been a long time since i blogged. i can't believe it's the middle of february already. tomorrow is valentines day. never been one of my favorite holidays...another childhood trauma. in the second grade we all made those little folders you hang on your desk so all the kids can give you a card (whether they like you or not). anyway, for some strange reason i got it in my head to snitch a bunch of my own valentines before the big party day. i sneaked them into my lunchbox and took them home. so, as a result on THE BIG DAY i only had a few cards. i can still remember mrs. levitt (wait..it was first grade) looking at me with this look of pity because i had no friends. and i can really remember how guilty i felt, it has plagued me all these many years (and all so i could be the first to open my little puppy and kitty cards, truthfully though, i was always a fat kid so i was probably just after the candy).
speaking of candy and fat. i had to take booboo to the vet a couple of weeks ago. she hurt her shoulder. we found out she has gained 11 pounds since we got her. so unfortunately her and i are severely limited on our red vine intake. i don't bring any into the house now. but i try to have some in my car once in a while, that way she can have one when we go for our walks. but, just to make sure i don't eat them all, i put them on the floorboard on the passenger side so i can't reach them while i am driving along (and mindlessly munching down the whole bag). this plan works pretty well, except for wednesday, when i really wanted a red vine on my way to work. i was driving down the freeway about 65 mph and trying in vain to reach the bag (i could almost see over the dashboard a few times). finally i gave up (some drivers get really pissy when you swerve into their lane and it looks like no one is driving your car). gees, you would have thought i was texting or talking on my cell with the attitude they took. that kind of brings me to another topic. oregon now has a fine for talking on your cell phone while driving. is this a good thing? is it even practical? i can understand not texting and driving, but just talking doesn't seem so bad to me. is it anymore distracting then someone fumbling around to light a cigarette or find a radio station or put in a different 8 track tape? (remember those?) heck, two years ago for christmas mike and i got each other new nanos. they play video now and sometimes when i miss dvring an episode of a favorite show (house, csi etc), i will buy it on itunes and watch it at lunch time. i could be watching that going down the road and it wouldn't be breaking any laws, but god help me if i call someone.
tim and i also made our yearly trip to portland for the blazer vs. san antonio game. we had a great time. the blazers won the game, by 3 points, and it was really an exciting game. the blazers were behind by 10 points going into the 4th quarter, but they pulled it out. and tim duncan played. that is tims favorite player, so it was all good. just a couple of bad parts to the whole thing. "aunt flo" came to visit a day before the trip. i hadn't seen her in almost 8 months. the bitch!!! (i figured it was gods way of telling me not to get uppity because i got new undies). yep, nothing breaks in a new set of undies like having your first period in 8 months. and the rental car i got was really annoying. one of those really computerized modern things. all the way there it kept showing "change oil soon" instead of showing the mileage. then the game was over at 10:30, we hit the freeway at 11 and figured we would be home by 3 a.m. unfortunately, about one hour from home the "change oil soon" started alternating with "check tire pressure"...and about 2 minutes later we heard that old familiar womp..womp..womping sound. but i get the roadside assistance when i rent. so i called aaa (20 minutes on hold) and then the tow truck driver got there around 4a.m., then we had to drive home at 45 mph on the little donut tire. just a small question here. who decided to put that little donut tire in the trunk instead of giving you a regular spare tire that matches your other 4 tires? for the prices they charge for a car, the damn things should come with 5 real tires, not 4 tires and something they ripped off of a matchbox car. so we got home a little after 5. i was prettty tired since i hadn't got off work until 1 the morning before and got up at 7. but it was worth it. we got the same t-shirt at the blazer store. mine is just bigger than his. they have brandon roy and clyde drexler on them..a new player and a blast from the past.
