Just do it

Go here: http://boobsinjuriesanddrpepper.blogspot.com/ to read one of the funniest posts ever. I laughed so hard I has tears running down my face.

Friday at last

We had originally planned to go with Morning Light for a show at Maple Lane this weekend, but they delayed the show until June.

Tomorrow we are going to make egg rolls. We are down to the last bag, and I owe those to my sister. We are going to the beach at Kalaloch next weekend, and V. is going to stay with my sister, and I promised her egg rolls for keeping an eye on him. She says that if I don't bring egg rolls he will have to sleep under the porch.

The ritual is to go buy the materials, stop and rent a DVD and buy a big bottle of wine.

Put on the video, roll egg rolls and sip wine.

I have to admit that the quality control falls off a little towards the end.

100 books

Tagged by An Extraordinary Woman in an Ordinary Life

Look at the list of books below.*Bold/colour the ones you’ve read*Italicize the ones you want to read, leave blank the ones that you aren’t interested in.If you are reading this, tag your it!


1.The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2.Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3.To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10.A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11.Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12.Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13.Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16.Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)*
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. The Bible (all of it)
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)*
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolsoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)*
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100.Ulysses (James Joyce )

47 out of the 100. There are a bunch I know nothing about. Not a whole bunch that interrest me. Most of the ones I would be interrested in I've already read.

Happy Hump Day

I was wandering around the factory this morning, and stopped in at my old area on the barge at flow day 5. Conversation turned to animals, and eventually Porcupines, because L. had a dog that kept getting quills in it's snout.

We had a cow that got a snout full of quills twice. That was a chore that was no fun at at all. Spook was a flighty cow at the best of times, and when we got her in the milking parlor with her head locked in a stanchion, she was getting panicy.

She had a dozen or so quills, and getting them out was a hell of a chore.

When it happened the second time, we decided Mr. Porky had to go.

Mr. Porky was coming into the barn to get salt, so we waited on him one night and ambushed him with a .22.

Once he was properly ballasted with lead, we wondered what he would taste like. So we skinned and dressed him out, and threw a haunch on the BBQ.

He tasted AWFUL.

It was early Spring, and food was scarce, so he had been dining on the inner bark of pine trees, and you could taste it in the meat

Kinda like pork marinated in Pine-Sol.

Blah, Blah, Blah

I started out my day today in the Dentist's chair. I had two permanent crowns fitted this morning. I get closer to done with my dental project with each thing that gets done.

I came to work right after, so I was sitting here with a numb tongue and lip. I had to be real careful eating lunch so I didn't dribble soup down my shirt ftont or chew a hole in my lip.

Things are almost back to normal now, or as close to normal as I ever get.

One of my almost-daughters came over last night to use the washing machine and drier. Personally, I think she heard what we weere having for dinner, and the laundry was just an excuse to come over and mooch a meal, but that's OK.

She is working at The Space Needle in Seattle, in food service. She has access to half price coupons to eat at the restaraunt. Prices are a little spendy, like $35.00 a plate, so the only way we would go there was on a half price deal. She said she was going to get us one for Mrs A.s birthday. Mrs A. has never been there, and it has been a long time for me. It would be a bit of nostalgia.

That's where I took all of my prom dates.

Jambalaya

I'm making Jaqmbalaya for dinner tonight, but I'm doing it the lazy way.

I have a very good recipe for making it from scratch, but during the week it is just too much trouble.

Now I go and buy a box of Zatarains Jumbalaya mix as a base, add in a green pepper, a sweet onion, some Polska Kielbasa, and some chicken. Throw it in a pot and let it simmer until the onions are translucent, and go for it.

Yummmm!

The Caddie

It was a fine Fall evening. We had gotten together for an evening of Poker, cheap cigars and beer.

We played real poker. No baseball, low spade in the hole, spit in the ocean. Five card draw. Five card stud, Seven card no-peek (match the pot if you peek). Our sole aberration was acey-deucey, while really not poker per-se does have real odds and calculation.

Cards have never been my friends. We always played penny/nickel/dime/quarter with a 50 cent bet limit, except for acey-deucey, where you could match the pot, which I had. I had turned up an ace and a king and went for the pot, only to have a second king show up, much to the amusement of everyone there.
I probably would have called it a night, but as I had bummed a ride with J.B., I didn't have a way home. J.B. Was doing well, so it looked like I would be there for a while.

