Sultans of Swing

It's another hot and muggy day. I went into the pottery studio... the air conditioned pottery studio. And I played and had fun and went out to lunch with my friend, Carl.

Kev worked all day. Seriously, the man never stops. He got called into work this morning, and didn't get back home until early afternoon. Then, in the hottest heat of the day, he works on putting CWF on the cedar siding of our huge-ass two-story house. He's been doing that gigantic project for weeks. And it's fucking hard work.

Sam was home this weekend, and he helped Kev yesterday. The two of them moved a ton of boxes out of the house (and... very likely, literally a ton), as well as a 3-piece 8'x10' wall of bookcases and other furniture, odds and ends. They put all that into the pole barn, as we're trying to clear out the house as much as possible... she goes on the market in two weeks.

Kev could hardly move last night; he was so tired. Still sore this morning. And he's out there as I type this, still working. He's loading up the pickup for another load to the dump. But I'm in the very cool house (Kev had the AC set to 73, and I moved to 69 as soon as I got home), playing around on my laptop, high as a kite, listening to Kev's radio blaring classic rock.
Currently:  Fleetwood Mac.

When they moved stuff out of the house yesterday, Kev found 3 old radios. Boomboxes, man. When's the last time you used one of those? He actually almost went and bought one when he started on the CWF project, so he could blast music and make the job go faster. Wish I'd known he wanted one. Better late than never, as music is most definitely blasting now... and I think he actually finished the last of the cedar siding this afternoon. Not to worry, he has plenty of blasting hours ahead, coz the porch isn't finished. Such a fucking ton of work. For Kevin. Poor old man.

We always used to blast rock and roll on a radio whenever we worked around the house and property. Back in our younger years. Back when it was called "rock and roll" instead of "classic rock". (And now our old Coleman cooler isn't just a cooler, it's a vintage cooler!)

Music was with us nearly everywhere we went and in most everything we did. That music will now trigger so many memories, especially from camping trips and other road trips. Campfires with just us two or with family on so many, many summer evenings. Always music. Usually loud music. That changed quite a bit after we had Joycie, then six years later, Sammy. Kids gotta get a nap sometime...

It's nice to hear it again, coming from outside. And I totally forgot how abrasive some commercials are on classic rock stations. Such noise! Shit, I'm old!

Gimme three steps, gimme three steps, mister, gimme three steps towards the door...

Breathe... just breathe

OK, do this with me…  take a huge, deep breath in, fill up your lungs, fill ’em up, fill ’em to almost bursting, and... now let it all out.  Ahhh...

So, 2012.  Last day.  In many ways, I say good riddance.  But it’s also been a milestone year in my life.  Our baby girl got married.  That was awesome and still so hard to believe.  Time flies. 

And after working at the same company for 35 years, 2 months and 24 days, I retired.  That was also awesome.

So this last day of 2012 deserves some note.  Somehow my mind settled on a blog post.  Probably because one of my sisters (Hi Kathy!) asked me yesterday when I was going to start blogging again.  Not the first time I’ve been asked that question.  A good friend with whom I’ve reconnected (Hi Carla!) has asked me that a few times, along with other friends and family, and some people I didn’t even know read my blog.

I’ve tried to start blogging again before, because I do remember how much I enjoyed it.  I enjoy writing, and I enjoy journaling the things in my life, important and unimportant stuff.  I never wrote blog posts because I wanted someone else to read them; I enjoyed it because I read them, and I enjoyed the writing.  I enjoyed the photos, too.  So why did I stop blogging?...

I stopped writing because I felt like the creative juices had been mostly all sucked out of me.  What little I had left, I devoted to pottery.  On many days, I felt like the clay studio saved me from doing things I would regret (and possibly end up in jail for).  Pottery is now a passion for me, creating crap out of clay.  I love it.  I love my friends at the studio and the time I spend there with them.  It’s fucking awesome. 

But I had nothing leftover to give to my blog.

I tried, but it was difficult and the results were lame.  It all started in 2007, well, really before that, when I was driving my old LeSabre and some guy rear-ended me.  In that accident, I now believe that my C6 (neck) vertebrae was fractured, slightly and not detected.  Long story, short (and previously documented in this blog), I ended up with neck surgery in January of 2008.

But the pain that started in 2007 is what started the sucking of creative juices.  The clincher was 2008.  First the surgery to fix my neck, then the infection, then the 2nd surgery to get the infection, then the antibiotics for months, and then... then I returned to work in May of 2008. 

It was the returning to work that started the final, big sucking.

My boss at that time, let’s call him M, is an engineer who had worked himself up through the ranks to his first position with people reports.  He was a micro-managing, nit-picking, argumentative, patronizing know-it-all.  An asshole.

From that time after returning to work until early this year, I had to report to that asshole.  He made my life at work miserable, and the misery seeped into my personal life.

I would work Monday through Friday, go to the pottery studio on Saturdays, though sometimes (often) also have to do some company work at home early in the morning before going into the studio, and sometimes afterwards as well. My job was busy, too much work for a 40-hour work week.  I hated the overtime it always required.

But then Sundays... oh, the Sundays.  Many of them I spent unable to get myself out of bed.  All day long.  My husband is amazing.  His understanding during those times was truly heroic.

I would lie there in bed and do a lot of fantasizing.  My enjoyment of reading murder mysteries and watching TV shows like “CSI” really paid off in those fantasies.  So many ways for M to suffer and die. 

He’s from Canada, and I somehow really focused on that.  I went from liking Canada to disliking Canada and all things Canadian. 

He was such an awful boss.  Through my more than three decades working at that company, I had a lot of bosses.  I switched jobs a few times, through the years working in three very different functions at the company.  I spent my first decade working in Marketing, my second in Legal and my final decade in Human Resources with a dotted line to Finance.  So I’ve known a variety of supervising styles.  On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the worst at people management, I would give M a solid 10 average.  In over 35 years, with all those other many, many bosses I’ve had, I was lucky enough to have a couple of 1’s and 2’s, mostly 3’s, some 4’s, and sadly a few 5’s... and some pretty awful 6’s.  That’s the gap between how bad M was to all the many others... on my scale, a 6 is terrible, so a 10 is truly, truly terrible – a lack of people management skill level sufficient to cause harm.  M was well and truly that bad.

I really hated M during those days, months and years.  Now, however, I could give a rat’s ass about him.  He no longer has the power to force me to summon the energy required to hate him.  I’m not saying I like him.  If I ever see him again, I will thoroughly ignore him.  And hope Kevin doesn’t recognize him and beat the shit out of him.  I’m not joking about that – it is a real and valid fear I have that we will run into M at the Meijer store and Kev will recognize him and kick his ass.  This was a frequent fantasy, and however much I would still enjoy seeing that happen, the resulting problems we would have wouldn’t be worth it.  I think...

Anyway, I still don’t like Canada.

And what is worse than a micro-managing, nit-picking, argumentative, overbearing SOB for a boss?... a submarine bitch.

Early this year, M was replaced by D.   Someone high up made the so very perceptive and sensible decision to move M to a position where he had no people reports.  D is a woman who has had years of experience supervising people.  At first, we – that is, myself and many others in our department of about 50 souls, with more than half being contractors, so truly affected were really only those of us left that were actual employees of the company – anyway, we thought D was a big improvement, a start to getting things fixed.

At first, I liked D.  She and I had some good talks.  But then... I noticed we could not really connect.  D is a woman who is about 50 years old, and she has spent her entire career life at the company.  She is a local girl, I know this because a good friend of mine also went to the same local high school.  That same friend’s mother-in-law is good friends with D’s mother, who is not all there mentally now and living in a facility of some sort.  D herself told me once how she didn’t marry until very late in life, close to 40, and was only married for a few years because she could not get along with her husband’s teenage children.  I heard from another person who also reported to D, let’s call her J, that D got herself a great, big nice house out of the deal, that is, she got the man’s lake-front house in the divorce.  I also know that D has one sibling, a brother who lives in California and with whom D does not appear to have much contact, according to the aforementioned mother-in-law.  I believe it was J who also told me that D has no pets.

This is life in the town where I live and the company where I worked... everyone knows everyone's business.

And then I began to notice D's office.  Really notice it.  D has a lot of stuff around her office, so it was misleading for me at first.  Because when I took the time to really look at the stuff, I realized everything in her office was related to her career at the company.  Every.  Single.  Thing.  All about the company and her various positions through the years.  Not one thing related to a personal life.  No photos, no travel mementos from vacations.  That’s when I realized I could never connect with that woman.  D lives in a big house with no pets - no dog, no cat, not even a fish.  I am confident in surmising she also has no living house plants; D is definitely the fake fern kind of gal.  She is the only living thing in that great big house.  D has no close family, no husband, apparently no boyfriend or girlfriend, no children, not even nieces and nephews.  No substantive personal life.  Her entire life is the company.

