Field trip

I would dig up a picture of a plane or something but I am too tired. Maybe tomorrow. Tomorrow I will start a new Pre-Travel Freak Dance. Thursday I will be going to one of the only places in the world colder than here - Montreal.

Actually I am very excited about it. I have never been there. I don't speak any French, but my friend does and I figure it will be fun to listen to him talk when I have no idea whatsoever what he is saying. Too bad it isn't Spanish. At least in Spanish I can ask for the bathroom pretty well. I don't know how to say, "the toilet is overflowing and draining down two flights of stairs into the pool."

Montreal is even farther north than Toronto. It is supposed to be a beautiful city with an underground area the size of a small city, making it unnecessary for travelers or locals to spend much time outside. That certainly works for me. I am not walking five miles a day in below zero weather outside. I can walk around the stores, but window shopping only. My money went to Orbitz. I will be due a free flight soon, too. Yay!

I found it is a better deal for me to go to Paris than Montreal, by far. Los Angeles is a better deal. I think the Netherlands were too. But Montreal is where I am going and I will love it :)

This means I need to post some pictures from Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas, right? OK, I can do that. Later. I need some sleep now.

I have to rest up before I schedule my March flight to Chicago. In May, I might even make it up to Tacoma to see our great photographer Monica. How cool is that?

My darling daughter will watch the beasties for me this time. Since she is staying in the cheapest place in town, she will do it for free, too.

xoxo

Odd thoughts

Surely there must be a nuisance tax deduction for parents whose adult children return home, but my tax guy didn't find one.

While my daughter might be sleeping beauty while asleep, she does wake up. Children and husbands are adorable when they are sleeping so we don't take advantage of the situation and kill them.

How long does it take to put away a suitcase dropped in the foyer that anyone coming in the door has to walk around? I am patiently waiting to find out. Three weeks so far.

Tomorrow my daughter and I return to the gym for some serious workouts. I have two sets of crutches, and I hope we don't need them. We have a way of spurring the other on to do more, more, more. This does not carry over to housework, however. Sadly.

A day that starts with a dog throwing up all over my bedroom can only improve, right? Is it really necessary to spread it out all over the entire room? She barely missed my shoes, and that is only because I grabbed them. That was Molly, and she seems to be fine now. She does wake me up this way every now and then. I don't know why it tends to hit her an hour before I plan to get up.

Is it a new fashion statement to see if every inch of a bedroom carpet can be covered with clothing? Must every article be in sight at all times?

I applied for a job as a victim advocate. I received a letter with an appointment for "oral review for qualifications." Does that sound like an interview or a boom boom room thing?

xoxo

 

 

Sleeping Beauty

I have to respect her wish not to post her picture online. I promised. I am not even allowed to email pictures of my daughter to family members. She has a 'thing' about the internet. It's bad, evil.

Today I went to the tax guy and had my taxes done. The nice thing about being retired is I get to go see Allen, have lunch, take my time, and get refunds. He even buys lunch. A good time is had by all. The drive wasn't so hot (60 miles RT, through Detroit) because on top of all of that ugly, heavy 7 inches of snow we just got we added a few new inches today of fresh new stuff.

Halfway home a nap attack hit me. I made it home OK, but it was pitiful. I just wanted to pull over and sleep. This is a foreign feeling to me. I had enough sleep last night, at least 5 hours, so I had no excuse for it. Maybe watching the snow bored me. Who knows? I came home, curled up on the couch, and napped a bit. The dogs, of course, curled up with me.

Before much time passed the child came home. She had a Taco Bell bag with about 9 items in it, which she proceeded to eat. Have I mentioned before that this little skinny girl can outeat any teenage boy you care to put her up against? Sight unseen. She has the appetite of a bird - she can eat 7 times her weight every day.

All that food must have made her sleepy. Next thing I knew, she hit the loveseat with one of my magazines and zonked. She doesn't like my dogs much. They, being beagles, adore her. As soon as she feel asleep, both of them curled up with her. Those girls never miss an opportunity for a nap. I didn't hear any complaints.

I would love a picture of that.

Had enough!

We are getting up to 8 inches more of hard, heavy-driving, solid, steady, heavy, wet SNOW.

We have already had about 20% more than the average amount per year. I hope the rest of you are enjoying global warming, because we aren't getting any here in MI.

2005 is expected to be the hottest calendar year since records have been kept. We will be lowering the national average all by ourselves.