P.J. was up and contemplating how much to bet on an eight/three, when the door burst open. It was Meyer.

"The Caddie!!" he screamed. "My Uncle is going to give me The Caddie."

We had been hearing about The Caddie for the last couple of months. It seemed that Meyer's Uncle had this 1959 Cadillac sitting in the driveway, not being used. Meyer had been petitioning his Uncle to sell it to him cheap. Each week brought a new scheme got getting his hands on the car. Meyer's uncle had finally relented for a couple of hundred dollars and a summer full of yard work.

This was momentous news, since out of the five of us, we only has two sets of wheels, thereby limiting out access to a wider world. This was even more important than our guys only poker night, so we abandoned the poker game and all piled into P.J.'s 1957 Mercury four door sedan and headed for Mercer island to rescue The Caddie from Meyer's Uncle's driveway.

Our first stop was a Chevron gas station, where Meyer had dropped off a battery earlier in the day to be charged. A couple of miles from the gas station, the transmission started making some strange whirring noises, and a little smoke started coming from under the hood. As we got closer to the gas station, the noises got worse and the smoke more noticeable. By the time we got there, we arrived in a great cloud of smoke and a lot of noise.

A check under the hood revealed that the whole engine compartment was drenched in transmission fluid. A closer exam showed that one of the transmission lines had developed a crack and was spewing fluid into the fan which was doing it's best to distribute the fluid evenly over the entire engine compartment.

Since it was 10:00 at night by this time, there was no way we were going to be able to fix the Merc that night. So with the optimism if youth, we decided to get the battery, and carry it the mile or so over to Meyer's Uncles house, put it in the Caddie, start up the Caddie and drive it back home.
A car battery gets might heavy when you have to pack it better than a mile.
We finally arrived at Meyer's Uncles, and installed the battery in the car. We expected it to be a little reluctant to start, since it had been sitting in the driveway unused for several months, and we were not disappointed. It backfired, it flashed back out of the carburetor, it rattled a nd ran for a couple of seconds and died. It did everything except run.

The battery was starting to run out of juice, so we had a major decision to make.

Mercer Island is in the middle of Lake Washington. It is fairly large and has a central plateau which is a couple of hundred feet high. We were on that plateau, and about a mile away was the dropoff. It was only a slight uphill , not steep at any point, so we decided to push the Caddie up to the top of the hill,all climb in and even though it was an automatic transmission, we should be able to build up enough speed to start on the long straight downhill.

I do not recommend pushing a 1959 Cadillac up any sort of incline. It is not designed to be propelled by human motive power, even if you do have five healthy fit young males.

The first argument was who should steer, thereby escaping the worst work. Meyer felt that since it was his car, he should steer, but an eminent mutiny convinced him otherwise. We decided that Meyer belonged at the back of the car in the center and the rest of us would rotate position.

with a few rest stops along the way, we managed to get the car within about 40 feet of the dropoff, when the Police showed up.

"What you boys up to?"

with everyone speaking at once we tried to explain about the broken transmission in the Merc, the battery, the reluctant Caddie, the long push to the dropoff. The Officer stopped us.

"Who does this car belong to?"

We all pointed to Meyer.

"Son, can I see your license and registration?"

After fishing in the glove box for the registration, Meyer explained about the deal he had made with his Uncle, and why the car was not licensed in his name.

I don't think the Officer really believed Meyer, and he kept looking at us like he was starting a file on each of us for future reference. But what he said was:

"I don't suppose you have a bill of sale, do you?"

When the answer to that was negative, he motioned to Meyer and said "You come with me, son. The rest of you just stand over there while we sort this thing out."

He took Meyer off into the back of the patrol car, and the rest of us stood outside in the cool Fall night wondering what was going to happen.

After about a half an hour, Meyer got out. It was a good news/bad news sort of situation. On one hand, we were free to go. On the other hand, we were not going to be allowed to push the car over the top of the hill and try to get it running. No amount of pleading could convince the Officer of the logic of just turning his back and not witnessing us taking matters into our own hands. After all, the car was going to be towed to the nearest gas station, which just happened to be at the bottom if that very hill. If the car started, we could be on our way and everyone was happy, if it didn't start, it would be at the gas station.

So the Officer called a tow truck, and we all piled in the car, which was towed to the Chevron station at the bottom of the hill. We found ourselves, at two o'clock in the morning, stuck at a closed gas station a long way from home.

