We don’t have tax free stuff here in CA. Harrumph.
scout it’s just done once a year here. One time they were gonna do two two day tax-free (tax free?) weekends but then decided on just one big long four day one.
You know what’s weird about where I live? School starts back on Wednesday! Course school also gets out in mid May which I think is weird too. All the kiddies gotta go back to school on Wednesday though. That’s just weird.
Oh! I got me a baby lizard on my back porch. Saw him yesterday. He’s so keee-yooote!
Mom once forgot to take me to school despite the fact that I was sitting in the passenger seat, right next to her. She got to work, shut off the car, turned to get her purse, and found me laughing silently. Why didn’t I say something? Because I didn’t want to go to school, of course.
The cool part was that she just dropped me at home, and I got the day off. 
I’ve decided to keep track of the things that get me through a day here at work. Thus far, I’ve had one Large Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, one NutriGrain bar (apple cinnamon), one bottle of water, and six Excedrin. And I’ve still got two hours left.
I been seein’ lots o baby lizards, too, swampy. Must be that time o year. Was your’n green or brown. If it twer green ya gots a native. If it twer brown, it twer a illegal alien. Scout’s honor. (Girl Scouts, not our Scout) Why does “scout” look funny? It’s not even a compount word. Or is that coupoundword???
VBob, don’t you have a shuttle to fix? Back into your cubicle, mister!
I got to do some crock-potting Saturday. The GF’s youngest daughter said Thursday, “Well, how about if I come over to dinner Saturday with my new boyfriend?” So the GF said, “Okay,” all the while thinking, “How am I going to have a new-boyfriend-worthy dinner when I don’t get home from work until after 7?”
Reading her mind, I say, “I’ve got it covered! I’ll make chicken catch-a-tori!” (Well, that’s not spelt right, but you know what I mean.()(Too bad I didn’t know what I meant, because I couldn’t remember what goes into CC.) So instead I bought a 3 pound roast, celery, carrots, onions, and potatoes, and crocked them Saturday. It was ready to go at 7:30, and one of my better thrown together meals. (If I do say so myself. And since these are my fingers typing, I did just say so myself.)
Too bad Youngest Daughter never showed up, New Boyfriend didn’t show up, and neither called to say they weren’t showing up. Gonna hafta teach that girl some etiquette. On the upside, I know what I’m having for lunch and snacks for awhile.
And Rue, I know what Teva’s are! GF wears them the minute the temperature rises above 40 degrees consistantly, and doesn’t take them off until the first snowfall. Me, I prefer Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars. If I wear those Teva things, I just know that bugs, lizards, and other creepy crawly things would slime themselves all over my feet.
:: flees thread sobbing ::
Obviously heatstroke. 
You take that back Mister! The only alky-hol in this joint is some Raspberry Lambic and that is to be sipped slowly and couldn’t make a mouse drunk anyway. I just have me some insomnia and a blankie, well quilt actually. I made it myself.
Neeners Draelin, I never get bruises. All the nurses tell me I have excellent veins. Do you look when they stick ya or not. I like to look so I know when to say ouch.
Hmmmmm… next may, next maaaaay… ah, here it is! It appears I will be teaching. You guys get out of school early don’t you Rue? You averted arrest by having beans with you. Just a warning this time.
Ooog, I’m going to go try to sleep now. Again!
I bruise easily, and I’m clumsy. Which is why I rarely wear shorts. Well, that, and my so-white-they’re-reflective (not to mention fat) legs.
My veins are very easy to find–I’m pale as pale can be, and you can trace the veins from my hands all the way up my arms. I don’t look when they stick me–I have no problem with blood, I just hate needles. You can wave my vials of blood in front of my face all you want–just don’t show me how you got it.
So here I am. This morning, I had my contribution to the MMP all ready to go. But I’ve forgotten what it was.
Sucks to get old…
Instead, I’ll just share that my boss sent a memo today telling my future boss that I’ll be available on 14 Aug, even though I have another training class the week of the 15th and the week of the 22nd - which he also put in the memo. That means I should soon learn what my job will be. After being in training since May '04, it’s about time! Unfortunately, I won’t be able to tell youse guys what my job is since I’m a double-nought spy and all that. But even if I could tell you, you’d be mostly bored and unimpressed. Trust me. I worked here before - I know how boring the work can be.
Still, it’s a living.
Oh, and I’m really not a double-nought spy - I’m not any kind of spy. I’m an engineer. But I work with classified material and sometimes the projects I’m assigned to are classified also. So just pretend I have a mundane job, like a file clerk or something.
:eek: Not you scout…the word scout. Erk, oh, nevermind. It looks just deviiiine…really.