For this privilege, we pay the highest car insurance in the country. We have very high state taxes to pay for snow removal, etc. While we have beautiful summers and falls, I think I have about had it. You do not have to shovel heat.

I think I will auction off Remo's cell phone number to finance a move to Florida, where I have wanted to live since I first understood that some people who live in that state have never seen snow. What am I bid?

xoxo

Application process

It's amazing how much we can do on the computer now. Maybe it's not so surprising to you younger people, but when I started college we had to apply and register in person. Registering involved running from station to station with little cards, verifying we had actually gotten into the classes we wanted. It was total chaos, but normal for the times.

Eventually I was able, when taking IT classes, to register by phone. I found that to be impressive. I sat at my desk at work and registered for classes on work time. No mail, no cards, no paperwork at all.

This time I sat at my little laptop. I could use all the four-letter words I chose because I was home alone and the dogs have heard them all before. First I had to find a program that worked for me. I found a 2 year, full time, no breaks, 5 days a week, 5 classes at a time, program that looked good. It's 15 minutes from my house.

Problem. I need to take a qualifying exam. I had trouble finding the site for that, so I emailed the school. They tell me I can apply first, no problem. Right. It was an 11-step application online. One more step, and it's a whole new program, right? I finished that, then finally found the site for the qualifying exams.

The last one was Monday. The next one is June. I had hoped to start school in May. Sigh. I need the LSAT before I can start law school. I don't want to wait until September or later. I am ready to go now. This is what I get for thinking things out before I act on them. I doubt if there is any way they can 'work with me,' either, but I will find out.

 

xoxo

Go ahead and laugh

Go ahead and laugh. I think my skill set for employment is limited. There probably isn't much of a market for people who can tell bruises caused by a coat hanger from bruises caused by an electric cord. I can tell you which end of a belt was used, and if it was folded or not. I can diffuse the anger of a large, drunken bully fairly well and have him thank me for it. I know what to do with a homeless person living in a dumpster and I know how to fill out transport orders to have people picked up to be evaluated for commitment.

Pretty useless stuff, isn't it?

So laugh, but I am seriously thinking that my degrees I have already are not enough and I might go back to school. Sigh.

If I were younger and bigger, I would be great for law enforcement.

You know as soon as I get accepted into a program, I will get a job offer. That is how it works, right?

Had I not let my ex-bf invest for me, I would not even need to consider working, but alas, I was a fool.

Besides, I like school.

It will get me out of the house and away from the Unpaying, Ungrateful Tenant, my daughter. My socks are disappearing at an unprecedented rate. My dogs are wimpering. She still plans to bring her kitten here, once she gets it declawed. I am allergic to cats, and have just been letting old Wiz live her feline life out here with me out of compassion. I have all the beasts I can handle now. But I do understand, she loves the kitty. Sigh.

If this house were worth less, I would just abandon it to her. Alas, I can't do that. So I will check out the admission information.

Free time

Tomorrow good old Chewy come back around 3 pm, and stays until Sunday evening. Once again I will be homebound until his owners come back for him. I won't even be able to run to the store, and I am pretty much out of chocolate.

I will be free until 3 pm. Any suggestions as to how I should spend my last hours of freedom?

xoxo

Private service announcement

I wrote a 'private service announcement' for my private journal. If you wish to read it, please ask and I will email a copy. The topic is children's sexual abuse. I wrote out some red flags to watch for and what to do. I wish there were no need for entries like that, but unforunately, it's a reality.

xoxo

Good vs bad vampires

Every 3 months I see my doctor's tech and she sucks blood out of my arm. This is the bad vampire. There was a new tech yesterday. I got the hint she was new when she asked the nurse what my diagnosis was, then spent about five minutes searching the computer for "leukopenia." Eventually I looked at her and said "L - E - U-" and she said she couldn't find it still. She asked me what it meant, and I said low white blood cell count.

She then decided she would eventually be able to find the correct codes for billing and nailed my arm to the desk. It hurt. Usually they get that little butterfly needle and just sort of slip it into my shy little veins. Not this tech. I think she used a hammer. I ended up with a bruise and a rash from the tape that I could not have hidden with half a dollar bill. It still looks pretty bad but I will refrain from adding visual aids to this entry.

