Day Six-Eighteen - Cousins

Yesterday was my Uncle Gene's funeral.  He had a long life full of changes.  He spent time in the army before marrying my Aunt Miggie then held various jobs. Most of my memories are during the years he was a dairy farmer. They lived those years in East Texas.  Since we also lived in East Texas, our family visited Aunt Miggie, Uncle Gene and my cousin Duane a little more often than some of our other family who lived further away.  Uncle Gene was a soft spoken man.  I don't know if that came from working with cows who he didn't want to spook or if he was just born that way.  But I can only remember seeing him angry once or twice and even then, he still seemed very quiet.  Later in life, he got out of the dairy business and opened a convenience store which he ran until a few years ago.

His funeral, yesterday, was nice and attended by several family members, some of whom I had not seen in several years.  I drove to Jacksonville for the funeral yesterday with two cousins.  Cindy who flew in from Oregon and Terry who lives in McKinney drove down with me. We chatted all the way to Jacksonville. Once there, we went to the family room at the funeral home where my parents, one brother and a number of other cousins and aunts were waiting for the service to begin along with Duane and Aunt Miggie.

We had about 20 minutes to greet everyone and chat before the service.  Some of the cousins present yesterday I have caught up with recently on Facebook.  Others I had not communicated with in more than 20 years and it was good to see them all.  I think that you have a different sort of relationship with your cousins than anyone else.  You all share family and I like that relationship.  There aren't many people in the world who I can talk about my grandmother with who really understand what she was like other than those 16 cousins.  Sure, I can talk to my parents about my grandparents.  But that is a different relationship than grandchildren have with their grandparents.

When you're a kid, if you are lucky, you start life out with cousins who are like ready made friends. Sometimes, they don't like you or you don't like them.  But most of the time you get over your differences and you can get along just fine.  After all, you see each other at every family function.  It ensures that you always have someone to play with at all the holidays, barbecues, fish fries and get togethers.  As time goes by and you grow up you begin to go to fewer and fewer of those get togethers.  In high school, you might chose to stay home and go out with friends instead.  Then you go off to college and can't come home for all of those events.  Eventually, most of us start families of our own and have other commitments that begin to take precedent.

I must say that my Mom has always been pretty good at trying to get me and my brothers to attend some of those events even into adulthood.  They would be having a crawfish boil or Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Johnny were having a fish fry and Mom would practically demand that we drop everything and commit to being there.  At the time, I must admit, I didn't understand what the big deal was and why I needed to attend a random family get together.  Over the years, those occasions have become more few and far between.  But after this weekend, I'm starting to get it why Mom thought it was so important for us to attend back in the day.

Cindy stayed at Aunt Miggie's house yesterday.  She'll stay there a few days and then I'll go down and pick her up to bring her back to Dallas and she'll fly back home the middle of the week. So Terry and I drove back here yesterday afternoon together and had another few hours to chat during the drive home.  It was so nice.  Either Terry or Cindy suggested sometime yesterday that we need a family reunion and I couldn't agree more.  The other side of my family has family reunions periodically.  But I have to say that the Meyers side of my family has only had a few and I don't think it has ever happened since my grandmothers death when I was in middle school.  I have 16 cousins on the Meyers side of my family and I think it's time we all get together again.  None of us are getting any younger!

So I think that I am going to begin plotting and planning very soon.  If you have any relationship to Eddie and Elizabeth Meyers, prepare yourselves, because this thing is going to happen.  If I can force a family photo of my family on the day after Christmas this year, I can make this happen too.  None of you may like me when this is over.  But you'll all be happy we did it.

Happy Sunday!

Day Six-Oh-Four - A Thanksgiving Recap

Hi Friends!
Long time, no hear, right?

I just got back from a long Thanksgiving weekend in Nacogdoches a few hours ago.  It didn't feel particularly long.  By that I mean that I wasn't sitting at Mom and Dad's house wishing I could leave.  I always have a great time at my parents house.  I think I must have a lot in common with them.  For Thanksgiving itself, the entire family was there except for Matt, Melissa and Oliver.  Oliver is only a few weeks old, so he is just too young to do a lot of traveling yet.  I haven't been able to see him in person yet. But the pictures are adorable.

Jacob and Jeni were there with little Joseph Tex Meyers their newest addition.  He is adorable and probably still seeing blue spots from all the flashes that were going off in his proximity.  He is just a little over 2 months old and the "new" hasn't wore off of him yet.  He's still of an age where you just want to smell his head and squeeze him when you hold him. Although his Mom and Dad would probably not approve of the squeezing part.

After Thanksgiving, Mom and I put their Christmas tree up on Friday.  Then Saturday we did a little shopping followed by a rousing game of Moon at the kitchen table for me, Mom and Dad.  Then I came on back home Sunday.  Before I even came back to my house Sunday I went to Lowe's to purchase a new refrigerator.  I have been pricing them and reading reviews for weeks.  I got what I think was a good deal on one from Lowe's.  It won't be delivered for a few weeks.  But I'm in no hurry.  I need to find a new home for my current refrigerator in the meantime.  I'm hoping that a nephew will take it.  But if that doesn't happen, perhaps one of my faithful readers is in need of a beer fridge.  It's a good one!  It has never given me any trouble in 17 years!  It's nothing fancy.  Just a bottom fridge with a top freezer and an icemaker in the freezer if you have a hook up.  It's a Magic Chef.  Back when I bought it in 1996 it was the cheapest one they had with an icemaker at Circuit City in Tyler.

The cats are happy to see me home.  Although, I don't know if they missed me too much while I was gone. Their catsitter plays all kinds of game with them.  Then just to keep me buttered up so that I wouldn't be too upset about not being missed, she got me a plant and planted it in an empty flower pot on my front porch! I spent half an hour looking for something that had been broken. But no breakage, just a really nice petsitter. Maybe I've been tipping her too much....

My new project is going to be scheduling a family photographer for the day after Christmas.  We are going to have the entire Meyers clan here in Dallas on the day after Christmas for a big family photo and it would seem that I am in charge of the picture.  I will tell you that this has not been easy for anyone.  My sister-in-law, Eileen and I have been trying to arrange this for a while.  We have differing opinions on what makes a good family photo. She seems to feel that everyone should be dressed similarly.  I think that if we do that, in 10 years strangers will be passing our photo around on the internet laughing their butts off at us.  (When the people being photographed range in weight from 10 lbs to 300 lbs, the attire that makes them look good, or even presentable, can be quite different.) Otherwise, we agree on most aspects of this.

Going forward, I have Donny and Marie tickets for this Wednesday night and my friend who was supposed to go had to cancel on me.  So, we'll see if I end up at a Donny and Marie concert alone on Wednesday. I'm thinking the kind of single man I meet at this concert won't be one that I am interested in a long term relationship with. (Don't start with me, Katherine!)  Well you guys have a great week and I'll try to be in touch a little more often in the next few weeks.

Day Five-Forty-Four - Cigar Boxes

Where I grew up there were three elementary schools.  I went to Raguet Elementary in first grade.  Then we moved to the other side of town so I went to Fredonia Elementary in second through fifth grade.  At Fredonia, there was a pencil machine.

Probably all schools had them but I really liked getting pencils out of that pencil machine.  They cost a nickle and they had different NFL teams names on them.  Anytime a kid got lucky enough to get a Cowboys pencil they held onto it like it was gold.  If you were lucky enough to have a Cowboys pencil, you only sharpened it when you had to so that you wouldn't sharpen it down past the silver lettering that spelled out Dallas Cowboys. When I put my nickle in the machine it always dispensed a stupid Cincinnati Bengals pencil.  You never had to worry about your Bengals pencil getting stolen out of your cigar box, it was always safe.  We didn't have backpacks back then. Some kids had book bags. But usually only girls had them.  I had a couple of different book bags over the years.  But I never really liked carrying one.  Even then, I knew it was a little dorky to carry a book bag.

But we did have cigar boxes.  The week before school started we would always go down to Community Grocery and ask Mr. Hucklebee for a school box.  He'd have a stack of them under the counter that he would pull out and we would choose the one we liked the best.  They were all the same, so I'm not sure why it mattered.  But it did.  The key to finding a good cigar box was to open it up and smell it. A really good cigar box would keep that cigar scent all year long no matter how much glue spilled in it or was intentionally squirted inside.


On the first day of school you'd arrive with your cigar box, filled with pencils, crayons, scissors and various other supplies.  It would then be stowed in your assigned desk for the remainder of the year. When the teacher said "get your pencils out", 30 cigar boxes would be pulled out of the desks storage areas and open up.  Once a pencil was found, the cigar box would go back where it belonged and we would get to work.

The first few weeks of school, the crayons were stored in their own little box neatly and possibly even in order based on color and placed in the cigar box.  But by October, they were rolling around in the cigar box and the crayon box was a distant memory.  Then when it was time to color something, your entire cigar box had to sit out on your desk with the lid open so that you could chose colors to use.  If you were trying to decide which color to use, you might color on the inside of the lid to see what it looked like.  But that never really worked that well since the lid had a glossy sheen to it and the wax of the crayons didn't do well on a surface like that.

By the end of the school year the cigar box had been colored all over, the lid was probably missing and there were pools of glue in various spots inside.  But surprisingly, it usually lasted the entire year without any need to replace it.  There were a couple of kids at my school who had store bought cigar boxes that they called pencil boxes (snobs).  I'm sure their mom paid a dollar or two for them.  What a waste!  And they didn't even have a picture of King Edward to draw an eye patch on!

