Thanks Blogger

For so graciously allowing me to actually make a post.

Me and blogger have been having issues. My new post page hasn't been loading lately.. but it here now.. yay

Last night we had a huge nasty storm come in. It woke me at 5:30 with its ferocity. This morning there were piles of hail all over my hard, the highway and in the gutters. Odd. Very odd.

My cat went to the vet yesterday for her checkup and rabies shot. She has a heart murmur. Not good. The vet is unsure if it is age or heart worms. Hell, I wasn't even sure cats could GET heart worms. So we are looking into medicine.

I swept and mopped the bathroom, hallway, and living room. I dumped the dirty mop water and then had to use the restroom. My cat had peed on my just cleaned floor.. stupid cat.

My mother went to the doctor today and after years of grade A hypochondria, she has a real medical problem. (insert applause) She has an enlarged heart and a heart murmur. I jokingly offered her some of the cats heart worm medicine.. she wasn't amused. She now has to go in for all the "you're getting older" tests, stress test, EKG, blood work, enzyme checks, blood chemistry workup. It'll be a few weeks before we find anything. Till then they've told her not to worry .. yeah right.

The best laid plans

Sometimes things just don't work out like you expect them too.

Today is Sunday, Easter, and my recently deceased brother's birthday. It's been OK. We all miss him, but life does go on.

Once I finally got the kid on Friday we went to mom's. He stayed the night, uneventfully. Saturday I went to pick him, while I was there mom hit me with the doozie. "Will you help me separate John's ashes so we can spread them tomorrow?"

Oh wow, I wasn't expecting that. They were still in the box the crematorium had shipped them to us in. Neither of us knew what to expect when we opened that box. Mom delegated that duty to me.

We sat across from each other and I started to pull the packing tape off. I was nervous. Very nervous. Inside the box was a glass decanter like you sometimes see jar candles in. Inside that was a baggie twist tied shut. Inside that was my brothers ashes.

There was a small laminated card from the crematorium showing the "certificate of cremation". Mom and I looked at that for a long time. I think we were trying to put off the inevitable "handling" of the ashes. They weren't what I expected either. I don't really know what I thought would be in there. But, that wasn't it.

It looked like plaster of paris. It was buff colored, and compacted, almost like.. well almost like a compact. Mom held the smaller bags open while I spooned portions of ash into them. My hands were shaking at first and some spilled onto the table. Mom and I said it together "I'm sorry John". I think we were both lost in various memories, we were doing our best to honor him.

When we were done, then the tears came. We agreed it wasn't as hard as we thought it was going to be. Opening the box was the hardest part.

OH yeah..

I just spent 4 hours with my mother. Nobody is dead, injured, no feelings hurt, nothing negative was said. Shit yeah!! Quick write down this date. Oh wait.. I am.

Mom and I usually get along well. When you add her husband, and a few dozen beers.. that's a different story.

The kid got home at 9:30 and we headed over there. They had fun, I did adult stuff. You know talked to mom and the other adult company, shot some pool, talked about what I'd just bought from Adam and Eve.. the usual for mom's house.

I love her.. I really do. She just isn't a mom in my view. I call her by her given name. The mother of the other boy staying the night calls her "mom", I call her D.

Still a good night with the womb with a view.

Am I a mom ..

I can't remember.

My son is supposed to be at his grandma's for a sleep over with a school friend. I say supposed to because the sitters and my son aren't home.

I love my sitters. James is like another grandkid to them and they treat him as such. That is the good part. The bad part is sitting at home waiting for my kid to get home so he can go to his sleepover .. before everyones asleep.

Grrr.. I told them yesterday that he was supposed to be there at 6 pm. It's 9 pm. He's still not home.

Oh well, at least they love him, take him places, and care for him. It could be worse. He could be in (shudder) day care.

The most aggravating part of this is knowing had I wanted him to be gone he'd be so far up my butt he'd be tasting breakfast. lol I've given serious thought to trying to .. umm.. entertain myself in a naughty manner. That usually brings him running to knock on the bed room door and interrupt me. He'd parachute out of the sky to knock on the door if I was 30 seconds away from the big O.

Kids.. gotta love em.

It's the oddest things

Driving to work today I notice two "happy birthday" mylar balloons tangled up in a power line. I had an almost instantaneous process of thoughts that led to why there were there.

Scenario 1:

Birthday person gets out of her/his car. Their hands are full of the assorted odds and ends one sometimes gets from co-workers. The family dog comes running to great it's master/mistress jumps up and knocks everything to the ground. Bye bye balloons.

Scenario 2:

Crossing the street to check the mail after getting home birthday person is hit by a car. Balloons ascend heavenward as the distasted comes to a bone breaking conclusion.