My running joke this past summer was how when D would die, her headstone would read: “Here lies D.  Married to The Company.  Marriage consummated.”   Fellow older company employees would easily get that joke, because those of us left who had been around for a long time know that if you stay with the company long enough, you’ll get fucked good in the end.  D certainly doesn’t seem to realize that, as it would seem she has devoted her adult life to the company.  Sad, really.  But, then again, she is a bitch, so the bitch gets what she deserves.

In the end, I totally and completely disliked D.  And J, too, because she is one of the most two-faced, mean-spirited, hypocritical co-workers I have ever had the displeasure to know.  J thinks she is awesome, funny and well-liked.  She’s a woman about 50 who clearly has no idea that she has a long reputation for being a two-faced back-stabber. She’s awful. 

J’s awfulness is followed closely by two other co-workers, let’s call them T and A, which yes, that phrase you’re thinking of now after reading “T and A” is pretty accurate.  T is a woman nearing 50 who is full of herself and totally irritating.  My nickname for her was Stomping Interruptus.  T used to be fat but had a stomach surgery and lost a lot of weight.  Good for her, of course.  But after her weight loss, she became this loud, way over-confident creature.  Loud walking and loud talking.  She’d stomp into my cubicle and bark out her question with no concern whatsoever about what I was doing before she arrived.  But then, of course, whatever she had was Much More Important.  I used “over-confident” because T is a smart person, but she is not quite as intelligent as she believes herself to be.  T has a college degree, and how she achieved that without learning how to speak proper English is beyond me... her knowledge of grammar is so poor that when she would talk with me, I could feel my brain flinch.  Think, “I ain’t got no idea” and “he don’t have it” and "we can't get no help on that" and so on.  Since she talks a lot, well, I flinched a lot.

And A... well, A is a sad case.  He is a young man, not getting any younger.  Nearing 30 now.  And living at home with mom and dad is kind of sad.  He seems to be a troubled person.  I believe I know why, but giving my theory on such a private matter on a publicly available blog is not something I feel I should do.  Basically, A was a pain in the ass to work with because he is so fucking moody.  And A foolishly glommed onto J as his mentor.  In the end, A was as much of a two-faced bitch as J.

I mention J, T and A because those three people were the co-workers with whom I had to spend my workdays, closely working with them and sitting very close to them since our boss D had decided to reorganize our department and consequently move most all of us physically so our physical locations in the cubicle hive would support our new organization.  I ended up sharing a corner style open cubicle space with three workstations with T and A, with J occupying a cubicle right next to us.  It. Was. Awful.

But, in the end, I was lucky.  So very, very fucking lucky.  Because 2012 was the year that the company decided to once again weed out the old folks.  That little golden carrot was dangled in front of our collective faces, but shhh... don’t tell anyone, it’s a Big Secret (that everyone knows).

One morning in September, J made me so angry that I sat at my desk space, staring into my computer monitor trying to not have the top of my head blow off and trying to not have a heart attack.  I seriously felt my heart painfully jumping in my chest.  It finally stopped the moment of my epiphany...  the moment I realized “THIS IS NOT WORTH IT.”  Fuck the mortgage.

And I was able to get out of there.  Thank God.  And thank God I was able to get enough of a carrot that I don’t have to go out and try to find a job to supplement my pension.  Thank God and Kevin, who works his ass off week in and week out and brings home the bacon.  Kev is the provider, the protector, the comforter, the center compass bearing of my life.  I love that man.

So I had my epiphany, and then the best part - I was able to get out of there within a couple of days of my epiphany.  Cue the music:

The problem is all inside your head, she said to me

The answer is easy if you take it logically

I'd like to help you in your struggle to be free

There must be 50 ways to leave your lover

She said it's really not my habit to intrude

Furthermore, I hope my meaning won't be lost or misconstrued

So I repeat myself, at the risk of being cruel

There must be 50 ways to leave your lover

Just slip out the back, Jack

Make a new plan, Stan

Don't need to be coy, Roy

Just listen to me

Hop on the bus, Gus

Don't need to discuss much

Just drop off the key, Lee

And get yourself free

And I am.  Free.  So very free.  And it feels so very, very good.  Writing this blog post is the most I’ve thought about M, D, J, T and A in weeks and weeks.  So lovely to be free.  After working at the company for more than 35 years, dropping off my key and slipping out the back wasn’t really how I planned to go, but it worked for me.  Not one second of regret.

It wasn't all bad - I also have good memories from my working years, because I worked with some amazing, wonderful people through the years.  Some I plan to stay in touch with.

But I’m free.  My finger tells the story.  I have one finger that I call my Stress Bird.  It’s my middle finger on my right hand.  Whenever I get stressed to a certain point, the skin on the left side of that finger starts to turn hard, painfully so.  And then the hard skin gets scaly and breaks and bleeds and hurts like fucking hell.  And it spreads to cover almost my entire fingertip.  Gross, I know.  It would look gross, too.  I would lie in bed and feel my fingertip throb with pain.  Lots of bandages and ointments but nothing would fix it.  I saw a couple of doctors years ago, and it is some kind of virus, like a wart is a virus, or shingles, etc.  Nothing that a medicine could fix, but it is not contagious.  Through the years, it has never spread to any other part of my body and nor have I passed it onto any family member.  Through 2008 until September 2012, my poor bird was hurting almost constantly.  Within two weeks of retiring, my finger was pink, pretty and healthy.  That, to me, tells the story.

And now that I’ve gotten this long-winded bag of crap story off my chest and onto this blog post, maybe I can start to feel the creative urge to blog often again.  That’s my hope.  I would like to backtrack and blog about the important events that have happened in the past few years, so that years from now, when my memory engine is running low on oil, I can read about them and better remember them, and enjoy those moments again through my journal.  Fingers crossed.  And hey, thanks for reading this all the way to the end - you're awesome!

I am one lucky, free woman.  Life is good.

Breathe... just breathe...

Make a new plan, Stan!

I left the air conditioner set to 69 degrees last night and woke up freezing.

Kev and Sam are off on their boys weekend together, and Joyce and Mike spent the night over at Bay City, so you would think I'd have a nice, quiet evening with the house all to myself. But no. Murray and Ollie make a surprising amount of noise for 2 such small kittens. They are apparently curious about everything, and will try anything to investigate. Also, I deeply regret purchasing those cat toys Sam selected... the ones that have little bells or make noise.

Another purchase at PetSmart was a covered cat litter box with a swinging front door. We have this downstairs right now, and it will stay where it is until both kittens are done with their recovery from getting fixed and declawed (which won't happen for at least another month). Then it's going elsewhere. I don't really care where, just not in the far corner of our livingroom. A place where Wiley cannot get to it, preferably, since my formerly amazing dog has decided that litter-covered cat turds are treats. Gag.

I keep seeing this little Chevy S10 red pickup truck on M-20:


I am hating football season. Sam is doing two-a-days now, and his knee is a major source of pain. Along with other varied and many bruises and injuries. Like how his teammate managed to poke Sam in both eyes during practice. Sam's eyes were very red; it made me feel so sick to look at his eyes... words can't do it justice. So we made a trip to Urgent Care to check on any corneal damage. We had to go into the "eye room" where the doctor put that yellow dye in each of his eyes, then turned off the lights in the room and held the blacklight up to Sam's face. My freaky purple boy...


No lasting damage thank goodness. Unlike his knee, by the way. Our final visit to the surgeon a couple of weeks ago went like this: It Didn't Take. That's what the doc said. The cadaver ligament patch to Sam's PCL apparently didn't work. Sam was told to wear his brace and play football like he doesn't have a knee injury. All that for nothing. I can't explain how I feel because once again, words can't do it justice.

On my way home from work the other day I saw 2 young men walking on a sidewalk along M-20. Even from a distance I could tell they weren't the type of men I'd invite over to my house for a visit. As I got closer, I saw one of them, a very tanned, very skinny young man with is shirt off and thrown over his shoulders and his jeans so far down that mostly his entire boxer-covered ass was in view (how in the hell he can walk like that, I don't know)... anyway... he had a tattoo that was below his belly button but above his low slung boxers. That was the only tattoo I could see on his torso, and it was odd. Got me wondering... if it had been on his back, it'd be called a tramp stamp, so what is it called on the front?... this required an answer from the Internets! Go ahead, Google (or Bing or whatever) "tramp stamp" and perhaps you, too, will be educated as I was. I did not know it stood for something that specific to some people. And what is a male equivalent of tramp you ask?... there is none, i.e., "Words for a promiscuous woman are invariably derogatory, but words for a promiscuous man are frequently perceived as compliments."