I can't remember if my mom had to pay for our cigar boxes.  If she did it was probably a nickle.  Back then everything was a nickle.  I think I had the same cigar box for 1st and 2nd grade.  In those early years, it just sat in your desk all year long.  But in 4th grade, we began changing classrooms for some classes so you carried some of your stuff with you.  The cigar box took a beating when you moved from classroom to classroom.  So in 5th grade the cigar box was replaced with one of those notebook zipper bags.  I hated those things.  It was plastic and went inside a 3 ring binder and all of your pencils, map colors (because by then you were too grown up for crayons), scissors, glue, erasers and even pens went in there.  A few months into the year, the holes would tear and it would start falling out of your notebook as you walked, or it would get a hole in it and you'd be dropping pencils as you walked down the hall.  Then you'd have to go to the office to buy a new pencil and you'd end up with a crummy Bengals pencil.  The only chance you had of someone picking your pencil up in the hallway and returning it to you was if the one you dropped was a Bengals pencil.

The bad thing about having to buy a pencil that you hadn't counted on needing to buy was that you had to do without milk that day since you had to use a nickle of your milk money which was 6 cents for the pencil! There was no disposable income back in the day.  If you needed 6 cents for milk each day, your mom didn't send you to school with a dime.  You went to school with 6 cents.  So there was no saving that 4 cents a couple days in a row so that you could roll the dice on the pencil machine in hopes of getting a coveted Cowboys pencil.  Some kids came to school each day with milk money AND ice cream money.  Lucky bastards!  Mom gave us ice cream money some days.  But that was pretty limited.  Now that I think about it, the fat kids were the ones that usually had ice cream money every day.  If you had to buy a pencil that meant that you had a penny of your milk money left over.  I always saved my penny in my cigar box.  So there were usually a couple of pennies sliding around in there by the end of the year.  They were in there next to the the two inch long former Cincinnati Benagls pencil that had been sharpened so much that it now only read "gals".

Have a happy Wednesday!  I'm going to spend the rest of the day on a Royal Caribbean webinar.

Day Five-Thirty-Five - Talk Like an American Damn It!

Hi peeps!  Yesterday I ended the blog pretty abruptly and I wanted to apologize for that in case any of you got whiplash from the sudden stop.  I was thoroughly enjoying the perfect morning and writing away when I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to meet my friend Mary at 11 a.m. so that we could go to this cooking show at the Dallas Convention Center.  So, I had to hurry up and get dressed and head out.  The cooking show was terrific.  I had a lot of fun and I bought some amazing chefs knives that have to be shipped to me.  I can't wait to get them.

Paula Deen was the headliner for this show.  I've never been much of a Paul Deen fan but I sort of became one yesterday.  Here's my deal.  I have low or no tolerance for people with heavy accents. Okay, if you just entered the country and have a fresh visa or foreign passport, it's ok to have an accent.  If you live in a small rural area and you never leave that area, then it is also ok to have an accent.  But if you have been on national TV, exposed to people without heavy accents on a normal basis and travel all over the country speaking to others who speak normally, wouldn't some of that heavy accent just sort of naturally go away?  I mean, is it just me or does her accent seem to get thicker?

I know people who have lived almost their entire lives in Dallas suburbs and they speak like the just fell off a turnip truck.  If someone asks where you are from and you respond "Play-noe-ah" literally adding syllables to the word, there is something wrong.  Plano is not in the boonies.  The six people who are actually from Plano do not have thick rural Texas accents.  They speak with practically no accent at all.  The other 269,770 people who live in Plano are actually all from some place else.  The majority are from foreign countries.  Several thousand of them are from the northeast, which is sort of a foreign country on it's own.  Many others are from the midwest.  But I can't tell you how often I talk to someone with a thick Texas accent and find out that they are from Carrollton, Lewisville or Farmers Branch.  The thick Texas accent is not a result of listening to others around you speaking that way on a daily basis since most of the people in this part of the Metroplex seem to be from some place other than Texas.

If you sound like Gomer Pyle you are not from Carrollton. But here's my theory.  Those people who have lived most of their lives in whatever North American urban area that they live in and still carry a serious accent do so by choice.  It's their way of standing out, of being an individual.  They are no different than a 16 year old girl dressed in goth clothing or a high school boy with a bright green mohawk.  It is just a cry for attention.  And that's why it bothers me.  Do you want to stand out?  Then do something worthy of garnering some attention!

I am sure that Paula Deen really did grow up in a place where everybody talks like she does.  But she perpetuates the accent.  At this point it has become part of her shtick.  If some blond lady with a gigantic smile walked into a crowded room and just began talking with no accent and cooking shrimp and grits, we probably wouldn't pay much attention.  But when the same blond lady with a crazy thick accent does it, she's recognizable and for some people easy to identify with.  It's endearing on her.

Don't even get me started on the accents of our foreign neighbors to the south.  If your family has lived in Texas for more than one generation, then you need to stop rolling your rrrrrrrrrrrrrr's when you say your name.  We all get that you are Hispanic and proud of that.  The fact that you name is Maria Garcia is sufficient evidence of your heritage.  You do not need to extend the pronunciation of your name by thirty seconds making it Marrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrria Garrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrcia to prove that you are Hispanic.  I get that 37.6% of Texas' population is Hispanic so you are trying to make yourself stand out. But really, it's not necessary.

My worst pet peeve in the world is people who talk completely normally but when they come to one particular word, they feel the need to pronounce the word in a foreign language.  This is Texas people.  We pronounce the word crow-sant.  Don't go getting all uppity and french on us and do that quwaaaaa-sancht thing that makes it sound like you have a french pastry stuck in the back of your throat. When I hear croissant pronounced that way, I get a sudden urge to perform the Heimlich maneuver on the speaker.  It's okay to sound like an American even when you are using a foreign word if you are indeed IN America.

Now, with all this said, I must admit that when I go to East Texas, my accent suddenly becomes thicker. You see, living in Dallas, I make a serious effort to hide my East Texas accent.  But when you are around other people with the same accent, it just creeps out!  I lose all control of my accent as soon as my car crosses the Nacogdoches county line.  The weirdest thing is that I don't necessarily have to go to Nacogdoches for this phenomenon to occur.  If my family members from there come to visit me, it happens also.  So I won't judge anybody if they suddenly start speaking in Wisconsonese when their family comes to visit.  But once they go back home, talk like an American damn it!

Day Five-Thirty-Four - What's in a Name?

Good morning friends!  It's been brought to my attention that I should probably change the name of this blog from Unemployment 101 to anything else since after all, I'm not technically unemployed.  I'm self employed. It makes sense to change the name.  But it just seems like an unnecessary action to take.  If you know me, and most of you do, I don't take unnecessary actions.... EVER!  I barely take necessary actions. Nevertheless, let's kick around this name change idea.

It would be kind of fun to come up with a new name for the personal blog. But I'm not all that creative when it comes to titling things.  I recently finished writing a book and need to distribute a couple of copies to a few friends to preview before I send it off to publishers but after spending a year and a half writing it and sitting on it for the last 2 months, I am totally unable to title the darn thing.  Who would have thought that this would be the most difficult part of writing a book?  I probably just place way too much importance on a title.  But when I'm at Barnes & Noble browsing through the available romances, I look at two things, the title and the picture on the front.  If the title isn't worthy, nothing about the picture will make me even pick up the book to read the jacket or back.  Life is too short to read books with less than clever titles.  I want there to be wit and substance in the books I read even if they are just cheesy romances and the title should reflect that.

It's the same with a blog. Granted, when I came up with Unemployment 101, it was pretty spur of the moment and apparently wasn't the most original title ever.  I think there are several hundred blogs out there with the same title. (But the economy's fine, right Barack?)  It expressed what I needed for it to say.  This blog was originally created as a method of lighting a fire under myself.  On the day I started this, which was day 7 of my unemployment, I had already sat on my couch and read 5 trashy romance novels and done little else.  I needed something to make me accountable.  So I created a blog and each day I posted a task list of the things I needed to accomplish.  I was pretty good at it for a while.  But I have to say that the task list hasn't been updated in months now.  Even when I do post on this blog, I totally forget about it.  Currently, I keep my to do list in a spiral notebook.  The list du jours consists of 13 items that I must complete prior to my cruise night which is now less than 3 weeks away.  As of this moment, two of the 13 items have been marked off of the list.  One was marked off during the day yesterday and then added back on when Zazzle canceled my order because my artwork was incomplete.  It has since been re-done and marked off again. Maybe a good new name for this blog should be Holy CRAP! Who Knew Running a Business Was So Much Work?  A little wordy, right?  But again, it says what I need for it to say....

Most of the items on my to do list really should have already been completed.  But I only came up with the list yesterday.  That was when I realized with the assistance of the receptionist at my vets office that my cruise night is only three weeks away and I still hadn't even completed the order for the snail mail invitations much less addressed them and gotten them in the mail!  Yikes!!!!  You might be relieved to know that this is one of the two things I was able to mark off the list yesterday.  The invitations will be in my hot little hands in less than a week.  Door prizes have also been ordered.  That is the order that Zazzle kicked back.  Beyond that, the venue was settled on a few weeks ago and I am on their calendar.  And I've posted an invite on Facebook that I apparently need to re-post regularly so that people who don't live their lives on FB like a certain travel agent we all know and love does, will see it.  Again, Who Knew It Was This Complicated???  Maybe a good working title would be Complications because really, isn't that what it's all about?

