MONDAY:i don't have much time, but i have an urge to write something. i just finished cooking chicken fried steak for dinner. i haven't ever made it before..tim tried it and said it was good, but i doubt if mike will like it. he is more pinicky than any 2 year old i ever raised. i also made coleslaw. i found the recipe on line for kfc coleslaw. mike loves it...so maybe he can just eat that for dinner. what a time consuming dish. i just have a small food processor, so it takes a long time to chop up all the cabbage.
i had sunday off from both jobs, i knew i would spend most of the day cleaning. during the week my cleaning usually amounts to walking through the living room and using the sleeve of my bathrobe to wipe the dust off the tv screen (which reminds me, i really need to wash my bathrobe) i did a lot of cleaning (i even washed the sheets on my bed)!!! i thought they were getting scratchy from crumbs or booboo dirts...but they were still scratchy after i washed them. silly me. it would appear i haven't shaved my legs for a long..long..long..time. hence the itchy pokeys on my legs at night. i also picked up the leaves that have been on my lawn alll winter. now i have some very big bare spots. every year i throw out grass seed in the vain hope of growing a lush green lawn, and every year it fails. for the last two years i have even hauled pickup loads of fresh topsoil, but nothing seems to work. emily even talked me into buying that miracle grass on tv that will even sprout on your sidewalk. i didn't see it sprout in the lawn or the sidewalk or anywhere else i dropped it. but the other day i was watching tv and i saw this thing you can buy for your house or apartment for your dogs to go potty on. it's called THE POTTY PATCH. it's $40 for a 17"x27" patch. i figure my lawn to be roughly 45'x 15'. so for about $8,000.00 i could do the whole thing in potty patches. (this was sort of one of the "how many times does santa go around the christmas tree" problems). of course that $8,000 isn't counting shipping and handling.
today i was also going to blog about the great red vine fast i have going. i went almost 5 days without eating any, then mike went and bought a big tub of them last friday. of course, i have no will power, so i have been eating them by the handfuls. at least this time i put the tub in the kitchen and not on my desk, so i have to get up off my big ass if i really want to get one (or 2 or 3 or 4). might as well make it worth the walk in there.
i finished reading cold comfort farm. it was really a good book. it actually made me laugh. it was written in the 1930"s, and for being so old, it was a very entertaining book. now i am reading the heart shaped box. a spooky story written by joe hill (whom i have discovered is actually stephen kings son). it is not scary to me, but it is keeping me interested. definately a good book.
speaking of reading...sometimes i get these catalogs in the mail that i swear are printed for old people. they have things like "shoedini"..so you can get your shoes on without bending over. and lots of styles of velcro shoes (ugh) and a thing called the gopher grabber to pick things up off the floor (again without bending over) or get things from high shelves. but the other day i actually flipped through the whole catalog...WOWZA!!! i don't know what them old people are up to, but further back there are several pages of (close your eyes you innocents) vibrators and other sexual stimuli. ok, i have been married 4 times, so i ain't no virgin, and i have seen a lot of things....but, holy crap! when did a vibrator go from just being a plastic battery operated penis replacement to being something that looks like darth vadar could have sliced and diced obi wan kenobi with? does this thing actually run on 20 D cell batteries or is it diesel powered? and for an even deeper question. should a mom actually have anything hidden in her draw that her kids (or grandkids) could take outside and wave at the neighbor kids? (like a red rider bb gun..it could probably put an eye out). and then the designer, on top of everything else kinky about it, says "and lets make it bright purple so no one will confuse it with a flashlight or a gun in the drawer". some dark and stormy night a ne'er do well thug breaks into your home and instead of grabbing your p226 sig sauer 9mm, you pull out your neon purple Rabbit vibrator and start waving it at him. life is just so ridiculous sometimes.