I sure do see some interesting sites along M-20. A while back, on a very hot and muggy day, I saw an old man - he looked close to 80 years old - driving a lawn mower. This old guy had his shirt off, and the effect of gravity on an old person's body was in great evidence. He was bouncing along in his yard, at a pretty good clip, mowing his crappy looking yard without a care in the world. Oddly enough, it was kind of a rewarding site. I think he was probably going so fast so that he got a bit of a breeze, and he clearly didn't give a damn what anybody thought. I liked that. Made me smile.

I am still adjusting to my CPAP machine plus some other medical issues that are too boring to discuss, but my eBay phase continues. I like to choose a word, any word, and search all categories to see what is the most expensive thing. Try it, you will be astounded... or at least you will shake your head just a bit in disgust, as I do. Folks, there are some weird people out there. And also some islands for sale. With waterfalls!

One category is for selling gift cards and gift certificates. Like if you got a fifty dollar gift card to Appleby's for your birthday but you really just want the cash instead, then sell it on eBay! You will get $48.97 for it. Seriously. Perhaps even $49.97. If you have a Wal-Mart gift card or store credit (from a store return), you could even earn money! For some reason, Wal-Mart gift cards on eBay sometimes sell at auction for more then the value of the card. Will someone please explain that shit to me?! Crazy.

Speaking of crazy, I regret my search on the word "taxidermy"...







And more craziness... people are quite creative in their endeavor to con you out of your cash...



Something wonderful awaits! Yes, wonderful cash for the seller from the sucker who won that auction. I also rediscovered this eBay category, which I had forgotten existed...



and I found these auctions...



I could not resist, and so I did a search for such craziness in completed auctions. Folks, there are some downright less than intelligent people out there...



One cent, ok maybe, for curiosty's sake... but four bucks on a mystery envelope? That's just dumb. So please see any of my 4,000 auctions for a mystery envelope. Momma needs a new car. But then I'm creating some pretty bad karma for myself, aren't I? Hmmm... but I can just buy some good karma on eBay!...



Whew!

I love Michigan

Love the nice, cool morning temperatures!



Can't wait for the leaves to start turning colors...

Haberdashery

The title has no relationship to this post; I just like that word.

I drove into work this morning under a gigantic, black storm cloud. Today will be an ominous day. Or not.

Yesterday was warm, and we had a storm with rain, thunder and lightning. When I got out of my car in the parking lot this morning, however, the wind was wild and very COLD. But I still don't smell snow. *sniff* Gimme snow.

What I've learned recently: Do not give your cell phone number to a used car salesman.

We are getting a free range turkey for Thanksgiving. Joyce called the farm and placed an order, i.e., she put a hit out on a Tom.

Due to circumstances beyond my control (that's my story & I'm stickin to it), I still have to get groceries for Thanksgiving dinner. File that under stupid.

My home computer crapped out on me, and I've spent a fair amount of time trying to fix it. I've been trying to avoid the work of a restage, but it's in my future. It's not the restage, of course, it's all the software installing that follows. Ugh.

I have a ton of photos to sort through now... over 800. I haven't uploaded from my camera to my computer because of aforementioned crappage. Lots of stuff to post about, with photos, including Sammy's 16th birthday. *sigh*

Counting my blessings... with haunting sorrow...

On this morning's drive, Sam and I came across a bad accident that had just happened. Later, after dropping Sam off at the high school, I called my BFF, Sandy. I try to talk with Sandy in the mornings as many days as we can connect. Some days we miss, but often we are both driving into work at the same time so we have a chance to talk. Yes, we are both driving and talking on our cell phones. But it is not illegal to do so in Michigan or Texas, and both of us are on an easy, mostly clear & straight route and we are very cautious. On more than one occasion, one of us has had to stop the conversation just to pay attention to traffic or whatever. In a word, we are both careful.

This morning, heading East, I was driving right into the sunrise. I told Sandy about the sun, because it was brighter than usual. Sandy was driving in the dark since it's an hour earlier there in Texas. I said, "I might as well be in the dark, with this sunshine, it's like I'm driving blind."

And I was, with the sun so bright on my windshield, which wasn't very clean, I was unable to see most of what was in front of me. I basically slowed down and followed the car in front of me. I think we were all doing that coz I was part of a long line of slower-than-usual cars. When I got into town, it was kinda hairy at the traffic lights. I seriously could not tell if it was green or not.

Then I talked with my sister just a bit ago. The accident that Sam and I saw was horrible. It was between a school bus (one from our district) and a red Jeep Cherokee. The fronts of both the bus and the Jeep were smashed. Not just smashed... gone. When Sam and I approached, there were a lot of vehicles stopped at the accident site, and traffic was down to one lane in each direction. The bus was half-way into the East-bound far lane facing West, and the Jeep was half-way into the West-bound far lane facing East. Since the bus was on Sam's side, he was checking it out. There was a person standing at the entrance, but the door and entrance was mangled. Sam thought there were kids on the bus, but he couldn't tell for sure because the sun was shining on the bus windows. I found out from my sister there were no kids, only the driver and another adult. Thank God.

I had my window down; I put it down because I was too warm in the bright sunshine. We got about level with the smashed Jeep, and I had to stop because an ambulance was approaching fast, all vehicles were stopped. I could hear the scene before I looked over... Laying face-down in the dirt on the edge of the road was a man, about age 35 I think. He was mostly covered with a white blanket, but not his head. Kneeling next to him was a woman, and she was sobbing and screaming and wailing, she was rocking back and forth kind of, and touching his head. I can't stop thinking about what I saw, and I cannot get that sound of her agony out of my head. I'm not sure I ever will.

My sister told me that she heard the bus driver and the adult passenger were taken to the hospital but were both ok. Kathy works in the school district, so she was able to find that out. No one knows anything yet about the man driving the Jeep, though. Kathy heard that the Jeep pulled out directly in front of the bus and they hit head-on. Everyone seems to believe the man driving the Jeep likely didn't see the bus because of the bright sunshine. A truck had pulled out just before him, and people seem to think he probably just followed the truck. Like what I did this morning at the traffic lights... How many of us have done something exactly like that...

I am still amazed at how that school bus smashed that Jeep like it was an empty beer can.

Ha Ha

Whenever I get a McMuffin (which isn't all that often) and the muffin is toasted to black around the edges, I wanna go back holler Ha Ha! to the person who made it because I LIKE THEM BURNT! I do. When I toast English muffins for myself at home, I always burn the edges... mmmm... carcinogens with grape jelly... yum!

Really?...

Just walked by a conference room with about 7 people in it, lots of talking, heard one woman say, "It's not like I'm commando or anything, jeez!" Followed by much laughter. I'm just not sure how to take that... am wondering very much exactly what they were talking about!

Saw a dude on a bicycle the other day. He looked like a skinny Jesus (lots of facial hair, long hair not in a ponytail), he was wearing a ballcap and a red & black nice looking backpack. Steering his bike with his right hand, and holding a microfiche reader with his left arm. Yes. A microfiche reader machine.

For some reason, at home the other day, someone, Sammy, I think, said something about wanting or should have bought a 6-pack... Kev lifted up his t-shirt and rubbed his belly and said, "I've got your 6-pack right here." Sammy said, "We said six-pack, Dad, not keg." Ha! Funny because Kev is not keg-like. Wouldn't have been so funny if he were...

Miscellany

Ever notice how when you buy a vehicle, you suddenly notice there are a LOT of them on the roads? Well, I'm having a similar experience with my recently dented LeSabre... suddenly I am noticing a bunch of dented cars on the road and in parking lots. Seriously, a lot of them... like every 3rd or 4th car has a dent.

I followed a car this morning with a personalized license plate that read:
     PGIRL 2
She clearly has not been around any children lately. Or maybe she's a urologist, from a family of urologists.

I have declared this week the Week of the Daffodil. They are EVERYWHERE now. I love this time of year. Those & along with the forsythias make for some very serious yellow. And the shadblow are bloomin' too.

