it's a beautiful monday morning..yippee. no bike ride for berit today though. i went yesterday with her and it was a big mistake. long story here, follow along. a few months back wincos washing machine that they use for mops and rags broke so they bought a new one. then instead of just paying the delivery people $20 to haul the old one away, they hunt for a place to ditch it for free..enter mike, because he has a pickup..so the place is just down the road from us..we took it for them. now, 2 months ago..ditto story only it's the microwave from the break room. they could have just tossed the thing in the dumpster (not green, i know..but convenient)..so, enter mike again. but this time he takes the thing out of his truck and it has been sitting in our driveway for 2 months (how redneck is that). so thursday i had room in my garbage can to finally toss it in..off it goes to the dump. but unfortunately, even though it wasn't really heavy, it was quite awkward getting it in, and i almost dropped it. then in my effort to catch it i twisted my back (OUCH!!) in retrospect, i realize i should have just let it fall because DUH...IT WAS ALREADY BROKE!!! i tell you all that to tell you this...did you know that your back muscles are directly connected to your hip and leg muscles, and every time you push the pedal on your bicycle a shooting pain will go all the way up your back? I found that out yesterday...guess dad was right, you can learn something new everyday.
mikes doctor didn't call over the weekend so i guess he isn't in any imminent danger. my guess is the CT scan probably didn't show anything..so she still doesn't know what is wrong with him. doctors and their toys. i think they are going to kill us all with their knowledge.

such a week, yet again. mike finally went to the dr. he has been having a lot of pain in his left nut, before she gave him pain pills and said to take it easy. now though he was having a pain and burning in his side. she sent him for a CT scan. she thinks it could be back muscle, appendix or maybe an intestinal infection of some kind. she will call this weekend if it is serious, if not too bad she will call monday. he is all worried, though acting macho. funny how guys are about that. today he is feeling pretty good though, she did give him some meds to help until she figures out what is wrong. he doesn't want to miss work because they just got a new manager and the guy is really being a dick. but we all know how it is when someone new comes along..they have to prove how great they are no matter how many enemies they make. i went in yesterday for a demo and the atmosphere is already changing, you can feel the tension all around. it's kind of sad really, it was a pleasant place to work, for me it's just part time but i feel bad for the full timers.
on another note, my dad used to say that you learn something new everyday. well, guess what i learned friday. i was mowing my backyard and my new lawnmower, which i just bought last year, was sounding all putt-putty instead of going VRROOM VRROOM. i figure my walmart special is going to blow a gasket or throw a rod or some other mechanical thing. so i got out the manual and looked up trouble shooting. Did any of you know that a mower has an airfilter that needs to be changed? I sure didn't. I opened up this little door thing and took out the filter and it was pretty dirty, so i went to walmart, got a new one for $4 and went home. when i opened the package there was this little foam square so i deduced that there must be an old one of those to replace also. Out to the mower i go, and i see this old foam piece that is so black it looks just like part of the plastic casing. i pull it out and there is at least a half inch layer of dead grass covering the thing..i was suffocating my mower. i put the new foam and filter in and now it goes VRROOM VRROOM again. i felt so mechanically inclined...maybe next summer i will check the oil in it.
yesterday during my demo Brian came in. he is this old guy that is a member of the southern oregon brainstormers. it's a group like Mensa only just the opposite. they are all brain damaged to a degree, brian had a car accident in '63, but he went on to finish college and help other disabled people. he is a really funny old guy. we talked for about 20 minutes..new manager or not. i really welcomed the visit..i was doing another bleach talking demo.
tim will be 19 in 2 weeks, i feel so old...but i already felt old. he wants a bigger hard drive for his xbox. at least he isn't wasting his youth on expanding his education or anything like that. i don't kn ow what will become of him. as i mentioned before, he is my biggest worry in life. what happens to a person who just won't talk?

