Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Well...

The crash yesterday, Thank You House Republicans!, must have really upset my ISP because I haven't been able to to connect to them since then. So no connection at the house yesterday means no entry here today. Grrr.

Monday, September 29, 2008

$700 billion bailout bill fails in House. Dow down by nearly 600 points
Hazel

Has it just been a week? Did I just get back? I was just on vacation and now I’m back again. I didn’t even think about it last week as I was so busy - too busy to think “Last week at this time I was sleeping late, hiking or reading at my leisure. Now? I’m distributing the mail or writing letters or listening to endless phone messages from the wacky.

And then, one day its cold and rainy and gross and I say McDonald’s has good Happy Meal toys right now, I think I’ll splurge.. I went to my McDonald's and it was Gone! They tore it down! I happily drove down there to get a doll and it was gone, a hole in the ground and a “Coming Soon” sign in it’s place.

I got the McMonkey off my back a while a go but dayum! The knocked down my ‘Donalds! I was crushed. But other than having to eat at KFC instead of Mcd’s , my feelings were hurt because they didn’t tell me. I mean, really. I’ve spent a lot of money in there and paid for most of it on plastic, they know who I am! They could have dropped me a card or something. I’m just saying, I shouldn’t have found out that way. A post card would have been nice. Humph. Knocked the damn thing down and didn’t even tell me.

Okay. So all week I worked like a puppy and then this weekend I worked like anthor puppy .My friend is coming from Dallas this coming weekend and my house is not ready, not even kind of ready and that doesn’t count the extra layers of going-on-vacation/got-back-from-vacation clutter. This is on top of the existing clutter and this doesn’t take into account the dust bunny/dog and cat fur/shredded paper tumble weeds.

Needless to say, I’ve been really busy. I vacuumed, dusted, swept, pitched, re-homed, gathered, mulled over, stowed and moved and that was just in the living room! I also did laundry, mowed and edged the lawn and washed the dog. Then I took a shower and went to Church. It was a total grind though. I also found time to watch Sex in The City -The Movie and the first part of the most recent Entourage DVD and later on, I bought the floor lamp of my dreams, 70% off!


I have been stalking this lamp since it first came into the store months ago. It was horrendously overpriced, so it stayed in the store. I would go check on it periodically but they were being really obstinate about the price, $179! At Big Lots! On a given day, for $179 you could buy half the store. The really sad thing is that that price was greatly reduced from its real price. Somebody somewhere thought that lamp was worth $300!

I paid $53.

Sunday, I got up did more laundry and more cleaning and went to Tiny E’s birthday party. Then I came home, finished the laundry, folded the laundry and began to think seriously about cleaning the upstairs...

Sometimes Raleigh doesn't suck

Sunday, September 28, 2008

HAPPY   SUNDAY    !!!!!!

Saturday, September 27, 2008

HAPPY    SATURDAY   !!!!!!

Friday, September 26, 2008

Friday Cat Blogging

Buy! Buy!

I decided that the Chucks would be mine. I wasn’t going to screw around bargain hunting and cheaping out. I decided against online shopping and it’s attendant delivery stress and turned to self serve - The Mall.

Heaven or hell depending on the time of year and the condition of your account balance. It’s almost too late in the season to go to the mall. The decorations are blessedly not up yet but the drums are beating and the Christmas Store is open for business.

I tried to ignore the beating by repeating my mantra I Need Nothing But Chucks. I Am Here To Buy Nothing But Chucks and I did well until I went into the Christmas store. My mantra changed I Need Nothing But That Flamingo In a Kayak. I Am Here To Buy Nothing But That Coast Guard Themed Ornament. Nothing was marked down or on sale. Nothing had been pawed over or broken, everything was available and nothing was sold out yet. All the batteries still worked and no of the teeny springs had sprung. But. It’s September and there is only so excited I can get over tinsel encrusted blue whales when I still have sand in my shoes.

The mall was almost nice. It’s not too crowded yet, there was no artificial sense of urgency, they weren’t piping in carols yet and the staff was still pleasant. When I walked through the department store to get to the mall, the aisles in the store weren’t crowded with please-tip-me-over tables and absolutely nothing was on sale yet. I kind of liked it, it was obstacle free and everything was comfortingly out of my price range; while it makes me feel poor to not buy a cheap thing it makes me feel strong and responsible to not buy something I can’t afford. I can turn away from a $300 purse and feel nothing but fiscally responsible but having to saying no to it’s $20 knock off makes me feel like crying. I like the mall because not buying things there makes me feel like I have enormous self control and enviable fiscal responsibility. I walk through and say to myself Look at all these things I did not buy! I am saving so much money! I am a fiscal rock star!

