I'm in Love with the Man from Menards...

Translations:

"In Love" - Highly pleased to make the acquaintance of, and thoroughly ecstatic at the advice given by.

"Menards" - a hardware "supermarket" - like 20 hardware stores in one store.


Andy the Handyman may have been confused by my suggestion that he might be able to help me with a little problem I've been having with my bathtub/shower. The faucet doesn't 100% turn off... it drips.

Now, there is also a long-term problem that comes from the idiots who owned the house before me - who put in new plumbing but had no clue how plumbing actually WORKS. So I have this bathtub spout that hangs out about 4 inches from the wall on a bare pipe. The previous owners were.... weird. These are the same guys who put up the towel-bars with mastick.

Frankly, I've lived with the stupid faucet-on-a-stick "feature" for so long that it doesn't even really feel like a "bug" anymore. The dripping, however, NEEDS to stop.

Handy Andy, as we shall call him, as that is his name and his skill-level, told me he would have to pull down the whole wall, probably destroy the tile and all to fix the faucet. I suspect now that he probably meant the faucet-on-a-stick feature, not the actual dripping problem.

The fine gentleman at Menards informed me that if I can get the water turned off, and then take off the faucet handle-thingy, there is some kind of a regulator valve in there that I can take out and haul off to Menards and they will help me pick out a perfect replacement, save me BIG MONEY, and stop the dripping dripping dripping dripping dripping dripping... all without destroying the tile.

Also all without having to pay Handy Andy for doing it.

So today I shall call the Association's management people and beg demand a new key to the meter room as they have changed that lock, so I can turn off the water and disassemble my faucetry. In the meanwhile, I've got a dish pan in the bathtub catching all the water and have been using that for foot-soak and general bathroom cleaning-up so as to not waste the water by letting it drip drip drip drip drip down the drain.

539 days

Chocolate.....

Going thru "the change" and having diabetes seems to be clashing.

There isn't much chocolate that fits into the diabetic scheme of life. Not GOOD chocolate, at least. Dove has some little candy tidbits called "Dove Rich Dark Chocolates with Chocolate Creme" that are sugar free, but they still have a bit of carbs and are not entirely blood-sugar-benign. They do come in Mint Creme and Raspberry (ick) Creme as well.

They're tasty, but they're not M&M's.

There are no sugar-free M&M's that I have found. And I don't want just ANY M&M's - I want PEANUT M&M's, TYVM.

I may have to write to M&M Mars and see if I can convince them that there is a burgeoning market with aging baby boomers developing Type II Diabetes for sugar-free M&M's.

540 days

The Day The Music Died

I
AM
PISSED!!!
And not in the good "UK" way.

My cats have this rubber fetish. No, not that way, you pervs. They like to chew on things that are rubbery. Rubberbands. Hair Ties, electrical cords...

So last night I'm having a case of the "clean up this dump" insanities and I decide I'll get more done if the Stones help to "Start Me Up". I plop the CD into the CD machine. I turn on the amp, crank the knob to 4, and .... silence.

I check to make sure the amp is set to play CD's. Silence.

I check to make sure the CD machine, amp and all other devices that should be "on" are "on". Silence.

I check the speaker cords. Chewed through.

I check the cord that connects the amp to the CD machine. Chewed through.

I wonder if there is a Korean restaurant anywhere near my house...

542 days

Mother Nature's Flashing Lights

I love thunderstorms. Even the scarey ones where you get strikes near the house and the dishes rattle in the cupboard.

Last night we had a gully-washer - one where the rain just poured down in buckets for well over an hour. Lake Sewmouse is slowly draining out of my back yard again - at least I didn't get my feet wet on the way in to work. But the light and sound show was nice. No big bangs, just delicate lavendar flashes lighting up the entire night sky for a few seconds, then a quiet rumble, as if an extremely large, heavily-laden truck had passed by.

Soothing and peaceful, as the lawns soaked up the welcome moisture, and cool breezes wafted in through the open window, smelling of damp earth, wet air, happy plants.

This morning I plucked the sweetest, most wonderful tiny "cherry" tomato from the vine on my way to the car. Still damp from being washed in rainwater, more flavorful than anything you will ever get from a supermarket, almost sugar-tasting in its ripe sweetness. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

543 days

Men who cook

They were married for over 50 years. She cooked almost all the meals, with the rare camping exceptions. She had learned to make things he liked, and they ate well, well-balanced meals with sufficent variety to make dinner and lunch interesting.

Mom wasn't a gourmet cook, but she was a good, solid meal-maker. We seldom left the table hungry, and she had a way with a few things that was nothing short of a miracle, especially meatloaf and spaghetti. Considering that Dad won't eat anything with noticable garlic in it, the spaghetti thig WAS a miracle.

My grandmother, (Dad's side) was a wonderful cook, and a baker. She baked bread so fluffy and tasty and soft and yeasty... I've not found a recipe that matches what she could create in that big striped bowl of hers. Maybe I need to find a striped bowl.