I've been kicking this one around for a few weeks....  tell me what you think....  A Day In The Life of A Stay At Home Cat Mom.  I know!  It's still wordy.  But you have to admit it's clever.  I mean other cat people would be all over that blog.  But they would probably expect daily cat videos and photos.That's a pretty big commitment when you consider that I still have to do all of this travel agent stuff to make a living and someone's got to load cats into carriers and drive them to the vet on a pretty regular basis.  This stuff doesn't do itself!  Besides, that title would really lend itself to the unsubstantiated but spreading rumors that I have become one of those crazy cat ladies and I don't want that.

I think that regardless of the title that I eventually come up with, I'll always keep the day count as part of each individual post.  I like that because it sort of represents the day that everything changed.  I mean 535 days ago, I still worked at the employer who shall not be named and went to work everyday doing a job that I hated. But hey, they paid me pretty good money to do it so it wasn't like I was going to quit or anything. Then it all changed and I've been pretty darn happy for the last 534 days.  Okay, I have to meet a friend in an hour so that we can attend a cooking show together, so we'll get back together soon to figure out this title thing.  If you have suggestions, feel free to share.  But don't get your feelings hurt if I say "uh, NO!"

Day Five-Fourteen - Cats Galore!

Good morning!  It's been so long since I updated this blog!  I'm not ignoring it.  I just haven't had time to post on this one.  I spend most weekday mornings with the other blog. The travel business is busy.  After all, if you want to go anywhere during the holidays this year, now is the time to book those reservations.  Call me....

Since the last time I posted on this blog I have gotten a new kitten.  Her name is Mrs. Beasley.  I was calling her a calico but the vet says that she is a tortie since she has very little to no white hair in her coat. Since he said that I have looked at pictures on the internet and I concur.  I have a tortie.  The first couple of days were pretty touch and go with her.  My two older cats didn't seem too happy to have a new baby sister who plays a LOT.  But things are finally beginning to settle down.

I think the biggest thing that happened to change things was that Shiner went to the vet for a teeth cleaning on Friday and ended up having 6 teeth extracted.  It turns out that he was in a lot of pain that he was not showing. So, he had become a lot less tolerant of everything including hyper little kittens who love to play.  Every time Mrs. Beasley got close to Shiner he hissed and ran away.  This is very out of character for him.  He is usually my very playful cat.  Meanwhile Jingle was making progress everyday getting closer and closer to Mrs. Beasley and even actually chasing her on one occasion Thursday when he lost himself and forgot that he was supposed to resent her.  Since then he has become almost completely comfortable with her and is playing with her this morning!

Shiner is currently heavily drugged but he has still given me reason to hope that things are getting better. His old personality is coming back and this morning Mrs. Beasley has gone up to him several times and they have touched noses.  When that happens he lays calmly as he has been all morning.  When she comes running up to him, he still gets up and moves but never hisses. As long as she is calm, he is tolerant.

Shiner will have to go back to the vet in 6 months since the doctor said he has other bad teeth but they aren't as bad as the ones that were extracted.  Hopefully, we can get the next ones taken care of before they begin to cause him pain.  Shiner got his most recent pain shot yesterday morning.  The vet says it will begin to wear off tomorrow.  So we'll see how he is feeling about Mrs. Beasley as that shot starts to wear off.  When he came home from the vet Friday evening he was very loopy and was apparently hallucinating.  He kept seeing things in the strangest places and was chasing them.  That's what is going on in the photo to the left.  He was certain there was something on that wall and was determined to catch it.  Later in the evening he started acting as though there was something under the couch while I was sitting on it.  He was so insistent that I eventually started thinking what if there really is something under this couch... and I had to get up and move it to inspect. Sure enough nothing was there.

Jingle and Mrs. Beasley have just spent the last thirty minutes chasing one another through the house.  Mrs. Beasley was doing most of the chasing.  But Jingle was a big participant.  So I'm thinking pretty soon I'll have three cats scampering around keeping each other busy and exercised so that I can write blogs and work on trips. This is good news for you guys because I'm going to start digging for some pretty big fall and winter discounts on cruise ships and all inclusive resorts.  You're going to love this.  But while I look, here are a few more photos of Mrs. Beasley to keep you entertained.


Have a happy Labor Day and I'll talk to you all soon!

Day Four-Ninety-Seven - Welcome to Texas

I love my neighborhood.  One of the things I like best about it is the cultural diversity of the area.  It is not unusual at all to see Hasidic Jews in all their ethnic garb walking down the bike/pedestrian trail.  Many times as I walk or ride my bike on the trail, I'll see Indians and Pakistanis in their ethnic garb, as well as others also out enjoying the trail in our neighborhood.  We all get along, it's culturally nice and I like it.

But here's the thing that drives me crazy.  Every year at about this time the area has a new very large influx of Asian immigrants who don't plan to live in the USA for long.  Just long enough to get their relatively cheap education at UT-Dallas.  They're here on student visas.  This past week, they were arriving in the apartments around the area in droves.  Literally, droves!  I saw 12 of them exiting a single Super Shuttle at the apartments down the street on Monday with tons of luggage.  That's fine.  I think it's great that they can come here and get an inexpensive education and then return to their home country to make it better.  (Or perhaps to answer the phone anytime I call my credit card company....)  The issue I have has to do with their total disregard for personal space and that they are under the misguided impression that the world revolves around them.

I get it. They are young "enlightened" people, who just like young Americans that travel abroad feel that what they are doing is worth having everyone around them stop and observe. Hey everybody!!!!  Look at me!  I'm away from home for the first time without my parents and I'm an idiot!!!!  I totally get it.  But it doesn't mean I like it.  In fact I am fed up with it.

Since they are just arriving in the country they are stocking their homes and dorms.  I went to Target yesterday afternoon for a very painful hour.  Normally, I can get in and out of Target in no time at all, you know as long as there is enough money in the bank to cover it.  I was slowed quite a bit yesterday by non-English speaking Asians who were trying to figure out complicated things like milk.  I waited patiently for more than 3 minutes while two men speaking a foreign language I have never heard, debated milk blocking the entire milk case as they did so.  I'm not sure about the nature of their debate.  But they kept picking up different types of milk ranging from organic to domestic to even soy and then discussing them.  Then once they finally decided on organic, they ran into the issue of whole, low fat or fat free!  It was apparently a big deal for them.  After 3 minutes, when a line began to form, I decided that I had been polite for long enough and interrupted there milk debate reaching between them to get my fat free organic milk.  When that happened they seemed somewhat shocked by my presence and quickly moved aside and let others get their milk.

When it was time for me to check out.  I went to the shortest line I could find.  Another of the women who I remembered as being behind me at the milk case during the great milk debate was in the process of checking out.  The checkout was nearly cleared and there was a young Asian woman behind her but nothing was on the the conveyor belt.  She had a basket full of stuff but was just standing about watching what was going on around her.  Perhaps at the Target in India, some little slumdog kid comes out and empties your cart onto the conveyor for you so that the young ladies don't have to touch the vulgar thing.  But in Texas, you are responsible for putting it on the conveyor yourself.  I guess no one told her about this.  So, I put one of those bars down across the conveyor and started emptying my cart thinking she would get the message and begin to empty hers in front of the bar I had laid down.  To her credit she did finally figure it out but not until after the boy working the checkout had turned the conveyor on moving all of my stuff up to the front so that she kept having to push it back so that she could get more of her stuff on.

It was really enough to make you feel sorry for her.  She was clueless.  I finally started holding onto the bar so that she could finish emptying her cart.  (Little Jose working the checkout had no clue about the struggle taking place and was NOT going to turn that conveyor off to save his life.  No, really, I'm not making this up.  His name was Jose.)  Then she was completely unprepared to pay using American money which she was probably dealing with for the first time.  Someone else from her group of students finally took pity on her and came to help with that process.  Of course, they seriously crowded my personal space when that took place.  But at least they were moving the process along.

When I finally got out of Target, she along with a large group of other foreign students were making their way across the street toward UT-D pushing their shopping carts from Target.  (By the way, it is unlawful to remove from the parking lot.)  Just as I drove by a Richardson policeman was stopping behind them.  I'm assuming he was politely letting them know that removing the carts from the premises is unlawful.  God bless him.  I'm sure he had his hands full.

The thing is that they come from horribly over crowded and miserable places.  Because of that, they have little regard for personal space.  They are okay with standing against me in line.  This is Texas.  We have wide open spaces here.  We don't deal well with being nudged in the back by strangers.  I particularly don't deal well with it.  In fact, I get down right ugly when someone standing behind me continually rubs up against me.  Ask anyone.  They will tell you.  I also don't care how cute or funny all of your friends think you are. When I am in a group of strangers, I prefer that we all remain strangers.  I don't want to be entertained by you.  I don't want to hear your overly loud conversation either in my language or in a some crazy-ass foreign language.

So my message is this.  Welcome to Texas.  Please keep your voice down and keep your hands to yourself unless you are handsome, rich and between the ages of 50 and 60 and plan to buy me dinner.

Day Four-Ninety-Three - Who's Crazy Now?

What the hell happened????  When did dogs take over the world and begin television programming?  I went out with friends last night who are mostly dog owners and was informed that there is now a TV station specifically for dogs.  Really!  It's called DogTV.  If you have DirecTV, it is channel  354.  I can confirm this because it is currently airing on my television as I type.