Scenario 3:

Women comes home to boyfriend on front lawn holding balloons and offering kisses. After she takes the balloons he nonchalantly pull a ring box from his back pocket and drops to one knee. The balloons slip free from her now nerveless fingers.

All of this I saw in less time than it took me to travel 1/2 a block in my car. Sometimes the strangest things can send me down a "what if/how did it happen/why is that there" train of thought. Sometimes I end up in left field, sometimes I just end up where the pavement ends and the dirt roads of my mind take me.

A good day

I woke up this morning feeling like me... the real me. Smart, sexy, confident, and full of life.

Depression be damned. Today I am a goddess among women.

I looked good, I felt good, hell I even smelled good.

The dress was just right. It hugged where it should, and skimmed where it was supposed to. The weather was perfect.

Today was a good day.

How not to weigh tomatos

Dear Mrs Cashier

When I was in the "express lane" yesterday trying to buy cough drops and trouser socks you were, sadly, my cashier. I knew there was going to be difficulties the 3rd time you tried to weigh the tomatoes of the lady in front of me.

There was no way 4 tomatoes weighed 20 lbs, then 18 lbs, then 23 lbs. You knew this, she knew this, I knew this.

When I became impatient after 10 mins of you weighing tomatoes and asked you to "for god's sake can we please just call someone". It was not because I just wanted to leave, well not only because of that. It was also my desperate attempt to keep from screaming.. HEY LADY IF YOU KEEP YOUR FREAKING GUT OFF THE SCALE I MIGHT GET TO LEAVE.

I am a larger lady, I used to be a full fledged huge lady. I can commiserate on having a large abdomen. So, I bit my tongue (damn near off) and just asked you to get someone. Which you didn't! The woman behind me in line went to get your manager.

All in all a throughly aggravating day in line at wally world.

So, I present to you How to weigh tomatoes:

1. Place tomatoes on scale.
2. place hand firmly over do-lap belly
3. lean forward and hit key on register (checking to make sure restraining hand is doing it's job)

Ta-da! There you go.. 3 easy steps.

Huzzah Huzzah good family news!

All hail the baby brother. My baby brother, Josh, is graduating high school. ACK!! I changed his diapers; I helped teach him to walk.

Anyway. He is on track to graduate high school with straight A’s. Woo – hoo. Even better he’s been accepted to *gasp, squeal* Citadel. (Insert wild applause and copious amounts of nose blowing)

I’m just as proud as if he was really my own son. Of course in my heart of hearts my brothers and sister are my kids. My cousin, Chris, and I raised them for most of their child years.

Weird things that freak me out

I recently started thinking of things that give me the heebie – geebies. They are not ‘normal’ things. Of course I’m not a normal kinda woman either.

Hair in the drain: Ok I shed a lot of hair when I shampoo. I usually run my fingers through my hair to collect the loose ones. Then I ball them up and throw them away. However, there are always some that get away. Once the wookie starts to interfere with water drainage I go buy Drain-O. Why? Because the thought of getting that hair out of the drain just makes me cringe, even if I can see it. I don’t know why. It just creeps me out to think of it; slimy, wet, gooey, god only knows what might be growing on it, touching it... ugh bleah!!

Ashes in water: I smoke, most of my family smokes. Ashtrays need to be washed from time to time. I know this. I fully comprehend this. I can wash an ashtray, but it has to be my way. My mother has a bad habit of doing the dishes and then dropping the ashtrays into the water to do last. Fine, that’s her way. But if I go behind her to drain the sink or finish the dishes for her and feel that nasty, gritty, ashy water I nut up. It will have me cursing her and scrubbing my hands for the next five minutes. Nope... I don’t know why.

There are other things, but these are the only two I can think of right now.

What’s your strange fear/aversion?

Road Remote

Recommended by 4 out of 5 suspicious, jealous, or control freak spouses! Stalkers welcome!!!

This is, in theory, a good idea. It is a GPS tracking device you can install in a car without detection. There is no control panel, antenna or other give away that your loving family member has installed this in your car. It can be installed in an hour or so at any repair facility. Tell the hubby you’re taking the car in for an oil change and strip him off all privacy in the process.

The program allows for total tracking of the vehicles movements 24 hrs a day via web. It provides real time following of the vehicle, complete with maps, just in case you want to... you know... show up to check on their "safety". If you are sleeping... well that’s ok. You can get up in the morning and see if your spouse varied off their normal home-from-work route.

On the web site they emphasize the "safety" factor. Know where you teens are! Never worry about your spouses "safety" again. If your car is stolen we can tell you were it is!

This is all good and well, but I wonder when they are going to get sued by grieving family when some spouse drives to the no tell motel and kills their cheating partner and the lover.