Do you like the words “boney growth”? I don’t. Especially when they apply to my wrist. Don’t mess with my hands man - they’re my life! So, the upshot is I got some x-rays done today - hopefully will hear back on the results soon, 'cause come Saturday, I’m outta here!
Susan
:: crosses Puggy off The List ::
Speaking of blood, I’m a terrible stick. When I was having my gall bladder attack and the paramedics thought it was a heart attack, it took 5 (FIVE) tries for them to get an IV started. I had bruises inside each elbow, inside the lower part of my arms, and they finally got the IV set in the back of my right hand.
When I need to have blood drawn, I tell them to try the right arm on the outside of my elbow at the crease - there’s one decent vein there. The techs always insist on looking, but they end up where I tell them. Then it takes forever to fill the tubes.
Sadly, that’s why I don’t give blood.
I can attest that our own scout is a cute as a button.
What the heck is so cute about buttons?? That’s a dumb simile. Let’s just say that scout is a very attractive woman with a lovely smile and a charming personality. And she’s almost as nice as I am, dammit!
Well bless your heart! That’s quite kind of you to say.
Somehow, I managed to avoid a farmer’s tan this year. The one time I was out in the sun for an extended period of time, I was in a sleeveless top. So, as long as I’m not in spaghetti straps or a bathing suit, you don’t actually see where my tan ends. Of course despite wearing shorts from time to time, my legs are still quite reflective.
My feet are another story as I have permanently tatooed the outline of my sandals on them. OK, maybe not as bad as other years, but if I wear any of my alternate sandals, my feet look a bit blotchy.
I’m not big on camping (I know I’ve said that before) although my one camping experience (at age 6 or so) included getting to see a fawn up close. And not in a petting zoo, either, but in the middle of the woods. But the food sounds like fun, even if there was no mustard and the beans were never actually served.
After sleeping really well Saturday night, I didn’t do so well last night; really wanted to stay home this morning, but…nope, had to go in. And I don’t think I ever completely woke up. I think I could take a nap right now, but instead I’m going to be all virtuous and continue the cleaning of the drawers and closets. We’ll see how I do.
GT
Well, that didn’t work. I am now on hour 32 with no sleep. I’m gonna take a sleeping pill tonight if I’m not sleepy by then. Actually I’m sleepy, but I keep thinking of things. Stupid brain!
Ooooooh! Ooooohh! The most amazing thing happened just down the street from my place. See, I couldn’t sleep so I gave up and went out to run errands and pick up some sleepy time medicines, especially. I wasn’t going to let fatigue and 125 degrees on the ol’ heat index keep me inside. So I get in my car and immediately determine that leaving a bag of catfood in there was not a wise freshener scent choice. It was like driving around in a big doggie biscuit, fresh from the oven.
La la la I zippity zippity and stop at the pharmacy on the corner of Main and Imperial. It is then I have to peruse every single item in the entire store. Did you know they make vanilla covered malted milk balls? I didn’t get any because I’m fat, dammit. Then a guy walks in with his little boy who’s cute as a button, just like our scout, only in a small blonde boy with a blue tongue kind of way, not a petite brunette curly hairs vixen way.
They go up to drop off a prescription and I hear him say a name and I give myself whiplash turning around and freak the guy and the kid out because I was totally crazy-lady with the swivelly stuff. I asked him if he went to Imperial High and was his mom Opal the bus lady? By that time he’d looked at me and knew I wasn’t the kind of crazy woman he thought, but an entirely different kind of crazy, because he knew he knew me but not how. I told him my name and he didn’t believe it was me, he thought I must be my sister.
But I told him no, I was me only not so much of me anymore and with long blonde curly hair, not short brown straight hair that stuck up like it was frightened (it was the eighties and was tres cool dammit). So Mike, who was as nice as his mom, which was super duper nice, is a grown up with a job and a kid. That is sooo weird. How can people my age be allowed to have children? I told him to give his momma a kiss an’ a hug for me.
And then they left which scared the heck out of me. Just a few minutes after, there were all sorts of sirens going by outside but it’s right on Imperial which is where the ugliest hospital in the entire universe is located (it’s got these huuuge bright teal, metal, pyramidal sort of muffin pan things stuck on the front and was painted by a demented, color blind puffin far’s I can tell), so it’s not so weird to hear sirens, but it was still alot. And then there was more and then it was more quiet and then I left and turned down Main but the road was flooded!