oh, another big news flash. not sure if i mentioned this before, but i finally went to the foot doctor. my feet are virtually pain free. i should have gone a long time ago. so, in order to celebrate i bought me an elliptical. it's the golds gym stridetrainer 595, from wal mart ($447). mike and i just finished putting it together yesterday, and i rode it a little but i had to be to winco at 10 this morning so i didn't really get to work it very much. it has 4 weightloss workouts and 4 cardio workouts and 8 target training workouts. tim did a workout today. it's really good for him because he can build up his quads (which the dr. said would help him with his knees). i am really excited about this. i have several workout dvds but i have never bought an actual piece of equipment. now, as long as it doesn't become just an expensive clothes hanger all will be good. maybe i will get healthy yet. i demoed activia yogurt today. i like yoplait light and i like dannon fit and trim (?), but that activia is just nasty i think. but, anyway, while i was demoing i would see people go by with these strange green leafy things, and little orange and red round things, and long green stalky things. i hear they are called FR-OOTS and VEG-A-TABLES. i might have to check that out in my quest to get healthy. i understand you can find them in a place called PRO-DUES. (must be in the great beyond, further than the candy and chip aisle..cause that's as far as i go).
also, thanks to some people out there, i have become a fan of NCIS. i had never watched it until some people were always going on about it. so i dvred some old episodes on usa network. now i am hooked. it is a really good show. i also dvred a couple of the ncis las angelas but i haven't watched them yet. thank you, because i needed something to replace the crappy law and orders i won't watch anymore.
and finally for now, i was watching tv last night and a commercial came on for welches grape juice. the guy said the grapes are picked and squeezed within hours while they are still fresh. i looked at mike and said "that has always been my motto when it comes to boogers"

here it is mlk day. being of the rather caucasion persuasion though, it means nothing to me except a paid holiday. am i bad? no, i'm not racist (but i didn't vote for obama). it is purely a matter of logic. i think special days should be for special people and some people just don't seem all that special to me. ronald reagan doesn't have his own day. shoot, even lincoln and washington are combined into a single "presidents day" now. i suppose the way this country is going obummer will have his own day before this year is over...heck, maybe they will just give him a whole decade. and it will only cost the taxpayers 125 trillion (dollars, that is). but after watching fox news all day i am politiced out.
so how am i spending my day off, you ask? well, it is my first day off in 10 days so you can probably guess how most of it has gone. i walked the dogs then started cleaning. first the carpet needed shampooed, then dishes ,laundry, dusting, dinner....nothing like a day of rest. the only high point to my day is that it is really, really windy. i love wind chimes and i have about 25 hanging all around my mobil home, so on a windy day it just sounds so cool. i have a couple that cost me around $90 each and then i have small ones that were gifts from friends. for me to buy one it either has to have a unique sound or a very special look. the bamboo one sounds very distinct from the rest for sure. i spent almost a whole day last summer taking them down and repairing torn strings. so my joy today has been in just listening to them clang and chime. (but they sure scare the cats off the porch). my dad told me once that there was a letter in the paper to ann landers and some woman was complaining about her neighbors chimes and what could she do about it. of course dear ann landers suggestion was to talk to the neighbor. dad asked me what i was going to do if my neighbors complained. i said "tell them to move". like i care what the neighbors want. is someone going to nominate me for humanitarian of the year or something if i pretend to give a shit? but to be truthful, i suppose if any of them had complained i would have done the right thing...and put up even more windchimes. then i would also have found something even more annoying...like a psychopathic german shepherd that continuously chases her own tail barking at it the whole time (wait..i have one of those too). i honestly never speak to my neighbors unless the accost me when i am out in the back yard and i can't get away. last summer when i was digging the dog pool the guy next door was always out by the fence talking to me. problem with that...he is wasted by 9 o'clock every morning and he just keeps babbling. he is just in his 30's i guess, lives there with mom and her boyfriend and they all drink excessively (especially on weekends). and then the fighting starts, yelling and screaming and crying...then it turns into the blubbering "i love you man" stage. now you see why i have no desire to nurture a friendship with them. i live by the old adage "good fences make good neighbors", especially when the neighbors are drunken kooks.
i guess another good thing about today is that i have gone all day without a bra. my only one is in the laundry. pretty sad, ain't it? maybe when i get new panties (no, i haven't yet), i may get a new bra too. can you believe i still haven't got new panties? some of the ones i am wearing are nothing but an elastic band around my waist attached to a thread up my ass. not exactly a sexy thong..but, hey, look who you're talking to. remember that old classic song "with thong so bright, in red and white...to show off all my cellulite"..words to live by, right?