Since we had been playing poker for pocket change before we went off on our little errand, we had plenty of change to give the pay phone a good workout. The only problem was finding someone who would come out to Mercer Island to rescue us in the middle of the night. Parents were definitely out. So we ended up playing poker in the bathroom and taking turns trying to beg a ride from someone.

Bruce finally managed to get in touch with his sister's boyfriend, Dave who was only mildly inebriated at the time. He agreed to come and get us if we would help him put in a clutch on his other car the next day.

A half an hour later, he showed up in his fuel injected custom painted diamond tuck naugahide four speed custom wheeled 1957 Chev. We all climbed in to head home. Dave wanted to show his car off to all of us, so the only time we did the speed limit was within the first twenty feet after he started off. He wasn't all that familiar with the area, so we had to give him directions. When we realized he was going to miss the left to go around Beacon Hill, we all yelled "Take a left, take a left!" which he did, four wheel drifting through three lanes of traffic. I remember thinking that it might be a good idea to get out at the next corner, but the car never slowed down enough get out.

At any rate, we survived, and ended up at Bruce's apartment at 3:00 in the morning. We decided it was too late to get back to the poker game, so we divided up the pot and went our separate ways. B.J. gave me a ride home.

when I walked in the front door, there was my mother in her bathrobe, tapping one foot on the floor. "Just exactly where have you been until three-thirty in the morning?"

"Mom I just had a terrible night, I'm exhausted, and you don't want to hear it. I'm going to bed, and we can talk about it in the morning."

By the way, the Caddie had a broken timing belt and wouldn't have started anyway.

Blame it on the dog

Or blame it on The Peanut Queen. I didn't have a thing for this morning, and went to read the blogs this morning. HRH posted about farting, so Therein lies the inspiration for this post.

Besides, guys always find farts humorous.

My wife has this fear of spiders. Mrs A. will always do the "Come and kill it, kill it, kill it!!" when she sees one. When we are laying in bed she will case out the ceiling. "What's that dark spot over there?" I have to get up and check it out to make sure it isn't a spider about to drop down and bite her.

One night, we were laying there, and I released a secret weapon of mass destruction under the covers. Seeing an opportunity, I pointed to the middle of the air halfway between her and the ceiling. "Look out, it's a spider!!

She immediately ducked under the covers.

All Hail Spring!

Today is the first day of Spring. YEEHAW!

Of course it is snowing in the pass, and we may have snow showers in the taller hills, it is freezing cold with a nasty wind, but by God if the calendar says Spring, it is Spring. Maybe if I go home and put on a pair of shorts and a Hawaiian shirt it will cause the seasons to roll.

More likely it will cause the weather gods to roll: On the floor with laughter when they freeze my ass off.

I did get out and do battle with the rose bushes last weekend. Mrs. A. was getting frantic about getting them pruned "before it's too late". Too late how? Are they going to migrate or something? Maybe if you wait too long, they wake up and fight back.

Oh, wait......

I did get several thorns imbedded in my hands to the point that I bled.

Maybe they were just coming awake.

The Rest of the Story

So you got half the story.

Here's the rest.

When we met the girls at the bowling alley, we made a date to have a party. Friday night. It was on Friday afternoon that Dave's Aunt got in her accident and we got arrested.

When we were in the back of the Patrol Car, the cop got called on a slow speed chase on the hiway, so we got to witness the apprehension of a bunch of illegal immigrants being intercepted at low speed by California's finest.

They ran a truck off of the road loaded with about 20 Farm workers that probably didn't understand English. They were not treated very nicely.

We were taken into jail and printed and processed, and put in a holding cell. We had our one phone call, so we called his Aunt. We had enough cash in the car to pay bail, but the car had been impounded, so we couldn't get to it.

Dave's Aunt and Uncle didn't have enough cash on hand to bail us out of jail, and the banks were closed, so they had to go to friends to borrow the money, but eventually we got out. We got a very stern lecture on how embarrasing it was to have to go to their friends to get the money to bail us out of jail.

It was Friday evening, and we had been invited to a party, and party we would.

We met the girls and went over at their house.

We were engaged in a very serious game of spin the bottle when we were interreupted by a bunch of very large and obnoxious boys.

It seems we had been used by the girls to make their boyfriends jealouse. Well it worked.

The Girlfriend of the schooll quarteback had chosen my friend Dave as her date. He and the rest of the football team took exception.

