Thursday, February 25, 2010

not the Hokey Pokey, but was still shakin all about

I was in town earlier than usual today, so I stopped by Target before work. I'd bought something the other day that needed to be returned. when I bought it, the cash register receipt printed out a coupon for a $2 Starbucks latte and so I figured I should use it this morning before I forgot that I had it and it expired. I'd already had my morning cup of capaccino before I left home however and the extra caffeine the latte introduced into my veins was a bit too much. I got all hot and flushed and felt all wired up for about an hour or so. Sadly enough, my overly caffeinated state didn't speed up my work performance though and I still have huge load of stuff I need to do tomorrow.

Angel #1 had some good news this morning. After over 2 years, his braces are coming off. The big day is next Thursday. He's pretty excited about getting his normal teeth back. When they first were put on, we were told it would be 18 months to 2 years, and we're now 2 months past the 2 year mark, so it's high time those babies were off. Of course, WE needs braces now. We told him we're just going to have them put #1's old braces on his teeth in an attempt to save money. He wasn't too keen on the idea.

Yay for covers!


I got my cover for my next book today. I think it looks pretty darn spiffy. I don't have a release date yet, but I'll let you know as soon as I do.

Poor hubby flew to Austin on business. He got in yesterday morning and landed to snow. Yuck, I sure don't miss that white stuff though some of the pictures I've seen of the blizzards you guys are dealing with are pretty. But, we all know snow is much nicer to deal with in pictures than in reality. I guess I'd rather live in a place where winter means high surf and the oranges are ripe.

Monday, February 22, 2010

the water theif

Have you ever known someone who has a boring life, so they create their own drama? The building where I work is full of these people - I think it's hilarious. Today, Tony came into the office and told me he got me off the hook and now I owe him. There's a water spigot outside the bathroom (yes, the bathroom with the sign). The water valve supplying the spigot is located in our bathroom. Today, Terry, the building manager guy asked Tony if I'd been taking water out of that spigot. Apparently, they keep the valve turned off so the 'bums can't steal water' and someone left that valve turned on so just anyone could come by and *gasp* fill a water jug. The guy working the desk at the storage building place next door claimed he'd seen me filling jugs at the spigot - or, as he allegedly said, "that woman who works next door who put the sign up in the bathroom (I guess that sign caused quite a stir). Huh? Not only do we have our own spigot right outside our shop door, why would I be filling jugs in the first place? Tony said there'd be no reason why I would use the spigot and Terry said he'd thought so and figured the storage unit guy used it, forgot to turn it off then put the blame on me. Maybe he's seeking revenge on me for walking in on him in the bathroom that one day. LOL! I swear, that building is full of nutjobs.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

lazy dazy

I've been kind of on the lazy side lately. My family hasn't had a real cooked meal since Tuesday or Wednesday. Thursday night some friends came over and brought hot dogs and buns they hadn't used from their camping trip the previous weekend. We had one of the ministers from our church over and all of us stood around a fire in our backyard having a weenie and marshmallow roast. Friday at work got busy and I ended up picking up some KFC on my way home. I don't think we had supper at all last night. Maybe I'll try to fire up the stove tonight for supper.

I found out I'm losing another coffee buddy. My friend Leslie is moving back to Montana the beginning of March. That's the problem with living down here, everyone is so transient. At the end of the school year, the schools actually send a form for parents to fill out indicating if their kids will be returning the next year or not. Now I'm going to have to find someone else to go Starbucksing with - this will be the 3rd escape to Starbucks/the movies/ anywhere our family isn't friend that I've lost in the last year and a half. I've had underwear last longer than most of my Hawaii friendships have. :p

Last night, Angel #2 and I were looking through my school book. When I started kindergarten, my mom bought this school years book that had spots for our school picture from each year as well as envelopes to store any memorabilia. I've got every report card I ever received throughout my entire school life. I hadn't looked at that stuff in years, but #2 insisted on pulling everything out. Turns out that I apparently sucked in school starting in kindergarten when the teacher said I cried a lot, right through elementary, jr high and high school where I pulled a low-B average my entire 13 years of school. But, though my grades were overflowing with suckwattage, I'm proud to report that my memory is still sharp as the proverbial tack. There were school pictures in the envelopes of friends I had back then and I could identify every one of them w/out having to look for the name on the back. I remembered people from all the way back to kindergarten, including Dale Dahm, kindergarten class hottie and fastest runner in our class and Joey Shinke, who I promised I would marry once he learned to tie his shoes. Not only did I not marry Joey, but, back in '96 at the last class reunion I attended, he still hadn't gotten around to getting married. Maybe he never did learn how to tie those pesky laces.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

I should at least get points for trying

You ever try to help people and it just doesn't work out? I had a day like that today. Angel #2 and I went to Costco and as we were walking in, we saw a lady struggling with a bunch of carts. I ran over to help her with them and ended up running over her foot with a cart wheel. Later, on the way home, we were sitting at the stop sign at the corner by Costco and there's a homeless veteran guy who likes to stand at that corner and ask for money. I was going to give him a dollar, but it was time for us to move up in traffic, so I crumpled the money up and tossed it to him. Except the wind caught it and it blew back down the street. I yelled out an apology and he gave me a shaka and a smile, so all was good, but I still felt bad.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

That's the best name they could come up with?

