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.