Anyhow - Dad is now struggling to come up with meals on a daily basis since he has to do all the cooking himself. When I'm down there, I try to make "too much" so that he has frozen leftovers to microzap when I leave. At one point, I made him a lasagna (sans garlic!), a pot of senate bean soup and an entire double-recipe of chili. Froze it all in tupperware-esque containers, and he used them up over the course of probably 3 or 4 months, interspersed with his own new cooking skills.

Interestingly enough, Dad can make a mean apple pie, and is better at cooking fish than I am. I'm just plain BAD at cooking fish. But we talk about cooking a lot now, and the 1950's/1960's child inside me laughs at the thought of the "Daddy" doing the cooking. Ward Cleaver never cooked!!! (Except BBQ!)

When I went down to Fla last year I stopped in Tennessee to visit my friend "S" and her kids. "S" was in a play at the local community theater and it was their last night. After the show, they had a wrap party at the director's house (mansion...) and the director had put on a buffet spread for the cast and their guests. I was utterly amazed - home cooking, but freaking GOURMET home cooking. Tiny meatballs in savory sauce, stuffed mushrooms, slices of some kind of meat-in-pastry concoction, all smelling utterly heavenly and tasting even better.

I guess it is a bit sexist to think of men cooking as being odd - but my first initial "gut reaction" to any guy who manages to pull off non-BBQ cooking is to be surprised - and very, very positively impressed.

Upbringing? Some. Sexism? Maybe. The fact that my ex-husband needed a recipie for ice cubes? Probably.

545 days

Polyps Removed from Bush's Ass

Too bad they couldn't get his head out too.

OMG - Can you just IMAGINE???

I've come to the conclusion over the years that there are 2 types of people in the world. Those who think with their brains, and those who think with their genitalia. Ok, most women come to this conclusion fairly early on, and I will say that I did as well, but unlike most women, I came to the conclusion based on a conversation with a female (at one time a friend, but that's another story).

Most women realize this concept about the time they realize that 1) He doesn't really love them, he just wants to get in their pants, 2) He won't respect them in the morning because they LET him get in their pants and/or 3) Letting him into your pants is one of the best ways to get rid of a pushy boyfriend.

I, however, realized this one day when my former friend pointed out a man and woman in the mall, and asked me "Oh Jeez - can you imagine THEM having sex?"

No.

I don't.

Ever.

To me, it seemed so crass, so uncouth, so much an invasion of privacy. What other people do (or don't) in the privacy of their own homes is not only none of my business, but something special and private that just they (or anyone they invite) should be privy to. I lost a great deal of my respect for this woman that day. Over time I came to realize that she spent a lot of time working sex into conversations as well. It seemed it was not enough for her to just go for the voyeuristic imaginings, she wanted everyone to know that she was a sexually active individual.

I think this is one reason I, and probably others like me, are made uncomfortable by folks who insist on bringing graphic talk about sex into all or most of their conversations. I am as uncomfortable about this as I am about talking regarding money. I don't need to know, I don't want to know, and I don't like to know. Keep it in your own brain/bedroom. PLEASE!

One of those strange things about money and sex - folks who are getting enough of either don't usually feel a great need to discuss them.

Just sayin'.

Anyhow, along these same lines I began to think about one of the pet catch-phrases of the far-left "You're a racist!". Apparently if you notice someone is physically different from you, you're a racist. If you speak out against crime, you're a racist. If you are offended by criminals that illegally trespass in our country - you're a racist. If you think that drug dealers and hookers don't belong in close proximity to schools or childrens activity centers, you're a racist.

What I don't understand is this - if I'm such a racist, how come I am pretty much "color blind" when it comes to racial differences? If you have 2 arms, 2 legs, opposable thumbs, a head and walk upright, I really don't think of you as "hispanic" or "black" or "asian". The reason I think of Sudo-san as Japanese is (besides the fact that he is, in fact, Japanese) because he would sometimes speak to me in Japanese - or come to me and ask how to say something in English. (Or "What means...." when a new slang term was said)

But Luther was always just Luther, and Jose is just Jose, and Bill Cosby is just that funny guy who had the mischievious brother and now sells pudding cups.

Isn't this exactly what equality is all about? Where we realize that while people are, in fact, a bit different in their social or cultural attributes, and but although Artie is tall and Hubert is short and Gordon is fat and Oscar has a nose like an anteater, and Suzie has big bazoombas and Felicia has long hair and Martha has a wart on her elbow... we are all just PEOPLE? We all bleed red.

Some of us are going to be great at driving fork lifts (not me!!) and some will be good with numbers and some of us will be able to pass the bar exam, and some of us are just going to have to be doctors, nurses, lab technicians, bartenders...

And it shouldn't matter what color or size or height or gender. All that should matter is if you can (and will!) do the job.