well, even though i have nothing to blog about, i must blog due to a threat to my most prized possession. someone threatened to turn my kindle into kindling!!! so here goes. now that i mention my kindle, i will go on. i now have 3 books on it. i finished the dome. it was actually a good stephen king. the ending didn't peter out like he has done on some of his books lately. for which i am most grateful. there is nothing like reading a 1000 page book and hating the ending. it's like watching a 3 hour movie and the ending sucks. all you can think is "i want three hours of my life back" i do have a kindle problem though. it has come to my attention that i am taking on the characteristics of smeagol. no one touches "my precious". mike lays in bed next to me and asks to push the button to change the page. yes, i know. most men laying in bed with their wives would be asking to push "other" buttons (wink, wink), i'm not sure what that says about us.....but i digress. sometimes i cringe and let him do it, but most times i say i will let him change the page when i am ready....then i very covertly change the page myself. gees, as far as he knows i am still on page 10 of a 1000 page book...and he must think i am the slowest reader in the world. am i bad?
then there is work. bear creek is still running. but the night shift bakery is down to a crew of 8. i don't mind the work, but with a small crew my boss is always hanging around and (crapasaurus) working on the line with us. it TOTALLY sucks. i am not sure how to describe her, except to say she used to brag about being a bitch...and believe me, if anyone is good enough at it to brag..it's her. some of us strive not to be considered nasty to be around in this life. but different strokes i guess. it's just a real downer to have her around so much. when we have a regular crew she usually takes a book and hangs around up stairs (she doesn't have a kindle). the nerve of her to ruin my whole day by hanging around and working.
what else? yesterday i woke up with a sore throat and today i feel really crappy. i can't hardly swallow and my legs hurt and my head hurts and my feet hurt (but my feet always hurt, so i guess that doesn't count). my sister-in-law sent me this friend survey (took a long time to finish it), but it asked how i felt today. i replied that i am so uncool that in a swine flu world i probably have the bird flu. but its a good thing i have a kindle, even in my weakened state i can hold it as opposed to a big bulky book.
uhmm. i worked at winco last weekend, all weekend. first time in a month that brenda had demos for me. thats probably where i picked up my bubonic plague. my black death. my curse from god. (oh wait..i don't have that anymore...no more tampons for this old lady). everytime i demo i am reminded just how rude people really are. i did armour meatballs for 2 days and gallo salami for the other day. gees, people crowd around the little table, they sneak back for a second sample (like i won't recognize them from, oh, 45 seconds ago). they are just animals. and they are apparently raising their kids the same way. the little kids stand there and cough on the food and touch every cup looking for the biggest one. shit, if that's what people are like for one crappy meatball, i can hardly wait until we have a massive famine. they will be eating their own young and chewing their feet off like a bear in a trap. and what is really funny, we don't use toothpicks (these dumbass people would probably poke an eye out), so every meatball has a pretzel stick in it. well, a few of the meatballs would split, so the pretzel wouldn't stick in it and i just stuck the meatball in a cup. then all you hear is "this one doesn't have a pretzel" "you forgot my pretzel" "can i have a pretzel for mine?" it just makes me hope that i am never so greedy for a freebie that i also complain about the way the freebie is delivered. it is all so traumatic that i just go home and hold my precious (i mean my kindle)...not always read it, sometimes just hold it. am i developing an addiction? could be. but it keeps my eating down, can't get crumbs on my precious.