Right now it consists of bubbles rushing to the surface of water and underwater bubble sounds.  Before this, it was a close up of a lava lamp with classical music.  I can't believe that some of you think cat people are crazy.  Oh, now they are showing dogs dozing off on the furniture I'm assuming while you are away from home.  Way to instill bad habits in your dogs!

The most frightening thing about this, though, is that on the Guide there is a banner that states that this is a free trial from 8/1 - 8/14.  From that I assume that this is a premium channel and if your dog gets addicted to it, you'll have to pay extra for a TV channel for your dogs.  People, my cats do NOT require premium TV channels.  In fact they might be content if the TV was never even turned on.  Now they are showing video of a quiet morning in some foreign land and people fishing.  By the way, only 6 minutes has gone by since I changed channels to this DogTV and already I have described to you, what? four different doggie viewing experiences that they have aired?  Should I draw from this that they must assume that your dogs have remarkably short attention spans????  Doesn't speak too highly of them.

My cats can watch a piece of prey for an hour waiting to see what moves it will make and determining how best to take it down.  Of course, sometimes that "prey" is a little red dot from the laser pointer I use to get them moving.  But still, they will follow it around as long as my finger can continue to press the "on" button.

I have a friend with whom I go out pretty often.  When we leave her house, she leaves her TV on for the dog's entertainment so I'm sure she is loving this channel.  In fact she is the one who told me about it yesterday.  If I left the TV on in my house when I left, my cats would go to another room to get away from the constant noise.

I like dogs.  There have been many times that I wished I could have one.  The problem is that I have never really lived in a place suitable for dogs.  I don't have a back yard and I don't have the time to devote to walking a dog a couple of times a day since I don't have a yard.  Additionally, as it turns out, I am apparently a low maintenance kind of pet person.  It didn't dawn on me until today.  But an animal that must be taken outside every single time it needs to pee is a problem for me!

Sure, I'll admit that I have people come to feed my cats daily when I am away from home.  But if it got down to it, I could leave for a week, set up an automated feeder and waterer and leave them alone and come home to two healthy cats.  They'd be a little pissy, but they would still be healthy and all of their waste would be in their litter boxes.

On the other hand, I don't doubt for a minute that if I died in my apartment and it took more than a few hours for someone to find me that Shiner would begin feeding on my fingers by the end of the first day.  He's a survivor, what can I say?  But you've gotta respect that about him!  He doesn't require entertainment or anything else from humans.  He'll figure it all out on his own.

So call me a crazy cat lady all you want.  At least I'm not paying for premium satellite service for a dog. Who's crazy now?

Day Four-Fifty - Barry Recap!

Wow!  Last night was about 38 years in the making.  You see since about 1975 I have been a BIG Barry Manilow fan.... or a Fanilow.  There have been those that have made fun of me over the years when they found out that I was a once a 12 year old obsessed with Barry Manilow.  But it never bothered me.  I love Barry and if that makes me a geek, I'm OK with that.  In fact, I like to think I OWN it.  So last night Barry did a show at Verizon Theater in Grand Prairie and I went with two of my friends from the 1970's.  Both of them had been to see Barry over the years.  But for me it was my first Barry Manilow concert and it did not disappoint!

At 70 years old Barry is just as entertaining as he ever was.  The show was fabulous!  I couldn't wipe the smile off my face all night.  Even when a man yelled out, "BARRY!  I LOVE YOU!!!!" during a particularly quiet moment while Barry sang Weekend in New England cracking Barry up and resulting in him stopping the song while he recovered I was still thrilled and wouldn't have changed a thing.  Say what you will about all the plastic surgery he has had, it hasn't effected his talent in anyway.

I don't know if it would have been as much fun if I hadn't been able to go with my friends Dana and Krista.  We had a great time catching up.  It was the first time that Dana and I had seen Krista since we each moved away from Nacogdoches.  I moved in February of our freshman year of high school and Dana moved during the summer between our freshman and sophomore years.  So last night was a nice reunion.

During the year leading up to our moving Dana and I, with the help of our mothers, started making an embroidered and painted workshirt that we planned to send to Barry.  It was the 70's and those embroidered workshirts were very popular.  We spent months working on the shirt.  We would trade out who got to work on it.  Right in the middle of the work, my family moved to Lumberton, Tx. which meant that we had to start mailing it back and forth to each other when it was the other ones turn to work on it.  We took months to complete it.  When it was done I got to go to Dana's house for a visit and we took pictures of us with the shirt before it was mailed to some address that Dana's Mom had gotten where we were pretty sure Barry would get it.  I don't mind telling you, it was a master piece as far as folk art goes.

After it was mailed we waited months and months expecting to hear from Barry personally (or at least I was expecting it).  I laid awake at night and imagined that Barry would come to see us personally to thank us for the amazing shirt we had made.  But that didn't happen.  When Dana and I went to each others house in the summer for week long visits we went to the mall and got on a pay phone with all the quarters we could come up with and tried calling Barry's agent or someone else that we thought could get us through to the man, himself.  It never worked, but each time we would get a New York operator on the line as we called information my heart would race so much that I thought it would pop out of my chest.  Finally Dana's Mom wrote a letter to someone on our behalf and a year or two after we mailed the shirt we got a letter back saying that Barry had gotten the shirt and it was "one his favorite around the house shirts".  We were thrilled.  I got a copy of the letter and for years it was framed and hanging on the wall in my bedroom.  Unfortunately, the print is so faded now you can no longer read it.

Last night as we enjoyed the concert, on the video screens, various album covers were shown.  It was so cool to see all those old album covers again.  I still have my entire Barry Manilow LP collection in a box in the closet of my guest room.  But I have no turn table.  I think I am going to have to download those old albums so that I can start listening to them again in their entirety rather than just the greatest hits off of them.  If you've never been to see Barry in concert, I highly recommend it.  He is a truly great entertainer.  If I can figure out how to download my video I'll post it.

Have a great weekend!

Day Four-Forty-Four - Tales of Spiders!

Okay, so I've taken several weeks off from writing any blogs.  My life has been busy lately!  I won't bore you with those details.  But I'll just say that the spare time has been minimal.  The other issue is that I can't really think of much to write about.  On my other blog, the work blog, I try to write about travel.  I was in the middle of a mind trip to Tokyo and Hong Kong.  Right in the middle of Hong Kong I lost all interest.  I wasn't seeing a lot of people reading it and there were no Likes, Shares or Comments at all so I figured the readers were no more interested in it than I was.  So, I stopped.  Someone did mention to me last week that they were hopeful that I would finish that mind trip and post more about Tokyo.  But I decided that if it was of so little interest to them that they couldn't even be bothered to at least click a simple "Like" then it must not be that big of a deal.  It's hard to keep spending an hour or two everyday writing something and then publishing it and getting no indication whatsoever that anyone else even saw it much less had an interest in it.

So last week, I went to Toledo Bend with my Mom and Dad.  We only stayed one night.  I'm not much of a lake person.  I like looking at a lake.  But the issue I have with lakes is that they attract spiders and I am terrified of spiders.  So, I got no sleep, it was hard to relax because each time I sat down, I imagined a spider crawling on me.  I didn't actually see that many spiders, but there were a lot of spider webs which indicates to me that the spiders must be off somewhere doing spidery things.... like crawling up on me looking for a good place to bite.

I'm not sure where my fear of spiders comes from.  There were never any incidents in my life in which I was attacked by a spider and I've never been bitten by any poisonous spider that I am aware of.  Yet it is my greatest fear.  If you hand me a snake and tell me to hold it, I will hold it.  Want me to hold some creepy crawly lizard for you?  No problem.  But if a nearly microscopic spider walks across the floor, I become almost paralyzed with fear. My issue is that they are so small, quiet and they weigh practically nothing so you can't even tell if they have gotten on you.  Then they can bite you and we've all seen those pictures on the internet of a person's arm rotting off following a spider bite that they didn't even feel!!!!  FREAKY!!!!!  They are silent, deadly killers!

Spiders are the one reason that I really regret never having gotten married.  I can do without a husband in my life to talk to, to go out with and to even have a little bedroom fun with.  But I NEED a spider killer.  A number of years ago, while I lived in my last rental apartment in Dallas, I had a one car garage.  I had Jingle then who was no different then than he is now.  He liked spending time in my garage.  The only difference then from now is that at the time, I would open the garage door while I grilled just outside of the garage and Jingle would walk around in the garage and even out to the grill without fear.  Now if the garage door opens he runs back in the house.

On this day, the door to the house was open and the garage door was open as I prepared to cook on the grill.  Jingle was in the garage and I was getting a steak ready to go on the grill.  When I walked out of the house and through the garage to move the grill out to the parking lot, Jingle remained focused on a bag of potting soil which was in the corner of the garage and partially opened.  When I walked back by, he was still staring intently at the bag of potting soil.  I thought it was strange and called his name.  He never looked up or acknowledged that I had attempted communication (much like the readers of my blogs).

I went back in the house for something and when I came back out, Jingle was still completely focused on the potting soil.  So I decided to see why he was so interested in it.  I picked him up and he began clawing at me to get back down to the potting soil.  I put him down and moved the bag a little... and that's when I saw the TARANTULA!  It was enormous!  It was sort of on the lip of the open bag of potting soil.  I would say that standing up, it was probably as big around as a softball if you counted the legs.  I freaked!  I thought about just grabbing Jingle and running in the house.  But then there would still be a spider in my garage and something had to be done about that.  My lease wasn't up for several more months.  So I couldn't just move.....  So, I took action.