Sam, done now with basketball, is spending every day after school in "football conditioning". They are not practices, because those are not allowed; it is conditioning. Yesterday the coach hooked up 3 harnesses to the front of his big, extended cab, black pickup truck. The guys had to pull the truck forward down a gravel drive that runs behind the high school, then push it back, with the coach inside steering and occasionally pressing the brake pedal. Crazy stuff. Sam liked it. Something different. Though he did say the dead cat smell at the end of the drive was not very pleasant.

And speaking of dead cats, I haven't mentioned yet, but we do have a new dog, Wiley Blu the Weimaraner (I will do a post all about him)... we got him about a month after Reilly died. I was not ready, but the family was. Wiley Blu is a blue (or gray) Weimaraner, not the light brown kind, and he has gorgeous golden yellow eyes. He is huge and boisterous, very smart, but not at all like Reilly. Reilly would never have destroyed a piece of furniture, for example. Also, our cat, Blossom, used to tease Reilly and Reilly was oddly afraid of her... not so much Wiley, who could possibly consider a little thing like Blossom an appetizer. The 2 of them have grown more tolerant of each other, even to the point of playing... Blossom likes to run by Wiley and have him chase her down. She likes to dart under said furniture where big Wiley cannot fit. I'm thinking she won't be doing that much anymore now, as Wiley has evidently proved that furniture is no obstacle. (No, Blossom is not dead, I only had a moment last night when I wish she and Wiley both were! Just a wee moment...) *sigh*

I am now a quarter of a century old. Had the big birthday last Friday, and took the day off from work. It was a perfect day. Sammy waited until I went to bed Thursday evening, and then he made me a batch of snickerdoodles. From scratch. Mmmmmmm... He put them in a bowl so I could take them to the pottery studio and share them with my friends there, so we had milk and cookies at the studio! And while at the studio, a lovely young lady came and delivered to me a dozen gorgeous red roses in a beautiful glass vase from Kevin, Joyce, Sam, Mike and Wiley. Then Joyce and Mike made dinner, my choice (Mike's Magic Grilled Burgers and Joycie's Vegetable Pizza... Mmmmmmm...). Presents were so excellent and it was a beautiful, beautiful day. Also, I got my first piece of mail from the AARP. Sweeeeet!

And, my best friend, Sandy, gave me a surprise visit on April 3rd. I was at the library when she surprised me. It was a WONDERFUL surprise, and I loved spending the day with her. Joyce and Mike made Mexican dinner for us, and that was also awesome. I shall post pictures soon. I hope Sandy will surprise me again sometime, and I hope then, as recently, I survive the heart stroke. (Did I mention I'm OLD?)

Did you know that insurance companies are now using some kind of rating or score for people, similar to one's credit score (and in fact, one's credit score is a component of the insurance score)? Forget Geico, you can probably save a bundle just by asking about it. From what I hear, one must initiate that conversation; very few agents are clamoring to save you car insurance bucks. Or maybe they are, and I live under a rock. Anyway, our outstanding agent, Alicia, reviewed our insurance, and we saved a bundle! Until Sam starts driving in November...

We are already car shopping for Sam. We haven't decided if he will drive my LeSabre and I get a new* vehicle, or if we will purchase a vehicle for him and I will continue to drive my much-cherished LeSabre. The whole process would be so much more enjoyable if we were rich. So as it is, it is not enjoyable at all.

*New to me, I never purchase new cars. Cha-freakin'-ching.

Sam has been interested in a Cobalt, but because so many teen drivers are and have them, they have a severely terrible insurance rating. It would cost a small fortune to insure a Cobalt even for me to drive it. When Sandy was here, her rental car was a pretty little navy Cobalt, and I got to ride in it. Which decided for me, even before I learned of the over-priced insurance cost, on no Cobalt for Sam. They are too little and uncomfortable; I felt every little bump in the road.

I have heard some excellent jokes from a friend at the pottery studio lately. Attention: corn ahead.

     What's a pirate's favorite letter of the alphabet?
     (The person will respond R, or if they don't, um, duh....!)
     Punchline, delivered in a very pirate-y voice: Ya might think so,
     lassie (or laddie), but it's the C.

     I want to die in my sleep like my gramma did.
     [pause]
     Not screaming and yelling like the
     passengers in the car she was driving.

     The male mushroom said the to the female mushroom:
     Hey, baby, wanna party?
     Female mushroom says: No way!
     Male mushroom says: Hey, why not?! I'm a fun guy!!!
     [get it?... fungi... this one doesn't work so well writing it out]

I am listening to an audio book that is set in London. One of the characters, a man, was riding a bike and was nearly run down by a van. He cycled up to the van, whose driver had the window down and yelled out, "Manners, wanker!" Ah, those feisty Brits.

By the way, do you know why waving your middle finger, aka giving the bird, is a negative response? A woman at the pottery studio explained that in medieval times during battles, the conquering army would, upon capturing the archers, cut off their two middle fingers so they could archer no more, and thus, the army would taunt the other army by waving their middle fingers at them. Wiki does not seem to agree.

And that story was the result of a group question: If you had to lose (aka have cut off) one of your 10 digits (fingers and thumbs), which one would you choose? I chose my left little finger, but the point was that one's pointer finger is less useful than other fingers for things such as balance, utilizing implements and the like. I am disbelieving, but hope never to be proven wrong, or right.

I followed a pair of ducks down our road the other day, a male and female Mallard pair who were moseying down the ditch. They were so pretty. And since our ditch looks more like a creek, it was also pretty. Everything's turning green, so pretty, pretty, pretty!

It's science fiction

2010. For a child of the 60's and 70's, 2010 sounds to me like science fiction. I start thinking about all the stuff we have now, and it is truly mind-blowing. I was trying to explain again to my kids about how much easier grocery shopping was when I was I kid. There just wasn't much to choose from, and salsa... we didn't know the word here in rural Michigan way back then, let alone have 30 different ones for our selection pleasure conundrum. And TV, 4 or 5 channels. Yes, I am seriously old.

And lately, I have felt a lot older than I am. I have spent the past few months trying to get off from pain meds, which I was still taking for pain from the surgeries I had almost 2 years ago. A sucky situation. Turns out, I can live without pain killers, but it ain't pretty. I believe I have an above-average or actually high pain tolerance, and I believe one can get used to a level of pain... eventually. But meantime, I found the level of pain was making me tight as a ton of knots, which triggered Vertigo again. And on my job, it's full-on, heavy-duty 4th quarter and year-end close time... So, yeah, back on the pain meds for now. Shit.

I've not had the oomph to do much of anything, not blogging, not cooking or baking, not pottery... if Joyce hadn't been running the Christmas show for our family this year, I dare say it would've been a flop. We did not send out Christmas cards this year. I was shopping for presents right up to Christmas Eve, and that is not like me. And Joycie wrapped most of the gifts for me.

So, though I am not making a New Year's Resolution, because I do not believe in those, I have decided to try to blog more often. I have so many family milestones, events and just plain moments that have gone undocumented in my blog since early 2008. I write this blog truly mostly for myself. It is like a journal of our family events, and I like to go back to older posts and read and look at photos, and remember. So that's my decision... post more on my blog and catch up on events in our lives over the past 2 years. I'm not deciding to Post Every Day and I'm not deciding to cover Events in Chronological Order. Whatever will be, will be.

I think that if I make an effort to write a blog post more often, other things in my life will, well.... fall into place. Blogging gets my creative juices flowing, and that feels good.

Oh, and I've also decided that Salt is the Enemy. It really, really is. Caffeine comes in a close 2nd, but no freakin' way am I going without coffee. That's just inhumane.

Oh, and I've also decided to free myself from post titles. You'll see what I mean.

Loving where I live...

From our local newspaper's "crime log":

Saturday, May 30

12:14 a.m. -- A deputy was sent to a Hope Township home after a man reported hearing a woman in the woods screaming. Deputies checked the woods and determined the noise was a barn owl.

Ya got that right

Analogies & words of wisdom

This past week, while in the middle of an activity at home, a mild activity, I had to stop, drop to my knees and put my head on the floor. Vertigo is such a fun thing.

After I few minutes, upright and onwards again. Answering the question, "are you alright?" several times, yes, yes, yes... So I tried to explain...

A vertigo attack is like when playing an album, yes on a record player, the old vinyl... and if there is a scratch or a bad spot on the album, the record player's needle will react... it will skip or play the same part of the album over and over... it will not just smoothly keep playing music. If you pick up the arm and move it forward a little bit, away from the bad patch, voilà!, smooth sailing and sweet music again. [In my book, mixing of metaphors in an analogy is totally ok.]