She managed to get them out of the house.

Party over, we had to take the other girls home.

When we left we were followed by another car. It was filled with people. We were not particularly polite when we dropped the girls off. We kinda slowed the car down, let them out and got the hell out of there.

After we dropped the last girl off, we tried to go home. We were on a back road, heading towards Dave's Aunt and Uncles place. No streetlights, about a half a mile of straight road, when they passed us.

They slammed on the brakes and people started jumping out of the car. They had chains and baseball bats. There were a whole bunch of them.

Dave tried to back up, but there wasn't enough light to see behind us.

Dave said "Hang on!" and jammed it back into drive and headed towards them. They jumped out of the way, and we floored it. We came down a long hill, and when we entered the Interstate we were doing about 120, sideways.

They chased us on back roads all the way back to where we were staying. Dave ran inside and grabbed a 30.06 off of the wall and went out to the front porch. When the other guys drove in, he showed them the gun, and they left.

We were stuck. Since we were arrested on Friday, court wasn't until Monday, so we had to stay in town.

Every time we left the house we were followed.

Eventually, a guy came over to talk to us and a meeting was arranged at the local pool hall.

We met and played a very intense game of pool, during which we agreed that we would be leaving town a soon as things were cleared at court.

I was never so glad to see a place in the rear view mirror as when we left Oroville.

Friday

Renn was talking about her mouth getting her in trouble, something I am familiar with.

Here's an example:

Dave and I were moving from Seattle to San Francisco to go join the Hippies. Dave had relatives in Oroville, Cal. so we planned our trip so we could stay a couple of days with them. His Aunt, Uncle and cousin. We had just graduated from High School the previous June, and his cousin was a Senior. I thought it might be an interresting time.

We got in on a Thursday night, which was girls league bowling night, so we went down to the bowling alley. I met his cousin, and a whole lot of other females.

The next day was his Aunt's turn to drive in the carpool, but she got in a minor car accident, so she asked us if we would mind picking up the girls after school.

OH YEAH!

Dave was driving his 1958 Plymouth. All the chrome had been removed and the car had been painted Taxi-cab Yellow. Think of "Christine" and add histerical yellow.

We were dressed in "Hippie clothes"

We pulled into the parking lot of the school to wait for the girls. A cop car pulled in behind us.

The cop came up and motioned for Dave to roll down the window.

"I see you are from out of state. Did you know that it is illegal to loiter on school property in the State of California?"

Me and my big mouth. "Websters Dictionary defines "Loiter" as: "To consume time idly and without purpose". We, however are here with a very specific purpose."

I watched the red creep up his neck. He told us to move or get arrested. so I asked him "There is a street in front of the school. Is the other side of the street school property?"

His face got even redder as he told us too get the hell out of there.

We went and parked across the street from the school.

He pulled in right behind us, and we were immediately arrested.

This is the only time I have been in jail, and it only lasted a couple of hours.

One of the girls we were supposed to give a ride home to was the daughter of the city Prosecuting Attorney, and he was not happy about her having to find alternative transportation.

We had a talk with him and made a deal that we would plead probable cause if they would drop charges. Otherwise we were going to sue the city for False Arrest.

They did, and we did, but that is only half of the story.

DAMN Blogger

The secret back door I found to get into blogger was closed today, so I had to find another way in.

I had to enter a comment in my blog, then go to update profile, then return to dashboard, and here I am.

I saved the link, so we will see if it will let me in tomorrow without having to use the back door.

I really don't have anything to say today, but didn't have the time yesterday to find a new secret back door.

I felt unfulfilled all day.

We watched "Babel" last night. I didn't care for it particularly. It skips around between four sets of characters, some of whom are only very loosely connected with the others. No real conclusion or anything. I guess I just like more structure.

Brad Pitt looked OLD in it. He had enough bags under his eyes to fill the baggage compartment on a Grayhound.

But then, he does have a lot of baggage.

I Been Hung

Well, everything changes with time, including how they hang you.

After a bunch of "Does this hurt" they finally got around to the rack. I knew it was coming. They don't hang the weighted bag any more, they have a machine that does it.

They position a double collar under your chin and the back of your head, then turn on the machine. It stretches your neck for 20 seconds, then relaxes for 10 seconds, then stretches again.

I have to admit I have more feeling in my thumb and forefinger tonight.

