scrub jay with the broken leg that I was worried about all last winter was seen this morning. Still has the broken leg that he can’t put any weight on but other than that, he looked fat and healthy as he snagged peanuts in the shell meant for the squirrels.

And finally, we had some kind of raccoon disagreement on our back porch last night. I woke up just before dawn to the odd sound of raccoons being very vocal, whereas they are usually as silent as a bag of rubber gloves around here. As I listened from our back bathroom window, I could hear one raccoon still raiding the squirrel peanut box while another one vocalized complaints all the way out of our back yard, down through Cap’t Dan’s behind us and down to the wooded green space the next block over. This morning, I didn’t find any sign of a battle out there and figured it was probably males fighting over territory or something and thankfully always amongst themselves to date (no cats around back there anymore).

June 18, 2005

Chapter 21 is up on Cabin 4 (under Projects over on the left side bar). Martin just won’t lighten up and he and his good friend Pete get into a tiff.

Nothing planned for the weekend despite me hounding WS to tell me what he’d like to do for Father’s Day on Sunday (he’s a father to our pets and that works for me). I’ve even asked him if he would rather do nothing or sleep all weekend and he says he’s positive he doesn’t want to do that. So we’re back to square zero. I thought about taking him out for a nice brunch but every place around here have jacked up their brunch prices in honor of Father’s Day so that idea is out. Heck, I’ll probably just make pancakes and coffee and we’ll sit around watching the deleted scenes for “The Incredibles” all day. Hey, if he likes it, it’s all good with me.

June 19, 2005

Our oldest pet, a 16 year old cat, has been flexing her clawless fists and her one last tooth in her mouth lately attacking Maxx, the kitten we rescued last summer. One would think that Maxx, who was de-clawed by someone prior to being dumped in our neighborhood, could fend well for himself given that we nearly named him “Jaws” for his over enthusiast habit of chomping down hard on anything within reach. But we’ve been working with him every day since taking him in and have shown him enough trust and respect to make him stop biting for the most part.

But our oldest, a store-bought cat who has ruled the roost with an iron fist, took on an immediate hatred for Maxx and initially, we broke up every fight we heard between the two. After witnessing several, we discovered all the horrid noise came from Maxx who screams like a stuck pig but no actual physical harm was being done to him during the scrap. I mean, how much harm can a clawless, nearly toothless cat do to another?

Hmm, apparently enough to make the other bleed huge droplets of blood from one end of the house to the other. Five minutes after the fight when we thought the pressure valve was vented and everything was back to normal, Maxx jumped up on the back of the chair WS was sitting in and bled all over him and his book. It was then we found blood down the hall, down the stairs, across the living room, and into the kitchen. Looked like she tagged him with her single tooth in Maxx’s left rear leg, poor boy. I’ll need to keep an eye on him and the wound over the next week or so and since we don’t have any place we can use to separate the two 24/7, we’re going to have to start personally breaking up every fight we hear from now on, including those ones that happen every morning around 4 a.m. Who knew a 16 year old cat could be such a hard ass?

June 19, 2005

The SportsOrNothing high school graduation party is slated to begin in two hours. Off to the east south east, there is another nasty thunderstorm brewing up and is scheduled to make it to our area in about an hour and a half. It’s possible that the heat we had today will keep the storm away. Its 80 degrees F. out right now at 6:30 p.m., not really hot but warm enough to help billow up those clouds and maybe give us a light show if nothing else. You may be able to see the incoming storm off the front webcam which is pointed in that direction. I love this kind of weather!

We’re planning on heading over to the party in an hour or two and once (if) they get the firepit started, we’ll be sure to head on out there and periodically wave up to the back camera. We’re going empty-handed, something we feel a little bit odd about but we no longer have the spending/wasting money we had when we had three jobs between us. Besides, both the kids want Hummers and will probably get one each and we’re only neighbors, not relatives. It’s not like we’ve even said two words to the twin graduates in the past two years. Personally, I’m proud of them graduating at all, and a bit surprised as well. The boy sports king sure hasn’t gone out of his way to not try to….uh, nevermind. That’s not a nice thought for a celebration night like tonight. But you, yes YOU readers are welcome to finish the sentence for me. Chances are you won’t be too far off the mark!