The good vampire, of course, is my massage therapist. He started working on my hips and legs last week. He also told me that his mother trained gymnasts in Transylvania, Romania, and so he was around physical training all his life. Believe me, it shows. He decided to test my flexibility and was impressed. Flexibility is not my problem. It's bursitis in my hips and shoulders. He has returned full, painless range of motion to my shoulders and believes he can do the same for my hips, eliminating the pain.

For this, I will gladly give him a pint of blood.

Where am I?

There is no way I can write this to give the situation justice. The child gets lost. I have always said she can't find her bum with a mirror. I thought I had no sense of direction. At least I can generally locate myself when I am within our tri-county area and find my way home. I know north from east. I get lost, but I find myself. She gets lost. Period.

Saturday evening I had my 11-year-old niece with me and we were out running errands. We were getting hungry, but needed to finish up a few stops. My cell phone rang, and the child was lost.

Save me.

She tells me she had written directions from her friend and took 26 Mile Road as directed to another street, turned left, then right, and could I direct her to a street in an apartment complex? Of course, I had never been there and never took the route she took because it goes two miles out of the way to avoid a short stretch of dirt road. So she has no idea where she is and wants me to tell her where she is and how to get some place I never heard of.

She also had no idea what city she wanted to get to, and the intersection covered three different cities in two counties. Of course.

Alrighty then. I asked if she passed the two roundabouts. She said yes. I told her to go back to the second one and try again staying on 26 Mile instead of turning and going out of her way. She started to get mad. She wanted to find a road crossing 26 Mile that I was pretty sure didn't cross it. She said she would try again and call me back.

She called again, several times. I directed her to where some stores and restaurants were near her and told her to ask someone. On the next call I suggested she find a police station for directions. She tried both ideas, no one could direct her. The person she was going to see was not at home and did not have a cell phone. Child was to drop off her cat there, so I had an interest in getting her where she needed to be.

After about the 10th call we were in the grocery store and just leaving. I told her I would call her back when I got home, half a mile away. I went home, got online on MapQuest and tried to help her out. She said she didn't have an address, just the name of an apartment complex and I couldn't find it. She finally found a street name. I couldn't find it. My niece suggested trying the name as two words, which worked. The streets she wanted do not intersect. I found her destination.

Meanwhile child went to get gas in her car and clean up the cat poop out of her car.

She called back and I gave her directions while she was on the phone. Very explicit directions, since I know her. I made her stay on the phone until she could see the apartment. She said the key was under the mat and she thought she had the correct address. I told her to call me when she had the key in her hand, since she had to keep her phone plugged in because the battery was low. She called me back and she had the right apartment.

We carefully went over the route home. She showed up 2 hours later.

At no time was she more than 5 miles from where she has lived with her boyfriend for the last year.

She refuses to carry maps. Why would she need any? She called me once when I was in Toronto to get directions. Sigh.

AIEEE!!!!

My daughter is 25 and beautiful. She is also loud, disruptive, smokes, drinks, and stays up very, very late at night. She talks on the phone constantly and while skinny, walks as heavy as a rhino.

She also moved back in with me last night. :::shudder:::

There goes my privacy, security, peace, quiet, bathrooms, food, and socks. Someone throw me a safety line!

We have already argued over her being mean to my dogs, her telling me to have the cat put down because she gets loud at night, my house being cold at night, which bedroom she will take over, which bathroom she will take over, leaving wet towels on carpeting, why I don't want to move all my stuff into the basement, what things can't be left lying around for Molly the wild beagle to get into, why she can't move into the bedroom that is in the process of being painted, and having the television on while sleeping.

It will get better. She has a better left hook but I am faster.

If it's Tuesday, this must be home.

I have survived a billion flights and delays and traveling outrages. Our pilot last night showed up about an hour after we were supposed to leave Las Vegas and then made some lame joke about not really being a pilot. I hope he was joking. Perhaps he is the joker with my luggage, since I sure don't have it. America West promised to have it delivered to my home. They also offered to sell me a bridge.

Meeting Remo might require its own entry. I also met Anne, from Saturday's Child. My nephew in Phoenix has 3 large dogs, the largest being a Great Dane. The Dane took me for long walks daily. Los Angeles was sunny and warm. Las Vegas, was, well, Las Vegas. I love that place!

I will write more after I have had sleep, have re-bonded with my luggage, and I get the pictures ready to be posted. I missed everyone in J-Land. The beagles missed me, although the new dogsitter is worth her weight in gold. That is a good thing, since it's pretty much what I had to pay.

xoxo