another week of work and disappointments. another week of some ups and downs. on the up side, remember the pile of dirt i made digging my dog pool? i decided to grow some watermelons and cantaloupes on it..well, i picked my first cantaloupe and it was pretty good. i have a lot more coming and i have some watermelons getting ready to pick soon. on the down side, i took mike with me to town for the governments "cash-for-clunkers" program...color my face red when i found out it was for cars and not husbands. can't blame a girl for trying..shoot, i pretty much had that $4500 spent.
i have also decided that next payday i am buying new panties. it has become an absolute necessity now. i have what sheri says her dr. calls the sneeze and pees..only sometimes i don't even have to sneeze...and also i can dribble better than larry bird ever did, therefore i must wear a panty liner and it has come to my attention that i barely have and panty left to stick my liner to. i will just give the kids my old ones and they can go parasailing with them (anyone recognize their own panties flying over cancun?) years ago when i went for my yearly my dr. asked me if i had a problem and i said a little bit, then the next year he asks if it is worse and i said a little bit (i don't talk much when my privates are exposed ..just ask any of my exes). so he asks how bad, and i said i wore a panty liner. guess what he says.."how often?" well, duh? like i get up every morning and say "gee, i think i have a sneeze scheduled for today..better put one on". which brings me to another gripe...pads and liners with "WINGS"...what sadistic son of a bitch invented those. i can't be the only one out there who, in a very public place suddenly has the unbearable pain of having a curly hair stuck on the wing and it starts pulling with every step you take. 'fess up ladies..it hurts, but we just smile and keep on walking..not much else we can do. and those prisoners at gitmo whine about water boarding..weinies.

what a long week it has been, but thanks to our schedule change i now have thursdays off from BOTH jobs. so even though today is wednesday to the rest of the world, to me it is an honest to god TGIF. i imagine i will spend the day mowing and maybe even take a dip in my frigid swimming pool.
the bike riding with berit is working out really well, she is surprisingly well behaved and no one has gone to the ER yet. i ordered this thing called a walkydog bike leash. it is a pole that hooks to my bike and then i just harness her up to it. the great thing is that it keeps her right next to me and she can't run in front of me like she has done a few times. i ordered it off amazon and it should be here friday, it will be a lot more relaxing than holding her leash and constantly telling her to get back.
it is a constant struggle to keep the pool from turning green lately. no one has been getting in it at all. funny how a few nights down in the 50's can turn a nice warm pool into a glacier. i think the only thing in there now is the creature from the black lagoon. but at least when he drops swamp weed in the lawn it puts a little green back in the dry grass.
sheri says in her blog that relationships can be so hard, don't i agree? two days ago i had a fight with emily..not really a fight just words. at 8 o'clock i had asked her to put her clothes in the washer and turn it on because i needed my winco clothes in the morning, so a t 10 pm when i go to get the clothes and put them in the dryer there is the lid, still open and everything just sitting in the washer still not washed and her clothes still on her floor. i started crying because i was just so tired and now i had to wait another 40 minutes for the washer to get done so i could go to bed, she said she would put them in the dryer and i said "no thanks, i need them in the morning"..yea, i know..low blow. so she got all upset and asked why i think so poorly of her. which is not true at all, i am actually quite proud of all my kids. none of them have had a silver spoon type of life. but being irritated because she is always "forgetting" to do the things asked of her does not mean i think poorly of her...it just means i am getting pissed off. as i have mentioned before, the other human occupants in this mobil home are ages 19, 17, and 49. so why do i have to keep reminding them of the very few things i ask of them? emily is supposed to make sure dishes are done by 8pm, then mike is supposed to wash whatever dishes he makes when he gets home. usually i do dishes before i leave (especially if i have made dinner), so it isn't much, and once in a while i ask them to fold some laundry and pick up the apples in the back yard. tim always takes the garbage out, checks the mail and feeds the animals...these people are not over worked, i swear. but for some reason every time i ask a little thing of any of them i feel like i am asking them to climb mt. everest and bring me back a teaspoon of snow...not melted!! the one thing that really bugs me the most is my desk. tim has a desk in his room and on it sits a brand new computer that he got for graduation, emily has a desk in her room and on it sits a brand new computer that she got as a combo birthday and almost graduated gift, and mike has a desk in our room with his precious mac book on it. now, in the living room is my desk..with a fairly old computer on it..but its mine. so, riddle me this..do you think i go into each of their rooms and pile soda cans or papers or fly swatters or any thing else on their desks? no, i do not..so why is it that every night when i get home from work and just want to sit down and relax and pogo for a few minutes..why do i have to move various clutters off my desk just to do it? even though i don't want to admit it, i think it is because they have no respect for me or for how hard i do work just to try and give them a life a few millimeters above the poverty level. gee, i sound pretty whiney , don't i? i guess it's to be expected from somebody who doesn't even put their shoes on right. it was brought to my attention by mike that most people go sock..sock..shoe..shoe. well, i go sock..shoe..sock..shoe. once i heft that baby up to get my sock on it is staying there until the shoe is on too. no sense throwing my back out lifting the sucker twice, after all it took me 52 years to get them this size.

