MY SUNDAY 160
My Grandma made beautiful quilts her entire life,
That are cherished by us all.
How could her gifted hands also create
those terrifying sock monkeys on her bed?

aren't childhood memories wonderful? I can't remember where i put my car keys or glasses 5 minutes ago, but i can remember those damned sock monkeys. Grandma always had her bed covered with one or another of her quilts (and even as a kid i knew they were beautiful), and her homemade pillows. She sewed all by hand, she knitted she crocheted (i can't even spell it)...and then to top it off there were those damn sock monkeys. I'm not sure why, but they always (and still do) creep me out. Some people don't like clowns (which bear a striking resemblance to sock monkeys), my thing is sock monkeys. The only thing nowadays that i can equate them with is the Burger King. If I were a little kid today i would be terrified of the Burger King. There is just something so wrong about him.

July 13, 2010

Central Point lawmaker Jason Atkinson is helping lead a legislative effort to outlaw disposable plastic bags in the state in 2010.

The Oregonian reports the effort is led by Sen. Mark Hass of Beaverton and Atkinson. The two introduced a plastic bag ban in February's special session. Hass says he's been working with grocers and environmentalists and others since then to encourage the use of reusable canvas bags.

Opponents of a ban says people can prevent plastic bags from becoming litter or going into landfills by simply recycling them.

— The Associated Press

Ok, i confess, I am not exactly an environmentally concious idiot, but at least I use cloth grocery bags and recycle pop cans. I abslolutely will not buy water in a bottle and I don't dump toxic waste into the rivers. So my big problem with this news story is this...in a state with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, is this really what our representatives have been elected to do? Is this what they are spending their time on? And what happens to the people who produce these plastic grocery bags? They now join the ranks of the unemployed because obviously this will mean less production for their company. Mike says it won't do that because they still make garbage bags and stuff...I say he is wrong. If a company stops producing a product (any product) they need less people. It's like newtons law or murphys law or something. And then what about the cost of groceries. I read that a plastic bag cost a store 1 cent and paper bags are 4 cents. Multiply that by thousands a day and that adds up too something (I'm not going to get my calculator out to try and figure it out). Anyway, my point is just that this seems like a non isssue in a state where there are much bigger issues...like unemployment, health care (or lack of), lack of school funding, high taxes. Maybe they will do what some other countries do...they tax plastic bags, I heard. And then where does it stop? I walk my dogs on the bike path everyday and there is some jerk out there who always picks his dog poo up in a doggie poo bag and then leaves it on the trail??? I mean, what the hell? Doesn't this person realize that dog poo is biodegradable but the little crapper packs (which also are) will take a much longer time to go away. Why not just make the grocery bags out of the crapper pack bag stuff so they biodegrade if you don't reuse them? Like I said, it just irritates me that this is what some elected officials are worried about when so many others out there are just wishing for a job so they actually could buy some groceries and have to decide on paper or plastic.

so this is how it went yesterday paying my cable bill:
Sunday, i went on line to pay my bill. when i clicked "pay now" my whole screen goes blank. Shit! did my payment go through? Don't click again, can't afford to pay twice. Solution..wait til monday morning and see what happened.
Monday: call charter..listen to nice robot lady for 10 years, minutes. finally agent says "call bank". call bank (slightly faster than cable company), they say call cable company. listen to nice robot lady another ten years (i mean decades), then agent says "no payment made, please try again"
go on line push "pay now"..you won't believe this part....another blank screen. now i know it isn't me or my computer because i also paid at&t and pp&l on sunday with no problems. call friggin cable company AGAIN!!! here is how it went this time
Robot lady: welcome to charter communications
ME: no response
Robot lady: briefly telling me what you are calling about
ME: billing
ROBOT lady: let me give you some choices, internet..telephone..tech support..billing
ME: B.I.L.L.I.N.G
Robot lady: Billing, i can help you with that. let me look up your account. Your amount due is $200.00. would you like to pay $200.00.
Me: NO ...(keep in mind here i am only trying to find out if i just paid 200 or not)
Robot lady: the minimum amount to pay for uninterrupted service (who the hell are they kidding...charter doesn't care about uninterrupted service, trust me, it happens here all the time). is $140. would you like to pay $140?
Me: NO
Robot lady: what amount would you like to pay?
Me: (silence)
Robot lady: What amount would you like to pay ? (it may be my imagination here..but she sounded like she was getting kind of snotty with me)
Me: silence
Robot lady: Please use the buttons on your telephone to indicate the amount you wish to pay. (ok, now I KNOW she is getting down right nasty...her tone is inferring that i probably had my pet monkey call in the first place cause no way am i smart enough to dial a phone number).
me:(thinking now i can ask for a real person) "an agent"
robot lady: the amount you wish to pay is $800.00. Is this correct?
Me: *&%#@^& NO. (then i was afraid to say anything else, figuring the robotic demoness would take "representative or human" and rhyme it with bazillion.
but eventually i managed to pay $200. a real person came on and had me clear my cookies and blah blah blah (but that wasn't it, because like i said my other bills went through just fine). what a day...and all so i can keep internet and blog.

MY SUNDAY160






OH JOY OF JOYS!
I just found out in September
there is going to be a new Mr. Potato Head.
It's going to be a 70's ELVIS.
White jumpsuit and all.
Life is SWEET!