Francines post about mishearing words reminds me of my own little product issue. At our Target there's a end cap on one of the rows that features "As Seen On TV!" stuff. I was walking past it one day and wondered why in the world someone would name their product Bum Pits and what in the world would you use it for? Was it a hygiene product for bad body odor? Once I checked it out, I realized they were trying to say Bump Its and it makes your hair poofy or something, but every time I see it, I still have to make a mental adjustment from bum pits to bump its. I can't be the only person who does this.

Yesterday, I received the fallout from my bathroom sign. Terry, the weird guy who kind of manages the place was taking a break from organizing the dumpster (I kid you not) and was sweeping up little stones in the parking lot in front of the bathroom. As I was heading for the bathroom, confident in knowing I wasn't going to get any surprises due to my (hopefully) affective sign, Terry stopped me and said: I see Tony put up another one of his signs. I had no idea what he was talking about, until he said, "in the bathroom." For a fraction of a second, I considered letting Tony take the fall for the sign, especially since he teased me when I put it up saying that I should get Terry's permission before posting it. But, my inherently honest nature overruled and I said that I put it up because I got sick of walking in on people. Terry was surprised that it had happened to me more than once, but then implied that it was my fault for not knocking first. Why the Face should I have to knock on a bathroom door that has a LOCK on it? Then he told me that he fixed the slider bolt on the door and insisted I go in there and try it as he stood outside the door saying: "See? Doesn't it work better now? Did you try it?" Awkward? Um, yeah. Then he informed me that he's going to WD-40 the lock every week to keep it in prime working condition. For your sanity, I didn't give you the entire conversation, but needless to say, I was stuck talking to him outside the bathroom for about 5 minutes discussing the lock on the bathroom door. Tony saw that Terry had me trapped, but did he rescue me like a good boss should? No, he did not. He thought it was hilarious and told me it was what I deserved for not getting Terry's clearance on the sign in the first place. humph!

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Sometimes you have to resort to signage

I can't remember if I told you this or not, but about a month or two ago, I opened up the bathroom door at work and there was a guy sitting there on the toilet. It's one of those doors that automatically locks when you close it and you need a key to get in. Since there's more than one key in the building, there's also a slide bolt on the inside to insure your privacy. Of course, if you don't slide the bolt, you risk your privacy and my eyeballs start to melt. Then I was met with the awkward dilemma of what to do (after I immediately shut the door, of course). Do I wait outside the door for my turn and have to look the guy in the eye after I've seen him on the crapper - or do I discretely disappear, saving face and possibly rupturing my bladder? I value my bladder and so I waited for him to vamoose. Fast forward to yesterday and it happened AGAIN! Different guy, and thank goodness he'd gotten to the hand washing stage by the time I showed up, so my eyeballs were safe. We've been in this building for 3 1/2 months, there are 5 of us working at our company - I'm the only female there (and the only one I've seen working in the entire complex where we're located) and not only am I the only one out of we 5 that has walked in on someone in the bathroom, but now it's happened to me TWICE. What are the odds? Today, I decided to be proactive. I could knock before entering, but frankly, I shouldn't have to. Instead, I printed up a sign that said: Nobody Likes Surprises - Lock The Door. I'm hoping that'll do the trick.

This week has been a bit crazy. Angel #2 had been sick since Saturday and by Wednesday, she was covered in some kind of rash along with looking like death warmed over. I broke down and took her to the doctor. You've got to be pretty darn sick for me to resort to the professionals - while she was at the Drs office, #2 and I tried to remember the last time I took someone in because they were sick. We figured it was when Angel #1 had a double ear infection. He was about 7 at the time, so that makes it about 10 years ago. I guess I can handle 1 sick visit to the doctor every 10 years. Since we've got major medical insurance, we've got to pay for sick visits out of pocket and they wanted a $150 deposit just to walk in the door. I told the angel that for that kind of money she'd better be pretty darn sick. She ended up needing 2 IV bags of electrolytes to combat severe dehydration and she said, are you happy, am I sick enough for you? I told her that I would have preferred something cheaper like a shot or something, but yes, she was sick enough. She's all better now though, so that's good. It's worth the money if your kid comes out healthy.