June 20, 2005

Slow, slow, slow…page not found. That perfectly describes our Internet connection today. Technically, our connection has been deteriorating badly for a couple of weeks now for whatever reason and to be honest with you, its way past the point of just getting on my nerves.

We had a huge storm here last night that actually turned the clouds in the sky green, then orange, then brown. Hundreds of people stopped along the freeways to watch and take pictures and it sounds like everyone is amazed that accidents occurred because of all the stopped traffic. We were under a very rare tornado watch for a brief period of time but after the colorful sky show, we got lightning and heavy rain. No hail, no wind. WS and I studied the skies for well over an hour with heightened awareness during the storm watching for any sign of cloud rotation and a signal to get the hell out of Dodge if needed. Not necessary. Another storm is promised for tonight but it probably won’t have the same intensity. Or will it? Temperatures should hit 86 degrees F. today with moisture building up from the south; perfect storm weather for an area that doesn’t usually see thunder and lightning storms.

We went next door during the rainstorm to SportsOrNothing and had a relatively pleasant time sitting on the outskirts of the main conversation hubbub and chatted for an hour with the rest of the exiles – people who are only related to SportsOrNothing by marriage or guests who aren’t the least bit interested in sports or the boy sports king. When we got the chance to briefly talk to Mr. SportsOrNothing (who was squeezed into the largest baseball uniform I’d personally ever seen) to ask about his twin kids’ planned future, naturally he knew all about where his son was headed but nothing about his daughter. Still living vicariously through his son I guess. Unfortunately due to the mob of people, we couldn’t get anywhere near Ms. SportsOrNothing to see if she had anything to say about either of her kids’ prospects. Before we left, we congratulated both kids who were heading out to some other party elsewhere in town and we thought we detected a small spark of appreciation. Could have just been a misreading though. Either way, we wish them both well.

Sounds like the motor homes are scheduled to remain for another week as SportsOrNothing plays the sightseeing travel guide for the swarm of relatives. Local winery tours, Portland sights, shopping malls, and Mt. St. Helens, which was puffing all weekend, are slated for this week. Until the monoliths on wheels leave, I’ll leave the front camera pointed in that southeastern direction which is also the direction the thunderstorms are coming in from in the evenings.

June 21, 2005

Because of the big thunderstorms we’ve been having on and off over the last couple of days, I completely forget to mention Father’s Day (also known as Sperm Day in this household). DOH!

I took lostdawill’s advice and prepared a lavish brunch with mostly fresh fruit (all the raspberries and blueberries were sold out at our local market so I had to use frozen) – watermelon, mango, white nectarines, apple-wood bacon, eggs that I still can’t make sunnyside-up to save my life, and strawberry/cream cheese filled crepes. Add WS’ favorite coffee, Millstone’s Raspberries & Cream and a decadent whipped chocolate mocha mousse cup I found at a market bakery and I think I did well. I was sorry that I couldn’t get him up to Whidbey Island for Mary Lou’s play which was an excellent idea. As for coon hunting, we get nightly visits from a family of raccoons. Going out on some kind of drive into the woods would have been nice, but that would be more like something I’d enjoy. WS isn’t an overly big nature lover or one for walking around too much. Stumbling around off the beaten path would be just that: stumbling around. He gets pissed off enough just stumbling around here at home.

Considerably cooler outside temperature today at 70-something degrees F. and cloudy skies. Rain is forecast for tonight and tomorrow…just in time for the first of three car events I was planning on participating in. Tomorrow night is a cruise to some restaurant/pub down in Portland which I said I would attend (and I rarely ever go back on my given word). I think we’ll be taking WS’ car because that event isn’t so much about the cruise but the get together afterward inside and some of the car people have asked how WS is doing since his last MS exacerbation (he’s as normal as he can be right now). Friday afternoon/evening looks to be cool and dry which is good because I’m going to a Burgerville cruise-in/car show a few miles up the street from us.