(the reason this excites me so much is because I love Elvis. Singers now days (if you can call them singers) don't even compare to him. I have a whole collection of Elvis things on shelves in my living room. And I guess why the things are so important to me is not just because they are Elvis things, but because I bought very few of them myself. Like Sheri's shadowbox memories, these Elvis things have been gifts from people that know I love Elvis and have taken the time to remember that about me. I have a postcard from Graceland thet Lila (whom has since retired) sent me when she went on vacation there. I have belt buckles and a pez collection. It's not expensive stuff, but it's my stuff. For a wedding present Mike got me an Elvis movie dvd collection. And I love it, even though I will be the first to admit Elvis was a, well, not so great actor. I have talking Elvis birthday cards. My oldest son Ben, is responsible for most of the things, he gets me elvis things for every holiday. This year was very special. Tim had his own money and he actually spent some on me. He got me an Elvis Presley BLVD street sign which I mounted just under the shelves and an Elvis gold record picture frame. So for Christmas I am putting the elvis mr. potatohead at the top of the list, and they are also going to do an elvis all in black mr. potatohead...how cool is all of this news? Now my biggest dilemma will be, do I leave it in the box or take it out and play with it?

I haven't actually blogged blogged for a while it seems. So, here is what has been happening in my life. Brian is still here, he got a job at winco where Mike works. He is working in the deli there...so all I can hope now is that he keeps the job. It has been a very rocky 2 months for sure. Mike has been his typical asshole self at times. Even now that Brian has a job he says things like "if he gets fired he goes back home". so once i said "why would he get fired, he just got hired?" that's when he told me some (all?) of the people at winco didn't have a great opinion of Brian. so i said, how can that be, he's only been there for 4 days? seems mr. wonderful has been bad-mouthing brian to anyone there who would listen ever since he found out brian was coming to visit. then he says "but I fixed it, since he got hired I have been telling everyone he is a great catch for emily and a good kid". I was really really pissed. I said "you can't FIX it. People won't just forget all the shit you said for 2 months". So here is poor Brian walking into that. Then Mike had kept saying since we only have 2 cars that we would make sure to get Brian to any job he got. So a few times now their schedules have coincided and they have ridden together. Then he bitches about that. He likes to travel solo...like the Lone Ranger or something. Finally the other day I just had enough, I was demoing at winco and he walked by complaining "ride in, Brian..lunch, Brian..home, Brian..it sucks". I just got pissed in the middle of winco and said "he's 20 years old, 3000 miles from home, no friends or family, why the hell can't you just be nice?" There is just no pleasing him, so I don't try anymore. Whatever is done to appease him it just isn't enough. Then any time he gets mad he says he will just take his paycheck and go! "???" SO??? I have lived on my own before (several times) as a matter of fact I supported him when he moved up here for s few months. So go already. Sometimes I wonder how I didn't see how selfish he was before we were married. Because that is exactly what it comes down too. He doesn't ever seem to take into account anyone elses feelings. Brian is a very long way from his family, Emily is his only friend here. I would be scared, especially if someone kept threatening to send me away at any moment. The whole thing has just worn me down, that's for sure. Now Mike brought home another application for emily. The pizza dept is hiring in winco. She already tried for the job brian got and for the cart kid job. I truly hope she doesn't get this job, I can just imagine ,mikes bitching if he has emily riding with him too. I turned in her application at bear creek. I would like her to get on there for now, then she can just ride with me until Brian saves up and gets his own car. Enough of all of this.
I finally got my pool up. Waited until the end of June when summer seemed to finally get here...only to realize all my filter hoses were filter sieves. So ordered those and by the time they got here the temp has been in the high 90's to 100's. Today is 97, but the pool was great yesterday...I got a sunburn just floating around. Today I start my new schedule at Bear Creek. We are going to 7 days a week (they seem to think there is going to be a big christmas season this year...not sure what financial news they are watching, but it sure isn't the ones i see). so i work sun-weds, 10 hr days and the other crew is weds-sat. That means i can only demo on fri and sat now, and I will have every thursday off. it works out good for me, because sometimes i demo on fri, sat and sun so i never get a day off. well, guess that's it for now. I'm off to work. did you happen to read my sunday 160 today? My GOD!!! the earwigs are driving me crazy. I can't put anything down anywhere for 5 minutes without having to shake an earwig out. I won't even usr my clothesline because then I just have to throw the clothes in the dryer anyway to kill the shitty things. I leave my hoses laying in the grass because if i roll them up they earwigs hide in them. the other day i turned my sprinkler on and hardly any water came out, so upon further investigation I discovered it was plugged with earwigs. And there were nests of them in all my solar lights. worst of all, they keep eating all my flowers. I have gone through 2 boxes of bait and they just keep coming back. They even show up in the house, which really creeps me out. I saw an episode of Night Gallery once (remember that show) where an earwig went into a guys ear and started eating his brain. And of course, once i see one i have the heebie jeebies for hours feeling them on me.

Do the curly shuffle
nyuck nyuck nyuck
That's what everyone else is doing.
But here in Redneckville
when we pick something
up we do the earwig shake.
Hey Moe