%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |  Where am I going, and why am I in this handbasket? |
|
Fair Warning: I've upped the rating on this blog. It is now set at GC. |
| My eyes are not working right. My pupils are contracted down into tiny little dots and my vision is strained and blurry. I don't know what that's about, but it makes it difficult to work on the computer. I would say that it might be a result of my son poking me in the eye with a pencil, but they were like this before that happened. I'm just glad he poked me with the eraser end and not the point. I got my snow delay this morning, but not as much as I'd have liked. The office opened at 10, and since we had a weather delay, we were all permitted to wear jeans. I don't know why that matters, but I'm a blue jeans girl and I always feel better about going to work when I get to wear jeans.  The roads were a mess! The snow changed into sleet, freezing rain and then just plain old rain. It poured and there was nowhere for the water to go. It filled the snow flanked streets. The storm drains where too chocked with slush to do their work. But I made it in to work, and it turns out that was a good thing. They occasionally do fund raisers at work to buy paper products and other niceties for the communal kitchen. The most recent fundraiser was a 50/50 raffle. Fifty percent of the money earned in ticket sales is donated and the other half is the raffle prize. Well, guess who won the 50/50? Go ahead . . . guess!  Woohoo! I won $64! Okay, I have to get of the computer now because of my eyes. The rest will have to keep. The kids already have a 2 hour delay for tomorrow, but I doubt I'll get that lucky again.  |
| Woohoo! It is snowing. My office shut down at 2:00 due to inclement weather. Tomorrow we will probably open late . . . maybe noon. Silly as it seems, a little break like that really helps the week fly by. Oh yeah, I also met a deadline today at work. It was a deadline that has been looming over me, and today I met it . . . by the skin of my teeth. Yeah, having interns is great. I don't know how I ever got along without them. So today has been good. Maybe I'm over the brooding thing for now. All of your comments certainly helped! I just love that y'all responded in the third person. And you think I've cracked! Have a lovely evening. I'm laying off the 'puter tonight, but I'll catch up with you tomorrow. |
| Kay is brooding. Brooding is one of the few things at which Kay excels. That, and writing about herself in the third person. Unfortunately, a late night of brooding has Kay feeling a bit cranky today. It's true. I've been brooding. I can't even promise that I'm done yet. Since it is something I'm good at, I like to set aside a little time each month to keep my skills sharp, and folks, it is that time of the month. I'm feeling flat, fatigued and indifferent. I'm not particularly supportive of my husbands activities. What I am is worn down. Tony pretty much gets his way, and isn't above using deceit to get it. I tolerate it because I don't know what else to do with it. Because I can't seem to stop it, and because I can't think of good reasons to want him around more. Wow, I'm really on a roll with this self pity crap tonight. I don't feel sorry for myself though. Annoyed is more the word I would use. I'm annoyed at myself for acquiescing. Our plan has been simple.  I support Tony through school.   Tony Graduates  Tony gets licensed We're working on it. Tony gets a Full time job which relieves me of my responsibility for supporting the family and keeping us in health care benefits thus allowing me to cut back my hours and go back to school to pursue my own dreams and aspirations.That last one will probably never happen. I see that now, and I think I probably knew it all along. Sure, he might get a full time job, but it will be miserable and short lived. They all are. I can't even work up any anger over it. Maybe a bit of resentment, but even that rings hollow. Once Tony gets licensed, we will no longer be working toward a common purpose. I think that will be a test of our marriage. Struggling is one thing when you struggle together toward a goal. It strengthens the bonds. When you start to struggle against each other . . . well that doesn't work so well. It is entirely possible that Kay is full of shit. You see, Kay is good at making excuses. It is right up there on the list of talents along with brooding and writing about herself in the third person. It is possible that Kay's hubby is capable of being a lot more supportive than she gives him credit for. It is possible that Kay is just a chicken-shit about making changes and taking risks. Allowing her husband to be a self-centered asshole just gives her an excuse for staying right were she is. It is also possible that Kay is experiencing a sleep deprived delirium in which case this entry will be marked private tomorrow when she recovers her wits. |
