Tag: writing

Day Trip

I wouldn’t normally call a trip to a store a day trip, but then a trip to IKEA is not a normal stop by any figment of the imagination. I used to think that a trip to Sam’s Club after eleven in the morning was crazy enough, but that was before I went to IKEA. Oh my god, is that place a zoo or what? As we waited in line to turn into the parking lot, my first thought was to just keep going, that nothing is worth this madness, but no we waited patiently to turn into the parking lot so that we could drive very slowly about three miles an hour in a long line of cars hoping for the sight of taillights lighting up on a parked car before the guy in front of us did. We circled the building and quite by accident we ran across an empty parking spot next to a parked tractor trailer. Snagging it we then had to walk around the building to the other side to go in the entrance. There were even security guards acting as parking attendants directing the madness and keeping road rage to a minimum.

Once inside it was no better, worse I would say, because now there were all of the occupants in the parked cars running amok in the building. There is even a play center to dump your kids in while you wander around in the maze the store has designed to force you to go through departments you have no desire or need to go to. The playroom for kids was filled to capacity and there was a waiting line, which meant there were kids running around out of control just like their parents, adding to the melee. People would walk along the path through the departments sort of like the yellow brick road until they see something that catches their interest, then they would just stop in these big groups blocking the expanse of the yellow brick road, only it was gray I think. I kept looking for an escape route and Mitch kept pulling me back. He didn’t want to die alone.

I have to admit there were a lot of cool things in there. We found a couple of chairs that were very reasonably priced, I found a desk that raised to a standing position or was easily lowered to a seated position and since I work from home, this was a must. We also found some really cool window panels, but it was the chaos of the crush of people that made the biggest impression on me.

I learned that you never go to IKEA on the weekend, not unless you have already been drinking and then you will end up with a huge credit card bill. Of course that isn’t the worst of the whole ordeal. You pick out what you want, then you have to go to the warehouse where you have to wander through aisles and aisles for the items of choice, (god forbid if you wrote the numbers down incorrectly) figure out how to get the one thing you want off the top shelf then get it to the other end of the warehouse to pay for all of your finds.

After you pay for everything you have a couple of choices, you can either go get the car, drive through the traffic jam to pull into the designated loading area and load your car or you can push your cart out to the parking lot and dodge cars backing up to leave and cars that will run you down to get to the vacant parking spot. We chose the latter and after almost getting run down by another guy pushing his cart out to his car and a man who couldn’t get out of the parking lot fast enough, we made to our car. As we started unloading our cart a woman pulled up and asking if we were leaving, so she could wait for our spot.

What a day.

Photo Shot Sunday

These are some of the photos I took on my last hiking excursion. It was a beautiful Sunday.

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Definitely not on my Bucket List

I don’t really have a Bucket List, mainly because I haven’t done or been hardly anyplace and I want to see and do so much, a Bucket List isn’t necessary. I want to go hiking more, drink more wine, take more pictures and on and on and on. But there is one thing that is not something I want to experience ever again. Oh there are lots of things I don’t to experience, this is just one of them.

I had the distinct displeasure of getting to experience Salmonella Poisoning this week. Not only did I get to experience it one day, but I have gotten to experience for the last five days and after I finally figured out what this might be, I will get to live with this for probably another week or so. If I’m wrong in my self-diagnosis, I may be miserable for even longer. Yay. I’ve never had Salmonella so I’m not one hundred percent sure that this is Salmonella, I’m just guessing. Of course, if it’s not Salmonella, then I have a bigger problem, maybe. If I’m right I should recover within a week or so, if not then I guess it’s time to find a doctor. God knows I wouldn’t want to rush into anything.

I think I got Salmonella from eating bad eggs. Oh and I have been eating the eggs from the same carton of eggs for the last five days and so has Orso. I cook two egg whites every morning then cook the yolks and give them to Orso. So far he hasn’t experienced any discomfort, but then Mitch pointed out that he also eats dead things. It didn’t occur to me that eggs could be the problem until I went online and read up on Salmonella Poisoning. I kept going over everything I’ve eaten for the last five days, trying different things, like not taking a certain vitamin (even though I’ve been taking the same ones for years) or blaming not enough wine (can you get enough wine?) and the only common food I had eaten for the last five days is eggs.