Saturday, however, looks to be rainy and I’m thrilled because it’s the day of the big Portland car show put on by the old crappy car club I used to belong to a couple of years ago. Rainy car show days don’t bother me much anymore because I generally do better at them than horribly hot, dry, sunny days. Drill Sergeant Dave will be there and I have already been warned that he will be on his worst behavior…especially since I plan on arriving the same time as the Nice Competition Boy and his new wife, the ex-wife of Drill Sergeant Dave. We have both been told that Dave will be running the entrance gate and there is the off chance that he will not allow either one of us to enter, which would be a bad decision on his part because A) We have both already pre-registered and paid our entry fee, B) it will once again show the club and everyone else that he is continuing to operate not for the good of the car club he still belongs to, but on his own agenda, and C) that everything he’s told everyone about “being completely over his divorce a year and a half ago” are nothing but big, fat lies. I couldn’t begin to express how much respect I have lost for Drill Sergeant Dave over the past six months with his continues torrent of lies surrounding his divorce, and I really hope that he can find it within himself to get his shit together soon. I can’t imagine what HIS new wife must think of him and his behavior and how that has got to affect her self esteem.

There is also the likelihood that both the Nice Competition Boy and I will be shut out of winning any award because Dave and that club are judging the show. I’ve already accepted that this will most likely happen, and while I think it is crap, I’m refuse to get upset over it or any car show decision ever again. As for the Nice Competition Boy, I’m not too sure of, and in fact, I expect Saturday won’t be a good day in the least for him. Oh sure, he’ll show off his new Lambo-scissor doors to anyone who shows even a passing interest in his car, opening and closing them all day rain or shine, but I suspect he is going to drive away at the end of the day angry. And if he doesn’t, I guarantee Drill Sergeant Dave will. It’s not going to be a pretty day all around and I’m going to be sitting smack in the middle of it, holding onto my impartial stance and trying hard to just be a spectator and a friend of all, not a casualty.

June 23, 2005

Sorry I didn’t post yesterday but something happened down the street and I was trying to find out the details without looking too obvious.

Yesterday down the street, DorkMaster took off work early (again) to take his daughter, the oldest, to get tested for AD/HD (Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) and ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). When the results came back positive for both, MsNoManagementSkills was elated. Finally, she was able to put a label on why the child is constantly stealing the money out of her purse and the candy out of her bedroom. And in typical MsNo fashion, she grabbed the first neighbor she saw outside and proclaimed that DorkMaster’s oldest had just been officially diagnosed with AD/HD, ADD, and possibly PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder).

That started a chain of events that sounded as though it got very ugly, very quickly. Shortly after she told the neighbor, she marched back into their rental house and relayed back to DorkMaster what the neighbor had said. Moments later, DorkMaster came out and got into a shouting match with the neighbor over a silly disagreement around whether children should be medicated and whether or not AD/HD and ADD truly exist. The neighbor’s opinion was that parents are looking for a babysitter pill and AD/HD and ADD are wildly over diagnosed, especially in children and that most behavior problems in children used to be called “just being a kid.”

DorkMaster blew up over this saying he thinks everyone has AD/HD and ADD, and that a divorce is grounds enough for children to suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder similar in the same way as war veterans can suffer from it, and everyone needs medication. He is on record of publicly saying, in front of the divorce courts judge no less, he prefers medicating his kids (and himself) almost to the point of drowsiness because he then doesn’t have to deal with them. And we all know what the judge’s ruling was: DorkMaster was given full custody of his kids after his ex-wife testified she would rather “see the kids dead than to see them doped up on medication”

This was when several other neighbors came outside and joined in on the loud argument. It sounds like more people were on the neighbors side than on DorkMaster which made him all that more infuriated. A neighbor quoted to me: “To say that he’s (DorkMaster) a bit sensitive on the subject would be a massive understatement. He made an ass of himself by getting completely bent out of shape in front of a lot of people he doesn’t even know.” Another neighbor said, “I’m not letting my kids over there again. I’m afraid (son’s name withheld) will start playing too loud and that guy will make him take a chill pill. Literally!”