First I decided that I needed to stun it.  So I ran in the house and grabbed a can of Raid.  I came back outside and soaked the spider with Raid.  When I had emptied the can on the spider at point blank range, I threw the empty can at the spider like they do in Western movies when the six-shooter has been emptied on the bad guy.  There was Raid pooling everywhere and the spider only seemed to be getting angrier.  He barely staggered after being soaked in poison.

I knew I had to find something to strike the spider with that would not have me getting too close to said spider. My previous rental had been a duplex on Lake Ray Hubbard... again, a property near water and therefore near creepy crawly creatures.  So I had shovels, hoes, rakes and so on.  Okay, I admit the gardening tools were more for the yard at the house on Lake Ray Hubbard and not so much for the creepy crawly creatures.  But they come in handy for that sort of thing.  So, I got the hoe out and decided to use it to kill the spider.  But it was still in my garage and the only thing that creeps me out as much as spiders is splattering a creature in an area that I will then have to clean up.  It's one of the reasons I know I could never kill another human being.  I would never be able to deal with the mess.  So I began to sort of rake the spider out of the garage using the hoe.  At the same time, I was looking around for any other humans - preferably big, masculine, strong men who were not easily frightened to help me.  There were none.  How can you live in an apartment complex in the middle of Plano, Tx. full of hundreds of other people and be in distress late in the afternoon after everyone is home from work, but before dark and not see a single suitable person to help?  What are the odds?

So I had worked my way almost out of the garage with the spider using the hoe.  It got away from me a few times and had just gotten away again when I saw a man carrying his trash to the dumpster which was just across the parking lot.  So, I yelled for him to "pleeeeeeease come and help me".  But somehow I had come across the most flamboyantly gay man in all of America at that exact moment when I needed a really manly man the most?  Don't get me wrong.  I love the gays.  Some of my very good friends are gay men and they are the best guys in the world to have around in most instances.  But this guy might have been more afraid of the spider than me.  He did come over but he kept getting behind me as I was trying to give him the hoe and get him to kill the spider.  REALLY??!?!?!?  It finally took the spider walking toward the man to convince him that he had to kill it.  He did.  It splattered all over the parking lot.  The sad thing is that by this time, I had almost convinced myself that this spider had probably escaped from a spider habitat in someone else's apartment within the complex.  I mean after all, it never even tried to get away from me except when I was using the hoe on it.  We probably killed someones escaped pet.

But this is what happens when you keep pets that God never meant to be pets.  They get away and people kill them in a state of hysteria.  I never found out if the spider was, in fact someones pet.  It's just a feeling I had mostly because you don't see a lot of Tarantulas in North Texas.  But I suppose anything is possible.  The man who finally killed the spider for me did not become friends with me.  You would think that the incident would have resulted in a long lasting friendship and years later we would still be laughing over the time he came to my rescue and killed the terrifying spider for me.  But in reality, I think what happened is that he began using a different dumpster on the property to insure that he would never have to come near me again because I might bully him into killing something else for me.  He probably still tells his friends about the crazy spider lady who freaked out on him and forced him to kill a Tarantula against his will.  Sorry dude....

Day Four-Twenty-Three - Another Graduation

My niece graduated from high school on Friday night.  She was one of 17 graduates at her school.  Even though I am from east Texas, the small school thing is foreign even to me.  I went to three high schools and graduated from Bay City with a couple of hundred other people.  At any of the three high schools I went to there would have been at least 200 other graduates in my class.  Nacogdoches was the biggest high school I went to.  Lumberton was probably the smallest which means Bay City was right in the middle.  

I didn't get to attend my graduation because I was sick.  Very sick.  So sick, I honestly believed although I never said it out loud, that I was dying.  I survived and have since attended the high school graduations of many other people.  I often sit in a graduation and wonder what my own would have been like.  I'm a crier.  So, I always wonder if I would have cried all the way through it or made it through without a tear simply because I would probably have been concentrating so hard on not falling down.  That is where my attention is always focused when I have to walk in front of a group of people.....  Don't fall, don't fall, don't fall, don't fall.....  But the good news is that it keeps me from crying at events like that since it redirects my attention.  

My oldest nephew graduated from the same high school that my niece did.  So I already had an idea of what to expect.  Their graduations are very personalized.  The class historian actually talks about each kid and then there is a Power Point in which photos of each kid from birth to graduation are shown.  In various high school graduations around the Metroplex, you hear about situations where the graduate is given a certain number of tickets for their family and friends to attend because the venues where the ceremonies are held won't hold all the people who might come otherwise.  At Douglass, each graduate gets a row of 12 seats on the gymnasium floor with their last name on the row.  Those 12 seats are for whoever you want to use them. Then the rest of the gym is available for whoever else would like to attend.  There are no limits.  It was actually pretty full Friday night for the 17 students graduating.  

Rebecca had a pretty big crowd attending on her behalf.  Aunts and uncle on her Dad's side of the family along with all her cousins except one were there.  Additionally, some cousins on her Mom's side of the family were present.  Plus her boyfriend and his family were there.  When my brothers and I graduated from high school we never had anyone attend our graduations other than one aunt and uncle.  My Uncle EC and his wife, Aunt Ida always attended graduations.  In fact they showed up for my graduation even though I was too sick to be there.  We always thought it was weird that Uncle EC and Aunt Ida always attended graduations.  Now, as an adult who attends all the life events of my nephews and niece I wonder, was the rest of my family weird or were Uncle EC and Aunt Ida the weird ones?  It's sort of hard to say.... you know because I might incriminate myself if I do.

Maybe it's because both of my parents came from such big families.  But my aunts and uncles just weren't involved at all in our lives.  Uncle EC and Aunt Ida were the only aunt and uncle without children of their own.  So I suppose that's why they attended other people's kids events.  We never got birthday or Christmas gifts from aunts and uncles and my parents didn't give gifts for birthdays or Christmas to my cousins.  There were just too many.  On Dad's side of the family I have 14 cousins.  On Mom's side of the family I had 27 cousins.  I'm only counting 1st cousins.  Quite frankly I have no idea how many kids all of them have had on either side.  There are many second cousins that I have never met and never will meet.

When I became an aunt I decided that my main responsibility was to spoil my nephews and niece.  I'm not their parent.  I'm no one's parent.  So, I really know nothing about raising children.  My expertise lies in making them want to spend time with me because they know it will be fun.  That's not to say that I don't draw lines when they are around.  When they stayed with me as children, there were always rules and lines that couldn't be crossed.  But for the most part, they were with me to have fun and fun was had.  Rebecca will be an aunt for the first time in September.  I hope she carries on my tradition with her nephew.  Since she only has one sibling she won't have many nephews and nieces.  So, I really think she needs to take advantage of spoiling them and then sending them home to their parents every chance she gets.  Even though she will probably have children of her own, you can't spoil your own children like that because as a parent you sort of have to play the part of the bad guy every once in a while.  As an aunt you may have to be the bad guy 2 or 3 times in their life.  Even grandparents have to be the bad guys more often than aunts.  Aunts sort of have it made and I think most of them don't really take advantage of that.  

Anybody who knows me knows that I take my nephews and niece on a trip when they graduate from high school.  Jacob went to New York, Matt and Chris each went on cruises.  Rebecca will also go on a cruise.  I'm not sure what Tim will do (he's the youngest).  A lot of people say nice things about me because I do this.  But I'll tell you a secret.  It's just as much for me as it is for them.  You see, I love them all dearly and I know that once they have graduated from high school, they will go out in the world and start a life of their own, with their own families and I'll only get to see them at family gatherings and even those will become fewer and farther between as they have to spend time with in-laws.  So, I consider it my last time to spend with them one on one with nobody else there to garner their attention.  I get them to myself for a whole week.  Plus we get to go some place together and create memories that neither of us will ever forget.  I think about it like this, I could give them $500 and 20 years from now they might not even remember that I gave them anything for graduation.  But if I take them on a trip, 20 years from now maybe they'll share a memory of that trip with one of their kids.  Even if they don't share the memory with anyone else.  It will always be there.

Have a good week!

Day Four-Seventeen - My Memorial Day Message

It's Memorial Day!  It would seem that Memorial Day means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.  For some, it's simply a long weekend and they have no idea why they got a long weekend, but they are happy to have it.  For some it means a long weekend of working in a retail store so that others can spend the time canvasing the malls for bargains.  For others, it signifies the beginning of summer.  For many it means school's out.  Apparently for some, it's a perfect time to protest any rule, law, injustice or slight that they feel they've been handed while getting themselves 15 minutes in a spotlight.  And then there are those who see it as a time to thank the heroes who have sacrificed in wars, police actions, battles and skirmishes all over the world so that we can all sit back here in our safe homes and enjoy a long weekend with friends and family.

For the one or two people who will read this, I'm not that politically driven when it comes to this stuff.  I think that patriotism has no political motivation (or it shouldn't).  Patriotism is something that comes from your heart regardless of your political affiliation or lack thereof.  Did you wake up this morning in a free society?  Did you do whatever you wanted last night or at least whatever your monetary resources would allow?  Did you go to whatever type of church you wanted yesterday or perhaps none at all if that was your choice?  If your answer to those questions is yes, then have you thanked a veteran or his/her family this weekend?  Or for that matter, ever?