Who knows, maybe it was just one of the eggs I ate or it could be the whole carton. I haven’t been playing with any lizards or snakes, so that’s out and I don’t hang out with chickens, making me think I’m pretty safe on my hypothesis. As far as food poisoning goes, from what I’ve read, Salmonella is not one of the worst and most people recover from it after about a week without any special treatment or medication. Lucky me, maybe only seven days to go.

Undo

I wish I had an undo option. If I had an indo button, I could fix my stupid mistakes with a simple push of the undo button. Wouldn’t that be something special, being able to hit the undo button? Think of the possibilities. Think back through your life and all the times you said to yourself, “I wish I hadn’t done that, said that or eaten that. With an undo button you could have a second chance at getting it right. I don’t think that every mistake or misspoken word should be undoable, just the really big ones.

You have the chance to undo the harsh words you spoke to your husband or wife or child just because you were tired or frustrated from work. You could undo the night at the bar where you drank too much and woke up with someone you’ve never seen before. Or you could undo eating the super large slice of cheesecake before it ended up on your hips. There are so many undo’s waiting out there.

For me I would have been able to undo some of my biggest blunders in life. Like the time I thought a perm would be a good thing. Yeah right, a perm on a woman with naturally curly hair. Not a really bright idea. I looked like a thirty something woman with a very tight afro. I had almost shoulder length hair that was curled so tight I looked like I stuck my finger in a light socket. It took almost six months for the permed hair to grow out enough to be all cut off.

Or maybe the time I got in a hurry driving out of the airport and instead of being patient and letting the rental car bus get in front of me I decided to hit the gas in my firebird. A really bad idea since my tires were well worn and the road was wet. I lost traction and started to fishtail. I overcorrected and spun out right in front of the rental car bus and slid across the road tearing up two tires and two wheels. To add to my embarrassment the first one to stop to check on us was a deputy director of the aviation department. Yes sir, definitely an undo.

As a teenager growing up I did lots of really dumb things. Some I needed to do to learn and grow from but some I would undo. I started smoking cigarettes when I thirteen and didn’t quit until I was in my thirties – definitely an undo. I didn’t apply myself in school like I should have or go to college. I would definitely undo that, slap myself upside the head and make me buckle down and get my degree. I was smart enough, just didn’t push myself like I should have. I should have listened to my parents better, but that goes with each generation. My parents didn’t listen to their parents and my children didn’t listen to me, just wait until their children get older, that is something I wouldn’t change even if I could. Everyone should have some regrets and insights from their flubs. But some would be awesome if we could wipe them out and start over.

People Watching

Another business trip and more people watching. This is rapidly becoming my favorite thing to do and as soon as I master my Gopro I will share some videos of my finds. Because our airport is always so busy I get to the airport extra early and hang out until my flight boards. This affords me ample people watching and with practice I am becoming quite the “professional voyeur”.

Sitting next to me also waiting for boarding to begin, was an elderly woman who had just made it through security and was not pleased with the amount of time it took to get through the checkpoint. She also was not adept at using her cell phone. She tried repeatedly to leave a voicemail to her son without much success evidently, either that or he got the benefit of listening to the same voicemail four times. She held the phone in front of her and spoke into it like a walkie talkie, so all of us around had the privilege of getting to hear the same message four times. Now I know where she fills her prescriptions and that it takes a long time to get through security. (Good to know).

Another passenger that was flying with me was a man I assume was in his late twenties to mid-thirties. He was tall and normal sized about one hundred fifty pounds with hair long enough to pull back in a ponytail. He was wearing shorts, short sleeved T-shirt and a vest, so far as attire goes, there was nothing special about him. What really caught my eye and almost drop my jaw, was his roller board carry on. He was pulling a small hard case roller board that was shaped like a pirate chest complete with pirate chest graphics. There was jewels hanging out and pirate swords next to the chest in the design. So cool if you are a ten year old boy. He dragged it behind him with his head held high like it was what his main piece of luggage. And all I had was a briefcase and a black tote, I definitely need to up my game.

On the return trip home I was seated in the aisle seat one row behind and across a man who as soon as we took off and leveled out, dropped his tray table and pulled out a brown paper bag from Noodles & Company. From the bag he extracted a round bowl about 8 inches in diameter filled to the top of the bowl with noodles and chicken. Then he reached back down into the paper bag and pulled out a pair of chopsticks. I sat there in awe watching him dig into the bowl with the chopsticks grab some noodles then stuff it in his mouth. He didn’t drop any of the food once, quite an accomplishment while flying in a plane air turbulence and so little elbow room.