WEDNESDAY:now it is 2 days later...and here again i only have a small amount of time. i have to take emily to a job interview at winco on my way to work. she is applying to be a cart kid. then i have to leave work to take her back home. i really would like to see her get the job, but she also needs to finish her GED. and now i worry about tim. how will he feel when she moves on to a job and he is still just sitting here playing video games because he won't talk? sharyl (from work) was telling me that her moms neighbor has her 42 year old son living at home with them, and he doesn't talk to anyone and collects ssi payments. i truly want more than that for tim. i worry that one morning he will wake up and be very depressed about life passing him by because he won't talk. i had thought he could try for the cart kid job, even without talking, but mike said he doesn't think he would be able to do it because of his knees. another thing for tim to be bummed about. no one else seems to understand how much this worries me. mike always makes a joke about it when i say anything. but i realize that if anything happens to me, tim has no one to talk to except emily, and she is moving on and growing up. mike has been here for 3 years and tim doesn't talk to him. he doesn't talk to ben (my oldest son) since he moved out years ago, he has grown up here with my parents next door since he was about 5 and he never has spoken to them. now that he is out of school he is even more isolated from the world. as i have mentioned before, he is my biggest worry in life. i just don't know what to do for him.
NOW IT IS THURSDAY MORNING..i will finish this some day to post. i made chicken enchiladas for dinner yesterday. they are really good. i am taking a half of one for my dinner tonight. remember a while back when i mentioned our night crew was down to 8 people? well, this week it is down to 4 (plus our supervisor..but she can't do much since she is still recovering from her tummy tuck). 2 of the mixers are awol. one might have another job and one has a sore neck. both have been gone since last tuesday. and our other machine operator took this week off. that leaves me to do ovens and run the machines. needless to say, upper management still seems to expect the same production even with half the crew. i have come to the conclusion that upper management are all assholes. i have always suspected as much...but now i am sure. our manager is phillipe. he is french, has a heavy french accent and one eye that looks off in some other direction all the time (it makes a person always want to look over their shoulder when he is talking to them, to see who is standing behind you). i never thought i could speak french, but now i know one word...phillipe is french for asswipe. that's pretty harsh, isn't it? but after working here for almost 24 years i just call them as i sees them (with both eyes pointing the same way).
FRIDAY 2A.M. i just got home from work and i am determined to finish this. i have to be at winco at 10 a.m. (shit...that's only 8 hours away). 10-4 today and 11-5 sat. then i get sunday off, but we all know how a day off gets spent here. recleaning. i once read a quote that insanity is doing the same thing over and over, but expecting a different result each time. so why do i keep cleaning...am i insane? i spend a whole day off cleaning and think that by my next day off the house will still be clean and i can work outside. i'm not insane, i'm nucking futs! but sunday the weather is supposed to still be sunny and warm, so i would like to mow my lawn before some rabid herd of cows wanders by and sees it as fine grazing pasture. first i will need to get my mower back from ben, it has been over at his house since last summer. did i mention that melinda (his girlfriend of 7 years) finally moved out, forever? i am very happy about that. she used to be so nice, but she has totally gone nuts. rumor has it from some of their mutual friends that she is doing some very heavy drugs. actually she moved out over a year ago, but they were still "trying to work it out". she was always complaing to ben about her life going no where and being depressed, but all she would do was sit on the couch, watch tv and sleep. then when they went to counceling, of course everything was bens fault, and anytime the counselor remarked on her behavior she would get pissed. then, there was the several times she cheated on him. he told me she got mad when he insisted on wearing a concom for sex, but he said he wasn't sure who or how many guys she had slept with. this time i just hope she stays gone.
well, guess that is about all my ponderings for now. winco awaits me in a few hours, so i really should go to bed. i just have one more thing to mention. one of my particular pet peeves is this...homeless people with a dog!!! nothing irritates me quite as much as seeing some idiot, who for whatever reason is standing by the side of the road with his "GOD BLESS..anything will help"..or "stranded..need gas money" sign, and sitting next to him is a dog. it just pisses me off that some bum who can't even take care of himself has a pet. what kind of life is that for a dog? walking down the road and inhaling exhaust fumes all day (because we don't all drive runaway priuses). but the other day i saw a most peculiar sight going to work. this guy is hitching down the freeway with a big old backpack on and he has a dog on a leash walking next to him...the unusual part is that this dog was a chihuahua. a little teeny tiny rat-looking chihauhau. and do you know what i found myself wondering? i weondered how far they had been walking..and did that little teeny tiny chihauhau actually start out as a great dane and has just had his legs walked down to the nubbins.

