MY SUNDAY 160
This picture reminds me of my life.
Trying to balance it all without
falling in the deep end.
O! what a splash that will be
should this rock come tumbling down.

New GEICO Commercial - Piggy

I LOVE THIS COMMERCIAL! For some reason it just always makes me smile. Maybe because it is just so silly.

MY SUNDAY 160
Is silence truly golden?
My son, my greatest worry in life.
He speaks to just 3 people in the world.
Life is passing him by.
Selective mutism is a cruel burden.

My Sunday 160
craigslist to find a used car.
2 Yugos..$100.
'86 & '88, not running.
"'86 ran a few years ago"
Guess they can Flinstone it
and put their earthpads to work.

the situation here has become untolerable (intolerable?). My 401 loan money will be here this week to buy brian and emily a car. Mike is being a total ass now. He HATES brian just because he is living here. Last week he sent me a text saying if he were lucky Brian would wreck the car I get them and be killed, and the second text he just wished God would reach down and kill Brian. The pathetic thing is he really means it. Now, after bitching that they need a car, he is all pissed off because I am going to get them a car. He wants me to put the loan money on a new car for me and give them my Jetta. He doesn't seem to understand that I don't want a new car, I don't want to make payments and I don't want to pay full coverage. Plus I still need to get brakes on my car and get an oil leak fixed. He has become so hostile to Brian and Emily that I won't even have Brian ride with him when they have virtually the same schedule. I drop Brian off, come home, go to work and take a late lunch (9) so when Brian gets off I pick him up, he drops me off and then comes back at 1:30 to get me. It is really sucking. Mike even suggested that with the loan money I could set him up in a studio apartment til Brian and Emily have enough to move out???? How can one adult (I should say "alleged" adult) hate one 20 year old kid so much? Brian is nice, polite, quiet...he got a job. The stress on me is really getting bad. Sleep is almost just a memory to me.

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.