christmas is over. the dreaded journey is over. i am very happy now. today i will take down the tree and put it all behind me. the trip to mikes parents was very uneventful. the weather was great, not a single flake of snow. for which i am very grateful. we rented a car because my car is unreliable..it runs well, but lately there has been a funny burning smell under the hood...is that a good thing? i think not, unless one is roasting weinies or marshmallows over the carburator. but the car we got was a pt cruiser!!! it was a very nice ride, plenty of room for booboo in the back seat. speaking of booboo, she was the hit of the party at the big family wing-ding. she got more pets and pats than a playboy bunny at a monestary. but, let me tell you about the BIG BUFFET!! it was incredibly disappointing. i did not lose any wieght and i just knew people were looking at me thinking "my god, what happened to her?" but i sure didn't gain any weight while i was there. we took down two 7 pound spiral hams and his mom said that was too much, so she only used one, then there was this little platter of roast beef and a little platter of turkey (when i say little i don't mean the platters were little..they were actually platters...there was just a little meat on them). she had a little chocolate cake and a cheesecake. then someone brought some cookies, and a tray of horsdeurves (sp?) ..they were nasty..cream cheese with a pecan on top sitting on a corn husky thing. all this massive(?) amount of food for 25 people!!! my mom puts out more than that for 6 people. mike ranted all the way home about how disappointing the buffet was and how he was glad tim didn't go with us after he had told him about the masses and masses of food there always was. and to top it all off, i wanted to bring the ham bone home for badger and berit, so when mike asked his mom about it she said she had it in the freezer to make split pea soup. personally, i think that she put it in the freezer so no one at the party would fight over it or break a tooth gnawing on it for just one more morsel. and then there was the big family photo, they do that every year. and me being one of the shorter ones, i had to stand in the front. but thankfully after that we got to leave, everyone else hangs around til 11 p.m. but i had the great excuse of having to be home christmas morning. so we went about 2 hours and found a nice motel 6, then got up the next morning and headed for home. we got here around noon, and the kids had the house looking really great (they really wanted those presents). then we ripped into those and in 10 minutes it was all over. i think everyone is happy with their gifts (i got them all the things on their list, so i guess they should be). and i know i am. mike got me a kindle, just like i mentioned before. and a case for it. i looked and looked trying to decide what my first book to download would be. then i went ahead and ordered the dome, by stephen king. i already have it in hardback ( a big 60 pound hardback), but it was the book i am reading. one of the really cool things on the kindle is the progress meter. it gives the percentage of the book you have finished. i have read 22% of the dome. this has to be about the coolest gift i have ever received. (it's right up there with the etch-a-sketch i got for what must have been my 6th birthday)and it really does only take about 45 seconds for a book to download. so, tim got the basketball book he wanted, a battery pack charger for his xbox and a new monitor for his computer (a very nice one..wonder if he would notice if i swapped with him). emily got 3 video games she wanted, a gift card for i-tunes and a wireless headset for her xbox (still being repaired by microsoft), and mike got a new flight jacket, a gun bag with hearing protectors, safety glasses and a years membership to the rifle and pistol club. i gave ben cash and grocery gift cards because he said thats all he wanted and he gave me 2 elvis collector plates, an elvis cup and an elvis guitar to put on my elvis shelf. they are all aloha 70's elvis which is my favorite. younger elvis is ok, but not the sexiest..and he tells me they don't make memorabilia of fat elvis....good thing he died, he would have looked as bad as me in the gardener family photo.