Main is a huge four lanes plus a turning lane street, with the EDD OR EED I can never remember-- the orange building where all the kids skateboard-- and the post office, which is more a tired concrete grey like it’s being punished. And then on the other side is the mall only it’s pathetic but improving since they tore down Mel’s SeaBar which was totally skeevy and the dry cleaner’s which was the best, and then put up some small shops and a Big Lots, but the JcPenney moved out of town to the actual new mall which everybody says is going to go bankrupt any time and I say should be turned into a high school, then. Think about it-- you could have biology in the Charlotte Russe! It’s where all the kids hang out anyway, this way they’re not playing hooky to go to the mall!
But back on Main street there’s a flood like you would not believe, it covered everything from the orange building down to the empty lot past the post office but before the realtor’s who always have such nice seasonal decorations on the lawn in front of the offices, because Spike really likes them, although he says it’s his daughter Darla that wants them because he’s shy that way. Spike’s office is across the street from me, so that’s like, well… really far. In the middle right side of the flood, which is about two feet deep by the curbs, because the road is higher in the middle, it was only a couple of inches except for the giant geyser of water shooting up higher than the post office. It was making it’s way down to Imperial and it’s bad all times of the day, but rush hour is gonna be uuuuugleeee with water running amok.
This is just not something you ever see around here, it’s only ever been that high back when it rained so much in '79 that Joey Allen took his dad’s canoe out and paddled to school for two days. Which was silly really but that’s Joey for you, not the sense god gave a goose. He knew the second day there wasn’t enough water anymore and he ended up scraping the bottom really bad and then got stuck on Preston and had to carry it home all by himself, three blocks and cold too. The neighbors didn’t appreciate his short cut through their ranunculus bed either. That was also the year our little car almost got swept away by the water and it came in the floor up to our ankles almost and the nuns were angry because our shoes weren’t shiny, but we didn’t have limos or Rolls like the other kids, so what could we do about it?
Over to Main street they’re buzzing around with a bajillion patrol cars and fire engines and paramedics and basically anybody else in a uniform who could possibly justify clogging the scene so they could get to play. There were more guys there than the time the street collapsed in front of the old Jack in the Box. That’s the one I got confused with once and didn’t go far enough out when I turned left out of the drive through and accidently drove the wrong way down the street for half a block before I could correct it in the parking lot of the car wash (which is where earlier this year that poor boy got his giant saggy pants caught in the works and was essentially washed to death) and then get back to school before the bell rang. It was a miracle we weren’t all killed.
Oddly enough that very same week of the sink hole in front of Jack, another one happened out by the auto stereo place run by that ex-student of my mom’s who went to prison for tax evasion just like Al Capone. Only this guy was just a deliberately bad bookkeeper, not a mobster. Mom said it figured since he cheated in math even in fifth grade. It was my friend Lorenita’s dad who was in the mafia. They owned three houses in the same city, how weird! You never saw so much pink marble in your life, I swear. Actually the first wife had the pink marble, the second wife had more white with pink veins through it.
The officers loitering on Main were having great fun directing traffic through the water but not next to the fountain of water. The ambulances covered the source of the geyser until I got closer. Would you believe a truck had hit the fire plug in front of the post office? It very nearly took out the big electrical box thingy and a telephone pole as well. As it was those oleanders aren’t going to be right for months, they were just mowed flat as fritter for a good four or five feet.
That’s when I got really worried because Mike would almost certainly have turned down Main to get home and I had had a terrible thought that he and Mike Jr (I always had him pegged as someone who’d name his son after his dad, hunh) might have been hurt. They weren’t hurt, but the truck that careened out of control had swerved in front of them right before running up on the sidewalk and smacking the fire plug. I didn’t get out of my car because I would be in the way and the water was too deep for my car anyway. But Mike said they were totally fine, just wet and I should be extra careful driving in the water because it was moving pretty fast.
The truck that had smashed the fire plug was one of those gigantor Fords and the fellow who was driving it seemed fine, just standing there talking to official type folks. It was sort of funny to see the truck all smushed and catty wampus with the door open and the air bag all poofed out. The plug was just over on it’s side by the oleanders sort of leaning on the electrical box thingey. Just like you see on tv only a block from my home. I’ll bet all the mail in the drive through lane mail boxes is gonna be soaked. If we’re lucky they already picked it up at 4:30 like they promise, but rarely do.
So the moral of this story is… something is weird with me and cars lately. Also, the streets are collapsing in our town but not because they’re over tunnels to cross drugs and illegal aliens like a certain other city I know very well. Really. It’s gotten so that everyone’s afraid to dig a pool and they’re jumping around thinking they hear things in the ground like those people in Tremors.
Knock it off.
I’m reminded of my first farmer’s tan and the rather surreal set of events that was triggered when I tried to mess it up. I call the story: Not-So Still Life of Lady in a Big Straw Hat and I must share it some day.
I remember when my day planner was just had those two entries.
Good times, good times.