| Tony flew back from Florida this morning. He made it back earlier than expected and that was a good thing because later in the afternoon we had a series of wicked snow squalls. The schools have already announced a two hour delay for the morning. I hate when they do that before bedtime. It makes it hard to get kids to go to sleep. I not in much of a mood to be writing at the moment. Tony's trip went very well and his instructor was impressed by how well he teaches. Well, Tony has been a martial arts instructor for almost 14 years. He is good at what he does. His instructor was so impressed that he asked him to do another seminar next month in Ohio. Suddenly my dream of Tony working a steady full time job seems to be dying. Tony doesn't want steady employment he wants the freedom to experience new opportunities. If he is working full time he won't have the luxury of taking off to teach seminars. Sigh. Tony's instructor told Tony that he would like to meet me. He thinks I must be an amazingly tolerant and understanding woman. "All the people I meet say the same thing. They all tell me that I'm very lucky to be married to someone like you," he said. I laughed. "What does that say about you? If all the people you know talk about how tolerant I must be, what does that tell you?" "I know," he said, "and I do feel lucky." I must be crazy. |
| Today is Zack’s ninth birthday. My baby is nine!  Tony had to leave early this morning to catch his flight down to Florida, so we all got up early this morning (even though it damn near killed me) so Zack could open presents before his Daddy left. Unfortunately, he also found out what cartoons are on at 6 AM and now he wants to get up at that time every day! Well too bad! I don’t! I took off early from work so I could be home when he got off the bus, and I hustled him through his homework so we could celebrate by going out to dinner. Woohoo! We got the full birthday dinner experience with the singing waitstaff and the whole nine yards. Of course, it was pretty funny because our poor waiter had trouble getting anyone to sing with him. I could hear him trying to recruit beg the others to sing with him. He definitely earned his tip, and Zack was thrilled. We came home and ate cupcakes and played Rock’em Sock’em Robots. It is funny how things seem more relaxed with Tony gone. Tony is more intense, and emotive. Life would be dull without him around, but it is always interesting to see what we are without him around. I think of us as jell-o held in a mold. When you take Tony out of the picture, it is like taking away the mold before the jell-o is really set. We can’t hold the shape and we become a sort of amorphous blob. LOL! Yeah, that paints a pretty picture. Its fun to be a blob for a few days, but Tony did call Katie on her cell phone when she got home from school to nag her about homework, walking the dog and emptying the dishwasher for her mother. And here she was looking forward to missing him. Note: I don’t usually enter back to back blog entries, but there was no way I could bring myself to cross from one line of thought to the next in a single entry, so I made two separate entries for this date. |
| Tony asked me to pick up saline solution for him while I was at the store yesterday. “What exactly do you want?” I asked. “What kind?” “It doesn’t matter, just saline.” I don’t wear contacts. I don’t know anything about the various solutions needed for contact upkeep, cleaning, disinfecting, adhesion or what have you. What I do know is that I never manage to buy the right thing. “Just saline?” “Yes. Just saline.” So off I went to the store. I found the aisle of contact lens stuff and . . . Ah Hell! That’s a lot of product. “Saline,” I told myself, “just saline.” I walked the aisle muttering my crazed little mantra and growing increasingly annoyed. There wasn’t any “JUST SALINE!” It was all multipurpose solution, and enzymes, and disinfectants. Crap! What the hell is multipurpose solution anyway? I read three or four boxes, but nothing said “saline.” Finally I found a lone box that was clearly labeled as saline. Eureka! I grabbed the bottle and fled the store. So last night when Tony was getting ready for bed, he asked for the saline. I handed him the box that I had unearthed from the furthest end of the bottom-most shelf, of the darkest corner, of the . . . yeah, you get the idea. It hadn’t been easy to find. “What’s this?” he asked with a puzzled expression. It seemed pretty evident to me, but I obligingly filled in the missing pieces for him. “It's saline.” “Oh.” Maybe it was my imagination. Maybe I was projecting my own emotions on to him, but it sseemed to me that he was . . . annoyed? disenchanted? ungrateful? an insensitive asshole incapable of clear communication. So my volume might have raised up a little. “You told me to get just saline! And that was the only bottle of 'just saline' in the entire store! Everything else was multipurpose solution.” “Multipurpose solution would have been better.” “Then why didn’t you ask for THAT!” “Because I didn’t know they still made this crap." MEN!   |