You don't need to be a dork to be patriotic.  You just need to care.  So, fly a flag today.  Wear a little red, white and blue.  As you go through your day, if you catch yourself humming the National Anthem, good for you!  We live in the greatest country in the world and if not for veterans who made sacrifice after sacrifice for our freedoms, we wouldn't be able to say that.  Happy Memorial Day and thanks to all the men and women who have sacrificed for our country.

Day Four-Sixteen - Things That Make Me Mad!

What is up with this weather?  If April showers bring May flowers, what do May showers bring other than aggravation?  I just wanted to spend the weekend out at the pool.  But instead I have spent it all indoors waiting for rain cloud after rain cloud to pass over.

Yesterday as my friend Jenny and I sat at Cedars Woodfire Grill enjoying what I thought at the time was a light lunch, (note to self - in the future review nutritional information BEFORE ordering and eating every bite of a Chophouse Steak Salad.  How in the hell can a salad have 71 grams of fat and 47 grams of carbs??!?!?!?!?  Shouldn't that be illegal?) a rainstorm came up that was almost shocking in it's intensity.  It wasn't a violent storm or anything like that.  It was just raining so hard that I was amazed by it.  I mean it was almost as amazing as a salad with 71 grams of fat and 47 grams of carbs.....

During the storm Jenny and I both pulled our smart phones out and checked the Fox4 WAPP which until today was my favorite app.  Today is when I discovered that those guys at Fox4 just put in a forecast that they think might make you happy.....  At least that's what I now believe.  Yesterday during that storm, the forecast showed thundershowers on Saturday, sunny and 87 degrees today, and sunny and 85 degrees on Monday.  Then today I went out for a walk on the local bike/pedestrian trail for just a few minutes an hour ago and it started raining on me.  Mind you it has been overcast since I woke up this morning.  I didn't even get to walk a 1/4 of a mile before I had to turn around and come home so that my phone wouldn't get wet.  So, I opened up the trusty WAPP again to see what was going on and here's what it says today....

Today:  Thunderstorms and 85 degrees
Monday:  Sunny and 89 degrees
Tuesday:  Windy and 89 degrees

So, I'm thinking that if it rains tomorrow this is what I will see when I look at it during the rainstorm....

Today:  Thunderstorms and 85 degrees
Tuesday:  Sunny and 89 degrees
Wednesday:  Sunny and 89 degrees

So I guess I'm wondering why in the hell Fox4 couldn't have predicted the overcast skies today and the rainstorm that got me wet during my walk.  I mean in this day and age of Doppler radars and being able to slide your finger across a green screen on your newscast and predict where a tornado is going to head next, they can't tell whether or not it might rain in the next 24 hours?????  Here's the deal Fox4....  I don't need for you to tell me what my idea of perfect weather is.....  I need for you to tell me what the weather will actually be like.  THAT would be much more helpful.  You see, I already know what I want the weather to be like.  But based on the information I can get from you, I don't know what it actually will be like.  So, while I appreciate that Fox4 wants to please me, it really doesn't help me.

Okay, with that rant out of the way, let's get back to this salad I had yesterday.  I've been ordering this same salad each time I have gone to Cedars for a year or so.  I love it.  It is delicious and until just a few minutes ago, I thought it was healthy.  When Jenny and I were trying to decide where to go, it is the reason we chose Cedars.  We wanted a healthy lunch.  Ummmm.... not s'much.  That guy who writes the Eat This Not That books needs to make a trip to Cedars because those people try to make you think you are getting healthy food there when in reality they are trying to kill you!  I guess I should be happy that I can at least look up the nutritional information on line and see ingredient by ingredient just what is causing the enormous fat and carb content of my favorite salad so that I can order it next time without any of the good stuff on it.  But I'm not sure that it's enough.

Don't get me wrong.  I don't want to release that idiot NYC mayor on Cedars or anything like that.  But shouldn't there be a surgeon generals warning on any salad that unhealthy?  Maybe on the menu next to the salad there should be a picture of a ginormous pig laying on his back dead from having eaten the salad one too many times.  Perhaps if that is too much, they could just post pictures of all of the 300 plus pound women who like to order this salad wearing nothing but sports bras and spandex bike shorts like they are weighing in on The Biggest Loser next to the picture of the delicious salad.  That might do the trick.  They could post a comment next to the photos that says; these are some of our customers who order this salad on a regular basis..... what do they have in common????  I think something like that might get my attention before I placed my order.  At the very least when you order a salad like that, the cash register should start oinking when the girls presses the button indicating the most unhealthy salad in the world has just been ordered.

Seriously, I feel like Jerry and Elaine discovering that the yogurt they thought was healthy was in fact, not healthy at all!  Can I tell you how upsetting this is to me?  I may be scarred for life by this.  From now on when I go into a restaurant and start to order a salad, I may start twitching and break out in spasms over the stress of ordering a salad that may or may not kill me over time.  Hey....  I know.... maybe a class action lawsuit......

Okay, I'm finished with my rants now.  Have a good Sunday afternoon.  If you have been counting on your Fox4 WAPP for your weather predictions, I hope you'll enjoy the rain as you sit outside under the bright sunny sky that you were promised today.

Day Four-Fifteen - The Holiday Weekend Phenomenon

Okay, I understand that most Americans are out having a great weekend.  I could have been in Alabama right now with a little more planning and a willingness to lay out the money.  But here I am sitting in Dallas on Saturday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend.  I'm going to dust and vacuum today.  I'll probably mop a few floors and do a couple loads of laundry then my housework will be complete.  All of that will take a total of 2 hours.  So how do I spend the balance of my Memorial Day weekend?

It's really overcast so it's a pretty crappy day to be at the pool.  At about 6 last night I discovered that there isn't going to be a thing on TV all weekend that I care about watching.  So that's out.  Last night I actually turned everything off downstairs at 7:35 and headed upstairs to read.  I was bored with my book by 9.  Then I watched the Rangers game....  I can't deal with a weekend like this.  The problem that I'm facing is that when I have an extended period of time with absolutely nothing to do, it generally costs me a LOT of money.  We've talked about the Target Phenomenon before....  You know that's where I go to Target to get a package of trashbags and walk out after spending $150 on everything from electronics to yogurt.  It's impossible for me to walk into Target without spending at least $100.

This is the Holiday Weekend Phenomenon....  I'm not sure how it will go.  Knowing what I am facing could be a good thing.  It could result in me directing my spending and/or energies toward things that I need to spend and/or work on.  Or I could just go nuts and get on line and have UPS trucks lined up at my house in 5-7 business days with everything from Life is Good apparel to live Maine Lobster.

Seriously, yesterday there was a Living Social with fresh fish and crustaceans from various parts of the country that they will deliver to your home..... Greatness!  But they sort of lost me because they were featuring Maryland Blue Crabs.  My Dad has a theory that Maryland orders crabs from the Texas Gulf coast and has them shipped there and then they call them Maryland Blue Crabs.  Now maybe that is just my Dad's 70 - something Texan thinking.  Or maybe he's on to something.  But either way, Dad and I have been talking about going crabbing this summer and with that in mind, I figure I can get fresher blue crabs here.  So, why pay to have them shipped from Maryland.  Even if Dad and I don't go crabbing this summer, I can always jump in the car and head down I-45.  Before I get to Houston I'll start seeing old beat up pick up trucks lined up in parking lots along the interstate selling shrimp and crabs that were probably caught within the last 24 hours.  Plus, I'd get to stop at Buck-ees...  Ummmm... can you say win - win?

So, getting back to directing my energies and spending.....  I still have a lot of work to do around this house. I have re-floored the upstairs but no painting has been done up there.  Additionally, I have painted the kitchen and breakfast room.  But I still need to complete some touch up work in there and then I need to paint the rest of downstairs.  I also need a new storm door for the front door and I'd like to replace my sliding glass door with french doors.  So, with just a little concentration, I could spend a pretty penny in this house.  But every bit of that requires effort on my part.  And THAT'S where I run into a problem.  Of course, it would insure that I don't get bored again all summer.  But the downside is that I won't get bored again all summer.....  know what I mean?

I've been kicking this painting thing around for months.  I have very high ceilings.  Downstairs in spots they are about 20 feet high.  I had this little issue right after I bought my condo where the flue on the gas fireplace was not adjusted properly.  The gas fireplace creates black smoke and that black smoke was coming back into the house for the entire first winter I lived here.  Not all of it, not enough to kill me, just enough to create a black film over everything including the white popcorn ceilings.  So, I've always had ceilings that were in desperate need of painting.  So, what I've been thinking about doing is hiring a handy man to do all of the cutting in on both the ceilings and walls.  Then I can do the rolling using my trusty telescopic pole that I bought  when I moved in here.  I'm thinking handy man as opposed to a painter because I discovered with the painter that I have used in the past that they are loyal to particular brands of paint and they probably won't use the paint that I have already picked out and fallen in love with.

So, that's what I am facing this Memorial Day Weekend.  Either spend a crap load of money on my house and create projects for myself that will last all summer or start doing boredom spending and throw away money on crap I don't need.....  Maybe I'll run to Target for some trashbags......

Day Four-Oh-Nine - More Bike Tales

Shortly after I finished writing yesterday's blog I realized a pretty significant inaccuracy and it has been bothering me since.  So, I thought I would clear that up in today's blog.  I said that Ronnie's concussion that he obtained coming down Deadman's Hill was the only Meyers trip to the emergency room as a result of a bike accident.  While that is technically true, there was one other Meyers bicycle accident that resulted in the need for medical help.  Additionally there was a Meyers bike accident that occurred on a motorcycle rather than a bicycle that actually resulted in an ambulance ride to the emergency room.  So, let's cover those today, shall we?