And stupid me, sitting inside where it was cooler and missing the whole thing, and having the front webcam pointed in the opposite direction at SportsOrNothing’s motor home parking lot next door instead of down the street where we might have been able to witness the ruckus. Sounds like it was a good one and today, according to MsEars, lots of people are glad to hear DorkMaster and MsNo are moving. But when exactly they are moving, no one knows. MsEars is avoiding MsNo after she sent out that nasty email to the neighborhood about MsEars briefly “losing” a kid. Odds are MsNo will announce that to the neighborhood as soon as she figures it out herself because we all know, MsNo can’t keep anything to herself.

Just hearing about that argument makes me feel uncomfortable knowing that the company WS works for hired DorkMaster on as a temp contract employee. I just hope no one crosses his path there over something else he might be overly passionate about.

I suspect half of the argument wasn’t really about medication, learning disorders, or children but a bit of venting from the tremendous pressure he’s now under since MsNoManagementSkills found a house and expects him to make the payments. Over the weekend, her down payment on it was accepted but only under the condition that the house title is in her name alone because of DorkMaster’s poor credit. I’m guessing he’s not happy at all right now and her newly acquired habit of flooding him every day after he comes home from work with fresh paint and carpet samples surely can’t be helping.

June 24, 2005

Lots going on today. Chapter 21 of Cabin 4 will go up early tomorrow morning, provided I can get through an adequate job of the editing process by then – who needs sleep, right?

A pet goes in for his annual exam this afternoon and immediately after I get back home, I’ve got a car show at a local burger joint from 4 to 9 p.m. Ought to be hot out there today on the asphalt with the air temperature around 80 degrees F.

Tomorrow morning, I’m meeting the Nice Competition Boy (who isn’t all that nice in reality but I can’t talk about that just yet) and his new wife at 7 a.m. near the Chevy dealership hosting the big car show. Last night, he talked to one of the people running the show and told me that he was told that they are expecting fireworks in the form of Drill Sergeant Dave who has all but promised “brown stuff hitting the fan.” Why this club continues to cater to someone like that and doesn’t just kick the guy out is a mystery to me, but, and this is just my opinion, knowing some of these people as much as I do after spending a year and a half hanging around with them a year ago, I think the rest of the club enjoys seeing people fighting, witnessing this kind of drama. I would make a comment about all of these people being old and not having much excitement in their lives but I know better. The truth is most of these people are spoiled, used to getting their way, and are immature. There is a difference between not growing up and being immature and these people are for the most part, the epitome of spoiled, rich brats. Add the word “bully” to the mix and you get Drill Sergeant Dave.

Yesterday was the first official day of summer vacation in our area and the first day MsNoManagementSkills couldn’t sleep late or take her usual morning AND afternoon naps. Why? Because she’s supposed to be doing what she signed up to do: Babysit DorkMaster’s three kids and boy, oh, boy, is she ever finding out that minding kids is NOT all she romanticized it would be. Yesterday was only the first day and she’s already a screaming, frazzled mess.

Last week, I assured MsEars that MsNo would be back in her life probably begging to let DM’s kids comes over and play just to get them out of her hair and sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. MsEars said she nearly didn’t open her front door when she saw who was standing there but because she’s “just nice that way” she did and took DM’s kids in. She wasn’t too happy that MsNo “barely grunted two words” to her after listening to MsNo a good portion of yesterday morning scream at the kids to shut up, but it sounded to me like MsEars is looking for vengeance now and is going to glean any bit of gossipy information from MsNo that she can. I have to admit that when I first starting talking to MsEars, I had no idea that someone else would be able to see so quickly how rotten another person could be, and I’m secretly admitting that I am so very, very thankful that MsNo lives next to MsEars and not next door to me!