They put me on the rack for 20 minutes. I could feel it pulling down to the upper part of my back. I'll see how I feel in the morning.

At any rate, I feel better tonight.

How many people can say they felt better after being hung?

Blah, blah, blog

It still bugs the heck out of me that I have to sneak in here by the back door.

The only way I can get here is to reply in the comments section and then go to the dashboard.

Not that I am above sneaking in the back door when I choose, but when the only way they will let you in is by the back door, it makes you feel like the hired help.

I go to get hung after work today. I hope it goes well. I am getting very frustrated with the shooting pains down my arm.

If everything goes well, I guess that means that I am well hung, neh?

Monday Moanin'

Actually, I had a half way decent weekend, and got a pretty good night's sleep, so I am in fine fettle this morning.

Saturday the weather was OK, so I went out and worked on the cars. Mrs A's needed the hood release cable replaced. It turned out to be pretty simple to do. Took me about an hour, mostly trying to feed the cable through the fender liner. I got to the point I was about ready to take off the fender, when I tried one more time, and it went through. A big WHEW there.

Then I needed to fix the door on the driver's side of the Z. It was not latching, and I could no longer open it with the key. I have been putting this off for the last month or so, because doors are a pain in the ass to work on. You have to take the handles and knobs off of the inside, then remove the interior panel. Remove the vapor barrier, and then attemp to work in a space so small and twisty that only a proctologist can access it (Guys, you know what I'm talking about.)

But I managed to get my oilcan manipulated into the proper spots to lube up the binding mechanism. After manipulating it several times, things started moving the way they were supposed to. The lock even works with the key now!

So now I can drive my baby to work as the weather turns warmer.

YER FIRED!

Blame this on Rick, who blamed it on Spiffytown.

I was once fired.

I was the General Manager of a small company, doing around $500,00.00 a year and employing around 20 people. The company was based out of Chicago, but I ran everything here in Latteland. I had set up the business, started it from ground zero, expanded it, hired all the people.

We weren't making a lot of money, just breaking even. But any of you that know anything about small businesses, know it generally takes around five years for them to get off the ground. I figured that three years to go from zero revenue to a half a mil was not bad. The owners got tired of waiting.

I had several ideas of how to expand the business, but every time I seggested some new course, they vetoed it. Frustrated the heck out of me.

One day this woman I had never seen before came in to the office and introduced herself as the accountant for the firm, coming in from Chicago.

She said the parent company was shutting us down. I asked how long we had.

She said don't bother to come back from lunch.

No warning, no severance pay, nothing.

I went out to the crew and called a meeting. They were outraged at the way I had been treated, so when lunch came, we all walked off the job and went to the tavern and got stewed, leaving the accountant there by herself to run the business, offload trucks, load outgoing trucks, book leasings. The whole thing.

I told the crew they should go back in the morning. I appreciated their loyalty but told them not to do anything stupid that would jeapordize their families. When I drove by the place on my way home, there were trucks lined up all the way down the street.

The next day the accountant called me up at home, trying to locate some equipment, I told her "Yeah, I know exactly where the equipment is, but I'll be damned if I will tell you. I don't work there anymore. remember."

They never did recover some of the equipment.

Playing hookie

Mrs A. had a real bad day yesterday. She came home in tears. It was one of those days when everyone was in a pissy mood, and she was the pissee so to speak.

She opened the conversation with "I want to quit me job." I know she doesn't really want to, so I listened to her a lot without any real comment, just "Uhu, yes dear, I'm sorry you had a bad day" I have finally learned to just listen, not try to fix everything.

I made her a nice strong Rum and Coke and let her wind down.

This morning I told her if she was serious about quitting, we could get a debt consolidation loan, pay off all the bills with the loan, and get by on my salary. It is possible, but it would mean giving up a lot of extras.

She said she really didn't want to quit her job.

I stayed home because I haven't slept well in several days because of my arm. The meds don't seem to be doing much of anything. Oh well, everything takes time.

I also have a dental appointmment this afternoon, so I would miss a half a day anyway, so I just called in and went back to bed.

I'm getting pocelain caps for a couple of teeth. When I get through getting my mouth all fixed up, that will be a relief, and we will have a quite a bit more spending money.

Four oral surgeries, 10 caps. By the time it will be all over, I will have about $20,000.00 invester in my teeth. Oh well, the investment will last a lot longer than a new car or a cruise.

That's Radiculous!