With the resources available at this time in this country, it should not be a problem for ANYONE who really WANTS to learn and advance themselves to do so. There may be hurdles to overcome, financial or mental or even social, but if someone really wants something, and is willing to WORK for it, the end result should be favorable barring something like a physical handicap or mental incapacity. Taking personal responsibility for your future is key. The fact that there ARE black, hispanic, asian, etc. Doctors, lawyers, Senators, baseball players, life insurance salesmen... shows that it CAN be done, if the kids are willing to give up the "Whitey owes us, anyone who studies or gets good grades is an Uncle Tom - an Oreo..." attitude.

I'm babbling. What prompted this was a post by The Future Was Yesterday in which he also mentioned the concept of taking personal responsibility, where a couple of his commenters (far left, I believe) took issue with the concept, along with a couple comments by my cousin "J" during lunch yesterday about a totally unrelated topic. Strange how that happens.

546 days

Amazing Things - real and imagined

Bought a cup of iced coffee on the way into work yesterday.

Spilled it on myself about 5 min. away from work - no time to change, no way to get clean clothes. Embarassing, to say the least.

So I went to the market at lunchtime to pick up a few things and found this little tiny bottle of "Oxi Clean Spray-A-Way Instant Stain Remover". You spray it on the stain, you blot it with a paper towel - and it disappears.

Even though the coffee had dried by the time I got back to the office to use it, I spent the afternoon stain-free!! Recommended by Sewmouses!!!

I called the AC repair guy yesterday, and he fixed the AC. Apparently there was a small freon leak that drained the whole darn system. I'm not 200% certain it's all really fixed, but it was working last night, so I'm happy for now. I can't believe how fast he went out to fix it - and didn't charge me so that part is good.

Clorox "Clean-Up" - it's probably just watered-down bleach, goddess knows it smells like it, but its fixed up a lot of problems for me, including a nasty mouldy "infection" on an embroidered swan picture on the bathroom wall. Another recommendation - just use it in sensible amounts. I'm not sure it's real environmentally friendly.

One of the "things I'd like to see" is an MP3-player finger flash-drive USB plug-in device in cars. Instead of toting around your CD collection, rip them all to MP3's, then copy to those cute little finger drives. Then put your car radio/tapeplayer/CDplayer/mp3thing on and plug in the USB finger drive and listen without skips or CD damage (or having the player eat a tape!!!) Considering the cost of those little drives, you could have a whole keychain full of them and swap in and out which ones you want to listen to. No more worries about having your CD's stolen at a truck stop on a road trip - just drop the whole ring of drives into your purse or trousers pocket! (I almost said pants, but this Scots gal was complaining that pants=undies and not trousers, so I'm trying to oblige...)

I'm pretty sure the technology wouldn't be that hard to create, since the whole USB thing has been around for a long while now. C'mon, Motorola!!! Gimme a car USB player! To hell with I-Phones!!

552 days

I thought about...

I thought about you today at lunch time, because an ambulance was trying to get through the traffic snarl and hearing the WeeeOoooooWeeeOoooooWeeeeOooooBRAPPPP BRAAAPPPPWeeeeeeOoooooWeeeeeOooooooo made me think of you driving about Edinburgh going MeeMawMeeMaw. Amazing how you've become an articulate, compassionate, intelligent, responsible and absolutely brilliant professional adult, when I first met you as an awkward, shy, sweet teen boy. *hugs*

I thought about you today, driving myself to work this morning and seeing a huge 1/2 wooden barrel full of lovely nasturtiums. Mine still haven't done well - perhaps too much shade back there.

I thought about many of you this morning, as I surfed from blog to blog, smiling and reading those bits of your lives you want to share. And I smile.

A lot.
Date Counter on post below.

On Stress and Insomnia and the Power of Phoning

Some of you may remember a while back that I got my AC replaced. The thing hadn't worked for several years, and I finally decided to bite the proverbial bullet and get a new one with my tax refund. So I did. It worked GREAT for a few weeks - during the worst of the heatwave, fortunately. Unfortunately it has stopped working.

Now, ordinarily this kind of stress, discovered on a Friday Night would have destroyed my whole weekend, buried me in insomnia from the constant mind-game of "what if it needs replacing again - I can't afford this (duh - warranty, your stupid git!!)- what if it needs replacing again! - I can't afford this - " again and again ad-insomniaeum. <- Yes, I made that word up. Deal with it.

Anyhow.

I've been trying to deal with anger management via this book that Lea sent me that I absolutely find utterly bollocks, because it has this attitude like "what? you're a heroin addict? why.. all you have to do is QUIT" Like its that easy. As if it were like eating toast. Easy to quit eating toast - don't cook the bread!!

Anyhow - despite the fact that the book is bollocks, I've been trying to redirect my thoughts every time I catch myself in the fits of circular thinking or adrenaline-enhanced rage or kvetching about unalterable circumstances. I managed to make it thru the weekend with considerably less episodes than I'd anticipated, and I made the phone call this morning to the guy who installed my AC and he's going to look at it sometime this afternoon.

It had BETTER be warranty.

Oh - and my insurance company sends out the most incomprehensible EOB's I've ever had the misfortune to try and interpret.

Just sayin'

553 days.