First we'll cover Robbie's "bike accident".  During college, Robbie got a motorcycle.  This effected me in a couple of ways.  First of all, since it was his only mode of transportation, when the weather was bad he required another way to get to and from work and school.  I had a 1980 Toyota Starlet that looked very much like the one below.  In fact after Robbie had driven it for a while, in front of an automotive center would have been the best place to get a glimpse of it since that is where it spent most of it's time.  Actually, it spent most of it's time in my Dad's garage while he overhauled the engine, but that is a story for another day.

I could tell you about the times that Robbie "borrowed" my car and drove me to work saying that he would pick me up when I got off.  Then he would forget me and I'd end up sitting outside of a closed mall waiting for a ride for an hour or so in the days before cell phones, but I won't.  His incident happened on a drizzly morning in Nacogodoches.  I had an 8 AM class and had gone to school in my own car that I was paying for being the selfish person that I am.  After class I stopped off at the former employer who shall not be named because even then I was a slave to them and we were having a walk through that afternoon and I wanted to make sure my department was prepared.  (It was naturally, because I had worked for about 14 hours the day before and the store hadn't opened yet for the day.)

When I got home, my sister-in-law who was living with us and was Ronnie's girlfriend at the time, met me in the driveway.  She was wearing the uniform that she wore to work at La Hacienda everyday.  I wish that I could show you a picture of that hideous uniform that she had to wear to work.  But I'll just have to describe it to you.  It was a skirt and top.  The top was off white and peasant styled.  I think it may have had some rust colored rick-rack around the collar and sleeves to match the ugly rust colored full knee length skirt that went with it.  It doesn't sound that horrible when I describe it, but I think after seeing it for so many years and smelling it when she walked in the house at night I was a little disgusted by it (I'm pretty sure she was too).  When she came home from work, she always smelled like a big burrito.  Which may be why I think burritos are really gross today.

Anyway, she met me in the driveway and was a little panicked.  She explained that the hospital had called and Robbie was there and one of us needed to go to Medical Center, but she was running late for work.  So, I rushed over to Medical Center Hospital while Christina went to work.  When I got there, they were ready to release Robbie he just needed someone to take him home.  He said that he had been turning off the loop onto University Dr. and apparently on the slick street the wheels had gone out from under the motorcycle.  His head hit the pavement but fortunately he had been wearing a helmet which had cracked.  He had a concussion and didn't remember any of it.  He only knew what the witnesses had told him.  When he got to the hospital he didn't know who he was or what had happened other than what he had been told.  They got his information off his drivers license and he said that when they read it to him, he was really excited because he knew that was him!  But they still needed his phone number so they could call someone.  The phone was in my name and fortunately our childhood doctor was in the emergency room and knew my name, so they found our number and read it out to him.  He said when they read those numbers out he felt like he had won the lottery because he recognized them.  Anyway, he recovered, but he got rid of the motorcycle shortly afterward.

Now the other incident didn't really result in a trip to the emergency room although I suppose in hindsight, it should have.  It happened just a few years ago which is why it didn't occur to me yesterday.  It was a Saturday morning and I had taken my beautiful Trek bike to Arbor Hills in west Plano for a morning ride.  I forgot my helmet and was wearing a baseball cap.  But I was going to stay on the cement trails anyway, so I thought I would be fine without a helmet.  I had been riding for 45 minutes or so when I came down the biggest hill there.  At the base of the hill there is a Y and you have to veer either left or right.  I was going to go left and had started to turn when my cap flew off.  Rather than just letting it go, I tried to grab it with my left hand while braking with the right hand which was my front wheel brake.  I hit the brake too hard and went over the handle bars.  The crazy thing is, I never let go of that right brake so my right side had a lot of road rash where my knee, shoulder, arm and wrist had met with the cement.  But I tried to brace myself with my left hand and broke the bone in the lower part of my arm right at the elbow.  It also dislocated my elbow but it popped right back in and tore the skin off my left thumb.

There were people walking behind me when all of this happened and being a veteran "faller" I knew the first thing I had to do was jump up and assure everyone that I was fine... even though blood was dripping onto the cement from my knee and thumb.  The people helped me get my bike.  I got back on it and road it back to my car.  When I got to my car, I still had to lift the bike up to put it in the back.  This was the difficult part.  I had almost given up when a guy noticed my problem and came over and helped me.  As I drove home, I thought about detouring to Plano Medical Center but decided that I was just being a wimp and would be fine when I got home and cleaned my wounds and put ice on them.  So, that's what I did.  I thought the worst wounds were the ones that were bleeding and concentrated on those when I got home cleaning them all well with soap and water, then peroxide and bandaging them.  But as time passed that day, my left arm continued to swell even with ice on it and the pain was horrible.  I kept ice on it all day Sunday and took tons of Advil.  I went to work on Monday and told my co-workers about it.  By then my left arm was bruised which I didn't realize since the bruising was on the back side of my arm.  Finally, by Wednesday I decided that I should go to the doctor because the pain was getting no better in my left arm and the swelling had still not gone down.  They couldn't get me in until the next day.  So on Thursday, I went to the doctor where they examined and re-bandaged my open wounds and then sent me for x-rays on my left elbow and wrist.

From there I was referred to an orthopedic surgeon who told me about the dislocation which had stretched stuff that shouldn't be stretched and the fracture.  He was hesitant to put a cast on it because of the dislocation part of the injury.  So, they put me in a sling and I had to go back to the doctor every week for about 2 months for new x-rays and for him to check on the healing.   The good news was the it all healed on it's own and no surgery was required.  I remember thinking during my weekly trips to the doctor that if I had just gone to the medical supply store on my own and bought my own $25 sling, I could have by-passed the doctor entirely.  But that too is another story.

Have a happy Sunday.  It's looking like a pool day in Dallas!  :-)

Day Four-Oh-Eight - Kids and Bikes

Things changed.  I'm not sure when it happened or whether or not it is a good change.  But change most definitely occurred.  Let me explain.  When I was a kid, the most expensive possession I had was a blue Huffy bicycle with a banana seat and a basket on the front much like the one pictured below.  This isn't the exact bike I owned, it's one I found on the internet.  But this looks just like my Huffy that I got for my 5th birthday back in 1968.

I'm sorry about the picture quality, but this is undoubtedly a photo from someones EBay account in an attempt to clean a garage that was caught in a 70's time warp.  Back to what I was talking about.  When I was a kid, not only was this my most expensive possession it was also my most prized possession.  Few things gave a kid as much freedom as their very own bike.  Last week I talked about how all the kids in our neighborhood met down near our house after school everyday.  We all played outside until around dinner time.  When our Dad's came home from work, we each made our way inside for dinner.  As we went in for dinner, bicycles were left in our wake in whatever position they ended up when we ejected from the banana seats.  Some were lying on their side with the wheels still spinning, others were leaning against a tree in a front yard and a few were propped on their kickstand neatly on a driveway or sidewalk.

But for that couple of hours in the afternoon between the time we finished our after school snacks and the time our Dad's came home from work, we were road warriors.  The bike was not just a trusted friend, it was our mode of transportation no matter where we were going.  Some kids did tricks on their bikes.  I didn't.  I was as accident prone then as I am now and I didn't like pain anymore then than I do today.  So, my bike was strictly for riding and transporting dolls and things in the basket.  I knew kids who could stand on their seat for a second.... just before the crash.  I also new a lot of boys who could do wheelies on theirs.  My brother, Robbie was pretty good at riding with no hands.

Once Ronnie went down "Deadman's Hill" which was a big mound of dirt that construction guys had piled up at the end of Nottingham Dr.  Kids spent so much time riding bike's up and over it that trails had formed in the weeds that were growing in the big pile of dirt.  As Ronnie came down the front side, something went horribly wrong and he wound up with a concussion.  Just another Meyers weekly trip to the emergency room.  It think it was the only Meyers trip to the emergency room that was a result of a bike accident though which is a little remarkable considering how much time we spent on our bikes.

Our friends, the Bailey's apparently had a thing for going over the handle bars of their bikes and knocking out their front teeth.  I think on the second or third occasion that this happened to one of them, their Dad, Don outlawed bikes at their house.  I know it happened to Donnie once or twice and I think it happened to Deanna once too.  I'm not sure about Davie, bikes might have already gotten outlawed before he ever had the chance to fly over his handlebars.  I remember going to their house and never being able to ride bikes because they just didn't have any.  Apparently, the feeling was that motorcycles were slightly safer.  So when we went there we rode dirt bikes around.  They started out with Honda 50's but graduated to bigger and faster bikes, but not much faster.  I remember the summer we got our first used Honda 70.  It was total greatness but I was a teenager by then and we all had to share it.  So even then I still rode my dependable blue Huffy when necessary which was most of the time with two brothers.

Sometimes, when I was on my bike, it was my trusty steed and I was a cowgirl in the old west.  Other times, the bike became a fancy sports car and I would speed along the highway in my mind.  At other times, it was a station wagon full of kids and I was the mom telling them to sit down in the back and stop hitting each other.  This was obviously back before kids sat in carseats or before we even new what carseats were.  If you are a kid today and you are wondering what a station wagon is, it was a funny looking SUV.  Please refer to The Brady Bunch or National Lampoon's Vacation.