But... going through the bad patch on the album does affect the needle. So the needle is no longer perfect, and to a keen ear, that will affect how the needle plays the rest of the album's music.

That's kind of like a vertigo attack. Depending on the severity, that is... and lately this past week and half, my vertigo attacks have been primarily quite mild (in comparison to those I had last autumn). Once the episode is over, I'm back to normal... pretty much. May take a bit to get my needle all sharp and pretty again, but still... One could say that my being at less than 100% capacity, say at 98%, is not a good thing. But I could say that my 98% is arguably better performance than some folks' 100% performance. And yes, of course, the reverse is true... my 100% performance is not, I'm sure, as good as, for example, "Mrs. B's" 80% on one of her bad days. (There is always somebody better!) But still... ya get my drift, eh.

And that's what dealing with vertigo is like. Like most (all) life experiences... I believe that a person who has never experienced a vertigo attack is truly unable to completely empathize. Recently, Kev had that mild experience with vertigo due to his inner ear infections, and since then he has been so much more understanding and sympathetic with me. And he was understanding and sympathetic before his experience! (I love that man!)

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

My sister, aka O Wiser Sister, and I had a conversation recently, and as is often the case, she had words of wisdom to share. I was quite moved by her analogy, and will share it with you, though I'm sure I will botch it somewhat...

On dating and relationships...

When you meet a person in whom you are interested in dating, you show them your interest. So you date, and you like the person. Date some more, and then without any truly deep analysis, you jump in. You jump in emotionally and physically, and get into a relationship with that person. This is a common scenario. The common scenario.

But what if you Stop And Think...

Think. Value yourself. Think, for example, that you are made of all these wonderful pieces of gold. The finest gold that exists. When you jump into a relationship, you are giving that person some of you... some of your valuable pieces of gold that make up who you are. You are investing in that person. You're investing pieces of yourself. If the relationship fails, you invested pieces of yourself that you won't ever get back. You've given away some of your pieces of gold.

I love this analogy. The point is to stop and think. Can you ever know from the moment of meeting someone that your investment is going to be worthwhile? Of course not. Well, not usually... I do believe in Love at First Sight... Kev and I are living proof of that. And our 26th wedding anniversary is coming up soon. (Did I mention I love that man?!)

Stopping to take the time to think can be a difficult thing to do, because sometimes when you meet someone, your feelings are running high, hot and heavy. Not exactly the formula for analytical thinking, or caution.

But if you decide to make a conscious effort to take things slowly, you are more likely to make a wise investment. What you get for your investment may simply be a learning experience, an education to apply to future investment choices. What you may & should also get for your (slower) investment is increased self-respect. Pride in yourself for being so dang smart with your pieces of gold, for your investment savvy.

Everything seems to go so fast nowadays. And if that statement doesn't make me sound like an old fart, I don't know what would! But it's true. Warp speed. Friending people on Facebook and myspace, etc. Hooking up. Zoom, zoom, zoom.

Taking the time to stop and think doesn't mean you should absent yourself from opportunities. It just means realize the value of your precious pieces of gold. Value yourself.

And this is true in not just romantic endeavors, but also in simple friendships. The older I get, the less time I seem to have. It's true... ask any older person you know, and they will confirm that the older you get, the faster the days fly by. Life's too short to spend it on people who don't value your pieces of gold.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

End of wisdom. Off on tangent...

What is it lately with the return of the record album? I'm seeing and hearing references to albums everywhere lately.

Back last summer, when we painted our basement, Joycie found our boxes of albums. She and Mike looked through them and were impressed with our choices in music. The old farts were not always so uncool.

For Valentine's Day, Joycie got Mike this really cool portable record player... so they could listen to all our old albums. Though it was pretty funny, because the first thing they did was forget to lock the arm in place, so the poor needle was jumping all over the place inside the case. Kids! But they forgot; they have little experience with turntables.

The other day, Kev and I were watching an episode of "Without a Trace" where the main guy's daughter returned to live with him, and she found his old albums. She also determined he must have been pretty cool in his younger years, and in the show, she went out and bought a turntable so she could listen to her dad's old albums. She also made a comment that his albums could make some serious cash.

There were also some references to albums and turntables on some HGTV shows I've watched lately... album references abound!

Last week, Kev set up his old stereo system, including the turntable out in the pole barn. So now he's listening to his old albums out there. Rock on, baby!

How to annoy me

Me and Zack are going downtown later.

Your welcome.

That's how its done.

Yes, the dog made it's way home.

Yous guys wanna go with?

I could care less what you think.

I don't have no more dimes.

Who was our first President? I dunno, whaz his name?... Thomas Washington or somethin'...?

What's the capitol of New Mexico? I dunno, Arizona?

We can't be out of Ranch!

Are we seriously out of ketchup?

What time is it? It's around 5:17.

Time we should leave: 6:45am.
6:47am: Mom, I need this 8-page form filled out to turn in today at school. No, it has to be in today.

DVR set up to record Every Single Episode of some damn sports talk show. No one knows how it happened.

Watch movie/show on DVR; discover that recording magically stopped & is missing last 15 minutes.

The green "power on" light on the sound machine is so bright, it lights up our bedroom, making our expensive room-darkening window blinds utterly useless against its power.

Obama bumper sticker on a Lexus. Seriously. Seriously?

Keep selling me losing Lottery tickets.

And, of course...

creepier

Finished the Z-pak on Friday, and Friday happened to be the worst day yet... clearly, Azithromycin not working for me. Coughing worse; hardly thought that could be possible. Also ears hurting. Burning probes into my skull. And little conversations going on in my head... wheezing. The first time I heard it, I thought my cats were having some tiff out on the porch. Then I realized it was inside my head and happened upon exhaling. Freaked me out.

Kev doing well... the Z-pak helped him.

So... we got up very early Saturday morning and made it to Urgent Care upon opening. I have a viral influenza... and also bronchitis, sinus infection and ear infections.

Mucus R Me.

Got a different antibiotic to try this time for my ear infections. Doc said I will have problems finding antibiotics that work well for me due to my issues last year and all the antibiotics I had then. Likely the reason the Z-pak didn't work for me this time. Doc also gave me an albuterol inhaler for the wheezing. He also suggested taking Robitussin DM plus a Vicodin for cough control. And that truly worked. I have finally gotten some sleep.

The ears feel better today, so it appears the Bactrim is working. The Urgent Care doc suggested not driving for 3 days and following up with my family doctor on Tuesday to make sure the ears are improving. Problem is, of course, with the vertigo I’ve had... doesn’t mix well with ears full up of crap. And vertigo doesn't mix well with driving.

The inhaler isn’t doing much for the wheezing. The sounds being made inside my air tubes are odd. Quite early this morning I woke up from a dream about people arguing, and I realized my wheezing sounded like people arguing. Is that progress? From coughing keeping you awake to wheezing waking you up...? Yes, I think that's progress.

Then later I kept hearing E.T. in my head. And then little aliens. It’s really not as entertaining as it sounds. You know how it is... once you’re aware of something, you really, really notice it. I’m tired of listening to the wheezing to try and determine what it sounds like now. Sick and tired of it. Ha!

Speaking of dreaming... I took a “short” nap this morning at 10:30am, and I woke up about 2:30pm... which comprised some of the deepest sleep I’ve had in 5 days. Nice. But I also had a weird dream. And... I’ve had this same weird dream 3 times now in the past year. I don’t know if it’s the drugs or what...

Here’s the short version... In this dream, I am at home, with Kev, Joyce & Sam, and I suddenly remember that we had put our 3 cats away in the basement with the door shut, which we had done because some company we had over was allergic to cats... And we had forgotten to let the cats back out... forgotten for weeks. Weeks. All 4 of us forgot to let the cats out of the basement for weeks. And the basement... creepy, dark place, not like our basement at all. We rush to the basement, and the 3 cats are the feline equivalent of concentration camp survivors or starving children in Africa. Joyce and I had trouble getting the cats to come to us, but when they finally did, they were affectionate. We fed them, and they ate and ate and ate, and they drank a ton of water.

That’s pretty much it. Except that one of the cats is Taffy, a Siamese mix I had for years who died in 1992 (of a heart attack... old age). I wake up feeling so bad, so ashamed of myself for forgetting the cats for so long and feeling so sad, like crying. Poor, poor starving cats.

Very weird.

Let the analyses begin.

(Hint: pain killers + dextromethorphan and guaifenesin.)