What really surprised me was not that the man was able to eat food with chopsticks but that he didn’t stop eating for the entire three and a half hour flight. As soon as he was done eating the noodle dish, he tore the corner off of the free pretzels and ate them. But no, he didn’t eat the pretzels like the rest of us, you know we mere mortals tear open the package, pour the pretzels into our palm and put them in our mouth one or two at a time. He would push one pretzel up to the open corner and put each little pretzel square in his mouth by bringing the bag up to his mouth to biting on the pretzel. He did the same thing with a very large chocolate bar in his lunch bag. He tore to end of the package off and fished the bar up and took a bite, chewed, then pushed up the bar a bit more and repeated the process until it was gone.

After the candy bar, he poured granola mix into his drink glass and ate the granola by tipping the glass up and into his mouth, like you would if you were eating the ice out of your glass. After the granola it was a bag of pistachios. These he had to touch because the pistachios were still in the shell. I couldn’t believe how much food he carried on the plane. I was stuffed just watching him eat and he was not a large person, fairly normal sized, probably five foot eleven inches or so and about one hundred sixty pounds. I wish I had his metabolism, because I ate everything he ate for three hours, I would be so miserable and seriously overweight.

Aww, the joys of flying.

First Impressions

We met our next door neighbor on the other side of the house today. On a scale of one to ten on first impressions, I think we scored a minus five. Orso was outside with us while Mitch was assembling our new mower so I could cut the grass and I was going in and out dragging more boxes and containers in the house to unpack. Orso was just hanging out lying in the grass being good until he decided it was time to explore the neighborhood. I looked up and no Orso, Mitch went through the house checking each room and no Orso. I checked the backyard and side yard, no Orso. Great, we’ve lost our dog in a new foreign neighborhood.

Mitch stood out in the street scanning the other houses and yards, searching for a missing hundred pound brown dog. Our next door neighbor walked to the end of her driveway and asked Mitch if he was looking for a big brown Labrador. Mitch said yes he was. I had just walked to the end of our driveway when I heard her response.

She said, “Well he just took a great big crap in my yard.” Oh yay.

I turned around and went back inside to get a poop bag, thinking great just great, now she hates us. I walked out to see Orso standing next to Mitch looking quite pleased with himself.

She said, “He is quite friendly, he walked right up to me wagging his tail, but you never know with a strange dog how they might act.”

We stood there talking to her trying to be polite and hope that the future would not be judged by this initial meeting. I held Orso’s collar so he couldn’t wander off and poop again or worse. Just when I thought things might not be that bad, Orso shook his head and splattered her with a big long tendril of slobber. She looked down at her arm and Orso, probably wandering if his drool was toxic or caused cancer. All I could do was stand there and apologize. I looked around for a sinkhole or large rock to hide under, but no, nothing that easy was going to help me get away from this moment in time.

First Orso poops in her yard, then he showers her in dog drool, the only thing he hasn’t done yet is hike his leg and pee on her. At this point I wasn’t sure that wasn’t about to happen. I’m sure we are going to be great friends.

One Week In

We have been in our new home for one week now. The place is only partially a disaster. The garage is half filled with full boxes and the living room is half filled with empty boxes. So you could say I’m halfway there. We only have window coverings on the master bedroom patio door, the rest of the windows throughout the house are uncovered and bare it all. Needless to say, showering is a bit awkward. But we’re getting there, slowly but surely.

The neighbors that we’ve met are all very nice and friendly, Orso is trying to make friends with Gunner, the black lab across the street. Gunner is a little overwhelmed by this big goofy dog that just wants to be buds, something Orso hasn’t had for a long time. There is a series of trails at the end of the road by or house that is secluded so we can let Orso off leash to run around to his heart’s content.

The neighborhood is quiet and secluded, the road to our home is long and almost half a mile from the main road, plus it is a dead end so there is not much traffic coming or going. All in all a very quiet area, a complete opposite to apartment living. I walk Orso at four in the morning and all I hear is bull frogs in the pond across the road.

One week in and today I didn’t get arrested or shot, but for a minute it was touch and go. I like to consider myself fairly smart and savvy, I watch all the crime drama shows and I’m quite comfortable around guns and shooting. But today I was wearing my dumb hat. I took Orso for a walk this afternoon and as I walking down the road I saw a pickup truck stopped on the side of the road up ahead. He started backing up then stopped and just stayed there idling on the side of the road. It didn’t feel right so I decided to turn down a side road instead of walking past the truck.