Mary Lou asked what ever am I going to write about when they have moved away. Oh, if it were only that easy to get away from them. The company WS works for is finishing up their internal re-organization and as of yesterday, he found out that he and DorkMaster now share an upper level manager and that several of WS’ colleagues will be working with DM! Not happy, not happy. But I’m hoping we can find a silver lining somewhere. Perhaps another link? Who knows? WS’ department is almost all men and generally, they don’t share gossip the same way. Or do they??

June 25, 2005

Well, I really need to pay more attention to man gossip! I had no idea men gossiped about this and that but lostdawill assures me they do. Hear that, WS? Keep yer ears open at work!

Chapter 21 of Cabin 4 is up and located under Projects over there on the left sidebar. Hope you readers enjoy it!

Last night’s car show was one of those fun ones where everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE, gets an award. It was run by a local car club whose point it was to look for either flaws or the most recognizable feature of every single car entered (provided an award for the same feature hadn’t already been awarded previously) and to give awards out for each. For example, the guy with the dirtiest engine got an award, the owner of the car that needed a paint job the worst got an award, a woman with the most worn tires got an award. But some people are just too anal and just take things too seriously making it a point to have less flaws show than most. Those people got the most recognizable feature: Skinniest steering wheel, fattest tires, I got the blackest tail lights. I have acrylic blackout lens over my taillights.

The awards were old trophies collected over the years and re-fitted with new engraved plates. Some trophies were three feet tall while others were merely an inch or two in height. Naturally, the cars with the biggest something got a tiny trophy and visa versa. My trophy is labeled from 1998 and says “Forever Fords” on it. I drive a Chevy. LOL!

I’m nearly ready to take off for the car show out in Tigard, Oregon which is west of Portland. Unfortunately, I don’t expect this show to be as fun and easy-going as last night’s, but who knows? Regardless, I’m sure I’ll have a lot to say about it when I get home so look for that come Sunday.

Have a good weekend!

June 26, 2005

Saturday’s car show took place on a pleasantly nice day that was full of surprises. Late last Thursday night, a dozen women from the car club that put on Saturday’s show confronted Drill Sergeant Dave and gave him what was described to me as a “major bitch slapping” over his increasingly bad behavior at meetings and at car show events. I was told the women “laid down the law as to how he was going to conduct himself at this show.” Boy, were a lot of people ever impressed, not so much that these women, mostly wives of other club members, would take matters into their own hands, and no so much that DSDave even took the time to listen to them, but that he actually exhibited courtesy, friendliness, and fairness throughout the entire day! I had a chance to chat with him a few times on and off and I have to hand it to him. Sure, he was probably a seething ball of fury inside, but Saturday proved to me and possibly to others that he can be a nice guy if he would simply use a touch of self control.

The Chevy dealership cleared their front parking lot of cars late Friday night and by mid-Saturday morning, there were 123 sports cars crammed into the lot. If there had been a fire or other emergency, NO ONE would have been able to get their cars out in any reasonable amount of time, however, by 3 p.m. the lot was clear. I love car shows that end early. Nothing is worse than sitting, half-baked in a hot parking lot, endlessly waiting for hours for judging officials to get their shit together long enough to call out the winners and let everyone go home. That didn’t happen Saturday and between the nice 75 degree F. partly sunny day, all the nice people, and getting out of there early, it was a good one worth attending.