well, when nothing else is going on...go to walmart, right? i finally got a new desk lamp. my old one flickered off and on and i had to jiggle it to keep it working, so i decided it was better to get a new one for $10 than to risk burning my house down (even if it is just a mobil home).
i also bought something that when we run out of i always swear i will never buy again...Q-TIPS. there are a few things in this world worse than a nasty, used q-tip (cat shit, baby shit, dog shit...you see where this is going)? the reason i swear not to buy them is because no one in this house seems to be able to get a used q-tip, which is what? 2 1/2" long, into the bathroom wastebasket, which has an opening you could probably get an average size cat in. i must pick up used q-tips from behind the toilet (EWWW), beside the wastebasket and, next to the tub, almost every day. they would probably throw them into the tub too, except the shower doors are usually closed. so, why do i keep buying them? why do i care if everyone here gets nasty ass wax buildup in their ears...they don't listen to me anyway. maybe if i really did quit buying them, i could save the ear wax and make something to sell on e-bay. earwax candles or earwax
sculptures. boy, doesn't that give you something to worry about next time you blow out the birthday candles on your cake?
i suspect that is how madame tussaud got her start.
i also had to buy a new pair of winco pants. we must wear black slacks (not jeans). i hate slacks. i bought one pair when i started last march and i wear them every time i work there. i also wash them each time, so i figure they have been washed at least 100 times. a couple of weeks ago i noticed they had the same defect every pair of pants i ever buy has. they start wearing out in the thighs. someone told me once that it happens because my thighs rub together when i walk!!! could this be true? I DON'T THINK SO!!! anyway, last weekend one of the worn out sections wasn't just worn out..it was an honest to god hole. yikes! so i did what any self-respecting , mobil dwelling, portly redneck would do. i got duct tape and fixed 'em right up. (little scratchy between the legs..but that's the price of beauty). so today i got a new pair of pants. don't tell anyone at winco, but they are really jeans...they just don't look like jeans. and they are a little to big (i hope). it isn't my usual size, but they were on the closeout rack for $7. who could pass that up. i hate working a job with a dress code, sometimes it gets very expensive. for some people they furnish green winco shirts, but for others they only furnish the apron. you have to buy your own white blouse, black slacks and black shoes and if you want to be warm you can only wear a black sweater or jacket. sometimes i feel like dressing up as a ninja when i go in just to see if anyone even notices.
this week i took tim to the bank and had him open a bank account. he is my biggest worry in life. he is 19 now and still has elective mutism. i think perhaps 12 years ago when the child psycologist said he would outgrow it that he was wrong. every time i read web sites on line i worry about tim getting depressed because he isn't doing anything with his life. i don't want him to wake up some morning and realize his life is flying by and he is missing it because he doesn't talk. and what happens to him if something happens to me? he only talks to me, emily and his cousin james. 3 people in the whole world that he communicates with. between that and his messed up knees he could one day get really depressed about it. emily told me once that she would take care of him if i weren't here anymore, which was very sweet of her. but it isn't about taking care of him, he isn't mentally impaired. it's about him living his life and being happy doing something. one of my friends at work is always saying "what are you going to do about him? when are you going to make him get a job?" this is the same person who fixed up her shed in the TRAILER PARK where she lives, for her 30 year old step son to live in. and for rent he gives her $100 of his food stamp money (if he remembers). and she worries about my kid!
this is almost the end of my 2nd day off...only 2 more to go. thursday i get my crown (on my tooth, not my head). i survived this root canal without an infection, always a good thing.
i got an e-mail from mikes mom today. her and carol (mikes sister) are going to la soon for a taping of the oprah show. hot diggidy dog! color me green with envy. actually, i didn't even know she was still on tv, i'm never home for daytime tv. they are also going to go very early and try to get seats to see the stars on the red carpet for the oscars. DOUBLE HOT DIGGIDY DOG!!! I am just happy when i have a night off and the shows i usually dvr are not reruns so i get to watch them fresh. like ncis tonight and criminal minds tomorrow night. i wouldn't have thought mikes mom would be so lame as sitting hours waiting to see stars walk by. maybe carol just couldn't get anyone else to go with her. i have long thought that awards shows are all just a load of crap..just like reality tv shows. i have never seen survivor, lost ,american idol or any of that stuff. maybe if they had something like a reality murder show i would watch, but cast members might be hard to come by after a season or two.