| Everyday is an opportunity to learn new things. Here are some of the lessons I learned today. 1. The grocery store gets really busy on Superbowl Sunday. Sunday is when I do the food shopping. Me and everyone else in the twin boroughs and vicinity. Yikes! It was crowded at the store and then all the registered crashed. The lines were unreal and no one was the beep, beep, beep of the scanners was silent for a good 15 minutes possibly longer while they rebooted the entire system. I don't know exactly how long it took because I wasn't looking impatiently at the time. Which brings us to number two. 2. Good company can make waiting fun. I ran in to some folks I don't get to see often and they jumped in the line next to mine. We chatted and exchanged news while we waited. It took my mind off the fact that I was trapped in the crowded store with hordes of pissed off, put out shoppers. 3. There's no good way to tell your husband that you don't want his mother to come to your child's birthday party. Zack has a Birthday on Tuesday, but since Tony is going to Florida, we are going to wait and have his party on the 17th. I tried a couple times to suggest that it would be better to have a separate get together with his family, but he wasn't taking the hint. Finally I had to just come right out and tell him not to invite his Mom. We are having the party at my mother's house and Tony's Mom is insulting to my mother (she's insulting to a lot of us, really, but we're used to it). Tony ultimately thanked me for telling him, but I don't think it was easy for him to accept. 4. There are some bright points about having my husband go away to Florida. I can get pretty pissy at the thought that I'm going to have to get up with my daughter in the mornings (she gets up WAY earlier than I do), but I'm trying to focus on the positives. For example, I think that I will hide the TV remote and just pretend that the set is broken for the week. 5. Escapism is tough on the elbows. I have sore elbows. LOL. When everything got so loud yesterday I went back to the bedroom with a book and hid out there. I have a tiny little bedroom, so there is no comfy reading chair back there. I read on the bed. Apparently the way I was propping myself up on my elbows to read caused some strain.  This last one is lame, I know, but I was trying to round out a list of five. So what did you learn today? |
| People complain about the roads in Pennsylvania. They are the butt of many jokes, and a statewide embarrassment. The roads are riddled with patches and pock marks that wreck havoc on car alignments. Crumbling shoulders, missing guard rails, and the occasional sinkhole further add to the rustic character of the roads from the humblest country lane to PA Turnpike itself. In a word they suck. Still, on a day like today when motorists are confronted with a couple inches of sleet followed by heavy rains, it possible to appreciate the roads. The potholes are more than imperfections, they provide PA roadways with a unique texture . . . a bit of extra traction if you will. |
| I figured out why yesterday felt so strange. It wasn't Thursday. I know, I know, but I went all day thinking it was. Even accused a whole mess of people of blowing off a meeting I had scheduled for Thursday afternoon. Only this morning did I realized it wasn't Friday which consequently meant that yesterday was not Thursday. Strange. And all day today I was getting weird flashes of deja vu. It felt like I'd already experienced this day. In the news... Police brought in helicopters and cadaver dogs and widened the search for human remains. Seems they haven't fully recovered the victim yet. They have however decided that there was foul play involved and they are investigating it as a homicide. Also making headlines today. My good pal Louie D! You might remember Louie D. from previous blog entries including "Invalid Entry"  and "Invalid Entry" Louie's been a bad boy. Sorry, he's allegedly been a bad boy. He is now charged with 4 counts of perjury. Turns out the grand jury believes he was lying about his connections to organized crime, and they think they have proof. He has not been arrested yet, but will give himself up to police in the next few days. In the meantime, the state gaming commission SUSPENDED his casino's gaming license; however, the casino will continue to