But then it got better…for me. I ended up winning the “Coolest Engine” award for my chrome and flamed engine; an award that took my absolutely and completely by surprise because I figured the odds of me winning anything ever again with this club was nil. The Nice Competition Boy was completely shut out (for the very first time this season) and didn’t win anything. And here’s a hint about how the Nice Competition Boy isn’t really nice: When he doesn’t win, he gets very quiet and standoffish. You can just tell he’s angry by his stance with arms tightly crossed in front, his pursed lips, the steely gaze. He doesn’t want to make small talk and doesn’t want to go out for dinner afterward. He packs up his cleaning supplies and folding chairs, something he usually leaves for his wife to do, and drives like an angry maniac on the way home. It’s exactly what we both figured would happen, what we had been warned would likely happen, but it looked like the Nice Competition Boy didn’t really think would.

June 28. 2005

Yesterday, not more than twenty minutes after WS left for work I got a phone call from him. MsEars house has a “For Sale by Owner” sign up in front of it. I rushed to the window, looked out, and sure enough, there it is. So I called her and am still calling her but I still haven’t gotten a hold of her to find out what’s going on.

And sure enough, if you open your ears, you can hear all kinds of gossipy things from men. DorkMaster complained to one of WS’ coworkers yesterday that his daughter’s AD/HD testing cost them nearly a thousand dollars…just to tell them she does have some kind of reading/spelling disability. No, ya think?? DM and MsNoManagementSkills already knew that! There’s another thousand dollars spent and that was only on one child, two more to go. No volume discounts.

DorkMaster is also freaking out over MsNo’s house purchase and taking loads more medication than his usual amount to try to deal with it. It isn’t working too well. It’s also eating up money she’s trying to save to be able to make the first mortgage payment. Last weekend’s visit from her parents didn’t help matters either. There is no love lost between MsNo’s parents and DM and I don’t blame them. Anyone who posts publicly a how-to article on anal sex directed at his pre-teen CHILDREN and then proudly tells everyone about it ought to have his fingers cut off…for starters.

Next door at SportsOrNothing, the larger of the two motorhomes left over the weekend. Good thing I went out last week and took a picture of how the behemoth was jacked up on multiple teeny blocks of wood. I’m sure everyone does it this way but I’m not the only one who was a little frightened of how it looked. No word on when the other motorhome will be leaving. We’re going on three weeks now of looking at the thing, aren’t we? A couple of weeks longer than Mr. SportOrNothing said it would be parked there. Of course, I know this is what motorhome nomads do – travel from place to place, setting up in any given place for months on end. Let’s just hope that’s not the plan over there.

Slow, quiet, drowsy, rainy day yesterday in which I did little to nothing but do laundry and try to reach MsEars. Cloudy and cool today. It’s hard to imagine that it’ll be 80 something and sunny by tomorrow. We had cedar waxwings visiting the fountain yesterday which is rare for us along with a robin couple teaching their young one how to bathe. WS put up a new, bigger squirrel peanut box Sunday right outside our sliding back door and we moved the old smaller one to a location on the fence where I can see it from the kitchen window. It was nice to get up this morning and find the new bigger box still half full of peanuts. The raccoons have been emptying the small box almost every night AND eating the grape bunches I leave out for them. Yeah, yeah, I know. I should just stop feeding them and the squirrels altogether and save the money. But if you see as much road kill as we do close in around our neighborhood as developers continue to cut down every tree within eyesight and don’t at least think about what’s going on, you either have no heart or you find a way to help keep some of the animals around at least for a little while longer. Of course, they will all be gone someday, but not in my lifetime if I can help it.

Oh, and yes. I do have something tattooed on my forehead. It reads:

S-U-C-K-E-R

June 29, 2005

Still no word from MsEars on why her house if for sale. I really thought I would have gotten a call from her by now but oddly, nothing yet. No sign of anyone other there either, almost as if they left for vacation or something. Very odd.

The fallout has started over the car show last Saturday. The Nice Competition Boy called last night in a panic. He says he’s shook up because he didn’t win last Saturday. Then the other mean Competition Boy called and was pissed off because HE didn’t win either. He also expected to win his class and was angry that his car was completely overlooked. In “retaliation”, the mean Competition Boy left town for a couple of weeks of vacation “to get as far away from car shows as I can for a while” and to leave the Nice Competition Boy “to win all the shows he wants.”