ok, susan powell from utah is missing. a very pretty mother of 2 small children. gone..poof...keys at home, cell phone at home purse at home. husband joshua went camping at midnight with 2 boys and when he gets back next day she is gone. i saw the guy on fox news..he isn't even a good liar. in the words of every famous detective ever "he dun it". i think child abusers are the lowest form of beings on earth..as i have mentioned, but i am just sick and tired of these stories of wives that have just "gone missing". remember lisa stebic? remember staci peterson? remember laci peterson? remember nicole simpson?? why don't these men just get a divorce or give a divorce? but, using my own very unique sense of justice, i have the perfect solution to this growing epidemic. whenever a man and woman even begin a relationship (and i am not being homophobic here...it's just that this seems to be mostly a man/woman phenomenon), the man has to sign a paper that says "if this woman "goes missing", you go to jail until she is found..because we know you dun it. and if we find her dead..you go to jail for a very long time". don't you think that would make most men take every extra precaution to make sure their significant other never "goes missing"? mike really hates it when these stories come up, because he knows i will just start ranting again. i say the same things every time, but i just am sick and tired of these assholes getting away with murder...because we all know they are guilty. and then there are the kids, whom i really feel sorry for, but i think most kids would never believe daddy killed mommy unless they saw it happen, so i think the kids adjust, as much as they can when mommy disappears. but the people i really feel sorry for are the family of the wife. they must know the guy killed there daughter, sister, niece. and know the murderer is raising their grandchildren. how do you deal with that for years? i mean..crap. the whole thing just really upsets me for days..months even. i have made mike promise that if he ever gets tired of me..just go away. don't shove me in a blue barrel, or rent a wood chipper to mulch me up and don't bury me in my rose garden with all my deceased pets. maybe i should write my senator with my "jailed upon the disappearance of spouse" idea. but they are both men here in oregon...and they are both politicians...so how far would that idea get? and then of course we have the grand poobah of all asshole husbands. the guy who gets away with murder and then goes to jail for assault and kidnapping...and robbery. i watched the oj trial years ago, and the day he was declared innocent i almost put my foot through my tv, yet both my parents thought he was innocent. i don't mean to sound racist here, but if the jury hadn't been predominantly black and if the wife had not been a blond white woman, i think he would have been found guilty. but we will never know. and am i comforted by the fact that he is in jail now? No, not really. two people are dead , he had years of freedom and he is still alive. where is the justice there? it's just a crying shame he went to jail before he finally tracked down the "real" killer.

not a lot going on (seems like i always say that). i have been off from bear creek since tuesday, and i go back next tuesday. it's sort of an "on-call" thing. even winco is pretty slow in the demo area. just 6 hours this wekend and none next week. time off is a good thing. i get to do my useless workout every morning because my foot isn't killing me. i also keep the house cleaner. and get this..I ALREADY HAVE MY CHRISTMAS TREE UP!!!! mike asked me to put it up early because he loves my tree topper. it isn't an angel or a star. i got it from avon a few years ago. it's a santa in a sleigh being pulled by one reindeer (i assume rudolph, because he has a red-nose), or it could just be a tanked up blitzen??anyway, he goes around and around the tree. so the other day mike says "how far do you suppose he goes?"...well, the challenge was on. i got a tape measure and measured how long the bar is that holds it away from the tree, then i figured out the circumference (had to go on line to find out how to do that),then i had to time each revolution, and from there it was all calculator. so just in case you are wondering, santa goes 25" every 10 seconds, which is 150" minute, 9000 inches an hour 216,000 inches a day or 18,000 feet a day or (drum roll please) 3.4 miles in 24 hours. which all goes to prove one thing...sometimes too much time off is not a good thing. when i gave emily all this vital information (someday she may be married, with children and have this collectible on her tree and one of her darlings will ask just that very question), do you know what she said? she said "and you want to know this because...?" all i could say was "it seemed important when i started". oh, i also have just about all my christmas shopping done...God, i love Amazon. i found just about everything i wanted, for a lower price than downtown and almost all was free shipping. the only thing i am getting downtown is a new monitor for tim (pc kind, not lizard kind), and mikes jacket. so almost