About a third of the way down the side road, I heard all of these sirens coming toward me and thought it was a fire truck, but no I turned around and saw a car coming toward me with a light bar on top. The first car was a police car, the second one was a county sheriff’s car and at the end of the road was another sheriff’s car stopped. All had their lights flashing. Another sheriff’s car pulled up and turned into the neighborhood down the road from our neighborhood. I counted five cars, a mix of local police and county sheriff’s deputies and here I am walking a dog on a lonely road with no way to get out of the line of fire. Lucky me.

I walked passed the car that was parked on the side of the road and as soon as I got in front of the police car, the officer inside turned the car sideways to block the road. That made me feel much, better, (not) now we’re in between the two cars that were blocking the intersection and the midway point. Oh goody, now I’m going to get caught in the crossfire, if something happens. As I got closer to the sheriff’s car I got hit with a major hot flash and unzipped my jacket. Even as I was unzipping the zipper I had this inner thought that I was being very stupid, but couldn’t stop myself.

As I got to the intersection and turned the corner to head home, I see two men walking toward me with a dog. So what did I do but something extra special stupid. Right in front of the deputy sheriff I reached into my pocket to pull out a handful of dog treats to keep Orso’s attention on me. I caught myself at the last second and wisely pulled out the bag of kibble so that no one would see any threat and get myself shot.

I’m not sure what they were looking for, but I’m really glad they didn’t find it while I was out there with Orso. I wonder what’s up for my second week.

This is Good-Bye

So long, sayonara, see you later, hasta la vista baby! However you want to say it, it’s good bye apartment. After six long months, we finally found a house. Don’t get me wrong, the apartment is a very nice apartment, clean, large and the apartment management is super, I’m just not cut out for apartment living. I like my aloneness too much.

Soon I won’t have to listen to Big Foot clomping around one floor above me, hammering god knows what, slamming cabinet doors and playing video games with the volume all the way up until the wee hours of the morning. I won’t have neighbors that drag their dried up Christmas tree out and not sweep up the thick blanket of pine needles covering the hallway and stairs leading outside, so that we drag them into our apartment. Most of all I will have a place to walk Orso that is not along a busy street with bicyclists silently whizzing past you from behind startling both of us, causing Orso to bark and lunge at them. No more cars with drivers that don’t know their cars can really go twenty-five miles an hour, they just haven’t tried it.

You can tell when it’s time to go, things happen telling you that you’ve made the right decision. It’s time to move, when two days after you give your intent to vacate, you find a parking violation letter on the windshield of the truck, telling you that you have to move it. Never mind the fact that the truck has been sitting in the same spot for the last six months, but all of a sudden it has to be moved. Then it seems like every little thing is glaring at you, shouting at you, “Get out, run!”

Another clue came when while walking Orso that same day, a woman pulls her car out of the parking lot and stops to tell me that Orso’s urine will burn up the grass. I turned and laughed at her and the absurdity of the statement. I was so tempted to tell her yes I could understand how that could happen since we live in such an “arid” climate. I wanted to say, “Seriously, we are on track to be the wettest winter on record, we are getting rain every day. The damn worms are drowning coming out of the muddy soggy soil and you think my dog’s urine is going to burn up the grass?” Instead I just looked at her, shook my head and walked away.

Then the final hint that it is time to go came sometime late Friday night or early Saturday morning when I saw that someone stole our doormat. Can you believe it, someone came and stole our black astro-turf doormat? It’s not like we are on the main floor where you walk right up to the door and out, there are stairs involved getting to our door. I think what bothers me more is that someone was outside our door while I was asleep.

We got a notice from the complex management notifying us that someone would come in and make a “pre-move out inspection” to see what would is needed to be fixed or repaired before the apartment could be rented to someone else. In order to make a good impression, I have washed walls, vacuumed the carpet almost daily, mopped the floors and cleaned the bathrooms. There has been no damage done to the apartment, we haven’t hung any pictures or painted any walls so we’re good there and the dogs are well behaved and don’t destroy or chew up stuff. I even had the warmer on all day to put out a nice red apple scent throughout. What could go wrong?