operate. Louie D. is not permitted to profit from, make any decisions regarding, or even set foot on the premises of the casino. Thankful his daughter is one of the managers and can make sure both the spirit and the letter of those orders are upheld. So, I'm sure you are all wondering what tipped Louie D's hand. How did they ever figure out he was lying? Well, it turns out that local Scranton wise guy William D'Elia, who himself is incarcerated on charges of money laundering and conspiring to kill a witness, testified as to the nature of his relationship with Louie. Tokens were exchanged. Louie D. once gave D'Elia his late father's rosary. Also, Louie D. attended D'Elia's daughters wedding. Still, Louie D. contends that he did not make any false statements when he testified that he and D'Elia had never met. He remains confident that he will be cleared of all charges. He'd better hope so. If found guilty he may lose his gaming license permanently AND forfeit the $50 million dollar licensing fee. Thank God he paid cash for that license. It'd be a real bitch if he'd financed it. So in the spirit of Jeff Foxworthy's You Might be a Redneck shtick, I thought I might try a you might be a Wise Guy list. Top 5 things that might tip off the Grand Jury that you have connections to organized crime. 1. You purchase a state gaming license for 50 million dollars in small non-sequential bills packed into multiple briefcases. 2. The security detail for the transfer of funds is a well armed entourage of Tommy gun toting thugs. 3. You own a landfill 4. The landfill is the final resting place for several former associates 5. A well known crime boss once gave you his ring because you admired it so. Alright, enough of that silliness. Y'all have a good night. |
| Have you ever had a day that felt like a vivid dream, a day that seem too surreal . . . too disjointed to fall in line with the grand procession of days marching past. I had one of those today. I was a little late for work this morning. We have strong gusty winds here today, and a large bucket blew into the path of my car. I couldn’t avoid it, so I hit the bucket. It got stuck, of course, in the undercarriage. I dragged it there for a few 100 yards hoping it might dislodge. No luck. And why, may I ask, do I respond to all such road emergencies by turning down the volume on the radio? What is accomplished by that? Was I afraid I might drown out the horrible scrapping noise of dragging a 5 gallon bucket down the road? I pulled over on the side of the road to better assess the situation. There was a bucket. It was stuck under the car, and I was standing in the rain (it HAD to be raining) looking at it. Having acquired a more thorough understanding of the situation, I jumped back in the car. It occurred to me that I had two options: forward, or reverse. I crept the car very slowly forward and was soon free of the now battered bucket. Hooray! When I arrived at work, the usual suspects were running through their morning chatter. Accept, I noticed something different. Instead of reliving the finest moments from this week’s reality television shows, they were discussing the best manner in which to dispose of a dead body. You see, we have a local murder mystery unfolding, and reality trumps Reality TV (at least in this case). Yesterday PennDot crews (that is the Pennsylvania department of transportation for those of you not in the know) were treating the interstate in preparation for some freezing rain. While the crews were working, they discovered garbage bags with human remains including, but obviously not limited to a severed head. The interstate was closed and a search of the area yielded a total of 8 garbage backs distributed along both the east and west bound lanes of the highway. The question on everyone’s mind? Why would a person go to all the trouble of dismembering the body only to dispose of it in such an obvious way? Hence the discussion of 101 better ways for disposing of bodies. Creepy. Fortunately the macabre discussion wound down and they instead started to develop plans for a business that would harvest ink from squids. I’m not entirely sure that part wasn’t a dream. When I came home for lunch I was startled to see a cat crouched on the bank of the creek, preparing to pounce. It wasn’t the usual neighborhood cat. This was one of the BIG cats. You might remember me having some trouble with these destructive beasts over the summer. Well, they are back, and they are making me nervous as they sit in silent stillness waiting for the right moment to pounce. Here’s a picture of the cat from the summer. I think this might be the same one. "Invalid Item" Okay, I’m going to post this and go to bed early tonight. The unexpected can be tiring. |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