The kids ended up being rather relieved that they didn't go down and check out the accident in front of our house earlier this week. We read in the paper that a motorcyclist lost control, crashed and was killed. That's definitely not something you want to rush out of your house to see. People drive so foolishly on our road sometimes. Though it's called a highway, don't let the name fool you, it's really a narrow, winding mountain road. It's so narrow in some places that there's no room for guardrails or even shoulders - it's like that in front of our house and off the end he went. I'm not sure exactly where he went off, but if you go off the road around here, you either slam into a dirt hill abd/or solid rocks or, on the other side you fall between 5-10 feet down the side of the mountain. In other words, it's not a good idea to go off either side of the road around here. Despite that, I've seen people pass on blind curves and drive way faster than they should. I don't know if that's what happened to this guy, but hopefully his death will make people drive a little more conservatively.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

I had trouble going AND coming

Yesterday morning there was a HUGE Caterpiller/excavator thingy in our driveway. Our drive goes up past our house to a bunch of random stuff like a coffee farm, some dome house our landlord is building and to the hermit guy who lives in the treehouse (I've never seen him but have been told he's there). So this Caterpiller was somewhere up the hill past our house and now, yesterday, someone drove it back down. They eventually loaded it up on the back of a semi trailer and drove it away, but only after they had it blocking the driveway for about an hour. They were still working on getting it out when I left, but there was enough room for me to sneak around it and the sign guy who was directing traffic let me out so I could eventually go to work. I thought my driveway adventures were over for the day, but on the way home, I passed an ambulance and a firetruck going the opposite direction. When the turned the corner on my road, I realized with a lurch in my heart that they'd come from the area right by my house. How did I know this? Because there were about 4 police cars, lights flashing, sitting at the end of my driveway. I was a bit nervous, until I saw that the cars were actually blocking my driveway and I figured that if something bad was going on at my house, the police wouldn't be blocking the access to it. Once again, I needed a person who was directing traffic to let me get into my driveway. Later we figured out that there'd been an accident pretty much right in front of our house. My super-observant family, who were all home at the time, never noticed a thing and hadn't even realized that half of the West Hawaii police force was parked in front of our house. Granted, you can't really see the road from the house or anything, but seriously? You'd think someone would have noticed something. WE said he heard the crash, but was too interested in playing World of Warcraft to bother seeing what the noise was. I hope I never keel over dead in the middle of the kitchen floor, everyone would probably just step over me.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

I just want to say....

it's called a blinker, you use it to tell other drivers when you're intending to turn because they can't read your mind. Try using it sometime.

In other news, I picked up an old movie at the library the other day and as a reward for doing the 2nd round edits for the first 100 pages of my book, I got to watch it this afternoon. This movie had some of my favorite people in it, Hedy Lamarr, who's got to be the most beautiful woman ever filmed, Judy Garland, who's my absolute favorite singer in ANY musical at ANY time - I love that woman's voice. Then we had Lana Turner and Jimmy Stewart, who played a good guy who went sorta rogue. Jimmy Stewart, when he's not being someone like Longfellow Deeds or George Bailey is incredibly sexy. I kid you not. MUCH sexier than any man on screen today, including Gerard Butler. The only guy who may possibly be sexier is Clark Gable. I've got San Francisco starring Mr. Gable on order at the library, so I'll give you my final and most professional comparison of the two after I've seen it. They're both romancing Lana Turner (lucky lucky girl) in each movie, so it'll be a pretty fair comparison. The end of the movie I watched today always makes me sad (I've seen it a couple times before) because Lana Turner's character ends up much like Judy Garland did in real life. I look at young Judy during the movie and wonder if she had any idea she'd end so sadly. One of the quotes in the movie was that the Ziegfeld Follies aren't to credit or to blame with whatever happens to you, it just accelerates what would have happened anyway. Poor Judy didn't have a chance.

Monday, February 1, 2010

fun times

Today was the 2010 kick off party for the Special Olympics. It was a really fun time and my first event acting in my recently acquired position of Volunteer Chair. I'm just basically the person who lets everyone on our mailing list know about upcoming events. I've even got business cards - so it actually looks like I'm somebody important. The lady I talked to at Kmart yesterday didn't show up, which was a little disappointing, but there were over 100 people there, so I would call the day successful. The 2009 yearbooks were passed out. I cringe at things like that because I'm horribly unphotogenic and I knew there was going to be at least one pic of me in the book. Turned out there were 3 and they actually looked pretty good. If anyone doubts my claims of being lazy though, all you have to do is look at the yearbook to see that I'm telling the truth. Remember, this is a yearbook celebrating people participating in different sporting events throughout the year. In two out of the three pictures of me in the book, I'm sitting down.