i am not sure why i do this to myself. i sit here watching fox news every morning, knowing full well that i will eventually get more than irritated by the stories. i already heard about a possible $500 cut in medicare or medicaid (i only got the end of the story). now there is a story coming about mail service...raising the price of stamps and cutting one day of service. the post office is very much in the red. and these are the people that want to run the health care system? but, speaking of mail service, i don't have much anyway. my town isn't really big, but we do have a post office, but the service there makes me yearn for the pony express days. take yesterday, for example. we have the locking mail boxes on our road, so my son checks the mail and he brings home the key that opens the package mailbox. obviously, we have a package in there, but he can't get the key to work. so i go down..and ditto, the key won't turn. i mean, it fits into the keyhole, but it just won't turn. so i go home and call the post office and tell them of this dilemma. the guy says to just drop the key into the slot and they will leave a note for the mailman and "we will try to get it to you tomorrow". TRY??? whatever happened to "through rain and snow..."? i only live 100 yds up from the road. and unless something freaky happened with the weather while i wasn't looking, there was no snow or sleet or hail going on. i probably should stop there, but i won't. i must mention the service at the actual post office. it sucks...big time. no matter what time of day i go in there i have to wait a ridiculously long time in a very short line. why? because it seems every clerk in there is on a "first name, hey how are y'all, how's the littl'uns, you try that recipe for hog jowls i gave you" basis with every customer ahead of me. they used to have a vending machine in the lobby to buy stamps, and i used it when i needed them, but to my dismay, they removed it a few months ago, (probably was cutting into the clerks social life). i guess i resent the "workers" there partly because they make more money than i do at 2 jobs and i actually have to work hard for my money. and when i do go in there i always think of the pony express guys. do you know a letter of a half ounce cost $1.00 to send and it went 2000 miles in 8 or 9 days...on a horse..through hostile indian territory? and at the end of the line it wasn't locked up in a box that a person couldn't get open? gee's service has come a long way in 150 years!
i also have this week off!!! from my main job anyway. we have a new president as of a week ago (the old one was fired after 20 years). it seems kind of shitty to me to fire the president of a company in these economic times. we make "gourmet desserts" and candy and some really expensive things. how can the board or stock holders make a president of a company responsible for a lack of business? do they think he can convince people to buy a $40 cheesecake instead of some groceries? but, such is life for the upper crust. he walked away (was pushed out?) with around $5 million in compensation. i get $255 this week for unemployment...kind of hard to feel any pity for him. but, again, i digress. i have 4 full days off before i have to winco again. i already spent the first one just cleaning the mobil home. today i did 15 minutes on my elliptical (and lived to tell the tale), then i walked the dogs, read my kindle for a while...and now here i sit with FREE time. what do you do with free time? i just don't know. there is so much to do outside, but it's a raining now. good thing the anal neighbors mowed their lawn for the 5th time already...it's only march, for gods sake. i have a steadfast rule..no mowing until the first of april (unless there is a really, really big break in the weather in march) and absolutely no mowing after october. if lawns had hairstyles mine would be this:



and the neighbors would be this:
i also seem to have to much time to watch the news. do you know what a reporter said on fox this morning? he was in chile ( i always thought it was pronounced chili, like what you eat..but they all keep pronouncing it chilay). anyway, he was discussing rescue efforts and he actually said " they are looking for survivors who are still alive." DUH!! there was no one here with me, so i just looked at the 3 dogs to see if they caught it. they didn't. reminds me of that old riddle, if a plane crashes on the border between the u.s. and canada, where do they bury the survivors? well, obviously, they bury them in chilay.