This time I was at the mall to buy things. A thing. I was there for my Chucks. I was going to get the Chucks and I was going to leave. In, out. Do you know how many stores there are at the mall? And how many of those stores stood between me and my Chucks? And how much stuff they sell that you can’t buy at Target? There was an entire store dedicated to tea and no less than three that wanted to sell me varying degrees of chocolate and just about every store wanted to sell me cute widdle things that Tiny E probably needs very, very badly. She needs more clothes. Cute, seasonal clothes! Beautifully embroidered tailored tee-shirts that say Li’l Pumpkin and gorgeous, smocked holiday dresses. There was not one single smocked dress or embroidered tee at Ross... It feels different to not buy because there is nothing you want to buy, then you just feel thwarted.

I finally bought my Chucks (cute!!) and tried to find my car. It’s not so early in the season that you can still find your car in the parking lot.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

$700 bill?


Wall Street  now says  it needs a  trillion ...
Oh, really...

McCain propose postponing VP debate as well
Shopping

Dear Izaak,

I just got back from Target, and I  have to ask you to step away from the Nick at Nite  and Mad Men . Check out The Hills, 30 Rock something, anything set in the now. You have created an entire collection clearly inspired by the couture of Ethel Mertz . I can’t and don’t want to imagine that there are enough people out who want to look like Ethel Mertz to support a zillion Targets across the land stocked with zillions of rejected costume ideas from I Love Lucy. I  myself, do not want to live in a costume drama. Love, Diana.

The IM section at Target is made up of all the really drab clothes that don’t show up in vintage stores because they appear too dated; A Red belted shirt dress is retro, a brown belted shirt dress is dated. And ugly. Mizrahi can call it Spanish Brown all he wants, brown is brown is brown Spanish, Dutch, French it’s all the same brown. If you have any hint at all that the dress style was once featured on The Waltons? It’s a sartorial mistake.

And, not only brown and dated but also featureing the return of the Peter Pan collar! I mean really the Peter Pan collar it’s just so wrong. I was looking through the most recent Bust Magazine and they had models wearing dresses that Cindy Brady would have dismissed as being too over-the-top! Baby doll dresses on non-baby non-dolls do not move us forward as a gender. And they make you look fat. They had these peter pan collars on models who looked very self satisfied about the superiority of their play lists and they were dressed like Cindy Brady! It’s not right, and not later season Brady Bunch Cindy but like first season Cindy! She drinks now and I blame it on spending those years in baby doll dresses with peter pan collars.

Anyway.

I was being horrified at Target and fearing for my gender for at least the next season because I was on a mission. Well, being horrified and fearing for my gender over the next season was not really a part of my mission, I was on a mission because I was looking for teeny widdle Chuck Taylors. Red. High tops. Size 6. Toddler. Target had many Chuck Taylors but not red high tops size 6 toddler. No high tops to speak of at all. I was very disappointed. I could have scored some red sparkly Mary Janes - But I am on shopping probation and scoreing red, sparkly Mary Janes was not what I was there for and if I was going to buy shoes, I needed to buy only the shoes I was in the market for. I really like the idea of sparkly red Mary Janes for Tiny E but  Tiny E does not want sparkly red Mary Janes. Tiny E wants red Chuck Taylor high tops. The search continued.

Payless had nothing, Rack Room had high tops but not in red or size 6, The Foot Locker had them in adult sizes but no childrens, Ross had children’s shoes but no Chucks, I have exhausted my discount choices, I’m going to resort to shopping retail.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

The Hell?

John McCain suspends campaigning to work on economy, requests postponing Friday debate; asks Obama do the same.

Not ready John?
Sounds of Silence


Now that I am back, I think I’m going to miss the silence the most. No sirens, no idiots on micro-bikes, no revving engines no bus air breaks, the cross walks didn’t chirp and there wasn’t a single car stereo doctored to make my windows shake. If someone drove past your house they greeted you with their actual voice instead of their car horn.

This year we had a phone as a special guest star and that was a little intrusive like all special guest stars inevitably are. There wasn’t supposed to be a phone, there hadn’t been a phone in years but suddenly, there was a phone and every time it rang (seven times) we jumped. It was also the only phone number in the world that was not listed on the do not call list. It was a little off putting that all these strangers knew my phone number and I didn’t. I don’t like not knowing my own phone number. It also didn’t ring like a phone so it was twice as intrusive as a regular phone. It was living with a microwave with a dial tone.

Three weeks and not a single siren or honking horn. The thwocking of the coast guard helicopter was intrusive but it was looking for potential bodies so it was intrusive in an interesting, potentially gossipy kind of way and it’s not like you hear thwocking a lot, well maybe you do, perhaps you are haunted by thwocking maybe for you it’s nothing day after day but thwocking, thwocking, thwocking morning noon and night and you are soothed siren song of sirens. I don’t know how that could possibly be or where you live to be surrounded by thwocks, but where I am, I hear more sirens than I do thwocks. I for one would welcome the occasional thwock if it would mean a break from the sirens.