The notice said “between 9am to 5pm”, and I waited all day for someone to come by. Dinner time came and no one had come by yet so I figured that everyone was too busy and started dinner. In order to clean out the freezer as much as I can before we move, I thought I would cook a steak for dinner. Well we still don’t have a grill yet, so I turned on the broiler in the oven. The steak was broiling away just fine when all of a sudden the grease caught on fire and smoke started rolling out of the oven and when I pulled the pan out flames shot out and climbed over the oven. I blew the flames out, but there was a lot of smoke, which set off all of the fire alarms in the apartment, I did not realize there were three fire alarms in one two bedroom apartment. Of course the fire alarms are screeching that high pitched screech and as a bonus there was a female voice yelling at us “Fire get out” over and over.

I opened the doors and fanned the smoke alarms until one by one they quit screeching. Just as I was about to sit back down to our salads, there was a knock on the door. Fully expecting the fire department at the door, there was one of our maintenance men there to do the inspection. Great, just as I try to burn down the apartment complex someone shows up to inspect the apartment for damage.

Well there goes our damage deposit.

A Challenge

I have a challenge for you. This is a toughie even though it shouldn’t be. Go stand in front of a mirror and look at yourself. Really look at yourself, from top to bottom and bottom to top, give yourself a really close look. Look deeply at every body part then look at the whole package, all put together. Now find things you love about yourself.

I did that this morning as I was finishing up putting on my makeup. I looked at the whole package, from my curly unruly hair to my badly done self-pedicure and at first glance I wasn’t particularly pleased with what I saw. Curly hair that always looks like I just got out of a convertible on a cross country road trip. Reconstructed breasts from a bilateral mastectomy complete with tattooed nipples, and contrary to the common misconception, it’s not a boob job. A stomach that is no longer taut, legs that are too short and thighs that are too big. Nothing grotesque but no super model by any figment of the wildest imagination.

Then I looked again and really looked at myself. I decided that my curly unruly hair fits me quite nicely as I am unruly and brash. I looked at my eyes and the odd color of blue that they are is quite striking. My gaze traveled down to the rest of my anatomy and decided that I don’t care that my reconstructed breasts are not perfect but at least I’m alive and cancer free. My legs are short and heavier than I would like but I can walk and get around just fine.

Then I turned inward and looked at my soul and spirit. I found a person that doesn’t take life too seriously. I am as irreverent about life as how curly my hair is. I will almost always make a wisecrack about anything sad or happy. We’re not here long enough to get too serious. I am basically an honest person and will protect my family and friends to the death. I am passionate about living the rest of my life doing things that make me happy and whole. All in all not a bad person, fairly normal.

Now it’s your turn, what do you love about yourself? The list should be long, because there is so much more to a person that what looks back at you in the mirror. Your smile, the way you tilt your head to one side or the really tight hugs you give to the people you love, these are the wonderful beautiful parts of you and should never ever be dismissed. These things are what make you perfect

Worms for Sale

I am learning a whole new lifestyle here. Winters here are not as cold as the in Midwest, wetter though with this past December as one of the wettest on record. January brought more rain, so it’s a fair assumption that the ground here is pretty saturated. This month we’ve had temperatures in the high fifties and even hit sixty a couple of days. For the most part this isn’t so bad, I would rather walk the dogs in the rain than in the bitter freezing cold in the Midwest.

The downside to all of the rain we’ve been having is earthworms are everywhere. They are coming out of the ground because it is so wet and are all over the parking lot of our apartment complex. Maybe it has to do with the landscaping or the black asphalt, I don’t know but it is so gross, walking through the parking lot and dodging hundreds of worms stretched out drowning. The worms range in size from small to night crawler size, so can you imagine what it would feel like stepping on a big squishy slimy night crawler and have your foot slip out from under you. Then you are sitting on the ground getting worm guts on your butt. Even grosser.

In order to solve this dilemma and save the earthworms from either drowning or being squished by cars or feet, I’ve come up with an enterprise that should net me millions or at least ten bucks. I am going to go out and collect all of the water logged worms dry them out and sell them on the internet. I would wrap them up in a cute little box, maybe like the Chinese takeout boxes and ship them all over the world.

This would be a great gift for the fishermen out there, kids that want to start an earthworm farm or even someone that wants to rescue worms and relocate them. Hey, they rescue everything else out there from dogs to elephants, surely someone out there cares about the fate of the lowly earthworm.