No I did not misspell the word in the title. It is a terrible pun.

All right, who is that I hear snickering in the back, there.

My thingie with my arm was diagnosed as Cervical Radiculitis.A pain radiating from the spine down one or more extremities, caused by the root of the nerve being compressed.

Or as I told the Doc "I have a pinched nerve in my neck."

So they gave me a handfull of pills and told me to go play in traffic.

Percocet works on the pain just fine, thank you, but makes be dizzy and fuzzy headed, which is fine for at home when I will not be going out, but not so good for at work.

The muscle relaxer (which I can't remember the name of) also makes you drowsy, so I probably won't be taking it at work either.

I start Physical Therapy on Tuesday. The doc says they are going to hang me by the neck until well.

No, seriously.

They have a collar that they put around your neck that has a rope attached with a weighted bag on the end. You throw it over a door and sit there getting your neck stretched.

I guess the Physical therapist will have to make sure I am well hung......

Bad Al, bad, bad.

Damn Blogger!

Once again this morning I couldn't get into my blog to post an entry. Obviously I have figured out a back door to sneak in, but it shouldn't be so difficult.

The only way too get in is to go to my blog and enter a comment. After I put in my google account and password, if I go back to Blogger dashboard, it will let me in. If I try to log straight in to blogger, it won't let me.

What a pain in the ass.

I am a little short fused this morning. My arm is getting worse, and still no word from the doctor. It is feeling all tingly more of the time, and I can't get it to go away.

As soon as the clinic is open, I am calling the doc. I doubt they can do anything for me, but it's worth a shot.

Finally

Today is going pretty well, for a Monday.

First off, since I am adding a post, that means that I have finally defeated the evil Blog Trolls that guard the access over the bridge into Blogville. I just wandered aimlessly around the edges of Blogville until suddenly I was inside.

Why? How? Don't know how I got here, but I left a trail of breadcrumbs (read: Back Button), so I should be able too find my way back here through the back button and add to favorites.

Plus I have been having a bit of trouble with my mouse. Not the mouses fault. I have a pinched nerve in my neck which gives me tinglies in my right arm, thumb and forefinger, making it unpleasant to use the right handed rollerball mouse. So I went down and got a universal rollerball mouse and programmed it to be left handed. Luckily I am ambidextrous (No Rick, that doesn't mean I like to dress in womens' clothing).

So here I am, blogging away, clicking leftie and getting used to my new rollerball mouse.

Done

Well, the flooring is all down now. It took me most of the day, and I had a couple of Homer moments, but it is done, and it looks great.

When I was doing the floor around the door to the Pantry, I realized that when I put the new flooring in, you wouldn't be able to open the door.

DUH!

Soo I had to remove the door and cut 1/8" off of the botting and then remount it. I said a couple of bad words, but luckily Mrs A. was out having her nails done, so nobody cared.

I still have to do the trim. I have a bunch of matching moulding to go with the floor., But there's no hurry to get that done.

Mrs A. loves it, so it was worth all the hard work.

Snow AGAIN!

Up here in Latteland, we get like maybe a dusting of snow a couple of times a year. With everything we have had this winter, the last thing I needed was more of the white slippery stuff.

This has been a winter to remember. I know I will get little sympathy from some, but I don''t think anyone has had the variety of bad weather we have had this time around the calendar.

In November, we set an all time record for the mount of rain in a month, ever in recorded history. Mind you, this is Latteland, where it rains 200 days per year. There is a REASON we have a Starbucks on every corner. We basically have two seasons, the warm rainy season, and the cold reainy season. Sometimes in August, we have Summer. But November was rain that had ducks looking for shelter. Slugs committed suicide.

Then in December we had a local record destructive wind storm. It did more damage than any other wind storm in recorded history. See a pattern here?

January brought snow that stayed around for weeks. You see, around here it snows, and by noon the next day, it is gone. Snow is an excuse to take a day off of work, and nobody can bitch you out about it. "But boss, the Department of Transportation said we should not travel unless it was ABSOLUTELY necessary, and who am I to defy thm?" But after about three days,, eneryone has lost patience, and you have to go face it.

Yesterday we had a late snowstorm. We here in Alville were not hit hard, but there was a stackup at Snoqualmi pass that involved around 50 cars and closed the Pass down.

Reports are that the Spring Crocuses are coming up, and my Tibetan Magnolia is budding out, so I know the turn is near.

I can't wait.