Lists and research

Some things I cannot do without:

• Coffee - I've been trying to cut down to 2 cups per day (always first thing in the morning), but I cannot. I can give up a lot of things, and I thought an excess of coffee was one of them, but sadly... it is not.


• Vicodin and valium


• Text messages from my kids


• Kisses goodbye from Kev


• Advice from my Mom & Dad


• TV & the big, green recliner


• Lists... to do lists, grocery lists, recipes to look up online lists, books to read lists, pottery ideas lists


• Time at Space Studios


• Spectacles... my eyesight sucks now, well, really I should say it sucks more now


• My memory foam pillow

Some things I would love to rid from my life:

• Lists


• Vicodin and valium


• Stress from a certain person at work


• Some particular procrastination


• Excessive salt


• Certain hair follicles, skin tags, and other unsightly sights... seriously I am so getting old


• My obsession lately with MegaMillions and Classic Lotto 47... coz I truly believe it ain't gonna work, no matter how many prayers I send out, which belief I believe jinx my prayers, so it's doomed, right?... get it?...*sigh*


• My focus on a coworker's use of "y'all" so often... seriously, now that I've noticed how often he uses it, I can't stop listening for it, and it's kinda driving me nuts... yesterday on a phone call, he used it like 5 times in 2 minutes and it made me batty... not him using it, my listening for it... get over it already, self...


• Chipmunks at my bird feeder

Whirling Dervish

I have been hearing 'whirling dervish' a lot lately. It's kinda weird. Sammy didn't know what it was, so I tried to explain it to him. I remember the first time I really looked into what a whirling dervish was... I read it in one of the "Mrs. Pollifax" books (the Reader's Digest Condensed version) and I looked it up. I heard it recently on the new TV show, "The Ex List" (great show by the way!). With my vertigo thing happening, I find myself thinking of it... and telling myself STOP! because it does not help to think of that.

If you do a 'net search, you'll get tons of hits. It's a very religious thing, but has now also become a tourist attraction. Kinda sad, that. But maybe not. After all, what's the biggest tourist attraction in Italy? Um, yeah, the Pope. Makin' money from religion ain't no new thang.

Dervish whirl, that is, spin in place, slowly at first, then increasing in speed, to achieve some kind of spiritual high or state of mind beyond their bodies or something like that.

I can hardly stand to even think of doing that. No thank you. However, I do like to say it... Whirling Dervish, whirling dervish...

Ankh

Remember when these necklaces were so popular?

Oh, wait, they still are...

I had one back in the 70's... like the peace sign, it was mostly just fashionable to me and my friends. We were alive in the 60's but didn't live through it like some people to whom the peace sign is much more important. Like the ankh, which was not originally a Christian symbol.... apparently, there is some debate on what it truly represents. But like many pagan items, rituals and dates, the Christians took them over and own 'em now.

I also heard "ankh" on the TV show, "The Ex List." Which got me thinking... those characters are pretty young... they just seem too young to me to be mentioning things like "whirling dervish" and "ankh"... but the writers are Rick Eid and Matt McGuinness, and I don't think they're very young... but quickly finding info on Eid or the other guy was kinda difficult... and I just don't care that much to spend any more time on it. But I suspect they're both around my age or so, i.e., old.

Seeking Balance

We humans are, by our innateness, self-centered beings. It is truly about the me of each of us. Has to be. I would give my life for my kids, but you can sure as heck bet I'm gonna do my best to save myself, too. Of course. For one thing, my kids need me. It's like on airplanes... put the oxygen mask on yourself first, then your child. You can't help anyone if you're dead, y'know...

When you hear about something new or an experience by someone else, you automatically relate that information to your own self. At least, that's what I think... after 48 years of being myself and being around other humans.

Like, for example, (an example I've mentioned before, I'm sure) have you ever gotten a new vehicle and then suddenly notice how many vehicles just like yours are on the road? There are many, many 2002 Light Bronzemist Metallic Buick LeSabres out there. Tons of 'em. And me in one of them. But until I got in mine, I never truly took notice of all the others.

Lately, I am obsessed with balance. This vertigo I have is still kicking my sorry ass, and thus my obsession with balance. And now, everywhere I turn, I am hearing the word "balance" or I see it written somewhere. Balance, balance, balance. It's driving me nuts. (As my Momma would say, as far as I have to drive, I might as well walk!... especially with gas prices nowadays, huh?!!!)

All I want is balance.

Dear Universe, enough with the constant reminders already.
Very truly yours,
Me.

I took yesterday on vacation (officially, but managed to work 6 hours from home before my "day" started), and Sammy and I went shopping for him for new socks and boxers and shoes. School starts on Tuesday.

The poor boy. It should have been a fun day, and it eventually was, but the morning was trashed. I was Very Ornery & Moody. Sammy felt the brunt of it in Wal-Mart in the aisle where all the Hanes and Fruits of the Looms hang out. Oh, very fun for him, I assure you.

But we managed to fill up the cart and get out of the store still together and not constantly growling. As we exited the store, I noticed it was very busy. Many people, many cars. An older, kinda crappy red Camero that was stopped waiting for pedestrians suddenly screeched into a too-fast hard left and zoomed down the parking lot lane. Scared the crap out of a bunch of people, a dad with 3 little kids and an old guy right behind them, he with a cane & who just about lost his balance... he had to grab the trunk of a car he was next to. The Camero did a right turn and came up the lane toward where Sammy & I had parked. She parked further down, though, and so was walking towards us as we were unloading our cart contents into our trunk... well, actually, only Sammy was doing that activity. So this hard-looking, dark-haired young woman walks toward me... I'm staring at her intently, & not kindly. As she comes even with me, I say, quite venomously, "Nice driving." She looks at me, and I glare at her and continue, "You're either an idiot or an asshole. Or both." Sammy tries to shrink into the trunk. She keeps walking, and I suppose, she's trying to think of something to say back. The skank finally replies, throwing both her arms up wide and shrugging her shoulders, voice and gestures both loud, "Well, hey, I guess some of us just have to drive that way." Whoa, now that retort really showed me, huh. I said, "Oh, then you're both. You're both an idiot AND an asshole!" By that time, she was at least 20 feet away, so I'm hollering it at her back. Loudly. I'm pretty sure I unnerved her; she didn't turn around and her pace increased. I'm also sure I could have taken her skinny ass easily. Especially as a tag team with Sammy.

That. Felt. So. Good.

I looked around and people everywhere were looking at us; with many grins toward me. I smiled with satisfaction and put our empty cart properly and carefully into the cart corral.

On another day, I might have wondered what was wrong in her life to make her drive with such anger and disregard for the other human lives around her, and maybe even would have felt a little sorry for her... but really, sometimes, people are truly just idiots and assholes. I was ready for it yesterday morning. Bring it on, baby.

Turned my whole day around, really.

Then Sammy and I went to Damon's for lunch, and it was smooth sailing and happy times the rest of the afternoon. (Hey, do yourself a HUGE favor and try Damon's Grilled Caesar Salad... so good! They grill the romaine. Yes, grill it. It is so, so good.)

Ponderings, pesterings and preparations... and a joke!

It's been a long week... and it ain't over yet. On one hand, I wish it were over; on the other, I wish Sunday was days and days away yet. It's like I'm hearing a drum roll and the theme to Jaws at the same time.

I had my follow-up appointment with the neurosurgeon this past Monday afternoon. He took at look at my x-rays from the Friday before...





and said everything looked great. When I last saw him, he had mentioned possible physical therapy in May, and I don't have to do that. Thank goodness. I didn't want the appointments nor the bills. My range of motion in my neck is doing well. I can finally, finally start back to work in the office on Monday. But, and there always seems to be a but... only 4 hours 3 days each week in the office. He said I could work from home as tolerated. And... he wants me to stick to that schedule until I see him in 2 months. Though, I can contact him earlier to renegotiate... I hope to just get back full-time in the office and back to normal well before early July. I'm ready to have my life back.

Then I got a call from a person in our company's health services area on Tuesday; she was just checking on me. Last time she called me I told her I had an appointment with the surgeon on May 5th, and I'm pretty sure she made a note in her calendar to call me on May 6th. And then another call from her on Wednesday. Laid the ol' Big Time stress on me. I don't think this person meant to do that, but also, I didn't get the feeling her conversations with me were well planned out. On Tuesday, she discussed something about a 6-month time frame, how I may have to be put on long-term disability (WTF?!) and how she needs to talk with my boss, and how she's sure they'll hold my job for me (again, WTF?!!). On Wednesday, she was all about making sure I was doing ok and not overdoing things and thus, I would not be allowed to work from home, and that I had to stick to the schedule my doctor had ordered of 4 hours 3 days per week. Long story, short, I got a revised written return to work order from my doctor that includes "work from home as tolerates" so that I can get my job done. It seems incredible that I have to argue to put in more work hours.