Oh, occasionally there would be a clank or bang from the ore dock but that happened maybe once a day and it seemed to happen at just about the moment you might start wondering of there was somewhere you could adjust the audio. I spend several hours wandering in the forest and the loudest thing I would heard was an angry chipmunk. Real pains in the ass, bitch, bitch, bitch. Total drama queens.

One day on the beach, it was warm, the water was completely still and there was almost no wind. I sat on the beach with my book and it was like wearing very expensive noise-damping earphones without the embarrassing earphone hair or the fact that people will see you sitting in public wearing large noise damping earphones. I understand why people wear those on planes but doesn’t it just sort of say to your seat mate Hi. I assume you are going to be annoying and intrusive, even if by chance you are not, I don’t even want to listen to you breath.. Ipods also allow you to ignore the world but at least it says Hi. I’m listening to music instead of you not I would rather listen to nothing than listen to you.

It’s a fine point.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO  TINY E!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR TINY EEEEE!!!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!!!

2 YEARS OLD TODAY!!

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Home again

I came home and discovered I had left my mad HTML skilz somewhere along the way, possibly in one of the 10,000 rest stops we utilized Trying again. I spent hours posting them, it would be really  nice if people could actually see them.

Well the first day back wasn't bad, it was a Monday, so it sucked out of the gate, but as Mondays go it was okay. It was more than "okay" really because my co-workers had a Welcome Back! Never Leave Again! party for me! and it was really nice. I learned to really dread coming back from vacation because in years past I came back and would be greeted by six mail bins full of filing and at least two fires that needed to be out out right now! Fires that could have been put out much sooner but it would have required doing something in my absence and that was not possible. My co-workers could have pitched in and helped me out but it was made clear to me that such tasks were beneath them and they preferred spending their down time engaged in tasks more suitable to their stations, like staring into space for hours or spending the afternoon rearranging their desk tops.

I was told that college graduates don't file. The fact that I was also a college graduate and yet, I managed to file was lost on them. Bitches.

My new workmates on the other hand, did my job while I was gone. They griped and complained and whined the whole time but they did it and before I left they all sat with me and learned how to do it and then they threw a party for me when I came back. My old workmates threw things at me.

I handed out my Thank You For Doing My Job gifts and one of my co-workers took me aside and told me she asked how my vacation was and I was all "Well, it was hot at first and then it got really cold and we didn't have a lot of sunny days and I only had one day on the beach but it was still beautiful and Dogger and The Kitty and I had a great time". And after that she told me she had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. She went on to tell me all about what treatment she had all ready had and what her options are and about meeting with oncologists and radiologists and to be totally honest after she said "I have been diagnosed with breast cancer" everything just kind of shut down and I couldn't hear her anymore. All I heard was Caaaaaannnnnccccceeeeerrrr, caa caa nnnnn cccccc eeeeee rrrrr. I said "Sorry".

What was I supposed to say? What should I have said? I know she was unhappy with our boss because she didn't step to last week while she was hospitalized like my friend thought she should have. She was really pissed she didn't get a card or a phone call. She told me that the week before that, while she was sitting at my desk she removed the pirate themed plastic skull toy I had sitting over my computer monitor "Because you know, I have cancer now". That struck me as really funny the way she said it and I had to repeat cancercancercancer to myself to keep from laughing. I am a bad person.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Friday Cat Blogging

Friday, September 12, 2008

Friday Cat Blogging

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Today is September 11, 2008

On Tuesday September 11, 2001, 3000+  of our citizens and most of or civil liberties were murdered by the Taliban.

Monday, September 8, 2008

Well, yes...

When it's overcast you don't have nearly the problem with glare as you do when its sunny all the time...

Friday, September 5, 2008

No spell check

We were still unloading the truck when the Thwack, thwack, thwack started.  It thwacked up and down the beach and around the island and then thwacked off. Oh we said Must have been a training exersice. Good for them. and then it came back.

Thwack, thwack, thwack,  red helicopters low and close to the shore.  They wern't training, they were looking for something...

 The water is very cold and does not host the botony that warmer water does, if you sink you stay down. The worst case scenrio is always that the "doll" you thought you saw in the rocks, was not actually a doll... Many summers there has been signs taped to store windows drecting fishernen to call the Coast Guard if they catch Tom or Dick in their nets 

We asked the neighbors and this reveled that what they were looking for had gone out onto the lake in a canvase khyak in a south wind and now the coast guard knew where the khyak was but not the couple. The water is very cold and once in the water you need to get out of the water very, very quickly because you can and will drown but not before you could freeze to death. You can flirt with the lake but you can't go steady and you must aways practice safe swim. A full body condom available on the market as a "wet suit" is your best bet for serious swimming.

Later rumor said the couple had not drowned at all but had gone AWOL and were safe if chastened.

It was hot and then it got cold and now it is still cold. And overcast. And windy.
Friday Cat Blogging

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Dear All,

Having great time, wish you were here!

PS - Bring a coat