well, another fine monday morning. mike went and picked up my bicycle and i rode it up and down the driveway..no scratches on me or the bike. i guess its true, you never forget how to ride a bike or drive a stick shift. tomorrow i will try taking berit on a ride with me, if this blog remains idle for a while you will know things did not go well. i really am pretty excited about this. almost to the point of not caring how big my butt looks when i am riding it.
yesterday was another fun day at winco. i saw carla. we used to work together at bear creek until she was laid off..forever. i am not sure if i have ever mentioned her before but she takes obsessive-compulsive to a whole freaky level. don't get me wrong, i like her. i was one of the very few people that did. she is the one that bought big bags of skittles and then sorted them into jars by flavor so she could do her own mixtures. and she is the one that, when her dog died she realized she didn't have any pictures of him, so she taped his eyes opened and put him in various poses to take pics of him. and she took baggies out of the garbage to use so she never bought any, and she would use the same one for months. and every day she would bring the same kind of sandwich, some kind of meat and lots and lots of cabbage, then she would eat EXACTLY half of it at break and the other half at lunch..and i mean EXACTLY half. and she cut her own hair, so she would come in with an almost butch cut because she couldn't get the two sides even so she would just keep cutting. She is also a bit of a hoarder. she told me once she decided to bake some cookies and her flour was a few years past the "best if used by" date. so i asked how it turned out and she said they were fine, they tasted like really old cookies. but as happens with so many people at bear creek, especially in my dept. for my boss, she got a pretty raw deal and lost her job. oh, she also cannot go out in the sun hardly at all or she gets all rashy, so even yesterday as hot as it was she had on her standard flannel shirt and some really heavy pants. but she told me she had another nervous breakdown, which last time i saw her a few years back she was just recovering from her first breakdown. so, do we infer from all of this that a severe case of ocd can wear a person down after so many years? the constant pressure to do every thing perfectly as only you can do it? but, we talked for a while and i gave her my phone number again and got hers, so maybe we can keep in touch. maybe we can have an ocd day out and go down to the river and line up all the river rocks
and then this other guy came by, another one that when you look you can say "somethings wrong with that one" he was really loud and he just loved my imitation crab and cocktail sauce, so he was telling everyone how good it was. then up walks this big black guy with a little kid in his cart, and the first guy walks over and high fives him and says "what up friend? how about that downtown freddy brown?" and then he shots a fake basketball. the black guy is just looking at him like, well, like he was nuts. i was about ready to die laughing, the total lack of political correctness was funnier than shit to me. if i was sure i wouldn't get fired i wanted to ask the black guy if his favorite movie was undercover brother..a true classic right up there with star wars and gone with the wind

well, i finally did it. i bought something for me... it isn't new underwear (which should have been my priority, since you just never know when you will end up in the emergency room. i bought the bicycle!!!!YEAH!! it was a walmart special, $84. a huffy cruiser..no gears, no hand brakes, just a good old fashioned bike like when we were kids. this is a picture of it, but it is much prettier in real life. a very nice shade of blue, with white fenders and big white wall tires. mike had me sit on it in the store , which brings up the age old question "does this bike make my butt look big?" of course, what bike wouldn't? the 26" bike was my preference when i checked on line, and this was my second choice, but with the seat all the way lowered on the 26" bike my toes barely hit the floor. this one is only 24". Now for the real "isn't this just typical of my life?" moment. mike rode it out to the truck and then when we got home i had to go to work at winco. so later he texts me and says my back tire