Of course just imagine the look of surprise on your kids face when you never, ever fail to track them down every time they break curfew. You would be, drum roll please, god-like mom/dad. You have the power, you know all, bow before me you puny hormone crazed kid!! Mwaa- ahh – ahh.

Even with fun of a mind trip to lay on the kid, I wouldn’t want this system. I wouldn’t want it used on me. You must have trust in any relationship. If you don’t trust them then you are living a bitter, loveless life. If you are so consumed that you go to these lengths to track your loved ones, you need help.

Theme Park

Now that I have a funtioning PC I can actually have a web presence again. Yay!!! So .. old news... well a week old anyway..

Wild Adventures

On a rather spur of the moment whim, I took my son to Wild Adventures on (last)Friday. Wild Adventures is a combination zoo and rollercoaster park. We had a blast. It is not quite the start of the season so we had NO lines. I say again NO lines!!! The majority of the time we were the only people on the ride. Fun, Fun, Fun.

James rides most of the adult rides. He is after all pushing 5 feet tall (at 8! God help me I’m going to be looking up to scold him soon)

The few that were too scary he watched me ride. If it was open one of us rode it, usually both of us. We rode them all, from kiddy rides to big major G force coasters. We walked up the ramp to a large and forbidding coaster (in James’ eyes); there were loops, swoops and a group of 4 adults screaming their lungs out as we got to the loading dock. The operator looks at my son who quickly, very quickly, pipes up, "I’m not getting on that thing. I’m just gonna watch my momma".

The lady operator told him that was fine, and tried to control the twitching lips that betrayed her desire to laugh. When I loaded up, in the front seat, no floor below me, and a head support with a large piece bitten out, I began to feel a tad of worry. Looking over I could see my son sitting happily on the stool the woman had behind the counter. He smiled and waved and I was gone man! GREAT freaking ride!

And I think I earned a few more super mom points for not screaming like a fool.

Feking PC

I have worms. Ok, a little clarification... my computer has worms. Doing the restore on my system wiped out all of my updates, security settings, and safety software. As a result, when I went online to download all that stuff again my PC welcome mat was out.

One lowly bug found me. You know the one, the one that is unloved and rejected. Every pc in the free world is closed to it. Its friends now shun it. It hasn’t had a date for months. Then… it saw… (insert Jaws soundtrack) my PC, unprotected, defenseless, and virginal in its uncorrupted state.

That bug is now a hero in malware/virus/worm circles. It must have sent out keg party invites to every bad entity it knew. Keg (or Meg in this case) party! Location: Red’s PC. Time: As long as she will let us stay. Bring your own data miner/corrupter and get in free!

So my pc trouble is still troublesome. It’s getting better, one inventive cursing fit, uh I mean error correction, at a time.

((( update: viruses, worms and annoyances are fixed!!)))

Family

It means a lot of things to people. For many it is a final oasis of sanity, safety, love and comfort; for some it is a burden to be endured.

For me it can be all of those things. It is often my source of strife and worry. Well, mom’s side anyway.

My sister is in the hospital ward of her county jail right now. Her no good boyfriend failed his probation required urine test and dropped her off at her fathers house Friday night as he began his run from the law.

By all accounts she doesn’t weigh more than 75 lbs. She can’t remember the last time she ate. She’s been staying up doing various drugs for god only knows how long. Pills to go to sleep and cocaine all day.

Her father called the police. The cops show up and my sister did what she does best, she pulled a drama queen. Screaming, cursing like a harpy, she threw her coke and pills on the cop. That, of course, got her arrested.

The family has a hearing scheduled to have her involuntarily committed. I am not going to be there. I can’t take the time off work to go. And in the end, my being there would be neither beneficial nor detrimental.

She’s in the hospital at the moment due to severe malnutrition. I hope she gets better. I hope she gets clean, and stays clean.

Technical Difficulties

I've had a complete system meltdown over the last few days. I had to do a full restore, oh goody. I'm working on reinstalling everything I've done/changed/added in the last 9 months since I did my last complete system backup.

Let's see.. my system is not finding/installing my: add-on RAM, new Video card, cam, printer, hell it took me 3 hours to get all the hardware conflicts taken care of to get the friken modem to work.

And then.. and then.. there are still a few dozen megs of windows updates I need to download... on DIAL UP. I hate po-dunk Georgia. It's still offical... dial up sucks syphilitic donkey dick. You heard it here first.

Hopefully, all this will be taken care of by tomorrow evening, may the gods be willing, and assuming I don't take a hatchet to this 20 lb paperweight. At that point I'll regal you with anal beads, lawn mowers, and the trip to a theme park I took w/ my kid today.