One thing I really messed up on was not keeping track of any of the hours I've been working from home all this time since my first surgery. I felt, after that conversation, like I would need the proof. And that sucks.

This person also kept saying how she wouldn't want me to have a relapse. Um... hello... I had an infection. Serious, sure, but an infection. Not a disease. My blood test Monday shows it's ALL GONE. Once it's gone, it's gone. No relapse potential there. The only thing I have to worry about seems to be pain management.

Things have kinda been crappy at work lately, meaning the shit's hit the fan on some of my stuff... Consequently, I worked from home yesterday from about 6:30am to 6:30pm with very few breaks. So today has been all about pain management. I sure did overdo it on Wednesday, but that health services chick stressed me out Tuesday morning and it was all downhill from there.

Anyway, I won and can get work done from home. I'm hoping to take a couple of weeks to ease back into it and then charge ahead. Fingers crossed.

--------

We built our house 15 years ago, and yesterday we finally got our downstairs (basement) carpeted. YAY! We have a big room down there, about 42' x 18', plus the stairs going down. We got a gorgeous piece of carpet with a wonderful thick padding, all very expertly installed, plus an edged 15' x 12' carpet remnant (rug) which I'm putting into our laundry room, for about $1,500. And that, my friends, was a spectacular deal. Turns out that Mike's family is super good friends with the folks that own Magic Carpet in Bay City, so he hooked us up. If you're in the Tri-City area and need carpet or any kind of flooring, check out Magic Carpet, 1112 Garfield Avenue, Bay City, MI, (989) 894-2857. The installation was excellent, too.

After the guys put the pad down, Kevin said he could tell a difference downstairs... quiet and nice.

I kinda freaked Kevin out on Sunday and decided we needed to paint the walls before the carpet was installed on Wednesday. Kev had previously painted the walls Eggshell White or some other Standard White Blah Color. Joyce and I picked out "Apricot Butter" and bought 4 gallons on Monday. Kevin, Joycie and Sammy got it all done in good time before Wednesday, and it looks wonderful. Warm and wonderful.

Now they have to move the furniture back out from the laundry room and my craft room, along with the ping pong table and the air hockey table, and... the piano (ugh). I can't wait to see it all put back together... but first, Kev has to finish putting the trim up. He had planned to work on that today, but he ended up working a 16-hour shift yesterday, so all he did today before going back into work at 3:30pm is sleep. There's no big rush, anyway. My 10-pound lifting limit is no longer in effect; I have no restrictions... but I'm gonna let them move all that stuff!

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I finally got a clear glaze coat on some pottery projects that I did way, way before my first surgery. I picked them up at Space Studios on Monday, and I'm so happy, happy, happy. I'm looking forward to getting into pottery again. Space Studios started a new thing called a Clay Club. I'm so excited! And of course, I'm already a member. I'll post photos of my stuff that's done soon.

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The beavers have recently been at it again, and they plugged up the tube at the end of our road causing a flood back there. Our ditch was getting really full, and I kept forgetting to call the Road Commission... but someone noticed, and the big trucks were out there Monday. It was amazing how quickly that water flowed out and the ditch level and creek level dropped. I don't know for sure how many times the beavers have done this, it's been enough that I've lost count. They love to plug up that gigantic tube.

The road commission did a great job, and then they smoothed out our dirt/lightly graveled road. Then some dumb asses on ATVs spent a lot of time Monday evening tearing the road up and doing brodies up and down it, and at the end of our driveway. Nice.

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I have been taking tons of bird photos again. Or still, I should say. I have been enjoying that bird feeder so much. I'll be posting some pretty cool photos soon... just have to sort through the hundreds I've taken. Ha! What I've really enjoyed lately is watching the birds go at each other, it's like a constant sparring contest out there. A comical sparring contest. Though there is one baby Rose-breasted Grosbeak that's positively vicious.

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I heard a super funny gay joke the other day. Normally, I hate jokes that target one specific group of people because those jokes are typically degrading in some way. Except blonde jokes. I mean, yes, they're usually degrading, but I don't hate those... coz they're funny! Although I feel compelled to point out here that a very good friend of mine is a true, natural blonde; she's an accountant and very analytical and very, very smart (Hi, Tami!). So I'm not saying those blonde jokes are stereotypical of natural blondes, mostly bleached blondes, methinks.

Anyway, the town I live in is the usual middle America thing. Conservative to a fault. In fact, at our local mall, which is not that large, there is a kids' play area in the middle of the mall near the food court. The Victoria's Secret store is moving from one location in the mall to a store whose front is near the center of the mall. Oh, the uproar! Because it's near the kids' play area. They called Victoria's Secret "soft porn." Oy. Our town is also known as "The City of Churches." For good reason, there's a lot of them.

The company I work for does something great, though... it offers employees the option to cover their "domestic partners" under their medical insurance. This would include whoever it is they are in a long-term live-in relationship with but are not married to... which could be a gay partner or a hetero partner who chooses not to marry. I applaud this heartily. Some folks don't. Of course, Michigan doesn't allow gay marriage, like most states. I think that is such a huge load of crap. I believe if 2 people love each other and want to get married and enjoy all the benefits that legal agreement implies, then they should be able to do so, no matter who or what they are. I also know I'm in the minority on that opinion in the town where I live. I also know some friends and family likely don't agree with me either, but... I'm right. It's not fair to deny a person the same legal rights as everyone else simply because they have a different thought process and emotional response than you may have. It reminds me of the struggles the African-Americans had back in the 1960's to get their rights. I wasn't that old, but I remember the riots in Detroit and being very afraid it would come to our town. It made an impression on me, and basically it sucks that it had to take riots to get the job done. Hey, here's a thought... maybe parades aren't enough?... (just kidding!, I'm no advocate of violence)

If one can believe the statistics, then our town has plenty of gay people. There are some that are open about it. But there has to be a lot more that are not... because a good percentage of our town isn't holding it's arms wide open to embrace the gay lifestyle. I am, c'mon over for dinner! And bring your mom's ex-husband's half-brother's daughter's adopted child with you, ok?! As long as they're not a porn star, that is. (I do have some hangups. Apparently porn stars are not welcome at my house for dinner.)

Anyway, back to the joke. To my usually inept recollection, it goes something like this... and what the heck, I am localizing it just for fun:

There were 2 gay men walking along the Rail Trail together near Emerson Park. Coming towards them was a jogger; a young, gorgeous blonde built like a brick shit house. The 2 men watched her. One of the men was especially attentive, and after she passed by, turned to his partner and said, "When I see a woman like that, it makes me wish I was a lesbian!"

Mindset and 13

Since I've been home so very, very, VERY much lately, I have spent more time with Kev, Sammy, and Joycie when she's here... because whenever they're home, I'M AT HOME, TOO. Spending more time with them has been the silver lining during my cloudy days.

Lately, I've noticed that I tend to take for granted that Sammy knows about things that I know about, only he doesn't... Such as recently when I mentioned a dimestore... and about five minutes later, Sammy asked what a dimestore was. I believe when he heard me say "dimestore" that he didn't relate it to money, but instead was trying to figure out what kind of stuff would be sold there. So I explained it was kind of like my generation's version of the Dollar Store.

Sometimes, Sam's questions crack me up. Yesterday he saw a sign advertising cantaloupe. We were in the car, and he turned to me and asked, "what kind of animal is a cantaloupe?" Huh? What?!... It took me a second, but I figured it out... Sam's Aunt Janet and Uncle Bob are going on a trip to Africa this year, and he's confused antelope with cantaloupe. I explained that a cantaloupe is a wonderful, orange melon and an antelope is an animal from Africa that's similar to our whitetail deer, only smaller and faster. After about 5 minutes and another mile or so down the road, he turned to me and said, "they shouldn't make the names so similar, it's too confusing." I got a good laugh out of that one. (Which I'm seriously hoping was his intent.)

Sam is 13 years old, and that's an interesting age. He's smart, gets straight A's and truly seems more mature for his age than some of his peers. He's also physically more advanced that some of his peers, being one of the bigger boys. He's tall and strong... he loves pointing out now that he's taller than me, and Kevin loves getting his help with woodcutting. Watching Sammy grow and grow up is wonderful for both Kev and I, and for Joycie, too. Some of the things that come out of his mouth, and some of the things he does.... from one end of the scale to the other!