is low, but no fear, my gallant knight on a huffy will trek to the gas station and air it up. so when i get home i see my bike, and lo and behold it has what i shall call a "flaired" back tire. you know what i mean? it's wider at the bottom than it is at the top. seems it has a problem holding it's air in. so now what? drive all the way to grants pass walmart to get it fixed (2 hours out of my time) or just drive it to a bike shop here and pay $5 (no, option c is not an option..i don't do tires anymore, seems they just never go back together right for me). but then my day gets even worse. mike says we should go to sheris for dinner. he orders a club sandwich and i got a double stack bacon cheeseburger (which i always take the 2nd patty home for the dogs)..but when our order comes i say "this burger doesn't look the same as the 1st time i got it" then after carefully assembling it, lettuce tomato, onion and bun i say "gee, shouldn't a bacon cheeseburger have, say, bacon on it?then he goes to tell our waitress we have no bacon..and she actually comes over to the table to look and says "you didn't get bacon?" I felt like saying, "give me a breathalizer test..no i did not get bacon"...she didn't get a good tip. but then today wasn't much better. last night mike said he would take my bike in at 9:30 and get it fixed so i could finally ride it. well, i got up cleaned the bathroom, mopped the kitchen folded some laundry and then took 2 dogs for a walk and when i got back, mike was still sitting on the couch. he decided he would just drop the bike off on his way to work..which means i won't get it back until monday. how disappointing is that? and then it goes on..i went to walmart here in medford to get some things. i am having a real algae problem in my pool, i guess maybe from so much heat, i don't know. but i bought mike 2 pair of pants some razors ,mouthwash and i bought a $15 bottle of algae treatment. i get all the way home and i have everything in my bags except the algae treatment. so now when i leave for work, i have to leave early enough to go to the bank and back to walmart AGAIN!!! let me tell you, with this string of unfortunate events i am truly wishing i had opted for the new panties..it doesn't seem like an event leading me to the ER could be to far away. anybody want to take bets on my first bike ride in 20 years putting me on a stretcher?





and yesterday at winco was just great..and i mean that seriously, not sarcastically. i saw richard an old guy i worked with at my last part time job at the newspaper. we stood there and talked for at least a half hour. that is a cool thing at winco, as long as i keep demoing my stuff they don't care if you visit. at bear creek if you talk for more than 30 seconds they assume you aren't working and you get in trouble.they will wrtite you up and it goes in your permanent record (Bueller..Bueller Ferris Bueller) but we had a really nice chat, and then this big and very aromatic lady (???) came by and there was a display of flavored water next to me and of course she wanted a flavor on the bottom (spearmint) and she says to no one in particular" how do i get one off the bottom? and before i can say anything bottles of water are tumbling down and rolling everywhere. so she got her ONE bottle of spearmint water (god, couldn't she just get a pack of gum and have the same effect?) and i picked up about 3 cases of bottled water. then this weird lady(??) came by again. she comes in every once in a while. first clue that there is something wrong with her..she always wears some weird helmet thing on her head, next thing, yesterday it was 101 or 102 degrees and she was wearing a long fuzzy jacket and boots. she always blinks, like about a thousand times a second. anyway, yesterday i was doing total raisin bran and she gets a little sample cup and just styarts shoving the stuff in her mouth. it was like some of the scenes in willy wonka. then when she walks away she starts telling me how in "nam they just stuffed them in bags and zipped them up and tossed them in the river"what can a person say to that? maybe i could have mentioned that from an enviromental point of view it would have been better to just throw "them" in the river without the bag, we all know how long it takes plastics to dissolve. people watching can be quite entertaining, but sometimes it can be exquisitely frightening.