When I was on my bike, I could pretty much outrun anything else on two wheels....  I thought.  We used to ride our bikes to Community Grocery during the summertime to get candy and a Coke.  Mr. Huckabee probably hated to see us coming.  We would all go in and swarm his store for a half hour and walk back out with a bag of Sprees and one Coke to share.  A total of 75 cents was spent between 6 kids and we had wasted a 1/2 hour of Mr. Huckabee's life.  If Mr. Martindale was working we would go back and watch him cut meat.  Because you know, what kid doesn't like to watch a real butcher with missing fingers and everything at work???!??!?  Right?  You never knew when he might cut another one off and you wanted to be there to see it when it happened.

On the way back from Community Grocery you could take a detour on the road where Mr. Shoemaker's shop was.  It was a dirt road right across from Community Grocery that turned and sort of ran along side Highway 21.  If you went up that road, it took a long time and was a good bike ride but there were mean dogs that chased your bike.  They hated kids on bikes and apparently blue Huffy's were the worst in their minds.  I'm not sure what it is about being chased by a dog that makes a kid think that abandoning the bike and sort of shoving it at the dog and running for your life might be a better choice.  But I do remember that happening once.  The problem is that you then have to wait for the vicious dogs to lose interest in your bike so that you can sneak back and get it because coming home without your bike wasn't an option.  I mean seriously, my parents probably spent at least $50 on that bike.  It was going to have to last me at least 10 years!

Yep, things changed.  I don't think any kids go out and ride bikes for hours anymore checking in at home at lunchtime and again in the afternoon for a snack.  Now, in the summertime, kids go to camp and are part of whatever kind of team or class their parents can find to put them in so that they never spend a single minute without adult supervision.  When we were kids the rules were pretty simple, play outside, never take a ride from anyone, if you don't know somebody - don't talk to them, and no fighting.  Your bike was your independence and you loved it like a member of your family.  A flat tire could sideline you until Saturday when your Dad had time to help you fix it.  The worst thing that could happen was to lay your bike on it's side behind a car and allow it to get run over.  Then you were out of the game until your next birthday or Christmas because everybody knew that bikes were too expensive to get a new one in the middle of the year for no reason.  So you took care of that bike like it was the most important thing in the world.

Maybe that's the reason that I loved my little black Honda CR-V so much.  It's the only car I ever had that lasted almost as long as my Huffy.  Of course, it was only a Honda so it could never be quite as dependable as a Huffy.  I wish Huffy made cars!

Day Four-Oh-One - Happy Mother's Day!

I know I tell you all a lot of stories from my childhood.  But I had a pretty good childhood, good friends and family and those stories entertain me, so why shouldn't I?  Right?  After all, it's my blog..... don't like it?  Go read someone else's blog.  Or better yet, write your own.  Since it's Mother's Day I was trying to think of a real good story about my Mom.  You know something really funny that would make you laugh until you wet you pants.  The thing is, it's hard to think of a lot of funny stories where Mom was the star.  She was always a player in the stories but she usually stood off to the side either shaking her head in disbelief or encouraging us as necessary.

When we were kids, Mom didn't work outside the home.  We kept her plenty busy inside the home.  We always had a freakishly clean house.  Until just recently I don't think I fully comprehended how that happened.  I mean, I only saw her clean on Saturday's and then it was an all out assault.  What I didn't realize was that every day of the week, cleaning was taking place.  Saturday was just the day that she got us involved and it was not pretty people.  On Saturday morning she would tell you to clean your room.  So, being the obedient daughter that I was, I made the bed and then asked if I could go out and play.  Heheheheh....  I was so cute in my fresh faced innocence....  So, she would then come into my bedroom like a Nazi officer and  begin pulling dolls and stuffed animals that were shoved in corners or in the closet floor out and throw them in the hall, she would tell me to take the sheets off the bed (that I had just made up) and throw them in the hall.  She basically demolished the room and then strolled to my brother's room leaving me to put it all back together.  In Robbie and Ronnie's room, the same scene played out.  When she was done there was a hallway full of junk that needed to be cleaned before we put it back in our rooms neatly where it belonged.

I don't remember vacuuming or dusting so much during those cleaning Saturday mornings because that was already done.  I guess I thought it just occurred magically or maybe the cleaning fairies came out and did it regularly.  As I got older, I remember vacuuming and dusting... VIVIDLY!  But when we lived on Nottingham that was all taking place behind the scenes while we were in school.  Now from what I described above you might think Saturday morning cleaning was awful.  But I have to say, it wasn't that bad. There were always 4 or 5 albums on the stereo turn table while it took place.  And everybody was participating so it wasn't that bad.  Dad was usually out in the garage while we all cleaned our bedrooms 'cause that was sort of his room to keep clean.  He'd be putting things on his workbench away or working on  something that had broken.  That meant if there was something that you needed to get rid of, like an old broken toy, you couldn't just take it to the garage and dump it off.  That was Dad's domain and you were not allowed to dump stuff out there on Saturday morning.  You had to sneak it out there during the week when he wasn't aware of what was going on.

I said we kept Mom plenty busy inside the home, but I should explain further.  You see, I remember sitting down at breakfast almost every morning when I was in elementary school.  We were like the Cleaver's except that Mom wasn't wearing a shirtwaist dress, full makeup and pearls when we came into the kitchen for breakfast.  Even if we only had Malt-O-Meal we still had to sit down at the table and eat it.  Me and my brothers were fans of the Chocolate Malt-O-Meal.  That, my friends, was some good eating.  I was looking for a picture of a Chocolate Malt-O-Meal box from the 1970's to post, but the one that came up when I Googled it had microwave instructions on the box.  We didn't have no stinking microwaves in 1972!  Anyway, after breakfast, we all walked up the street to the bus stop and I suppose, Mom started cleaning.  When we would get home the house would be spotless just like it was everyday, we'd have some freshly home baked cookies or a bowl of cereal for a snack and then we were told we had to play outside until suppertime because she had spent the entire day trying to get that house clean and we weren't going to tear it up....  Like we were little heathens or something.  Oh, wait, we were!

So we would go outside and tear things up out there.  On Nottingham all the kids met outside just about every afternoon 30 or so minutes after getting off the bus.  We took just enough time to get our snacks and then we were ready to spend the rest of the afternoon playing.  We usually met around our house since it was about midway down the street.  The boys would play football, baseball or something like that.  For a few years, I was the only girl in the neighborhood, so I'd play with them.  When Mary K Sanders moved in while I was in the 3rd grade, I started playing Barbie's with her but we had to play in her house since her Mom worked and didn't care if we made a mess.  So, we'd build huge Barbie mansions in Mary K's bedroom and have a great time.  Sometimes I'd go play with Kara Compton.  Kara and I were pretty good friends but she had a brother that I was kind of afraid of so I didn't go to her house too much if he was home.  He probably turned out to be the greatest guy in the world, but for some reason, I was afraid of him.

Anyway, everybody knew that my Mom was the one Mom in the neighborhood that was home.  So if any problems arose, she was the one that sort of took care of things.  Mrs. Shoemaker and Mrs Worthan were stay at home Mom's too.  But everybody gravitated to our house for some reason.  What's really funny though is that everybody thought our Mom was mean but it didn't keep them all away from our house.  Before we moved away from Nottingham there were more than 20 school aged kids that all hung around together everyday and our house was home base to a lot of them.

While we were all outside playing, giving ourselves concussions and breaking limbs, Mom was in the house planning and cooking dinner.  Around 5:45 Dad would get home and that was usually my cue to head home.  Once I got there, I usually sat the table and made the tea.  Those were my jobs.  Then I had to go call Robbie and Ronnie in.  That generally consisted of me walking out to the driveway and screaming at the top of my lungs ROOOOOOBBBBBIEEEEEE..... ROOOOOONNNNNIEEEEEE..... COME IN AND EEEEAAAAAATTTT.....  It was a very attractive thing I did.  I don't know why I didn't end up married to any of those boys from the old neighborhood.....

When Robbie and Ronnie came in, we all sat down at the dining room table and ate supper.  While we ate, we talked about everything that each of us had done that day.  You said please and thank you when you wanted something.  After supper, Robbie and I carried our dishes to the sink while Ronnie continued to sit at the table trying to figure out ways to get rid of his creamstyle corn without eating it.  It seemed like he would sit there for hours.  But it probably wasn't that long at all.  But it was torture.  I remember on a couple of occasions when Mom told Dad that he wasn't punishing Ronnie as much as he was punishing her by making him sit there until it was gone.  Ronnie would take a bite and make a gagging noise....  Really???!?!!?  Who gags on corn?  He would whine that it smelled like coffee.  (Don't ask, I don't understand it either....)  Most of the time he would eventually eat it.  Sometimes I think he just spread it out on his plate enough that Mom decided she could get by with saying he had eaten enough.  So I think she would hurry up, pick up the plate and scrape it off before Dad came in and looked.  If you scooped it all back up together it was probably the exact amount of corn that was put on his plate to begin with.

During the summer, we all sat down at the table for lunch too.  Usually we just had sandwiches.  But sometimes there were fishsticks or corny dogs.  What I'm saying is that Mom didn't call anything in.  She was a full time Mom 365 days a year.  She was our room mom in school.  She was a Brownie leader, I think she helped in Cub Scouts when we lived in Alvin.  She made most of my clothes which is why I never got to wear bluejeans until 4th grade.  She gave the boys haircuts and gave me perms whether I liked it or not.  She did it all.  So, Happy Mother's Day Mom!  Now I'm heading to Nacogdoches.