For example, in February, in a haze, I paid our Verizon bill (online, as usual), and I noticed it was way more than it should have been, but I paid it and moved on. I suppose that's what I did, my recollection is dim. But the other day, being a great deal more alert, I freaked when I saw the bill. Turns out Sammy's friend, Morgan, does not have Verizon service, and it turns out Sammy thought the evenings (as in "free evenings and weekends" calling) with Verizon started at 7pm. They don't, they start at 9pm. With my being home and sometimes receiving and making so many calls during the day, usually using my cell phone because I'd be paying long distance charges on the land line or because the number was conveniently coded into my cell, or whatever... and then with Sammy's many, many conversations on his cell with Morgan, we went way over our 1,400 "anytime" minutes. Way over. Texting to Morgan was a hit, too.

We've been with Verizon for years and years, so I called 'em... long story, short, they rock. I did have to upgrade to a new plan for a few more bucks per month, but they credited me practically all the overage charges for the past 2 months. Whew. Bonus... all 4 of our phones now have unlimited texting, that includes pics & vids!

I've been having fun texting my kids. It'll be especially handy with Joycie on the road to Florida. I'm looking forward to the pics!

Last night, while Kev and I were watching "Ax Men" on the History channel (awesome show, by the way), Kev paused the TV, turned to me and said, "You know, you were right. Now that Sam has a TV in his bedroom, we're never gonna see him." Since I was the only one in our family opposed to the TV's in bedrooms idea, I dearly wanted to say back to him, "No shit, Sherlock!" But I didn't. Instead I texted Sammy. I told Sam don't even think about asking for a mini-fridge.

Sammy texted me back with a great message. A very mature message that made my heart heat up with pride. Earlier that evening, Morgan broke up with Sammy over AIM. Well, since they were never officially going out, I guess she couldn't officially break up with him. Anyway, Sam came downstairs and told me about it. I couldn't tell how he felt, whether he was upset or not, and then he mentioned they hadn't been getting along that great recently. During their phone conversations. Because that was really all the relationship could consist of... phone calls, texting and IMing. Because Morgan's mother had forbidden her to have a boyfriend. Then Sam didn't really want to talk about it; he wanted to go upstairs to his bedroom. Where he talked about it with his friends on his cell & AIM, and texts.

It has bothered me a great deal this whole time he was "going out" with her, and I explained to him that what Morgan was doing was flat out lying to her mother. And I told him that Morgan was making Sammy a liar, too... I had decided not to forbid Sammy to "go out" with Morgan because, officially, he couldn't "go out" with her. I let him know, though, that Morgan's duplicity with her mother was something I felt was just plain lousy, and Wrong.

I'd prefer if Sammy and his friends would all just lay off the going out thing, but you can't stop it. Nowadays, the "going out" starts in 5th grade... 5th grade! By my reckoning, though, "going out" is more of a communication thing, as in whoever you're going out with, that's the person you probably text the most.

So anyway, Sammy's text back to me was about how he was super ok with breaking off with Morgan, because he was sick and tired of the lying thing and of having a girlfriend he couldn't really see outside of school, couldn't do anything with... Not that my 13-year-old son would go on an actual "date," but it was more that everyone knew Morgan's mom wasn't letting her have a boyfriend, so Sammy was like a pseudo boyfriend. I'm happy and proud to report that it bothered him; he told me I was right. Going out with her behind her mother's back was wrong, and he didn't like it.

Then later, when Sammy came downstairs hungry, and I was making him fried eggs for a toasted fried egg sandwich, Sammy asked if he could have a mini-fridge for his bedroom. Ha!

Sometimes it is strange to think of the context in which Sammy has been raised versus my childhood. Like my family's once-per-week trip to town (oh, boy!) for groceries. Having 3 or 4 TV stations. Telephones all had cords, and we had a party line. Everyone once in a while, like with the dimestore question, I realize how much I take for granted.

I enjoy those lists that Beloit College puts out and everyone e-mails to everyone, at least all us old farts do... The Beloit College Mindset List that lists the things incoming freshman have always known or not known. The lists are a major slap of reality!

This and that, and of course the usual complaining

As a mom, I had read and heard, often and in a variety of formats, that babies and children Like And Need Routine. Establish a routine for your child, and your child will be happy, expecting the usual events at the usual times. As an adult who is now under a forced routine, I'm not so sure... I believe routine is excellent for babies, but older children, those that start to demonstrate frustration and rebellion toward the established routine... well, I see their point now. A fixed routine is not necessarily a good thing for every 2-year-old, and so on. After almost six weeks of "home-bound" and with two more weeks to go, I can state with certainty that I hate this routine. I am so very tired of these antibiotic IV treatments. When I am done with this, if I never have to open another small, square packet of an alcohol wipe again, it will A-OK with me. I'm pretty sure I'll not want to use the wipes at Buffalo Wild Wings either since they will be too reminiscent of the alcohol wipes.

I am about 60% through my morning dose of vanco... thus the bitching (yet again!). I'm starting to feel sleepy and yukky from it already, so I'm typing this post to hopefully just work my way through it. Trying to ignore the sofa that's calling me to lay down on it's lovely softness.

I have way too much to do today, including working from home for my job, paperwork from home (we haven't got our papers over to our tax guy yet!), and I'm expecting the cable guy sometime... I also have to find the title to Joycie's Rodeo, and something else Kevin requested that I can't remember right now...

As you can see, my day is full.

The sun is shining outside towards the east and the birds are flitting back and forth from shrubs to feeder. Normally, this would make me feel cheerful. But today... today I am focused more upon the gray skies to the west. I see not the beautiful tall oak casting a long shadow, but instead, the huge unattached branch hung up in the top of the tree. I am unhappy with my Routine, and I am crabby.


A cable guy is coming out today because after the cable guy was here for a few hours yesterday, our nice, new 42" HP LCD MediaSmart Plasma HDTV was stuck on some "attention" 587 screen... basically, it would not get any TV channels. The guy installed a new receiver so we can get the HDTV (Kev had to buy a special cable for it, too... 80 bucks for the cable! jeez). When the cable guy called into Dish Network to register the new receiver, he couldn't do it because Dish Network had some huge computer issue... like a part of their entire network went down. The guy was real nice, and left me instructions on how to call into Dish and what numbers to give them, and he even left me his cell phone number for Kev to call him to get the TV settings pristine for HDTV... but after a few phone calls, cumulatively about 2 hours, on the phone with Dish Network yesterday evening, Kev kind of gave up... I talked to the guy on the phone, too, because by this time Kev had the phone on speaker... the end result is that the new receiver must be defective so Dish would send us another one and we'd get it in about 2 days. Sweet, happy joy, as you can imagine. Us Tyrrell's, we like our TV. So Kev called the guy on his cell phone, and now there is someone coming out this morning to fix it all. Kev finally gets his big plasma TV, and it's one big hassle. We love technology.

One thing not to bitch about is that Pam, the nurse who came yesterday to change my PICC line dressing, used a foam thingy this time and now the part of the PICC line that enters my skin into my vein is a little more protected. I've banged it so much that it is so sore, and the foamy bit helps. Also, Pam, who is an older, long-time nurse, wife of a pastor, mother of 3 older children, loud-talking (her talking voice volume is louder than a typical speaking voice), no-nonsense woman, is so nice. She exudes nursing competence, so she makes me feel comfortable. On her first visit to see me, I discovered that she likes sweet flavored coffee, so now each Wednesday, I have prepared for the both us my home version of a White Rabbit cappuccino. Pam always says, "What a treat!" Next Wednesday, however, I will see a different nurse because Pam and her husband will be in Sunny California visiting one of their daughters.

I am also happy about another thing... I finally found, and won, on eBay a gift for my nephew. It was shipped USPS Priority Mail, but it took over a week to get here, so I was nervous... it finally arrived yesterday. I am looking forward to giving it to him, and then I realized I needed something else, too... which I can't tell you because that would ruin the surprise. With too much time on my hands but with too little energy to do much, I've been perusing eBay more than I should, and I've bid on some things that I truly don't need, but would be interested in having. I've also found some things that I would love to own, but cannot justify the cost... like this beautiful fountain pen...

Did I say beautiful?... I meant gorgeous...

Too pricey, though. And anyway, I have a very nice Waterman fountain pen already... oh! and I found some ink cartridge refills at a great price on eBay! Yay.

And now, I give in... a quickie with my sofa has become a must... just a short nap... I'll even set the timer... coz the cable guy won't be here until at least 11am...