everyday i get these brown boxes by ups or mail and i just keep putting them under the tree. emily asked me the other day if i was going to wrap them or just leave them that way. SAY WHAT??? apparently she didn't learn much from the "box, instant, canned, frozen, package" thanksgiving dinner i prepared. but, in getting with the spirit of the thing, i bought wrapping paper and bows today. i hardly ever buy bows, it just seems so wasteful. but they looked kind of pretty. i already know what mike is getting me. and as much as i hinted and came right out and said it..it isn't the PET HAIR ERASER vacuum. he refuses to get me an appliance. so the other day i was sitting here (right here in this very chair) on amazon and i said "here's what i would like..a kindle". i was truly jesting..not about liking to have one, just about him getting me one. so after explaining what it is, he said ok. HELLO!!! $259!!! I said no way..too much money, but he said it was either that or the shitty gift he was going to get me. I am glad we went with the kindle, i wanted one last year but they were over $350 then and impossible to get. he told me he was going to get me another heat conductor. it was a black hills gold ring. we call them heat conductors because when i do cinnamon swirls at work, if i forget to take of my wedding ring i end up with a red burn mark all around my finger for days. so my kindle is here now..in another brown amazon box under the tree. i am pretty excited about this. i researched it a lot, and it appears to be the best e-book reader out there. and bestsellers are almost all $9.99, not $20-$25 like at barnes and noble. one of the down sides is that if a book goes out of print or something, amazon will remove it from your kindle..even though you paid for it. kind of "big brother" but how often does that happen? most authors want to keep selling books. he is going to want me to open it early, but i won't. it's the only present i will have under the tree..so i am waiting until christmas.
and then there is the big christmas trip....no weight loss that i can see, and only 3 weeks to go. i knew this would happen. but as doris day said "que sera sera". (my sister always pronounced it kay sarah sarah, so that's how i always think of it). if i look fat in the family photo it's because the camera always adds 50 pounds gee, i hope they only have one camera.
so, am i going to put up christmas lights outside? I do not know. i leave them up on the eaves all year, so those are all faded now, but i still have to get up on the ladder and clean the leaves out of the gutters. and i usually put lights along my front fence and on my windmill. but it has been so friggin cold here. since last week it has been in the 20's and foggy..foggy...foggy. then, since we live so close to the airport, they are always "seeding" the fog, so every morning it is a white icy frosty mess. tomorrow the fog is supposed to be gone and it is going to warm all the way up to 33. i am just not a winter person, never have been, never will be. don't like fog, snow, ice or cold. i won't even eat ice cream in the winter as a form of protest against mother nature. so, depends on the weather on if i decorate outside. some people really get into that outside stuff. there is a house in town that must have about 10 of those big balloon decorations from walmart (the kind that run a motor)
hey, i will be the first to admit that they look really cool at night, but these people turn theirs off in the day time, so when you drive by, it looks like some kind of balloon wounded knee. big heaping piles of dead balloon carcasses all over the lawn. actually, even at night it has more of a sleazy carnival look, than a christmas look. santa as the bearded lady, elves for the perverted dwarf that every sleazy carnival has, snowmen for clowns and i don't know where the penguins fit in.
and lastly, there is MONK, or should i say there is no MONK. i watched the finale last night. no trudy in the witness protection program. the ending was actually ok. he got trudy's killer, he met trudy's illigitimate daughter and he keeps working..and in the end he isn't even wearing a tie. the new laid back monk. i haven't been this upset about a series ending since magnum p.i. went away. i think i will just sit here and contemplate a magnumless, monkless world and watch santa do his 3.4 miles.

just an update on my reading list: i actually spent $15 on myself. if you are wondering if it was on undies..it wasn't. no, i still don't have new undies, and mike says he won't buy me those either. what is the point of writing a christmas list if he won't get me anything on it? i ordered myself the new stephen king book "under the dome". i am pretty excited about this (i could almost wet my panties, if i had any left to wet). I hope we have at least 3 or 4 weeks lay off, because this is a read at home book. it's 1088 pages! not exactly one i want to haul to work everyday. although it might burn off a few pounds carting it up the stairs everyday. and pardon my faux pax (whatever the spelling), but the vacuum i wanted is actually called a "pet hair eraser"...not a "pet eliminator". OOPS!!!