There’s a big show coming up this Saturday, one I’ve won for the past two years running. I’m not going and have told everyone this for months, but that didn’t keep the Nice Competition Boy from asking yet again and he wasn’t happy about my answer. I told him I had won for the past two years and it was time to pass the torch to someone new. I truly do believe that but I think what’s going on is that not only do these two guys get pissed off if they don’t win, they get just as pissed off when they do win if the person they wanted to beat publicly doesn’t enter their car. It’s like to them the award doesn’t count if they don’t see the disappointment on the loser’s face. Gee, it must really shake them up when I come up smiling and congratulate them after I’ve lost.

At 3:45 this morning, I woke up to a big raccoon fight outside our back sliding door and it sounded ugly. I went downstairs and found a hefty raccoon sitting on top of the new squirrel peanut box keeping a considerably smaller raccoon from getting any peanuts. The grape bunch I put out every night looked to be long gone and the little raccoon kept climbing the porch railing to get at the peanut box. That’s when the big raccoon would snap and bite at the smaller one who did quite a bit of snapping and biting himself.

As I stood there and watched, a big owl swooped out of the sky right through our backyard and scared us all. The small raccoon took off but the big one continued sitting on the box and watched the owl as it made a couple more passes. Maybe that’s why we don’t have anymore mice back there (Yippee!). Five minutes later, the small raccoon came back and the loud fight continued until I started knocking on the glass for the two raccoons to knock it off.

Raccoons have that ability to look innocently up at you as if to say, “What? I’m not doing anything wrong!” And I had to knock several times loudly to get them to stop before they woke the neighbors (yes, it was that loud). A few minutes later, they both ran off down through Cap’t Dan’s backyard. In an hopeful attempt to stop any future fight, I set out another bunch of grapes. I sleep better to the sound of grapes being eaten yet here it is, 5 a.m. and I’m wide awake.

June 30, 2005

Today is all about the lilies. Nearly all of them are in bloom today. The only exceptions are the apricot variety which should begin blooming within a week or two and a true red late bloomer which may not bloom at all this year because it is very young.

The tiger lilies are early this year. They are probably trying to tell me something, like “GET ME OUT OF THIS POT AND PLANT ME FOR GOD’S SAKE!” I have two two-gallon pots of tiger lily bulbs that originally came from the old rental house we lived in prior to moving here six years ago. Yep, that’s six years spent in pots. Shame on me. I promise to plant them in a real garden spot this fall, maybe somewhere around the fountain where the Monarda used to be. Honest.

Next up is a variation of our tall orange daylilies. Early last spring, I divided and transplanted a couple of these along the west side of our house which sits in the shade most of the summer thanks in part to The Dimmers house next door and the tall maples I planted three years ago. When these normally bright orange daylilies started blooming last year, they came out softer in color and more of a pale orange with alternating yellow petals. You can also see the red ring in the middle, something that is lost on the ones out in the full sun.

A shorter daylily here at the Blogeois compound is a rosy red variety I like a lot. It goes well with the orange tall variety and doesn’t spread as fast or as annoyingly as the orange one does. In fact, I don’t think I have ever had to divide this version as of yet. Good bright color that looks exceptionally good planted next to evergreens such as Alberta spruce or short hemlocks.

And finally, my beloved white daylily, a variety I found at a plant sale some ten years ago. I’ve been to several large plant shows and sales since then but I have yet to see another one, though I’m certain they can still be found. My only gripes about this lily is that the flowers last less than a full day on sunny days (they burn easily), and the plant never seems to get any bigger (which could be seen as a plus, I suppose). If it did, I would be very tempted to divide it and transplant part of it in the shady west side amongst the softer orange variety I first mentioned in the entry to see how it would do. I’d be willing to bet the color combination of the two would be gorgeous side-by-side.